So will the internet be the internet for much longer...?

What is Zen's stance on the .gov.uk deciding what we should & should not be allowed to see/view on the internet?

Is there any comment yet?

Interesting take by A&A here

Raises the question - won't gov.uk just make all the backhaul provider run man-in-the-middle proxies against any 'internet' connection?

Thought...Comments...

Raises the question - won't gov.uk just make all the backhaul provider run man-in-the-middle proxies against any 'internet' connection?

And who is going to pay for this? not only that but it isn't their responsibility to do that,

And scamerCon's bright idea won't work regardless, The backhaul providers wouldn't filter traffic it's not their part of the ship, Government and IT don't mix well

And IMO AAISP have got the right idea i hope there are a lot more who do the same & say bog off to this stupid idea

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 24-Jul-13 22:24:51)

And who is going to pay for this? not only that but it isn't their responsibility to do that.

And IMO AAISP have got the right idea i hope there are a lot more who do the same & say bog off to this stupid idea

Indeed - but .gov.uk could say anyone provided an internet connection must have this wonderful false choice of filtered or not... It would be made the 'providers' problem. So any provider who was proving a service that was intended for *public* consumption may be forced to comply as part of there licensing terms as a licensed telecoms provider etc.

Thin end of the wedge is this. Porn, then anything violent, then anything against any law in any land, anything that might offend Mrs Jones at the bridge club, anything that might offent the reverend at the local church, video games, films which may offend this is going to be great fun.

Oh no wait - what about evolution to creationists ?!? or anything on the Daily Mail list of things that might kill you, or corrupt us, or anything which mum's net might think will kill our kids.

With a bit of luck all of the good ISP's willl tell .gov.uk where to poke it - either that or we just build an overlay internet based on heavy crypto (et-al TOR)

Edited by IamQ (Wed 24-Jul-13 22:54:35)

A carrier would still not be required to filter it's data as they do not supply service's direct to the public as such, they only provide services to ISP's , it is the individual isp's who sell a service to the public

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 24-Jul-13 23:03:09)

I'm not 100% sure.

All the leaf ISP's who provide services via other ISP's (so UKFSN via Enta) for example - may find it becomes an obligation of there connection contract or something.

I can think of several ways in law I could draft something which would be made to stick and be bound up with terms of licenses and access agreements. If .gov.uk really wanted to be an ass about it they could find a few ways.

It also raises the question then of 'who is an ISP'

Me selling service to my neighbor - am I an ISP? I had this issue with BT Cloud, OpenZone and JaNET etc, and the 'issues' about 'open' wifi and public networks.

Edited by IamQ (Wed 24-Jul-13 23:04:47)

Thing is there is going to be an opt in by default ,So only if you don't opt out to remove the porn filter will they try and block access to porn sites, So they will either end up with a huge list of names on their data base, or there would be an increased demand for ofshore VPN services, And the Peado's will continue to do what they do,
So how does it make the internet a safer place for kids ? in reality it won't achieve this

But parents can do this, by filtering their own connections (router level) if they ain't knowledgeable enough to do this, then perhaps they should pay someone to do it, instead of rely on the isp's to do it, so we all end up being affected, isp level filtering is not a good thing it will no doubt block a lot of other sites too, and then there's mission creep ,
A little like the iwf that now also filters sites for violating copyrights , when it was intended solely for blocking links to CP Have a read of some of the coments about this on the register ,

Opt out of being filtered. End.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

But parents can do this, by filtering their own connections (router level) if they ain't knowledgeable enough to do this, then perhaps they should pay someone to do it, instead of rely on the isp's to do it, so we all end up being affected, isp level filtering is not a good thing it will no doubt block a lot of other sites too, and then there's mission creep ,
A little like the iwf that now also filters sites for violating copyrights , when it was intended solely for blocking links to CP Have a read of some of the coments about this on the register ,

Indeed - & I will have a read through what people are saying there. This is one of those things which is going to take on a life of its own.

Someone at work just raised a valid point / fair question;

"Mobile data providers (o2, T-Mobile etc) all block a lot of stuff by default as part of there under 18 policy - in order to access some stuff which *they* decide is not suited to those under 18 you have to go through a credit check process reveal your identity and all the rest of it, surely this is no different..."

I have written a blog on this subject which will be going live on our website soon here; http://www.zen.co.uk/blog.

our position is supportive of Active Choice but not default on, Mandatory Blocking.

Regards
Gary

Cheers for the Gary - will keep an eye out. Interesting to see what providers are coming out and saying in light of this all.

With the default on option, it's what those who opt out could be letting themselves in for. as no doubt their names will go on a data base, this could be used for all sorts of stuff by government,if could one day be used to help ruin their life, or have a negative affect on other things, if they information is misused by government
No i don't agree with this dumb idea,It should be an opt in, off by default, then those who want it can request it, & pay any assoicated charges/costs to the isp , as i also don't think that those who niether need or want this filtering should end up paying towards it ,
And on another point this i as well as a lot of others, belive this is the start of a much bigger plan, to censor the internet they will not stop at porn, soon we will all be in their nice & fluffy walled garden internet , a place the government can do no wrong, and always get re elected

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 25-Jul-13 12:24:24)

It is not clear either what will actually be blocked by default

Some say pornography (excludes Page 3 says the Prime Minister and other soft stuff, and the written word is not included!!!)
Some add violence, drugs and suicide to that list
Others may default even more things on.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It is not clear either what will actually be blocked by default

Some say pornography (excludes Page 3 says the Prime Minister and other soft stuff, and the written word is not included!!!)
Some add violence, drugs and suicide to that list
Others may default even more things on.

I guess this all comes down to 2 areas.

1 - How will they technically achieve this. Passive filtering, inline filtering or simple DNS blacklisting (The later can be got round by anyone who knows the IP of googles DNS servers for example)

2 - What will indeed be cited as 'block-able' - The list is endless depending on who you ask... something that 1 person finds offensive or distasteful may not be to another and who will decide.

Whatever happens with this it will be as much fun as the 'snoopers charter'

Edited by IamQ (Thu 25-Jul-13 18:28:49)

In reply to a post by IamQ:

1 - How will they technically achieve this. Passive filtering, inline filtering or simple DNS blacklisting (The later can be got round by anyone who knows the IP of googles DNS servers for example)

If the ISP chooses to prevent DNS requests leaving its domain it could do so, but I think the sentiment behind this is not to design something that cannot be bypassed in any way but to put something in place that the average idiot will experience by default, and be able to opt out of trivially easily.

The objective is to give the typical Mumsnet user an internet connection that won't fill her screen or her kids screen with things she doesn't want to see, not a hackerproof censor wall.

What about Tails or Tor browser, will they be effected?

you forgot this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKM9u7CwNBc

In reply to a post by yarwell:

Opt out of being filtered. End.

what was wrong with opting in?

and why the banning of unsavoury content thats legal such as certian types of adult content for niche markets. Best way to put here without using words that might be censored.

also whats the publicised procedure for people getting false positives removed of this centralised list?

In reply to a post by yarwell:

In reply to a post by IamQ:

1 - How will they technically achieve this. Passive filtering, inline filtering or simple DNS blacklisting (The later can be got round by anyone who knows the IP of googles DNS servers for example)

If the ISP chooses to prevent DNS requests leaving its domain it could do so, but I think the sentiment behind this is not to design something that cannot be bypassed in any way but to put something in place that the average idiot will experience by default, and be able to opt out of trivially easily.

The objective is to give the typical Mumsnet user an internet connection that won't fill her screen or her kids screen with things she doesn't want to see, not a hackerproof censor wall.

i assume youtube be blocked then.
google blocked.
daily mail blocked.

the daily mail is a funny one as they campaigned yet their site is like a soft porn site. google is trivial to view adult content on their image search engine, youtube has tons of adult content.

OpenDNS parental filtering solution meets the needs of Mumsnet. Ironically Mumsnet weren't in support of mandatory UK wide blocking.

Gary

Daily Fail is about as useful /truthful as government both are hypocrites and spout bull excrement regularly , does any one apart from your avid torry voter actually read and take notice of what they print,

Also Adrian kennard talks a lot of sense, as the point he made regarding the number of people who allegedly have stumbled up on CP or terrorist sites is exaggerated is very true, that's how they government work to pass laws ect that are not really needed take the DEB they did that via the backdoor almost, that should have been re -peeled the lib dims made noises/told lies about doing that before they got elected ,

Thats the problem with all this nonsense, once it's brought in it's there to stay, and some times will pave the way for more of the same

Edited by tommy45 (Fri 26-Jul-13 13:45:06)

In reply to a post by Zenops:

OpenDNS parental filtering solution meets the needs of Mumsnet.

Can't be implemented by the user on some ISP supplied routers though, so the "whole connection" protection needs the ISP to solve it. Which could admittedly be by using OpenDNS FamilyShield DNS servers.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

also whats the publicized procedure for people getting false positives removed of this centralized list?

You will probably have to send a begging email to someone at Huawei who will X reference your details on a number of global databases then submit your site for manual approval and NSA/GCHQ vetting before its white-listed!

They will probably want your credit card details, address and all sort of other things so someone later can turn round and say 'it was all that persons fault - send in the special forces!'

Personally, and feel free to call me paranoid, I think this is the first step and is just to get the technology in place.

Once there, who knows what will be blocked by choice or otherwise.

We don't live in a police state. Yet. Cameron needs to really think about what he's doing here - it could destroy any trust in the conservatives (in so much as you can trust a political party (elected dictatorship)).

Trust, i wouldn't trust any politician or the empty promises they make,

As for a fist step, of course this is what this is really, a way of sneaking it in with the minimum amount of scrutiny by using the "think of the children" rhetoric The UK and USA want to control the internet so that they can control what we are able to use the net for, they want us to be sheep
Camoron hasn't got a clue, about anything, He even misplaced ? his daughter!!

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Daily Fail is about as useful /truthful as government both are hypocrites and spout bull excrement regularly , does any one apart from your avid torry voter actually read and take notice of what they print,

Also Adrian kennard talks a lot of sense, as the point he made regarding the number of people who allegedly have stumbled up on CP or terrorist sites is exaggerated is very true, that's how they government work to pass laws ect that are not really needed take the DEB they did that via the backdoor almost, that should have been re -peeled the lib dims made noises/told lies about doing that before they got elected ,

Thats the problem with all this nonsense, once it's brought in it's there to stay, and some times will pave the way for more of the same

The idea of people accidently finding child porn etc. has always been stupid.

Its amazing in itself that people believe that happens. Especially on a large enough scale to warrant the IWF.

this country has always been pro capitalist meaning its a strong "let the market decide" the market has talktalk who already supply isp side filters, so the question is if the demand and need is there, why arent talk talk owning the market, and why are mums not all using talktalk already.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 26-Jul-13 20:55:11)

In reply to a post by Zenops:

I have written a blog on this subject which will be going live on our website soon here; http://www.zen.co.uk/blog.

our position is supportive of Active Choice but not default on, Mandatory Blocking.

Do I take it that Zen will not be providing information on customer filtering choices to the authorities?