British government porn filters block EFF, Linux, Amnesty and more

http://www.tgdaily.com/security-brief/83701-british-government-porn-filters-block-tech-sites

by paullik • 13 years ago

78 20 13 years ago

quantumpotato_3• 13 years ago

Can anyone in the UK verify this?

romanovcode• 13 years ago

Only new ISP clients have these filters enabled. Old clients have them disabled by default, for now.

I doubt that you'll find someone who can confirm so easy.

quantumpotato_3• 13 years ago

Thanks. Blocking EFF/Linux/Amnesty is very disturbing.

verandaguy• 13 years ago

Would it then be possible for someone with a new Internet hookup in the UK to confirm/disconfirm this?

thirdsight2• 13 years ago

I have access to several machines on UK ISPs. Quick SSH and poke with links on each machine.

1. Easynet - all work fine.

2. Andrews & Arnold - all work fine (this is expected)

3. O2/Sky - all work fine

4. BT - all work fine

All of these lines were provisioned before the porn filter was announced so...

Edit: tested Amnesty, OpenBSD (which these machines are all running and would be a PITA for me) and linux.com

quantumpotato_3• 13 years ago

Gotcha. Thanks!

GunlogAlm3• 13 years ago

What do you mean by "(this is expected)" with A&A?

DanBC2• 13 years ago

This is not the new uk gov porn filter. It is an optional fter, like any other net nanny filter or any enterprise style filter. It's restrictive because that's what those kinds of filters do. It is purely optional, and supposedly granular so the user could just block search engines but nothing else.

This is different to the proposed uk gov porn filter.

greenyoda• 13 years ago

This has already been extensively discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6979023 (144 points, 71 comments)

gjm11• 13 years ago

And, to summarize the single most important point made there:

No, this is not the UK government's "porn filter", because (1) no such thing actually exists yet and (2) this isn't the same sort of thing as that would be if it did exist -- it's one ISP's opt-in whitelist offered to people who want a way to keep their children "safe".

(I am not defending such whitelists, by the way. But even if there is some day a Great UK Adult Content Filter, this is not what it will be.)

PhasmaFelis• 13 years ago

This is completely false. The author of the original article (http://bsdly.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uk-porn-filter-block...), Peter N. M. Hansteen, confused one ISP's opt-in parental whitelist with the UK's national opt-out blacklist. When informed of his error, he did not correct it but just added an update at the bottom ranting about opt-in parental filters, so sites like TGDaily and TechEye are still reading the first few pages and perpetuating the falsehood.

This makes opponents of UK censorship look like clueless idiots and hurts the entire cause. Nice job, Peter Hansteen.

GunlogAlm3• 13 years ago

This confusion has occurred often in recent weeks. Many non-Brits mistakenly believe this is the government filter when in reality it's an ISP's (most recently BT).

mistakoala3• 13 years ago

You've managed to make the same point I've just made, but without the angry swearing. I salute your coolheadedness, sir.

notastartup• 13 years ago

How do British folks feel about this? I mean if they tried to pull shit like this in Canada, people would flip, burn down the parliament building.

GunlogAlm3• 13 years ago

If you mean the filter: most of the support is from Conservative voters, especially the older voters and parents. Labour and the Conservatives support it, I think many Lib Dems oppose it.

A few years ago I would have said the same thing - "If they did this here, Brits would go mad!" - I think everyone wants to believe that about their country, but when it comes to it people are surprisingly accepting.

Also, it's worth noting this article is wrong: no government filter in the UK is in place yet, this was an ISP's own filter.

mistakoala3• 13 years ago

I think the spread of support is less clear. I vaguely recall some survey a few months back that posed a carefully-phrased question along the lines of "ISPs should do more to control what children see online (agree/ disagree)" and the support from Guardian readers was clearly in favour (can't rememeber the percentage).

There's a split in the Conservative party about infantilising adults - you just have to read ConservativeHome to see that. I would go as far to say that a majority of activists dislike what Cameron is being seen to do with the ISPs.

Contrast his current actions with his words several years ago: http://order-order.com/2007/11/24/cameron-we-are-libertarian...

I feel he's dangerous because he doesn't espouse an ideology. He doesn't offer a sense of where he wants to take the country - just wherever the newspaper headlines will take him. It might most kindly be described as a misguided sense of noblesse oblige.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

About an opt in filter provided for customers who ask for it?

I think those filters are generally lousy.

You say that canadians would be up in arms. So, can some say "cunt" on daytime canadian tv?

I ask because even in the US showing less than a second of partially uncovered nipple resulted in a fine of $500,000 for one broadcaster. I don't know much about the US system so maybe I'm wrong but that's an example of a government preventing people from broadcasting something. See the good wife episode where swear words are obscured in a knowing way by street noise outside the court.

If you're talking about government blocklists most people are okay with IWF because the scope is tight and there's no feature creep so far. Most people in the uk don't want images of child sexual abuse to be easy to find. But the proposed filter isn't goong to be like that; it'll be much more like existing net nanny software, and people realise that software is rubbish and stupid.

mistakoala3• 13 years ago

How does such cuntery based on paper-thin fact-checking and high doses of bullshit get anywhere near HN?

I'm more disappointed in HN readers than the bell-end who wrote this crap.

Outrage-fuelled stuff like this makes me angry because such mendacious behaviour makes a mockery of serious concerns about /actual/ censorship and the activities of the state in controlling the Internet. The author shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a keyboard.