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David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

guardian.co.uk

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Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#171

Post by FooBarWidget »

cskau wrote: post #35
conroy wrote: post #12

> Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked. > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With t…

> > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. > Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?

The solution to this problem is DRM! The article says it will be illegal to own such scenes. With DRM, you don't own anything.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#173

Post by marshray »

bigiain wrote: post #110
icebraining wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you connect to an HTTPS site, your browser send the domain (hostname) unencrypted, so that the server can select the right certificate. If it doesn't/didn't, the server could only have one site per IP, so you could identify the site by doing a reverse DNS query. In any case, blocking access to an HTTPS site is not a significant technical problem.

Sure - blocking access to https://www.google.com is not a significant tech problem. I somehow don't think they're planning on that though. Blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=nasty+goat+sex while not blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=how+to+vote+conservative+in+the+UK requires some technical chops that while not impossible, would put the UK right up there with enlightened democracies such as China…

It is not possible for anyone to block access to https://www.google.com/?q=specific+thing over a long period of time without either custom modifications to every affected client or help from Google itself.

Google's long rocky experience with China proves exactly that.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#174

Post by pja »

harrytuttle wrote: post #73

Considering my mobile ISP (GiffGaff) thinks that the ThinkPad wiki is pornographic, I genuinely can say all this is going to do is break the internet. The last thing we need is a broken Internet here. The economy is fucked enough already. Add to that the whole is censorship right debate (it's not unless it's opt-in), the pre-crime list this generates and we're right into blatant fascism. Where do we even start at fix…

You can turn off the mobile filtering. IIRC you have to give them some form of ID that demonstrates that you're over 18. My memory says driving license number, but it could be wrong.

Yes, the mobile filtering in the UK is completely useless and blocks many, many sites that having nothing whatsoever to do with porn in any form, and probably fails to block the majority of the porn on the internet but that's where we are.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#175

Post by coldtea »

Sven7 wrote: post #68
droopyEyelids wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish he would have at least nodded his head to the idea that creating censorship infrastructure today, even for the right reasons, might lead to problems tomorrow. Also I wish whatever reporter wrote the story had asked his take on that.

Hilarious. In which fantasy land is every outcome of a law predictable before it gets issued.

>Hilarious. In which fantasy land is every outcome of a law predictable before it gets issued.

Probably in the same fantasy land where the parent described "every outcome" of the law, instead of just a few. If you wanna employ "hilarious" and "snark" better first get what the other guy said right.

I'm not even sure what your snark is supposed to be based on.

For one, nobody above claimed they can predict "every outcome" of a law.

Second, of course we can we can predict SOME outcomes of a law before it gets issued. Often times, we can even tell that a law is good or bad before it gets issued.

Predicting the outcome of laws is what the legislation process itself is based on: in the idea that the legislators draft laws in the way that they _predict_ will bring upon a possitive outcome. They don't draft random statements and see what sticks.

Now, because a lot of stuff can hamper the legislators (e.g private interests, appeal to get votes, ideology and partisan politics, fad moral opinions etc), a lot of times the public can tell a law is crap even before it gets issued.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#176

Post by jsmeaton »

orblivion wrote: post #150
cskau wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material. > A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. Also, I foresee a sudden rise in rickrolling along the line of: Funny Cat Video!

Might be a good countermeasure. If people are bold enough in numbers, everybody put the evil words into Google search, rendering the data useless. Though it'd have to be done on a regular basis, which is not going to work out.

That's how I think we should combat things like PRISM. If there was a mass protest every week, by millions of individuals, all searching/texting/emailing "kill president" "home made bomb" "chemical explosion", that data would become really really heavy. They might have to cut back on drag-netting everything and focus on specific targets.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#178

Post by marshray »

xentronium wrote: post #146
adamnemecek wrote: post #13

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children can't believe that people still fall for this shtick

In Russia we have a special commission that bans every internet page containing anything relevant to suicide and drugs. For example, famous australian ad "Dumb ways to die" is banned in Russia. Yeah, seriously, these guys have zero sense of humor. Apparently, it's to protect children from killing themselves.

Perhaps they should ban all references to drinking vodka too?

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#179

Post by foobarbazqux »

Proleps wrote: post #143
foobarbazqux wrote: post #20

Personally speaking I would be glad to have this filter, but I wouldn't want to force it on other people. So if people got a choice about enabling the filter I would be okay with it, i.e. if it was opt-in. In that case it's providing a service to people who need a human barrier to help them stop looking at porn if they have a problem. Any preventative mechanism that you set up for your own sake is pointless when you…

There would be a list of people who want to be able to watch porn (which could be used for black mail). It would also require a lot of infrastructure to be set up for this kind of censorship. That infrastructure could easily be used to start blocking other content. Besides if you want to opt-out of porn you can already install filters on your computer or your router if you want to.

I think you reversed the meaning. Opt-in filtering means you choose to turn on the filter in the first place, opt-out filtering means you choose to turn off the filter.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#180

Post by lobotryas »

sliverstorm wrote: post #130
cskau wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material. > A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. Also, I foresee a sudden rise in rickrolling along the line of: Funny Cat Video!

Is it still called rickrolling when the "surprise" is agents at your door?

It'll be a new variation of swatting: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Swatting
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