No super-kinky web smut please, we're British Film censors in the United Kingdom will be able to ban Brits from accessing websites that stream especially kinky X-rated videos, if a proposed change in the law gets up. The Digital Economy bill, which is due to penetrate the statute books in early 2017, is set to include a provision that will allow the British Board of Film …
Yeah, like I noticed that the "Autumn Statement" didn't include a budget increase for the BBFC to allow them to employ 50,000,000 new censors, which is just what they'd need to start with if they want to start monitoring porn sites on the Internet.
Still it could solve the unemployment crisis at a stroke (or has that been banned?)
@Dazed and Confused
Re: "Still it could solve the unemployment crisis at a stroke"
I do have this increasingly horrible feeling that following the driverless vehicles / robotics / machine learning / AI revolution that is coming and will lead to mass unemployment, the State will be employing vast numbers of the population as informers on their neighbours. In return for the very generous offer of basic income... :/
And before you think it won't affect you, have a look at this study of job types:
https://public.tableau.com/views/AutomationandUSjobs/Technicalpotentialforautomation?:showVi
OH, this is that SEL Tory MP who still can't manage to set her browsers access controls and demands ISP's do it for her.
IIRC she wanted every internet set to have an age rating.
She thought you could use those gambling sites to do so. They looked pretty trustworthy to her.
TOTC because, you know, that the usual excuse for this BS.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I voted against Corbyn.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I thought I was "management".
Then they came for the Jews and the Muslims, and I did not speak out—
Because I was neither a Jew nor a Muslim.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
It's a fair enough sentiment (though a bit early for a Godwin). The thing is - all this rubbish started years ago with Labour (maybe before), was carried on by the coalition and now the Tories have taken it on - so there's no one left to vote for. UKIP fall for the "protecting children" bullshit too and who knows what horrendous rules the greens would come up with. Protests have been held - and ignored so that doesn't work either. What else can be done?
"who knows what horrendous rules the greens would come up with."
Well this Green, and many I know, object to this kind of censorship (as well as the extension of online snooping powers). A further issue --- not addressed by Tor and VPNs --- is the disproportionate impact on independent producers in the UK, who, perhaps ironically, are often women (which seems at odds with the supposed "feminist" arguments for censorship). There is also a clear risk of mission creep: what is to stop mandatory age verification for adult material blocking access to information on sexual health (which is clearly at odds with "protecting children")? I don't know any Green who would consider that to be a good idea, or the idea of extending the gatekeeping powers of BBFC (whose classifications were originally just advisory), or granting them a monopoly on age verification. The Open Rights Group has expressed concern about privacy risks with the proposed age verification. That organisation was founded by a former officer of the Green Party of England and Wales.
Whatever else you may think of them, in the context of censorship and mass snooping at least, those with Green sympathies seem to be among the few voices of reason.
(Anon, reluctantly, because... politics.)
This post has been deleted by its author
Maybe because
Karren Brady (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karren_Brady)
is not the same person as
Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-blocking-powers-to-protect-children-online
Just a thought - feel free to borrow it as you seem a bit hard of thinking...
Of course it will!
"Hello anoymous web user, are you 18 or over? ( Y or N)"
"Well I'm a sexually frustrated 15 year old, I'd better tick "N"...."
====
Working from a statute that was codified in 1958?!? FFS! Did they have anything more adventurous than "missionary" in 1958? There are 12 years old boys at my daughter's school showing each other hard-core porn on their mobiles FFS! Despite having "the talk" with our daughter when she was 9 years old and maintaining an open dialog about anything to do with sex, she still ended up looking at smut when she was 12 ( which lead to more sit down talks! ). Kids will find a way to get to see it, no matter how hard to want to ban it, and here's a clue for you censors, the more you ban something the more people want to see what it is and why!
In 1958 even missionary was illegal in Britain - by definition you had to go to the colonies to do that. We used to reproduce asexually, by sharing a cup of tea then sitting on a toilet seat your spouse had just sat on. However until 1986 spanking leaving a mark wasn't just legal, it was mandatory,
This post has been deleted by its author
This is the worst showing of Daily Mail Politics in quite some time. Put simply you find something that the readers of the Daily Mail are likely or have expressed an opinion of disgust about. Then you make campaign promises/moves to make it law/enact law etc. It doesn't matter that the law is unworkable or easy to circumvent that's not the point, you're showing the voter that you're tackling the big issues. This from a government that allows as did the previous ones to allow unencrypted soft core pr0n to be broadcast on the DTT platform. Yes TelevisonX (and I think one other?) is broadcast in the clear and is easily found with either a Nokia receiver or a USB stick and software.
Sadly this will doubtless have repercussions on all types of sites from those that are full on pr0n to those that have very little questionable on them baring something arty and erotic. Hell Youtube has people uploading the odd video nasty every now an then that lasts for a few minutes/hours/days before it's removed. So we're banning Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, Dailymotion, Bing Videos etc. Some UK pr0n producers have had to site themselves overseas to get round existing restrictions and some have fought the regulators see ATVOD vs Pandora Blake for an example of this.
One of my favourite examples of these things getting out of hand was in 2011 as found on El Reg
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/25/ignorance_of_scottish_pr0n_law_no_defence/
A spokesman told us: "We do not publicly disclose our prosecution policy in relation to specific offences as to do so may allow offenders to adapt or restrict their behaviour to conduct which falls short of our prosecution threshold."
They added that any such information would also be exempt from any attempt to tease it out by using Freedom of Information legislation.
On the plus side if there is one, it may encourage more people to get more computer literate and start using VPN services etc.
As they seem to want to make criminals out of anyone seeing anything that you might not want your servants seeing, they are bound to force people into using Tor, VPNs and proxies. In fact most internet savvy teens are already using them...
Hopefully one brave ISP (!) will refuse to censor sites (they are hardly "qualified" and won't want the burden), and take it to the courts, if only to point out the idiocy in stopping people seeing acts that they can legally do. Most acts with age limits (smoking, drinking, driving... ) are fine to watch if you are too young to actually do them.
I must admit I absolutely *love* the idea of people flocking to VPN services as a way to avoid local censors spotting anyone watching dodgy stuff. The last time I looked, most of these operators were actually based in the US, so all these VPN users were doing was giving US authorities insight into their online activities.
Next time you want to use a VPN operator, just check how careful they are with your personal information. Especially check where they physically host their services or you might as well not bother.
Why would you gve a VPN operator genuine personal information??
1. If it's paid-for, then you need to pay...
2. If it's free, there is the question whether they log traffic - they can see your real IP and your destination. If they log that, then your PII is at risk. Worse yet if they're really unscrupulous and do DPI to skim for e-mail addresses or other PII to sell on. You're basically setting yourself up for a deliberate MITM to get around a greater evil.
Do your research.
Hopefully one brave ISP (!) will refuse to censor sites (they are hardly "qualified" and won't want the burden),
I'm not sure if this new legislation is intended to apply to all ISPs or if it will only be applied to the largest.
Andrews and Arnold famously don't filter. The big ISPs all have (optional) filtering in place anyway for parental control, and mandatory filtering infrastructure for court orders (like the Pirate Bay block and the Child-Porn blacklists they get from CEOP). Most of those are implemented via straight up DNS blocks, so I can see them just stuffing their new blacklist in there so they can say they've complied whilst the rest of us carry on using 8.8.8.8 or OpenDNS uninhibited.
I doubt many of the ISPs will want to go to the expense of pursuing a judicial review when they can just wing it with a gimped DNS "block" and not really inconvenience customers whilst also ticking the government's boxes.
buy a VPN
Buy a VPN? This is el Reg, people round here fire up OpenVPN on a small cloud server. If you can't be bothered to roll your own there are already precanned ones. I found this in about 10 seconds
Oh, it's /logical/, all right -- it's consistent with the existing old-school porn regulation, which makes one sort of sense. The alternative would be level down the regs so videos of the various legal-to-do-but-not-see stuff become legal. You may very well think that the latter is a more sensible approach, and perhaps you'd be right, but it's not inherently more /logical/ than the alternative.
</captain_pedant>
The alternative would be level down the regs so videos of the various legal-to-do-but-not-see stuff become legal.
You are correct, that would be the logical way to do things.
However, it would have all the Mumsnet/Daily Mail etc. crowd up in arms because "The government is letting our kids watch dirty porn*, won't somebody think of the children!"
* "Of course, it isn't the responsibility of the parent to educate their children and ensure their wellbeing, that's too difficult, so we want the govt to do it for us. Then we can just sit back with a nice bottle of wine and let the TV and internet raise and educate our children."
Two words: Theresa. May.
It's not all her doing, of course. But she's been working on her agenda for a long time. The Snooper's Charter and internet regulation are two projects she personally has been working on for ages, and now she's in a position to ram them home. So to speak.
It may be no coincidence that Theresa May has already publicised her $deity$ belief as guiding her social policies. Deja vu 1979.
One announced intention is that faith schools will be allowed to select all their pupils on religious identity. The Roman Catholic Church has said it will now look to increase the number of schools it runs.
Ironically a lot of the fetish community were promoting Brexit because the European parliament was debating outlawing some sexual activity. Completely ignoring that the likely impact would be Theresa May, whose record is heavily anti-women and anti-sex; and also ignoring the huge sex industries in the Netherlands and Germany that would have blocked any EU legislation.
>Ironically a lot of the fetish community were promoting Brexit because the European parliament was debating outlawing some sexual activity.
Really? That's kinda suggesting those in the fetish community aren't also binmen, cyclists, doctors, dope smokers, engineers, beer drinkers, artists, alligator salesmen, farmers or whatever, each with many facets to their lives which might be affected by Brexit for better or worse.
The Snooper's Charter and internet regulation are two projects she personally has been working on for ages
Interesting. As I recall, the Snooper's Charter massively predates Theresa May, having been introduced as the Communications Data Bill back in 2008... when Labour was still in power.
The true snake in the grass (and the one who keeps shoving his pet project back into the hands of the incumbent Home Secretary) is Charles Farr - the Civil Servant who never stopped being a spy.
Or maybe he's just the semi-public face of the Illuminati.
Do not think so: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/secretary-2003-3
In any case, what do you expect to happen when a soft porn newspaper + video peddler whose business is on the wane becomes a major political sponsor. I would not expect anything different.
No, if it's classifiable (and Secretary is), then it's fine, but needs to be behind an age-verification wall.
If it's unclassifiable then it's out entirely because it must presumably contain something deemed "obscene" (by 1950s standards).
Of greater note is not just the porn bit, but Maria Miller's 11th-hour amendments submitted on Tuesday which seek to suffix all instances of the words "pornographic material" with "or adult material".
Which could mean anything. It's a serious and profound change to the scope and meaning of the legislation
Someone should ask her to explain (in the House, of course, so that we can all read it in Hansard for generations to come) *precisely* what the difference is, so that judges can refer to her definitions when deciding cases. (I'll wager that 99.99% of the population have gone through life believing that the latter is simply a euphemism for the former, so we'll all be *fascinated* to learn what the difference really is.)
On my Freeview HD telly I deleted the pr0n channels themselves and then moved the adult separator blank channels to surround the news channels. I couldn't think of anything more adult than the news.
A lot of people are saying just use TOR, a lot of self content sites block TOR access for obvious reasons. I have not seen any sites blocking the Opera VPN so far. But I think the bill will make it illegal for a site to promote bypass technology making this post and the site in itself up for a ban !
A lot of people are saying just use TOR, a lot of self content sites block TOR access for obvious reasons.
Indeed. All the sites I have online have access banned from anonymous sources. That was the result of a simple analysis of 3 months worth of access and error logs across sites:
% of anon access looking at content: 0
% of anon access trying to reach the admin interface (unsuccessfully as I changed the URL): 100
Not a hard decision IMHO.
Good choice staying anon. A while back I mentioned that we ban tor IPs at work because none of them are customers and most of them are malicious, and got downvoted into oblivion.
This may have to do something with the reasons why. I didn't block them by default, I did it after checking if I wasn't cutting out valid visitors. I'm perfectly OK with people seeking to protect their privacy to the point of not having advertising, asocial media links or 3rd party statistics on any site, but there was nothing coming in via that route. At the same time, even the raw 404s showed that any hit from an anonymised channel was with malicious intent, so it then wasn't a hard decision to make.
I would have loved to make this better controlled, but when I asked Maxmind to quote me prices for their specific anon database (rather than what we extract from the generic licensed geo database) they got coy and wanted to know why we'd want it, no doubt to see for how much they could stiff us. As I have no permission to discuss corporate strategy with sales idiots, that's where the conversation stopped - they can keep it.
I did it after checking if I wasn't cutting out valid visitors.
But that has just changed. As a matter of principle, as soon as the IPBill was passed, I changed my normal web browsing from my main personal PC to go via various foreign VPN proxies. I have been using it for several days now, including things like reading this site and many purchases.
Any company that wants my business from now on will have to accept connections from anonymising sources. I don't suppose I am the only one.
Any company that wants my business from now on will have to accept connections from anonymising sources. I don't suppose I am the only one.
Really? So just how consistent are you planning to be? Will you also check who is funding the company? Which political direction they're leaning? How they screen their staff? Will you geo-locate their resources before you talk to them? Will you use an anonymous form of payment, and can you use a fake name and address?
Not to belittle the attempt to remain anonymous, but people who think that just slapping a TOR solution on their Internet use is all it takes to protect their privacy are sadly mistaken. It takes a *lot* more.
Meh I already VPN around the globe to do anything ranging from generic searching to smut enjoyment to region lock avoidance. I pretty much gave up on freedom and liberty over the course of this decade, and oddly it isn't right wing puritanical christian sorts that seem to want to ruin the party this time around.
"[...] oddly it isn't right wing puritanical christian sorts that seem to want to ruin the party this time around."
Theresa May has already claimed her $deity$ is her guiding force in social legislation. Her father was an Anglican cleric. She has already announced that faith schools will in future be allowed to select all their pupils by their family's religious observance. Several religions have said they will now expand to more schools on those grounds.
"Theresa May has already claimed her $deity$ is her guiding force in social legislation. Her father was an Anglican cleric. She has already announced that faith schools will in future be allowed to select all their pupils by their family's religious observance. "
This is in a country where most schools are paid for out of general taxation, and where successive governments boast of "no selection in our schools." Funny that when a school denies a place to a child, on solely on the grounds of whichever flavour of deity the parents (claim to) believe in, the government smiles on approvingly.
In any other field, e.g. job or college application, such blatant religious discrimination would have you up in court. In publically-owned schools, it's somehow ok.
Indeed - total licence to con people.
I'm assuming CC details would be the age verification method, which is obviously a security risk.
I assume most people are very careful about what sites they give their CC details to, and thus the whole idea is to drive non May approved sites out of business.
I blame it all on May getting irritated when (until she became a more well known politco) ego surfing would have kept giving the similarly named grumble flick actress in the top results.
Not PayPal, I'm sure - they have a long history of refusing their services to anything even slightly porn-related.
But the major porn parent companies like MindGeek are already gearing up to offer age verification services to smaller sites (at least, those they don't mind competing with, the others will be left out in the cold) and they are looking at that as a major source of income going forward.
So the likely outcome is a few huge porn companies dominating the market for mainstream porn, in effective collusion with the UK government, and all the smaller companies (especially those providing less mainstream content) driven out of business.
I was concerned that the UK was facing some really, really bad times ahead that was going to require the entire concentration and effort of the government and civil service for years to come to overcome (if indeed they can, which I doubt). But obviously I should not have been concerned - clearly the problems aren't as bad as expected and so the government has plenty of time to spare on silly, pointless legislation aimed at satisfying the crazy beliefs of T May and the Daily Fail. Rejoice!
Reminds when we acquired a new VP of HR in my old job (a few jobs back) when I was standing in for the head of IT (5th year in a row).
She was mortified that we do not filter anything for content only for malware/av. She came to my desk all shouty and demanded we do it at once.
I told her fine, would you mind continuing the discussion in the kitchenette/rest area. At which point I slapped in front of us the spare copy of Sun which was there on the table and told her to ban it first, in writing with the punishment being sacking and telling her to publish the order on the board. Until she does it, I WILL allow what is err... on Page 3. Turned it around towards her and opened it on page 3. She nearly exploded there and then. She tried to complain to the CEO, who decided I have a point.
So she did not come back with this until I left the company. At that point she came back shouting at my replacement the first day I left. As he was the typical UK IT he conceded defeat there and then.
It's the AIs I worry about...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/18/ai_gives_smut_peddlers_helping_hand/
Liberals should take the opportunity to brand Conservatives as anti-democratic, anti-freedom and anti-pron....
Run the next election on a platform of freedom, democracy and the ability to watch whatever fetish they have (everyone has a fetish.. even if its just to be vanilla..)
Seriously tho, I do think the next election will be won by the party that pledges to revoke the harmful policies of the Tories (not that I think Labour would be any better)
Seriously tho, I do think the next election will be won by the party that pledges to revoke the harmful policies of the Tories (not that I think Labour would be any better)
The Tories already ran on that pledge in 2010. Then they started issuing bills that closed loopholes in the harmful laws they had pledged to revoke and it was business as usual.
Literally
WHY?
What I want to do, watch, see, drool over or imagine is MY business, it does NOT affect you, the regulator, the isp or some perverted mp who probably already pays for what they want in an illegal backstreet slum.
I really really wish other people stopped thinking they had a right to interfere in MY life, I dont want to, have no interest in and do not actually interfere in their life.
True I guess that for those making the videos I would prefer to believe they were all of a suitable age and far enough from poverty/drug dependency and the like to make the decision that this is what they want to do.
I do wonder why the British think that a person selling their body for sex (or even pictures of it) is so much more disgusting than a builder selling his body to make a building or me selling what is left of my brain and health to create (often pointless) software???? It is ALL just a way of using our individual 'gifts' to make money, and the last time I checked lapdancers and prostitutes in most of europe earnt a hell of a lot more than me, had far better living conditions, shorter hours and in all honesty were NOT the ones exploited... except in the UK where it is all illegal and the gangs have them.
Too many do gooders thinking they have the right to impose their stupidity on us.
A bit like yesterdays story that Heinz have been stopped doing some adverts in case people might somehow stupidly cut themselves on a tin ...
Frankly when will we get to a point where enough people get fed up enough to start hanging these people?
Well I am coerced into going to work every day in order to get food for my family, to provide warmth for my family, a roof over their heads.
True there are going to be people who dont want to do sex acts of one sort or another but end up 'having to' to pay their bills BUT by making it illegal you don't stop the demand but you do hide everything and make it worse for those who are coerced. This is the situation for prostitution in the UK. Now I do know that personally I would object to them saying 'ok, by that logic even child porn should be legal' although I agree that it would. For me I would much rather they went ahead and found the people buying the stuff and treating them rather than hiding it and allowing the Savilles of this world to carry on behind the scenes.
Seems from various reports that a reasonable part of the politicians partake of these kinks... but then I guess power, money, influence allow them to get what they want to deny to others.
Personally the police could do us all a favour, raid the HoC and HoL, and lock them all up on suspicion of perversion and leave them there for the full time allowed, then decide that they might be up to terrorist acts (like destroying British industry, curtailing the freedoms of the British people and slaughtering civilians elsewhere) and just leave them locked up.
But then from yesterdays report the police are probably too busy filming the public from their helicopters or reading our email
Reddit has several, if not many, subreddits where images/clips are uploaded by relatively anonymous users. As I understand it, the law requires the site to be "age verified" (by use of credit card details as one ironic example). When Reddit fails to change its entire login method to comply with the request of one particular country, then the new legislation is clear: ISPs are ordered to block the site for non-compliance.
So, how long before Reddit is banned in the UK?
how would this be any more effective than say the current ISP blocks on certain torrent sites? the ones that are still accessable with a quick google search to find one many proxies for them. This is a pointless waste of time, it wont stop anything its only a scare tactic and something politicians can beat the drum saying look I did something to try and make things better.
Never mind the fact that the state has no business telling that I can not view something I can legally do with my partner. What happens between contentual adults is none of the states business.
Waste of everyones time and money.
We are going to introduce a bill that allows us to know exactly what sites you have been looking at.....
Britain: "Yeah - I'm not happy about that - but I'm not bothered enough to do anything about it"
oh and also - we don't really want you looking at porn and will make it incredibly complicated and potentially risk you having to hand credit card details over to sites if you want to view them.
40% of Britain: " So... VPN then? Yup VPN...."
Various tech blogs and magazines - "hey, want to know how you can look at whatever you want on the internet without being spied on by the government?"
65% of Britain: "So.... VPN then? Yup VPN...."
Government: well, we have an idea of who we want to track - but they seem to be using a VPN.... like well.... pretty much everyone is - ever since the anti-porn law.
---
and the nonsensical thing of course - just like "we want access to WhatsApp" and encryption is bad stuff, is that "tracking terrorists" is nonsense - because they don't write their plans on Facebook or Twitter, or send them via SMS, and they certainly don't chat about them on WhatsApp. I admit I don't know exactly HOW they communicate - but I would imagine - a secure VoIP call is probably pretty high up the list? And if they are looking at something potentially incriminating online - I doubt they just use bog standard internet, at the very least there will be a proxy server or VPN involved - and very likely - it's not even their own connection that they are using.
But it's OK UK Gov you just continue pretending that all these powers are required for catching terrorists. I'm just wondering how long it will be before the off-the-shelf RaspPi boxes become available - that are configured to do nothing but load random websites 24x7 to make sure if there are any logs about what you have been looking at over the last year...... they are VERY VERY VERY FULL logs...... full of noise which completely obliterates any hope of building a profile of a user.
Perhaps this is not an entirely bad idea? Imagine the poor individual searching for a steamboat holiday in Cleveland with the term Cleveland Steamer!
But seriously, wasn't it a Tory MP who wedged an orange up his chuff, wrapped some cable around his neck, and his stranglewank promptly killed him? Great moral arbiters those politicians!
You know, the sort of people who believe in small government and personal freedom.
There is now no one to vote for, possibly Lib Dems but their new leader is not great on personal freedoms, and they are still a little left.
The Conservatives are travelling down an authortarian route they should never take, are they trying to out UKIP, UKIP?
To the left supporting people, do not assume all right wing people are the same, the idea of voting UKIP to many is as abhorrent as voting for any extremist party.
The natural politics of this country is the centre ground, with the parties now competing on how much they can control us.
Why can they not let us just get on and live our lives?
"There is also a clear risk of mission creep: what is to stop mandatory age verification for adult material blocking access to information on sexual health (which is clearly at odds with "protecting children")?"
Mission creep is a built-in feature, because as well as blocking terrorpedo sites and services, they also have a category of "esoteric" websites.
"Esoteric” is defined by OxfordDictionaries.com as “adjective: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest.”, or, in other words, subjects that are not "mainstream" (as defined by UKGov).
9/11 conspiracist? Banned. Communist politics? Banned. Fringe religious beliefs? Banned. Got questions about the activities of a given corporation? Banned. Got a blog exploring alternative political philosophy? Banned.
Anything else the gov doesn't like? Esoteric! Banned!
Potentially, even more worrying, alongside "esoteric", "Terrorism", "Extreme porn", "Smoking" and "Drinking", another category that the gov is holding the banhammer over is simply called "Web Forums".
What? ANY web forum??
I suspect it may not be long before certain hacker groups take an interest in all this and decide to teach the gov a lesson in how the interweb actually works....
If it was just "porn sites" that would be an almost surmountable problem, "almost" because I'm sure 100s of new sites spring up daily, but the real trouble is user-generated content sites. I don't see any feasible way to make this work with say Tumblr or 4chan aside from blocking them completely.
Labor Senator Conway tried ram in through. Most pollies are very conservative so it would easily pass the house.
But the public uproar was deafening. It dominated the news for a while. Conway just waited for the uproar to subside. But it did not. And then the censorship plans were quietly dropped.
The current conservative government would love to reintroduce it. But they are on a thin margin and will not dare.
Weak effort Brits.
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