UK "Porn filter" to block proxies, anonymizers etc.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/17/bt_parental_controls_will_block_proxies_and_anonymiser_sites/

by mortov • 13 years ago

10 13 13 years ago

theregister.co.uk

mschuster913• 13 years ago

The info wars have begun. No surprise that GB is the first country, they don't even have a Constitution.

patchfx• 13 years ago

The United Kingdom constitution is embodied in many written documents, not just one.

DanBC3• 13 years ago

It's not much of a war when you can opt out of the filter.

mschuster913• 13 years ago

You can't opt out of all the filters. First they came for the child porn...

bdfh42• 13 years ago

The foundation of the UK's unwritten constitution is that you may do anything that is not prohibited by law. You do not need someone's permission to exercise your free will - your freedoms are not "granted" but fundamental. A lot of people misunderstand that.

Having said that we do see such freedoms being eroded (particularly over the last 20 years) by the "something must be done" style of legislation that now seeks in curb activities that are disapproved of by the establishment.

lewispollard• 13 years ago

Of course, nothing unconstitutional ever happens in the US tech/intelligence sector, does it?

mschuster913• 13 years ago

I haven't said that the US intel sector is innocent at all.

But the fact that the UK is beginning to introduce opt-out filters is an open declaration of war against the "Internet society", thus the term "infowars".

pjc50• 13 years ago

The info wars have been going since at least the Tyndale Bible in the 16th century. Information gives power; people will always be looking to control it to bolster their power.

Constitutions can also be a trap and a drag on social progress, such as the Irish constitution's deeply embedded abortion ban.

DanBC3• 13 years ago

The Register is a fucking awful source. This incomprehensible story mixes up several things. That's a shame, because the UK filter system and proposals are important enough to warrant careful scrutiny and write ups - allowing people to protest against what's actually happening rather than what some garbled turd of an article suggests.

1) This is voluntary - but is opt-out.

2) It will be on by default for new users, but not for existing users.

3) Some sites are blocked because court orders require them to be blocked. You cannot opt out of those blocks, although you can access those sites via proxies etc.

HN would be better without articles from the Register.

mortov• 13 years ago

The Register tends to use a distinctly UK style of criticism - much like Private Eye at times. It tends not to translate particularly well to no-UK readers who think it is just being frivilous or outrageously sensationalist.

However, there is a serious point here. This 'filter' is being sold as protecting everyone (expecially the children) by most reporting sources. The Register has done some more in-depth analysis and found that far from simply blocking porn (which some people do want) it blocks additional legitimately use-able systems like proxies and anonimizers which were not mentioned in the original debate and show a distinct 'creep' in the implementation.

It is not clear you can actually use proxies to access blocked IPs as the whole point of the filtering is to stop access to proxies (as well as porn). This is the creep and the point I submitted the article.

I'm not sure what an 'infowar' is (I've not google'd that yet) so I'm not sure if that is a real thing or not. But feature creep and ever increasing control of internet (and hence information) access is real and something which should be discussed and debated much more intelligently and maturely than it is currently being.

DanBC3• 13 years ago

I am a British reader. I subscribe to Private Eye. The Reg is no Private Eye. This article in particular is semi-coherent. It manages to discuss several different, distinct, regulatory mechanisms and filters and mashes the results together as some kind of Orwellian nightmare.

It is not clear you can actually use proxies to access blocked IPs as the whole point of the filtering is to stop access to proxies (as well as porn). This is the creep and the point I submitted the article.

Exactly the confusion I mean. Some proxies are blocked by court order. This is different to the porn filter. You can't opt out of court-ordered filters. (You could use one of the ISPs that aren't caught by the court orders - I think only 5 ISPs have to implement the court ordered filters).

Complaining about the government mandated porn-filter when it's not doing what you're complaining about is sub-optimal.

But feature creep

There is no feature creep. These are different things. They're just happening at the same time.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Interesting when having root to your device will be watched closely and deemed illegal in the UK. Expect - child learns how to circumvent the filter and use tor stories soon - we must do something!

sireat• 13 years ago

So will they filter all ip address blocks of VPS sellers?