Sky To Block Porn By Default

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30896813

Andrew Ferguson, founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband...

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Andrew Ferguson, founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband...

Seb and John may not be happy with that

This is the end play of something that has been underway for a long time, as a result of pressure from the Prime Ministers office on all the major providers.

https://corporate.sky.com/media-centre/our-blog/2015...

New customers already have to make a choice of whether it is on or not.

The question is, what will be broken that is not immediately obvious to people until they open a web browser, e.g. apps on tables and phones are not filter aware and if blocked generally you just get an internet not working error so may confuse some people.

Do have a Sky line to test this all on, and have looked at Sky filters before, but am going to leave the settings alone to see what happens, i.e. are those who really decided to turn them off even ages ago left alone.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The question is, what will be broken that is not immediately obvious to people until they open a web browser, e.g. apps on tables and phones are not filter aware and if blocked generally you just get an internet not working error so may confuse some people.

No worse than public wifi in pubs and hotels etc. People either switch back to cellular data (3G/4G) or work out how to fix - or call the ISP help line.

Orange mobile blocks adult content as standard, have done for years, this means sites for shooting forums get blocked despite them not being adult and having junior members. To get it lifted best explain it's to view porn, much less likely to get strange looks than telling them you are a shooter.

Its not just porn, its any site not suitable for under 13s, that covers a huge amount of sites, youtube for one.

In reply to a post by burble:

Orange mobile blocks adult content as standard, have done for years, this means sites for shooting forums get blocked despite them not being adult and having junior members. To get it lifted best explain it's to view porn, much less likely to get strange looks than telling them you are a shooter.

On EE it's the same but you can get content lock disabled In your myEE control panel.

Still convinced there's is too much collateral damage. One day it will be a political party website blocked

Dystopian future is upon us. So far in my experience, these we know best fools, just pay up and baah filters don't work very well.

Edited by NilSatisOptimum (Wed 21-Jan-15 10:05:36)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The question is, what will be broken that is not immediately obvious to people until they open a web browser, e.g. apps on tables and phones are not filter aware and if blocked generally you just get an internet not working error so may confuse some people.

So far the implementations I have seen have given a very clear message that the site is blocked by parental control filters, with instructions on how to remove the block (i.e. a link to the control panel).

I think it's crucial that these informative pages remain in place.

In reference to www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30896813:

Sky's Broadband Shield is designed to filter out content deemed to be unsuitable for children aged under 13. It has been offered as default to new customers for a year.

But now the firm has decided to also offer it to all its existing customers, some 5.3 million in total.

That bit's wrong, it was rolled out to all customers, new and existing, at around the same time. Off by default though, so many existing customers may not have realised it was added to their control panel.

Correct it is clear when using a web browser. but consider an app on a tablet or xbox?

While it was available to them all, only really made obvious to those signing up as new customers.

It is following on from requests from Prime Minister, so company doing what they have been asked to do.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Correct it is clear when using a web browser. but consider an app on a tablet or xbox?

Both those devices have web browsers too, and would display the same page.

Edit: I was really only considering the pornography sites, but if the block will include Facebook and Twitter too then yeah, I can see that might break apps.

Edited by Oliver341 (Wed 21-Jan-15 10:39:02)

In reply to a post by Fibre:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30896813

I was wrong, its only those who havn't activated it already, or told them they aren't going to use it, as i already have told them, im unaffected


From Sky :-

In the next few weeks Sky customers who have not chosen to either activate or disable its Broadband Shield would be emailed "giving them the opportunity to make a decision one way or the other"

Edited by deleted (Wed 21-Jan-15 21:41:47)

Yes, and when I clicked on the button to say I did not wish to use the shield it reminded me that I had already told them that.... (which I did when the shield was first launched a year or so ago).

Don't the filters block any other DNS beyond Sky's? If so it will break Chromecast, as it uses Google's DNS and it can't be changed as far as I know.

Have a Chromecast on a Sky connection and filters were set to malware only ages ago and works with no issues.

Deliberately avoiding changing anything to see if they somehow switch them back on.

In reply to a post by _Resonance_:

Don't the filters block any other DNS beyond Sky's? If so it will break Chromecast, as it uses Google's DNS and it can't be changed as far as I know.

They would be more likely to transparently proxy DNS queries to their own server, I think BT might be doing that now?

But yeah, changing a client's DNS servers bypasses Sky's filter, which is why setting an outgoing firewall rule blocking DNS is a good idea.

So i read this and thought it could not be that easy to bypass, and yes it is on the sky service. just altered dns servers to google 8.8.8.8 and bobs your uncle, up pops the adult sites. To say i am dissapointed is an understatement.

In reply to a post by iand:

So i read this and thought it could not be that easy to bypass, and yes it is on the sky service. just altered dns servers to google 8.8.8.8 and bobs your uncle, up pops the adult sites. To say i am dissapointed is an understatement.

It's pretty pathetic really. I highlighted the issue and gave the outgoing DNS firewall rule fix on the Sky forums ages ago, but they never did anything about it. If they make the filter that easy to bypass, they might as well not have it at all.

Various discussion here: http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Archived-Discussions/Sky...

It satisfies the political masters

Blocking DNS is known to cause issues with some hardware e.g chromecast

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It satisfies the political masters

But not the parents who wish to protect their children from questionable content. Ah well.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It satisfies the political masters

But not the parents who wish to protect their children from questionable content. Ah well.

What's stopiping them? The controls work.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

What's stopiping them? The controls work.

It does work, but I think it's rather to trivial to circumvent.

I do think the people on these forums are far more interested in not having their own access filtered, than they are with providing parents comprehensive tools to block what their children can see. Perhaps it reflects the demographics of the users here.

Can also cause issues with the Roku 3, depending on exactly how it is blocked.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

What's stopiping them? The controls work.

It does work, but I think it's rather to trivial to circumvent.

I do think the people on these forums are far more interested in not having their own access filtered, than they are with providing parents comprehensive tools to block what their children can see. Perhaps it reflects the demographics of the users here.

Are you suggesting that kids could get around it? They could get round any such block by using DNSCrypt. Or VPN.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Are you suggesting that kids could get around it? They could get round any such block by using DNSCrypt. Or VPN.

Some of the filters block VPN, and not all of the filters rely on DNS like Sky's implementation. TalkTalk's, for instance, is DNS agnostic.

Sometimes parents just have to talk to their kids.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Sometimes parents just have to talk to their kids.

I'm sure they do. But thing is with kids, they don't always do what their parents say.

Do your kids?