Grubby little hands
rubbing grubby little gears, all churning away at a "non profit" to increase revenue. If only they would concentrate on doing their job, which is to not fuck up .uk
Nominet - currently pushing its plan to let people shell out for .uk web domains without the .co, .org and other second-level labels - now wants to know if certain words should be banned from any .uk registrations. In July, the UK domain registry once again pushed to unleash a tidal wave of second-level domain names on the web …
and if you see a man standing in a shop rapidly clapping his hands behind and in front of him, it's means he's a pedo. It's a secret signal to other pedos that there's an unattended child in the vicinity (typically 120 meters)
Another code word they use is "bush2bush pipeman"
Must be true because I saw it on the news
Well, if we get CP* to have a word in it, book burning will only be the start.
I think she read "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451", but thought they were official guidelines. I suspect that as soon as she had her dinner with Jimmy Wales (he volunteered to enlighten her a bit about web filtering) she will put a proposal for a moderated, mirrored and change-locked UK-net whitelist to the House of Whoever. Since she can then actually guarantee that there's no smut whatsoever (not even anything that mumsnet could object to, they most likely being on the control board) on there, she'll probably even get it through.
Well, see it this way: Freedom of information was nice while it lasted. Time to move on, and maybe move out.
* Not Child Porn, Claire Perry, MP.
So admirers of hobby hawks are suspicious.
Deary me, what has the world come to.
If you ban innocuous words which are used by some as code words, they will simply use other code words. Ban those, and you will iterate the whole English Dictionary away very soon
although you then wind up with "scunthorpe" becoming proscribed, so that's probably unworkable, but compiling a list of otherwise innocent words that may (or may not) be used by undesirables to refer to illicit activities? Would this see meow-meow.uk being banned, as it might possibly be a page about mephedrone, rather than kittens?
Still, maybe paedos are as thick as Nominet seem to think, and forcing them to rethink their vocabulary will drive them off the internet? Mumsnet will be thrilled, I'm sure.
> considering rejecting registrations if they feature keywords linked to criminality
As anyone who's worked with Microchip's PIC processors will know, doing a web search for "pic" throws up millions of pages of garbage [ using the standard internet definition, garbage: anything not related to what I want to see ] and makes the name PIC a positive pain to find stuff for and presumably a liabilty for their marketing department.
So maybe instead of banning words that, at present have an association with dubious activities, but which tomorrow could have changed their meanings completely and been replaced by other "naughty" words - maybe Nominet should be positively encouraging as many people as possible to register sites with those words, close spellings or them, combinations and other possibile dodgy terms. That way the baddies, to some extent, be thwarted in their quest for naughtiness and might accidentally stumble upon something that's pure and good and right and might learn to mend their evil ways.
The only problem might be if you find that your mum has logged on to your honeytrap website ...
This is pretty bone-headed. I'm sure they can't have thought it through...
Do they think that banning such words will stymie the pervy perpetrators? As if it's the keywords themselves that carry the power of the act?
Or is it more likely, as has been suggested above, that new words will be adopted and the world will continue as before.
Or perhaps I am missing the point, and they merely wish for words tainted by this association not to be present on a url...which seems rather unfair to the 99.9999999% of people who might wish to use them for non-nefarious purposes.
There was this time I was looking for a font. I'd got it in TTF and liked it. It was (and is) called Bizzaro. Every glyph is made of one or more strange creatures like something from Italian carnival or a nightmare fairyland.
Although I had it in TTF, I was writing a book in TeX, well LaTeX to be exact, and that doesn't play nice with TTF. It needs the font to be built specifically for it, and I was wondering if anyone had done the work before.
So I googled "bizzaro latex".
The defense rests m'lud.
So, are they also going to ban any possibly offensive words that may be French, German, Spanish etc. in origin? Or words that foreigners may find offensive, but, which are perfectly acceptable in English? Maybe foreign language translations of suspect words too?
Apparently apple is a code word for a mass murderer's next victim. Allegedly. Maybe. Not at all.
That media and state have come to an understanding: The media don't publish the atrocious shit they already know about MP's and various quangos that could bring down the entire government, and in return X absolutely batshit mental policies are launched every week specifically tweaked to be as outrageous as possible for the purpose of selling newspapers.
Direct experience of this one, worked for a .com that resold subdomains.
Only they took it one step further, all subdomains were to be clean in all languages because the persons bankrolling it were very puritanical and didn't want the subject coming up at the dinner table of myassfist.subdomain.com with their names associated, They went the whole nine yards, wildcard engines etc.
We had a staff of young ladies who were working part time surfing the darkest corners of the net for the most depraved sick twisted terms for various sexual acts. While you couldnt register fistingfun.subdomain.com, there somewhere was some really nice young lady who had come to england as a foriegn exchange student who would be forever tainted by the image. And the profits were miniscule compared to the projection, as without pr0n most of the domain sales disappeared.
I was on that contract that I realized my irony meter had broken and the world was actually completely mad. I did it because they paid me, but, it was the most stupid idea ever.
More specifically, the lack of a domain name with a single TLD ending which is .uk, and a descriptive name to the left of the .uk
childporn.com for example is a valid domain name with an A record, but the website doesn't appear to be working at the moment. If there is a valid website there, I'm guessing it is more likely to be owned by some organisation who helps victims of paedos or campaigns against them rather than someone who offers the stuff for sale.
The move follows pressure from the Ministry of Fun over the summer to ban domain names "containing offensive or abusive terms"
Oh Dear! It's déjà vu—shades of Lady Chatterley and the 'F'-Word all over again!!
Heaven forbid, haven't we all grown up yet? Isn't this worrying over words all a bit precious? After all, they're just words—not a kilogram of plutonium.
I grew up in a totally sheltered environment completely free from all those sleazebags who've now gotten us all paralysed with fear by their internet presence, and for that childhood naivety I'm forever grateful. However, ridding these horrible cretins from the net is clearly a totally separate issue to the use of 'naughty' words in domain names.
Why can't everyone see this? Even Blind Freddy would have perceived that easily, I'd have thought.
The point that nominet's Lesley Cowley makes in his letter to Vaizey about the issues (together with the implied stupidity) of overseeing and vetting domain names because of possible difficulties arising from various permutations and combinations of letters, in my opinion, makes sense. His citing of the Scunthorpe.co.uk, domain, which contains an offensive term, surely is illustrative of the ludicrousness of the issue.
We're not in Victorian England circa 1850 anymore, and we've not been there for a very long time.
Surely, it's time we grew up and behaved like adults.
Perhaps we all need a cold shower!
"We're not in Victorian England circa 1850 anymore, and we've not been there for a very long time."
The problem is that people only live for about 70 years. Every newborn is a tabula rasa. They then get imprinted with an unpredictable set of information by their parents', peers', teachers', media etc. Then they start to think for themselves. Which usually means following one of those influences without much thought - or following someone who has "discovered" a magic short cut to 42. Possibly after a few decades experience they start to question things - and find no one is apparently listening.
It is a slipping drive belt on a wheel. It is frustrating that many of the "new" views that have occurred to me in nearly 70 years are the same as The Enlightenment and J S Mill articulated some three centuries ago.
The problem is that people only live for about 70 years. Every newborn is a tabula rasa.
Oh how right you are. Tragically, our leaders (today's warmongers)—those who've been quite prepared to send young 20-somethings into Iraq and Afghanistan etc., have very little concept of, say, what happened at Normandy/Omaha in 1944, let alone do they have experiential memories of that horrific and terrible event indelibly imprinted on their minds as do those who were actually there. They may think they have, but in reality, they've SFA idea; thus, when they undertake similar activities they do so only from a conceptual framework rather than from actual experience.
Thus, when things go wrong, as they so often do, they're genuinely surprised that the engagement didn't go as planned and that the outcomes were much worse than expected.
We humans are very bad at conveying the ethos and Zeitgeist of a former time into the present, and we're even worse at conveying personal experiences from that time in any meaningful way. Despite hundreds of books, films, and even firsthand accounts, we've only vaguest emotional understanding of such past events.
(Thanks to an unwelcome lottery win courtesy of the Government of the day; I came within a hairbreadth of ending up in the Vietnam conflict, to which I was politically opposed at the time. That experience set me on course for four decades thinking about why so much of the harrowing and traumatic experience from the 1940s had dissipated from society by the mid to late 1960s. In fact, it's remarkably hard to step back and put oneself into one's parents generation. Still, even after all this time, I've only the lightest grip of an understanding.)
Possibly after a few decades experience they start to question things - and find no one is apparently listening.
Putting myself into the previous generation's shoes has proved difficult but I've at least thought and read about the issues a great deal. And it constantly amazes me how few people ever try to do so; it seems that seriously thinking about causality, the past and even back just a generation is a rare phenomenon. The corollary is that very few do listen. My conclusion is that humans have little innate ability step outside their own experience. Whether it's good or bad is moot, but to me it does seem we'd all be better off if the drive belt slipped somewhat less.
It is frustrating that many of the "new" views that have occurred to me in nearly 70 years are the same as The Enlightenment and J S Mill articulated some three centuries ago.
Whilst the conditions of The Enlightenment don't appeal, that time does fascinate me. Unfortunately, in just my adult lifetime, I've seen once-revered Enlightenment issues become significantly less relevant. We're now in a pragmatic and technological age, but it's hardly one of ideas and intellectualism where questioning orthodoxy is the norm. Millian ideas and those of Bentham and Rousseau, Social Contract etc. ultimately made our time but we seem hardly interested in them these days. One only has to look at the almighty sell-off of utilities across the world over the past 30 years or so to realise that utilitarianism is essentially dead, same with the social contract, between state and citizen—again one only has to look at the spying by governments on the citizenry to realise that.
Shame really.
Bit carried away there. I meant to add that the Lady Chatterley reference was because I lived through that farce. I'd imagine that most who did would agree with me.
Besides the farcical news reports, all this government censorship stupidity did was that for many of us (including the likes of me and my friends) was for us to obtain and circulate clandestine copies of the work (which we eagerly read--the naughty bits first of course).
Not to mention, that in the days before piracy, it enormously increased royalties to D.H. Lawrence's estate!
Please tell us if you consent to us publishing your response by selecting from the options below:
Yes I am happy for Nominet to publish my response with my name and organisation only
1. General Comments
The fact that this question is even being tabled shows that the participants do not understand the Internet and related issues such as this.
An entity entirely ignorant of the subject matter should not be a major participant in discussions about making law.
2. Do you believe that some terms and expressions should be blocked completely, and if so, how do you propose such a list could be drawn up and maintained?
No. Absolutely not.
There *are* legitimate reasons a domain name should not be issued to an entity. However, we already have ample legislation to cover any eventuality. We already have too much. Adding more restrictions on privacy and freedom will not help.
There will be circumstances where names will be disallowed, but they will be disallowed pursuant to a court order which hopefully has been made lawfully and sensibly.
You have no business at all getting involved in such a list. Such a list should not exist.
3. If you do not believe that any restrictions should be introduced at the point of registration, should a post-registration complaints procedure be introduced, and if so, what should the criteria be for a complaint to be upheld, and what remedies should be available?
Yes. Post registration complaints procedure.
Criteria:
- Error that the registrant agrees should be corrected.
- Error pursuant to a legitimate court order with subject matter jurisdiction.
Remedies: Removal or correction of name from TLD if removal is legitimate. The utterly clueless crew tabling this discussion should be absolutely prohibited from any control beyond following lawful directions from others.
4. Any further comments on this topic?
When you attack the fundamental human rights of *anybody*, you attack the fundamental rights of *everybody*. You have mounted an attack on my rights. Stop it.
I am aware that people find the majority of these things difficult to understand. However, their fundamental ignorance should not be incorporated into public policy.
I am no fan of child predators but putting up roadblocks all over cyberspace will do nothing at all to stop them without entirely crippling the rest of us.
I can't stress this enough. Opening and fostering the discussion means that you are intellectually and morally incapable of contributing to the conversation.
Well, AOL banned "Breast" which upset the Breast Cancer Support groups, and I got banned from a forum for talking about the Japanese legend/historical figure Yoshitsune.. So what could possibly go wrong?
On the other hand, if (when) Gov.uk needs Daily Mail "Think Of The Children" headlines, then maybe they can say "We did a Consultation..."
Perhaps not a popular view, but rather than ban the registrations, would it not be better in the long run if they registered anything requested of them, but the WHOIS details of anything interesting got forwarded to the police?
childabuse.co.uk registered by NSPCC => No further action
childabuse.co.uk hosting something illegal, lets see if we can investigate and either take action if in the UK or inform corresponding authorities and the IWF if hosted abroad.
Blocking the registration only reveals to the criminal that you are on to them, with the possibility of collateral damage. Permitting the registration accompanied by an investigation as to what is on the site may lead to bringing criminals to justice.
If a domain is being used to host illegal content then the domain name owner should be held legally responsible, for that Nominet need to ensure buyers are not hiding behind false identities and are subject to UK law.
Nominet should also be able to reclaim names being used for illegal content so if you use a name including "hobby" for paedo content you lose it but it's fine if used for legitimate purposes.
This won't stop the dodgy content, it will just appear under a different TLD. What it would do is improve the .co.uk "brand image". It would mean that if a domain name is in .co.uk address space then it's subject to some quality control, you have a reasonable level of confidence that ...hobby.co.uk isn't going to give you a nasty surprise.
I agree, in fact I don't even like the idea of 'blocking' the content, why can't they track down the uploader/site owner, then track down from them the original source of the image, and finally get the abuser and lock them up, preferably after they are castrated...
The images are not the problem, its the sick individuals that do the abusing that are the problem...
But of course this is the UK, where our laws on Porn, Sex & everything related are just totally retarded.
I'd no idea hobby was a code word, but I guess that's the point.
If, for example, "hobby" (or something akin to it) were to be banned now, and I set up a legitimate business with a name and a website, let's say "protractor.co.uk"*, if after a few years that becomes a code for something nefarious, will my domain be pulled? What of the cost to my business, branding etc. In fact why stop there, I could have a newsletter that goes out, perhaps even in hard copy. Would that be stopped by the post office as a potentially obscene publication?
*Yes, yes, I KNOW. "Weapons of Maths Instruction" and all that, (sigh)
I collected this apocryphal tale a while ago; it isn't by me, but it is apropos...
This reminds me of a story from the dark ages of computing - when the Computing Center at a major university had both a monopoly on computing resources and a policy of "no frivolous use of the computer(s)".
The CC, in its unchallengable wisdom and power, had decreed a single file-and-compute server for a university with about 35,000 undergraduates. Much of the hardware was purchased with grant money, and the grants included strings that in essence required billing real $ for every microsecond of crunch, and guaranteeing the granting agencies a usage fee no higher than that charged any other user. (So the No Frivolous Use bit wasn't JUST puritanism - the guys who kicked in the megabucks were likely to get irate.) And the sysops didn't realize how popular the first text-only Startrek game would be until it was well-known and chewing up significant computer resources. You can imagine what came next.
They removed it.
It reappeared.
They removed it again.
Several users had made copies, and some of them announced where copies could be found.
They wrote a program to search the entire filesystem for copies.
Several encrypted copies were announced on the grapevine.
They upgraded the program to search for these encrypted copies.
And the war continued, with progressively more redundant copies using progressively more of the disk farm, and the encryption methods evolving under the selection pressure of the system administrators' decryption efforts.
Like any war, it began to have effects outside the actual battle. (One observer placed a line to the effect of "Kirk Spock Enterprise NCC-1701 klingon phaser photon torpedo Federation" in a datafile used by a perfectly legitimate application, blasted the administrators through channels when the file vanished, and gleefully showed me how the usecount of the restored file kept rising, as the Startrekfinder kept finding it, and the CC administrators kept examining it to see if it was part of a hidden game.)
But, also like any war, destruction befell innocent bystanders. And, like any crusaders out to destroy sin, the staff didn't catch on from the early, minor incidents, and kept increasing their efforts. What finally ended it was a pair of almost simultaneous hits on valuable files.
The lesser incident was the destruction of a file named "Kirk", owned by a student nicknamed "Kirk", and containing coursework completely unrelated to the Great Interstellar War. The greater was medical.
It seems a drug company was in the late stages of testing a new drug, and had paid the university over a half-million (1970's) dollars to run one of the tests.
The drug in question had an effect on the endocrine system, and one of the measures of this effect was the length of the penises of male rats who had matured under influence of the drug. The project was near completion, the (rather large number of) rats had been grown, and as they were retired from the experiment, during its carefully-scheduled last few weeks, measurements made on each were filed on the exceedingly-well-maintained-and-backed-up central computing utility.
One day the researcher logged on to enter the latest set of measurements, and found that the contents of the file named "RAT_PENIS_DATA" had been replaced by a short tirade about improper use of the computing center resources. You can imagine what hit the fan.
The center staff, of course, in their War on Fun, had not taken care to preserve the latest state of the file they had blasted. Indeed, the file name had been, in their minds, a minor side-issue during their assault on the Startrek Plague. Yet the research was to prepare the drug for use on humans - with potential liabilities far exceeding the half-meg-plus pricetag of the research - and potential damage to the big U's reputation resulting in loss of lucrative research contracts ditto. Would error-corrections applied to the file between the last backup and the destruction be re-applied correctly? Was the CC prepared to pay for the extra costs incurred by Biochem as it completely re-entered the data from the notes, re-ran the experiment if it couldn't resolve any differences to the satisfaction of the FDA, and pay the drug company for the lost sales if it delayed the introduction of a useful drug?
Thus, goes the story, did the war end.
But the repercussions didn't stop, of course. The war had left lingering fallout, in the form of alienated clients of the Computing Ceter, and the center's destruction of valuable data provided an extra round to be used against the Center whenever a department was trying to obtain computers of its own, over the Center's opposition.