Major problems beset UK ISP filth filters: But it's OK, nobody uses them Consumer takeup of network-level filters offered by the UK's biggest ISPs remains sluggish, with customers largely declining to censor internet content on their home connections even when prompted, an Ofcom report revealed today. The regulator found (PDF) that very few subscribers opt to turn on so-called parental controls. …
According to Blocked.org.uk, my personal website is blocked by BT, as is a friend's.
Neither of us were able to find a mechanism to report mis-classification, and its not like we're newbies. I used to be in charge of Parental Controls product management for AOL UK, and my friend is a respected technology journalist. Sky should be given some credit for having relatively accessible tools to report a problem.
*Update, BT now have information for site owners, but there was none when Blocked.org.uk launched. Obviously stung into action.
Some minor credit for BT for that.
I would like to see more coverage of this topic for mobile operators, three of whom incorrectly block my site and none of whom will tell me how to get it correctly classified or even acknowledge my requests to do so.
They just tell me to allow adult content on my phone which is completely missing the point.
Which was hugely annoying. A friend suggested that they're actually blocking wordpress-based sites by default, although I wasn't able to confirm that. Either way, I didn't complain because I couldn't find where one would actually go to do that, and have since moved to a BT connection which isn't filtered by default.
According to http://www.blocked.org.uk TalkTalk blocked my wordpress site. (Occasional mild profanity?)
Can every wordpress user check their site: lets build a case against them.
I've checked my three WordPress sites, and none are blocked.
They may be shortly. Talk Talk blocker is not real time, it walks your site after one of their subs has visited. So if you find it blocked in half a day or so after their filter processes data do not be surprised.
Okay, in that case I'll make a point of checking again in a week or so (and then perhaps fairly regularly - every month?)
Of the three WP sites, one does have a couple of instances of swearing in it, so depending on the different filtering levels, there may be a small amount of validity in blocking that one.
I run and/or administer a large number of Web sites, on subjects ranging from computer troubleshooting to emerging biotechnology to sex.
Ironically, my personal site, which has no content that might be deemed even remotely scandalous (and is not a WordPress site), is blocked on Sky...but my sex site, which talks about kink in very explicit terms, is not blocked by any of the major UK ISPs.
Let's hear it for Net censors, getting things wrong since...well, since the dawn of time, I think.
"Killing it all at the ISP (or even at the in home router) kills it for adults as well..."
whereas trying to kill it at any interior point in your home network means it doesn't cover all the devices that the kids have access to. Particularly if you are relying on some PC software, you are missing your telly, your tablets, your gaming consoles, your phones, and quite possibly other gizmos that an old fart like me isn't aware of yet.
If only this technology was A) Opt-in and B) Easily circumvented with a VPN.
Oh wait, for most providers it IS opt-in. And until ISPs start blocking all VPNs (Never, too many (big) companies rely on their home users being able to use VPNs) it's easily circumvented if you enable the filter for your connection because you have, for example, young kids around the house.
And then you realise that if YOU can get around the filter with a VPN, so can they. So what was the point of blocking content at the ISP level again?
"And then you realise that if YOU can get around the filter with a VPN, so can they. So what was the point of blocking content at the ISP level again?"
It scored the back bench non entity a job in charge of preventing "Child Exploitation and Sexualization" IIRC.
And just think all because Ms Perry could not work out how to set the parental controls on her browser.
Talk Talk with 36% take up has been running filter by far the longest - so suggests around 30% is the long running take-up ( with it varying higher or lower depending on how the option is presented).
According to ONS 2012 statistics only approx 30% of households have 1 or more children - so as its mainly such households that would use a 'child' filter, it sounds like quite a good takeup.
You say Sky is 'bombarded' with reclassification requests. It has 5M subs, with 8% take up that means 400k are using the filter, and off those 110 request a reclassifcation each month, i.e. 0.025%. Not much of a bombardment.
How do you report that something's blocked incorrectly if you can't see what it is that's been blocked?
So most requests come from webmasters who A) know that Sky is blocking them and B) can find Sky's "WTF? Unblock me!" scheme.
Given that Sky subscribers can't get to the website, they can't find out how to contact the webmaster and thus the webmaster will only know if an existing visitor suddenly cannot access and is able to find how to contact the webmaster, or if the webmaster herself goes to www.blocked.org.uk or similar to check if they have been unexpectedly blocked.
And they have to keep checking because the ISPs don't notify webmasters.
While it may be true that 30% of households conatin children I don't think it's true that 70% of the remainder have got an internet connection, so the uptake rate is probably not representative. Another factor to take into account is that we don't know if TalkTalk's customers match the proportion of childless households. It could be that they attract more households with children.
Finally I don't think it's true that only households with children will take this up. Anecdotal evidence suggests Granny will probably do it either because she considers herself not a pervert or because she thinks it's "protecting" her in some unspecified way.
If next to no one is using the filters it seems rather pointless to track the number of incorrectly categorized sites.
But what I really don't understand, is why Talk Talk had such a higher number of subscribers using the filters. Even without the default opt-in they still had far more people using the filters. Why? What kind of people sign up for Talk Talk service? Inquiring minds want to know.
TalkTalk bombarded their customers for years with literature about their "HomeSafe" options - by mail, email and IIRC I even had a phonecall or two offering it to me! I also think it has been a preselected option for signups for years as well. I have had to actively refuse it each and every time rather than confirming that I wanted it.
Given TalkTalk's old reputation for coming top of the customer complaints league for several years in a row, I would speculate that their customer base has a built-in bias towards the less tech literate members of the population who wouldn't think to do online research before choosing a provider.
From there it's not that big a leap to assume they're going with the filters because the signup page says it 'protects them online' or whatever convincing bollocks the opt-in page shows.
We got Fibre at the gaff last month, and every bloody device I hooked in was forbidden from seeing webpages until I had chosen one of the "I am feeble minded and would like to be inconvenienced by not seeing half the internet / I am a grown man and I quite like pornography thank you very much" options. To be fair I think you can turn that behaviour off from the router manager.
"hacking" seems to be in the list of categories that are filtered. What the fuck? How is information about hardware and software considered so harmful that it cannot touch the minds of our precious little children?
Where will the next generation of hackers come from? In 15 years, will we find that 99% of CS graduates only know how to prod .NET or Java?
Filter hardcore porn? Sure. Filter gambling? Sure. Filter drugs? Sure.
Why filter hacking?
>>""hacking" seems to be in the list of categories that are filtered. What the fuck? How is information about hardware and software considered so harmful that it cannot touch the minds of our precious little children?"
One of the signs of an authoritarian society is that things move from a state of permitted unless forbidden, to forbidden unless permitted. It's a direct consequence of a society becoming about fear and control, rather than curiosity and freedom.
"Why filter hacking?"
America.
Lets say you have a child with a disorder (not one that suddenly springs forth post arrest, but an actual condition), Aspergers, for example.
It's possible, given the number of high profile cases (McKinnon et al), that they may become interested in hacking, and may test servers hosted in or owned by companies based in America. If you fail to avoid extradition, your child may then get locked up for eons.
That, sadly, is why you *might* want to filter hacking.
""hacking" seems to be in the list of categories that are filtered. What the fuck? How is information about hardware and software considered so harmful that it cannot touch the minds of our precious little children?
Where will the next generation of hackers come from? In 15 years, will we find that 99% of CS graduates only know how to prod .NET or Java?"
- I suspect that the next generation of hackers will come from the abusive households* that partially and/or arbitrarily blocks access to the internet? There is no greater motivator than being told you can't do something :) I imagine any teenager who was effectively told that there are pictures of naked people on the internet, but that they will only be able to look at them if they learn a fair bit about VPN, DNS and ISP filters would very soon be at the local library with their nose in a book reading about networks :)
*If you decide and filter what information/material members of your household are allowed or not allowed to see, read or learn then how can that not be an abusive household? Do you cut out articles from the newspaper you don't want them to see as well? Sit in on any meeting they have with their friends in case any of them has any forbidden knowledge? On a more pragmatic level; An 8 year old will likely not go looking for porn as they have no interest in it, whereas a 14 year old won't be scarred for life at the sight of boobies** :) Or the sight of a swear word on a page for that matter :S
**and if they go looking for tubgirl or lemonparty they will learn very quickly that there are a lot of very different people in this world..
"they will only be able to look at them if they learn a fair bit about VPN, DNS and ISP filters would very soon be at the local library with their nose in a book reading about networks"
And I thought your democratically elected government was well on the way to doing away with such 'unprofitable' public services as libraries ....
"The watchdog said that unlike BT, TalkTalk and BSkyB which nagged all of their customers with an "unavoidable choice" about filtering"
I switched to BT about a month ago (only FTTC provider here). Wasn't asked by customer services nor the engineer. Not had any popups asking.
I'm guessing it's because I disabled Smart Setup, which makes the choice far from unavoidable.
"Ofcom noted that 36 per cent of TalkTalk subscribers merrily skipped through the HomeSafe set-up page, which now opts customers in by default. Before TalkTalk added the pre-tick to its filtering page, its uptake was closer to 20 per cent, apparently."
... I might be tempted to filter IP traffic at home, but under following conditions:
* I own the box which does the filtering
* I decide what is being filtered
* I decide which of my home computers are affected by the filtering and which are not
* The box supports both IPv4 and IPv6
Anything else - f* off, it's my network and I decide what enters it.
I work in IT in schools. We recently had a bunch "e-Safety" sessions - several with the kids, two with the parents, one with staff.
Product names were not mentioned in the sessions, they weren't there to sell, they were there just to inform. At each, it was offered that if any parent had any problems or questions, IT-wise, they should come to me and I'll help them install ISP filters / filtering software etc. at home. This was met with great enthusiasm in the session, much gratitude from the governors, and I hung around outside the session just to be visible.
Bear in mind that we're a private "primary" school, going up into Year 8, with just under 400 kids. Just the kind of kids old enough to go on things that they're too young to be on.
Out of all their parents, all the sessions, etc. hundreds of parents attending a specific session on e-Safety, I got one parent ask my details. They took my email. I never got an email from them.
People just aren't interested in filtering the net. If they are worried what their kids are doing, they MAKE THEM DO IT IN FRONT OF THEM, like proper parents do. If they aren't worried, they wouldn't activate a filter. An online babysitter (literally a "net nanny") is pointless and horrible parenting. And the biggest threat now isn't PC's or laptops or tablets that use the wireless, it's smartphones that bypass it to talk 3G directly.
Nobody cares. Because, well, good parents are managing the problem already without the aid of unnecessary technology, and presumably bad parents couldn't care less anyway.
When the parents got home and raised the possibility of filtering I bet their kids gave them a good talking to hence the lack of follow through. This optional phase is temporary anyway in order to work out the bugs and soften up the electorate. Pretty soon we will begin to hear of 'demands' to make filtering mandatory, perhaps underscored by an expert or some otherwise avoidable crime but all the 'authorities' were on leave that day. Then some brave MP will stand up for the bankers and the war mongers (== ?) and make Britain great again. 2 minutes later the Australian public service will try and get it implemented here.
Well unfortunately I'm currently with Talk Talk and T-Mobile both of which immediately had my consent to unlock their content filters. However I only twigged they were on when I was blocked from various footy sites linked / associated with gambling. I still don't understand why the choice isn't there to select or opt in / out of blocking categories rather than lumping them together.
I don't need any filters (my only lad is 3) but when I get to the point where I do need to take this seriously, I'll be having to do my own filtering to keep open the parts of the net I and the wife want access to. I go further to suggest therefore that if people were given the option of just blocking 'porn' (or whatever) the uptake would probably improve, but as long as it's all or nothing who'd sign up for it?
So last week there I was a surfing away (A Scottish Indy website as it happens) and suddenly the site symbols on the browser tabs start turning into red V's. Smelling a Virgin rat (my ISP) I logged into my space on the website and there was their nanny software enabled by default, without me asking them to. I was unable to stop the damn thing. At least the person on the phones I eventually (after much menu choosing) was able to turn the thing off. I had to restart my computer to make it stick mind.
Not impressed.
It isn't as though the house is strewn with children on the net. Ours are well grown and flown. Just two middle aged adults, both well web savvy and one of us has a CompSci degree (much underused).
BTW we need a Branson based icon.
Thanks for the heads-up. I logged in to my vm account on a hunch after reading your post, to find they had kindly activated this rubbish for me too, without even having the manners to tell me. I went to settings and got greeted by:
"Because its your first time here, we have activated all settings for you, to protect..."
There was a radio button control to turn it off but no save settings button. When clicked on to change it to "Turn Off", I got greeted by a nice red dialog warning of death, doom and destruction, obviously designed to frighten those whom are less technologically literate.
It had better stay turned off. I'll be checking it periodically. While I don't do porn, I want it off because it should be my choice, not theirs.
I just had a look as well.
"Child Safe" was off, but "Virus Safe" was on by default.
Switch off "virus safe" (I really don't trust Virgin to keep me free from viruses) -- big orange warning. No save settings button.
Log out.
Log in again. Virus safe back on by default.
Switch off no-script filters. Reload page. Click switch off. Still no save settings. Peer suspiciously at screen. Log out.
Log in again. Virus safe back on by default.
Peer suspiciously at browser settings. Reluctantly pause Ghostery. Switch off virus safe. Log out.
Log in again. Settings saved. Bastards.
Do Internet filters really protect children? Children much under the age of puberty are not significantly interested in porn, so you really don't need filters for them. As puberty cuts in, boys (especially) become very interested in porn, and will soon find out how to get access to it. If they cannot access it from the safety of their own bedroom, they will get it sent to their phones or on USB sticks from school friends, or they will go somewhere else with unrestricted access that may be a considerably less safe environment.
except they weren't. Unexpected that is. Critics and opponents at the time warned of the consequences. Exactly the same as people in the UK warned that if you create sweeping powers (RIPA) for surveillance, you will get abuses.
In both cases, when the predictions came true, you had this pathetic show of "we had no idea".
If there's one thing the internet is good for, it's as a memory bank for the masses, to be able to record these denials at the time, and play them back when the politicians try to pretend they weren't told.
No, no, you can legislate against human behaviour. Politicians do it all the time. It's just that, after a lot of police effort, locking people up and general aggravation, much of it turns out to have been a mistake. But in the meantime a lot of public servants have had well remunerated careers.
for the following reasons:
1. most people like porn
2. lots of disturbing imagery can scar a child and still get past the filters (e.g. in recent studies pictures of tony blair or david cameron could leave an innocent child so traumatised they would not remember their own name)
"2. lots of disturbing imagery can scar a child and still get past the filters (e.g. in recent studies pictures of tony blair or david cameron could leave an innocent child so traumatised they would not remember their own name)"
True.
One shot of that big shiny face could leave a child having nightmares for months.
Already done. The UK has been systematically broadening the definition of child pornography for years, each time citing the need to 'close a loophole.' Ever since the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 prohibited posession of 'pseudo-photographs' - images that looked like child pornography, but were artificial in their production. Photoshop manipulation. Then in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 this was further extended to include artistic depictions and also redefined child for this purpose to not someone under-18, but someone who *looks* under eighteen - closing the 'loophole' of using young adult actors and dressing them up to play the part of a younger character. It also stated that the children don't even have to be human, they just have to have the characteristics of a human child - meaning someone in government is specifically thinking of either some of those hentai characters or furry porn.
Basically, I could draw a stick-figure couple having sex, declare one character to be underage, and go to jail for production of child pornography.
Sadly with the notable exception of TalkTalk I think the others all use DNS. So turning filters on has a very limited effect.
1. Whole sites are categorised this can lead to two outcomes, either a site which is 99% clean gets blocked or sites which contain a mix of clean and content to be blocked gets categorised as clean.
2. DNS is ludicrously easy to circumvent, there are a couple of YouTube how to's that seem to have been put up by 12 year olds explaining how to defeat DNS blocking on a variety of platforms.
3. There is the content itself. Manual addition of sites to be blocked simply doesn't scale. There are services available that do this which are a combination of crawlers and people but these arn't cheap. So guess what!!
No, not the crappy Aussie soap, but those people that live around you. They'll scupper any filtering you want in place anyway, by leaving their networks wide open and unfiltered.
One of my guests was recently using my neighbours "single guy speed" WiFi accidentally. Quite why he thought I'd leave my network open is beyond me, but there he was busily downloading things to watch later.
The signature. If it's drawn/painted/protographed by a famous artist, it's tasteful nudity and classic art. If it's by someone you've not heard of, then it's porn. Many of the most respected artists in history liked to draw nude, erotically-posed, attractive (by their standards) women.
If Botticelli painted it, it's The Birth of Venus and gets hung up in a gallery. If you were to paint the same imaged, it'd be Hot Chick Gets Her Tits Out and be considered obscene.
I just got a new router from Sky and had to go through the whole I want porn selection again.
When I was in a flat share we had TalkTalk (legacy account, no one wanted to change it) and every time I went on to pay the bill after logging in, I got the Filter screen which I always had to select no, so that may account for the bigger uptake.
In the BBC article it mentions that as Virgin require an engineer to complete the install, and as a matter of course they have been selecting no for the customers, Virgin are saying that they are going to be reviewing the instructions to engineers, I think they should be given bonuses.
The blocked.org.uk site shows some interesting stats by ISP
https://www.blocked.org.uk/isp-results
Of all the checks done on their site the sites being blocked by ISP range from 0.01% to 14%
As they are testing the same site against each filter how can their be such a large difference in sites being blocked?!
I run two websites concerned with cannabis law reform, one is a long standing reference site, ukcia.org and the other an active social-political campaigning site, the UK's largest membership based cannabis campaign clear-uk.org. Neither of these sites encourages the use of cannabis nor advertises services such as seed suppliers etc. Both are blocked by BT, and Virgin and UKCIA is blocked by BT, Virgin, Sky and Talktalk
I have tried to contact all of them over the past week, BT were easy to contact and replied that the block was correct, I couldn't challenge it and they refused to say who did the "filtering". Virgin ignored two e-mails and sky told me UKCIA was correctly classified as "drugs and criminal skills". Talk talk refused to entertain any consideration of my request as I'm not a customer.
This would seem to be a case of genuine web censoring of an important social debate designed to ensure the only information about cannabis comes from approved sources such as the government's Talk to Frank.
This is web censoring dressed up as child protection.
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