Get ready for mandatory porn site age checks, Brits. You read that right The UK government is to lay its digital bill before Parliament today, which, among other things, is intended to create a legal right for every household to access 10Mbps broadband. Age verification will also be required for people browsing pornographic websites, supposedly for the protection of children from online porn. The …
It does baffle me.
10Mbps over 100m has been available since... well, 10BaseT. And there have been WAN technologies available to do such things for decades, over even the flakiest of copper.
The core problems lies not with the end mile, surely, but with providing provision to the exchanges. And, let's be honest, are you really not going to need to upgrade every exchange at some point anyway? Surely it's now inevitable.
I don't think it's the exchanges, I think it's the last mile or indeed miles. I live in a 500 house village near Sheffield and Rotherham and if it wasn't for a privately run business-standard village-wide wifi service we'd still be on 1 Mbps because our nearest exchange is approx 4 miles away. (And of course people who aren't signing up for this company and it's rates are still stuck at 1 Mbps.)
Well maybe if this law passes you'll have the "right" to 10Mbps in your village but there's nothing about cost still. So what does that mean? They're forced to offer it but can charge you thousands for a dedicated line? They're not allowed to offer packages less than 10Mbps? Those seem to be the only viable interpretations of this law and neither really makes much sense. Maybe if you're an ISP you're required to offer 10Mbps to anyone who wants it. Which is a great way to keep out new competition as only BT, TalkTalk, et al. could absorb such costs. Again, as a law this makes no sense?
And what the Hell does this have to do with mandatory age checks, too? Another way of putting that is anyone visiting such sites legally must supply personally identifying information. Yes, that's exactly what you should not be putting into a porn site. Nor should the government be snooping on it.
"Right to 10Mbps" means it will be written into the "universal service obligation". That is in order to get a license the operator (e.g. BT) has to agree to provide a minimum service to anybody who requests it for the same price. Exactly the same as the obligation to provide everybody with a phone line.
So the condition is to offer it for the same price, the obligation also only applies to large national operators allowing smaller firms a chance to compete (probably by piggyback on BT Openreach anyway)
This is interesting. Bog-standard broadband has traditionally been 'up to 8Mbps' (YMMV). Since I complained about some problems and got the last 200m of my line replaced I've been getting about 7.5Mb, from an exchange about 1.5 miles away.
We're still waiting for FTTP (yep, FTTP, not FTTC - they've promised), which has been promised for many months - but it looks as if it's very, very close now. The exchange was enabled last year, now we're just waiting for our cabinet to get sorted.
Mysteriously though, a month or two back, I happened to check my connection speed on the hub, and it had gone up to 17.5Mbps down, and 1.25 Mb up (was 400k). No notice, no trumpeting of the change. Is this a side effect of enabling the exchange for fibre? Either way, it means that it looks like a fairly easy job to hit the 10Mbps target without much extra work. Having said that, other users on our cabinet are still only getting about 5Mbps or less.
This is a switch to ADSL2+ which supports speeds up to 24Mbps. I'd imagine that openreach are no longer offering products based on ADSL. As you live quite close to your exchange you get a decent boost on speed. For people further from the exchange the benefit of ADSL2+ is very small and won't take people over the magical 10Mbps boundary.
Are common household data rates really that low over on the other side of the pond?
Here in Canada we've been getting 50 megabits download and 35 megabits upload for at least 10 years now and our local comms provider Telus, have had their 150 megabits synchronous comms with the same upload and download speed package at a very reasonable $80 CAN per month with 600 Gigabytes of data allowed per month for almost two years now!
In the downtown core flats that are all fibre optic connected, their Gigabit Ethernet package which is actually cheaper at only $65 per month is almost spot on synchronous with One Gigabit download and 0.8 Gigabits upload for superfast gaming and 4K video Netflix options. How hard can it be to wire up a country? My cousins in Munich, Germany have had inexpensive Three Gigabit IPV6 Video, Voice and Data for at least three years now and you can pay extra to get the full 10 Gigabit package although that price package is definitely much more expensive. If Germany and Canada can give the public high speed Internet, why can't the UK do it too?
A certain conservative member comes to mind... only the orange wasn't in his christmas stocking.
Ah! I see now! They're trying to save the children from perverted politicians!!! It all makes sense now.
Joking aside, I don't use El Reg to promote my resources, even if they are free ;-)
Oh goody
The politician's favourite propaganda prorogation site "twatter" will have to ban everyone who isn't prepared / able to hand over a credit card number as proof of ID. While "twatter" might host lying stealing conniving cheating bastards like those penned up in parliament it is also used by many hard working ladies and gentlemen (and no doubt not so gentle if you pay enough) of negotiable affection. Plus more user generated content than you could ever shake your own stick at.
The Digital Economy Bill was first announced in the Queen's Speech earlier this year. It has the lofty aim of "mak[ing] the United Kingdom a world leader in the digital economy" via legislation.
Coming up next: legislation to enforce better wether. Britain needs to become world leader in beach resorts too!
Perhaps, but unfortunately Tor is very easy to profile. (This is why they haven't simply blocked it - it's so very useful!)
So High Chancellor Theresa May will have a nice handy list of all paedos/terrorists/dissidents in her country. It doesn't even matter what you were DOING with Tor, the fact you are using it makes you a threat, and you can expect a knock on the door (or at least a fingering) from the NCA i.e. May's SS.
You won't even be able to claim that your Human Rights have been violated, because by the time we sign Article 50, you won't have any.
Plus, as other people have said, this mandatory age-verification will presumably involve an ID check, i.e. scanning a biometric, swiping your government-issued ID card, or some other form of ID which can be linked to a central government pervs database.
Not too long ago, Theresa May (or was it Jacqui Smith?) wanted ISPs to force people to opt-in to porn. Those who did are on the pervs database.
But really it's not about porn, it's about controlling anonymity online in general. The only reason it's about porn right now is because people are more likely to accept a pervs database than a complete citizen/dissident database. Many shillspeople are now calling for mandatory ID checks on people using social networks and forums, ostensibly to make it easier for the plod to cuff anyone who says something naughty or otherwise offends somebody on The Internet.
Shortly it will be illegal to try to post anything or even view anything anonymously on the Internet (or otherwise attempt to subvert citizen/dissident profiling). And using Tor will be a one-way ticket to the rehabilitation centre.
Anon, while it's still legal!
"Not too long ago, Theresa May (or was it Jacqui Smith?) wanted ISPs to force people to opt-in to porn. Those who did are on the pervs database."
And they sort of did. They managed to get all the major ISPs to make new customers choose on sign-up whether they wanted restricted or unrestricted access to the 'net - presumably they would just need to get existing customers to make an active choice. Given fixed line broadband (I think) needs to have an 18+ account holder, job's a good 'un.
Of course, all this is ignoring the fact that the filters are terrible. My mobile blocker is still in place (vpn for most things on the road anyway as it gets rid of traffic shaping and the terrible DNS servers in the mobile world) and recently blocked my access to a video games forum as "adult content".
And then how would the sites operate with connections from outside the UK?
Why would they care? All this age verification crap is coming from that patrician twerp Cameron, aided and abetted by Sturmbahnfuhrer May.
May has a degree in geography, Cameron in philosophy, politics and economics. So between them they know the sum of f*** all in all matters of business, science or technology, and if they managed to mess up the UK's internet they would simply not understand why that mattered.
So how will they enforce Mandatory Age verification on porn sites that are not hosted in the UK?
No problem. The referendum result abolished Abroad. The World now consists of Blighty, and some empty spaces on the map filled with mythical creatures.
"No problem. The referendum result abolished Abroad. The World now consists of Blighty, and some empty spaces on the map filled with mythical creatures".
And that's a problem how??
I refer you to the country known as the United States of America.
Oh good, yet another way for the old guard to say we're going back to the good old days, this time by preventing Johnny Foreigner corrupting the youth.
Still, there's about a 90% chance at the moment that anyone who proposes a change in the law will get their way and then fuck off before they have to deal with the consequences.
"No problem. The referendum result abolished Abroad. The World now consists of Blighty, and some empty spaces on the map filled with mythical creatures."
No problem. The referendum result created Abroad. The World now consists of more than just the EU nations and now includes formerly mythical places like "Orstraylia, Carnida & NeoZelund".
FTFY
A the wench. Are you a gerontophiliac or something?
Ah, I get it, you are mistaking her for her namesake. Though I do not think that you may stand a chance to get any glimpse of Teresa (without h) May if Theresa May gets her way.
I'm beginning to believe that, after several Home Secretaries have made the same fundamental error about what can be achieved by legislation w.r.t the Internet, that there must me an underlying reason for this degree of ineptitude.
Maybe the Civil Service department for imparting "knowledge" to politicians of what is possible is incapable, uneducated, or likes seeing their charges laughed at by the technical community. It's got to be something like this, because they can't all get so far in politics without being moderately clever.
Or maybe MI5, MI6 and the Police just keep lobbying successive Home Secretaries with the same unworkable policies, hoping that one of them is really a miracle worker and comes up with a way of actually doing it!
was said: "It's got to be something like this, because they can't all get so far in politics without being moderately clever."
It all depends on the type of cleverness.
There is a type of cleverness that involves having a vague clue about the interwebs
There is a type of cleverness that involves mendacity, back stabbing, greasy pole climbing etc., etc. - i.e. the type of cleverness needed for political progress
If you took a Venn diagram of the whole country then there would be some intersection between the 2 clevernesses, but no guarantee that many of the current shower of MPs have a foot in both camps
What do you think Parliamentary whips are all about?
What the Whips know, the secret services know. They knew, without needing the inquiry started a few months ago, what Ted Heath got up to in his spare time (for example - Heath had 24x7 Special Branch cover even after he finished as PM). Same as these folk knew (in the same era) about Jeremy's activities (Thorpe, not Corbyn).
All the whips/spooks have to do is convince enough of their target politicians that the politicians are vulnerable to being exposed (whether it's true or not), and that's it, the spooks get whatever legislation they want, however badly drafted. however much it infringes fundamental rights.
See e.g. A Very British Coup (TV version, not Chris Mullin MP's original):
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/a-very-british-coup
And somewhere in the Independent, somewhere I can't find right now, is an article about what the whips know and what they use it for. A longer version of a story which BBC Newsnight cut short before it got to the most interesting bits.
Still, corruption's a third world problem, innit.
>>"I'm beginning to believe that, after several Home Secretaries have made the same fundamental error about what can be achieved by legislation w.r.t the Internet, that there must me an underlying reason for this degree of ineptitude."
There are actually four reasons.
Firstly, it gets a slight vote boost from people who are anti-porn and ignorant of technology.
Secondly, it provides the opportunity to funnel cash at mates in business and to lean on ISPs to make them do what you want because you can make things a real hassle for them.
Thirdly and most importantly, it's not about pro-active enforcement, it's about being able to charge people with something when they become inconvenient or annoying. Can't nick them for anything you want to nick them for? That's okay, you can get them for "viewing illegal pornography" and "bypassing the protections that block foreign and often extreme porn". (note the weasel words in there).
Fourth, and not much less important, it's one more backdoor through which intelligence agencies can force through surveillance and tracking of people. One of the (un)holy grails is to ban VPN usage by any non-business. I.e. the public.
"How the heck is the silly woman going to enforce this mandatory age verification when the vast majority of grumble sites are not in this country?"
That's the clever bit! If the "Snooper's Charter 2.0" gets approved, they'll already know how old you are from GCHQ's analysis of your IP traffic (e.g. which Facebook, email, Amazon etc. account was accessed from the same device in the same session context).
Either that or access to porn will be via GCHQ's pay-per-view portal (this is part of the Great Leader's plan to pay off budget-deficit 2.0)...
> ...when the vast majority of grumble sites are not in this country?
Hush! Don't tell them!
The same has been tried in Krautistan, to no-one's surprise industry just relocated. We also had (have?) the rule that adult sites could only be usable between 8 pm and 5 am (IIRC). Apparently some people haven't quite grokked that this planet is of a certain non-disc shape.
Not so long ago, the gubbermint was banging on about making ISPs pose the question "Do you want porn filtering".
Sure enough my ISP (Virgin (on the ridiculous)) popped up a question asking if i wanted their porn filter.
Obviously, being male and almost 50 i told em to go 4th, as an adult with NO children it was none of their fucking business what i cover my screen in.
But NOW the westminster fuck witt collective posse have decided that *their* porn list must go ahead.
Because???
To protect innocent children from the horrors of human flesh??
Fuck right off.
Simply put, you say you DONT want a porn filter, your name is on the kiddy fiddler, terrorist , £$€ launderer list. Oh, you watch porn, then you MUST be a miscreant...
And how do you enforce it?
Government to BT.... we demand you put this in.
BT to Government... why not Virgin?
Government to Virgin...we demand you put this circuit in
Virgin to Government...why not skiy?
Government to Sky...
and so on and so on and so on.
The same way mail and transport services are provided to economically non-viable regions?
You can make the operating license conditional to certain terms. You can also provide subsidies. I'm pretty sure government has other tools at its disposal.
The world is an amazing place. All sorts of obvious and non-obvious things exist despite our skepticism.
When did we elect a new Puritan Party? I can see why they thought this was a good idea, stop 'extreme' porn, child pornography, protect kids, etc. The reality however, is that anyone hosting that sort of material will not comply with any laws the UK enacts and will not ask for the age verification from 'viewers'.
The capacity for scope creep with this is tremendous, do they want to draw up a 'deviants' list? What if I want to look at some 'teen' pr0n knowing full well that most of the models are in their twenties, not teenagers? Will I be on the sex offenders register?
Additionally, kids these days are the most tech savvy for that age group created to date and future generations will probably be even more so. I'd not be surprised if many of them knew how to use VPNs, Tor, etc., etc. They'll find a way around it so it won't protect them either.
What happened to the good old days of finding your pr0n in some bushes (no pun intended)?
>I can see why they thought this was a good idea, stop 'extreme' porn, child pornography, protect kids, etc.
It was never about that.
The terms "children," "child pornography," "extremism" and "terroris(m/t)" have become weaponized over the last few years.
>What if I want to look at some 'teen' pr0n knowing full well that most of the models are in their twenties, not teenagers? Will I be on the sex offenders register?
From my understanding, under UK law, if it looks like a child, it's "child pornography."
That said, UK law is always vague. For example:
>Protection of Children Act 1978
>[...] a photograph is an indecent photograph of a child if it is indecent, and if it shows a child.
...
>The Act does not define the term 'indecent'.
So I can't give you a more accurate answer, sorry.
> That said, UK law is always vague.
Well there is a very obvious reason for this.
The laws are drafted by lawyers.
Vague laws are open to interpretation. They don't have any meaning until their is some case law to set the meaning and this all mean legal fees. Lot and lots of lovely fees.
It's a job creation scheme.
Uhm... I told them damp string was the pron filter, cough, and they seemed to accept that self regulation was the proper way forward for the industry.
I also dropped in on The Climate Change Committee and cautioned about rising sea levels as a result of all this rain we have been having recently. They were a bit nonplussed until I pointed out that all of that water eventually finds its way back into the sea via those things called rivers.
Anyway. I advised that they raise the Thames Barrier to stop the rain entering the sea and implement a hose pipe ban until it had all evaporated. They seemed much happier after I had provided them with a solution they understood rather than the problems other expert witnesses come up with.
"yes we want a nice handle to go in your hand", "easy to hold and apply enough force".
What? the blade thing? oh that is just there to balance the handle, no the handle is what we talking about here.
Age is the distraction, full identity end to end is the goal, oh and they will know your age too I suppose.
Two points.
First, if the blocks are implemented in the same way as they block torrent sites then I suspect google will see an uptick in usage of their DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
Second, theres no point promising 10Mb/s broadband AND blocking porn.. If it wasnt for porn we'd still be happy with 56k modems!
1. Is the age check for the customers or the 'actors'?
2. Is this check an upper or a lower bound?
3. Wouldn't it be better to have a qualifications check instead? If the two scantily clad friends really need the air conditioning fixing in their hot apartment, I'd like to know that the person who comes to fix the unit has all the necessary electrical and air conditioner qualifications required to get the job done safely and won't just spray fluid everywhere by accident.
Banning recreational drugs created a black market where dangerous unregulated products flood the market. The same happened when alcohol prohibition was in force.
Make it too difficult for teenagers to access "normal" porn sites and they are quite likely to gravitate to P2P, newsgroups and Tor sites where they are more likely to come across the more extreme and illegal material. Not to mention the circulation of DIY porn made by the teens themselves,
I'm also concerned about exactly how the age of the user is going to be checked. Requiring the user to give CC details to every porn site is highly likely to result in an increase in the amount of fraud.
I'm not a fan of porn myself, but if you like a knuckle tussle over some that's your business.
With that out of the way, imagine if there's a freephone number for when the filter doesn't work and it's potentially one of those hideous make a selection with your voice services.
"Did you say "just give me some of that Bangkok anal glory? To confirm say: glory, category:Asian"
A
Side note: I'd believe they were trying to protect kids if half of the establishment weren't elbow deep in them in places like dolphin square.
How?
"Are you at least 18?" Lie. "In what year were you born?" So kids can't do math(s)?
This will end up with schemes that collect data that kiddies are not expected to have access to. Like a credit card number. I don't know how many web sites I've turned my back on that promised to use such data only for age/identity verification.
If government(s) really cared about Internet porn the would have pressed the ICANN and other authorities into moving these sites to their own space their-by making it easy for ISP's to offer filters.
Clamping down on Internet porn is about 20 years too late. But of course it's not so much about porn.
> Clamping down on Internet porn is about 20 years too late.
Errrr
How old are you?
It's been around for a lot longer than 20years and certainly pre-dates what you'd recognise as the Internet these days.
I remember reading an interesting article, in the Torygraph I think, about 20 years ago talking about how every major step in communication technology seems to have been driven by "porn"
Some of the earliest know statues are of naked women or gentleman sausages
Painting nudes drove the improvement of realistic paintings
As soon as the printing press was invented they printed dirty books
As soon as they worked out how to cheaply print pictures, they printed dirty pictures.
No sooner had photography been invented, then they were taking porn pictures.
the list goes on, 8mm projectors, Polaroid cameras, VHS ...
A) sex sells (and before any comments about "Men" how many women bought Kindle's to read 50 shades)
B) like with illegal drugs, porn consumers will buy even when the quality is shit and the service is difficult or dangerous to use. So porn consumers acted as the bleeding edge of Internet as a business. just like they did for printing, video players etc....
Whenever I read articles like this I just lean back with a smug smile safe in the knowledge that my VPN is protecting my privacy and allowing me access to any and all sites.
Citizenvpn.com is based in Denmark and delivers from Bahamas so no EU or US governments can force them to do a damn thing. This is the way to go!
I propose a return to the use of 'Leisure Suit Larry' adult verification questions. Even the keenest of porn-consumers is likely to be put off when asked five questions like this:
Who was not Vice-President of the United States in 1973-74?
a. Gerald Ford
b. Nelson Rockefeller
c. Thomas Hayden
d. Spiro Agnew
More serious answer - completely agree with the sensible commenter who points out that the most likely result of this is going to be that young people simply leave the web and its relatively regulated content, and obtain less mainstream porn through less mainstream methods such as BitTorrent. Or possibly be more inclined to sexting, which again is not necessarily a great outcome.
The usual way to "prove" you're a legal adult is to provide a credit card number. They already try to get you with the provide your credit card number for a free week and cancel if you want and they hope you forget to. They can now combine the two. Quit trying to legislate stuff. I can keep my kids from pr0n sites myself. Maybe some parents can't, but there are products out there that can insure that most sites remain difficult to reach. I don't need government telling me what to do.
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