back to article UK.gov snaps on rubber gloves, prepares for mandatory porn checks

The government is poised to usher in mandatory porn checks this week, with reports it will require users to provide details from a credit card to prove they are over 18. The legislation was introduced in the Digital Economy Act in April, and will require websites serving up adult content to verify users' ages or be blocked by …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

    that they can improve the world by meddling in this. Not like there's anything that needs doing, or that they have a mandate for?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

      They are basically too busy circling the fresh corpse of the maybot at the mo to worry about running the country. With the exception of a few horse shit token pieces of legislation, they are pretending they are back in roman times, 'et tu Boris' etc. Fact of the matter is, that they fucking love it at times like these. The smug bastard who's the chair of the 1922 pretending he's the kingmaker, cabinet ministers briefing against each other, back benchers betting their careers on picking the right person to fellate. Tories, back doing what they do best. Infighting.

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

        So, the UK government wants to do the following:

        • Encourage people to hand over credit card details to porn site operators

        • Force people to provide socially embarrassing information to untrusted parties.

        • Increase overlap between mild non-standard porn and more serious things such as underage porn and snuff porn by making the mild non-standard porn only available from the same illegal sources as others. Much the same way less harmful drugs can be gateways to more harmful drugs because you have to go to the same people due to criminalisation of the former.

        • Declare for other people what is and isn't sexual morality for them.

        • Make larger and more legitimate porn sites less desirable than smaller and dodgier ones who can flout the laws.

        • Perform extensive and intrusive online surveillance to enforce this. (Ostensibly).

        N.b. a couple of the above tie into specific implementations. Namely that May's government is very puritan and believes porn itself is morally wrong.

        To those simply saying "VPN", they are correct that it will be trivial to avoid this measure but there are a few further things to keep in mind:

        • This is one more move in the chess game. That it doesn't mean check does not mean that it isn't an advance by your opponent that has consequences.

        • For a police state, everybody must be guilty so that anybody can be charged at any time. Criminalising common behaviour achieves this and as using a VPN to avoid such checks will undoubtedly be illegal, vast swathes of people will suddenly become "guilty" and thus subject to targetting should there be a reason to find something on them later.

        • This will later be used as a justification for outlawing / backdooring VPNs because the very obvious next step is to show that VPNs are being used to access "illegal porn". Why is it illegal? Because the government made it so. That is what we are seeing today.

        • The government can still go after the porn companies themselves if they do not implement this. Most would to prevent them losing chunks of a large market like the UK. So will those of other countries. Customers using VPNs will only mitigate this somewhat, not prevent it.

        1. Naselus

          Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

          "This will later be used as a justification for outlawing / backdooring VPNs "

          For all the noises that May has repeatedly made in this direction, I rather doubt it will ever happen. The Tories are run for the benefit of the business community. Business is not interested in having VPNs outlawed or made less secure.

          1. John G Imrie

            Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

            That's all right. VPN's terminating at registered businesses will be allowed. All others will be banned.

          2. theModge

            Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

            "This will later be used as a justification for outlawing / backdooring VPNs because the very obvious next step is to show that VPNs are being used to access "illegal porn". Why is it illegal? Because the government made it so. That is what we are seeing today."

            That's certainly how it looks to me, at least for personal use, because as the user above says it would greatly damage business. That said, the current "Europe Thing" we're having proves that the interests of business or the economy can come second to a politician's personal gains.

          3. h4rm0ny

            Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

            >>"Business is not interested in having VPNs outlawed or made less secure."

            VPNs will have to have a justifiable purpose. I.e. if you're a business register your VPN connection and why. If you're a domestic home user, you'll need to justify it and furthermore, given that such laws as this will typically be used retroactively to catch people you want to catch rather than be the reason you catch them, showing that you've used it for illegal purposes will be a crime of itself.

            Furthermore, a VPN isn't inherently anonymous. It's just often used for that purpose. A business could have a VPN to some other office. It doesn't mean that you can definitely have a VPN to a popular and legal VPN service. Easy enough to declare VPNs for the purpose of anonymising domestic use illegal and leave business needs untouched. Hard to enforce of course, but then that's not the point, is it? The point is that if the eye of Sauron turns in your direction, it has something to pin on you.

            EDIT: Can we have an Eye of Sauron icon for state surveillance? Poor Orwell is looking a bit passé these days given by how far we have actually surpassed what he imagined with his concealed telescreens.

            1. StargateSg7

              Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

              I can make a VPN completely out of software in ANY web browser and there is NOTHING they could do about it! I'm in America and UK can take a long hike up a short hill with the porn rules! They can't touch me here! I can put my plugins into any browser with 8192 bit encryption or Quantum Computing resistant algorithms to protect my data! I can do BETTER than TOR or other Onion-like routing!

          4. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

            I don't think businesses want a suicidal Brexit, but this is what Maybot seems to be aiming for.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So will Experian / Equifax.....

      So I'm assuming Experian / Equifax will have an added field to my credit profile to show whether I'm opted into / out of Porn usage with my Credit Cards?

      Given my credit profile can be accessed by anyone with money via Solicitors etc, how does this affect things like Black mail?

      Rudd / May + others haven't a clue.

    3. Tom Paine
      FAIL

      Re: Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

      Lucky parliament have got so much time on their hands

      The law was passed last year, as I'm sure you'll remember.

  2. lee harvey osmond

    Restraint of trade

    Aw snap, the ATVOD business all over again. A website proprietrix of my acquaintance is once more going to be spitting blood and fire, snarling "restraint of trade" and so on.

    Although, to be fair, her trade does mostly involve restraint.

    1. RayzorWire

      Re: Restraint of trade

      I have a similar friend - this may actually end up benefiting them as the ATVOD fiasco only targeted producers in this country, if the big free streaming alternatives start getting blocked this could actually be of benefit to local producers.

    2. WolfFan

      Re: Restraint of trade

      Although, to be fair, her trade does mostly involve restraint.

      If we paid her enough (and, I know, it would have to be a lot) would she please have a go at restraining May Not and the rest of the Tories? Please?

  3. TonyJ

    1984

    One step closer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 1984

      No. The proles were allowed all manor of low-brow distractions because of their political unimportance. So much so, they weren't even subject to surveillance, because Orwell didn't foresee that computers and databases would make marginal surveillance essentially free.

      We have a unique Protestant cyberpunk dystopia of our own making.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 1984

        "We have a unique Protestant cyberpunk dystopia of our own making."

        We have a unique Protestant religious cyberpunk dystopia of our own making.

        FTFY

        I doubt if any organised UK Abrahamic religious body would not try to influence its MPs to the same end. Even the Hindus in India are now trying to eradicate their own religious erotic stories and temple statues.

        Only the Quakers might be more tolerant of human foibles - given their history of a more balanced approach to social "morality".

      2. tiggity Silver badge

        Re: 1984

        In 1984 they were told they subject to surveillance - e.g. via the telescreens although supposedly not all the time, the behavior control idea was they never knew when surveillance was on or off. Though a lot of the surveillance ideas were based on grass your neighbour

  4. JimmyPage
    Big Brother

    Conjours up the image ...

    of "Approved by HMG" on jazz mags and sites. A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically.

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically.

      That's guaranteed to kill the mood somewhat

      1. My Alter Ego

        Re: Conjours up the image ...

        "A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically."

        We have a few of them in the office. One colleague decided to get a collection of Theresa May photos as a present for another colleague (who was overly enthusiastic about her when she became PM).

        These now have large amounts of very crude graffiti all over them since the GE (even the previously enthusiastic TM supporter joined in) - how the mighty* have fallen!

        * Not that she was mighty in the first place.

    2. Chris G

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      You are not suggesting an image with thigh length vinyl boots and a cat o nine tails are you?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Conjours up the image ...

        "You are not suggesting an image with thigh length vinyl boots and a cat o nine tails are you"

        I'll think you'll find S&M sites are illegal in the UK, even between consenting adults.

        Still so long as the MP's husbands husbands can get their porn on expenses, who cares?

      2. lee harvey osmond

        Re: Conjours up the image ...

        Someone's got their wires crossed, I believe this is a Gordon Brown reference.

        Remember his catchphrase when Chancellor "we will do <whatever> when Prudence permits"?

        Yup. She had a flat in Bayswater apparently. [And, leather or rubber, never plastic. Ugh.]

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically.

      I hereby invoke Rule 34 of the Internet.

      1. Paul Woodhouse

        Re: Conjours up the image ...

        was gonna say... I'm expecting to find that image and similar all over social media websites later today..

      2. WolfFan

        Re: Conjours up the image ...

        A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically.

        I hereby invoke Rule 34 of the Internet.

        ITYM Rule 63.

    4. chivo243 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      @JimmyPage

      So, are mags also illegal in the UK? If they have a pic of TM on the cover, I think they should be...

    5. CraPo

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      Do you mean....beatifically?

    6. TonyJ

      Re: Conjours up the image ...

      "...A picture of Theresa May smiling beautifically..."

      Oh ffs! Did you have to?

  5. AegisPrime
    Facepalm

    Worthless.

    1) Go to Chrome extensions

    2) Install Tunnello* and pick a less dystopian country

    3) Browse porn with impunity

    *not a recommendation - use a real VPN.

    1. frank ly

      Re: Worthless.

      I think you'll be supposed to go to the nearest police station to hand over your VPN under a short term amnesty. I'm worried because I have no idea how to remove the VPN from my computer.

    2. Chewi

      Re: Worthless.

      You won't even need to do that. This will be all but unenforceable as most porn sites are hosted outside of this country. All this will do is put the British porn industry out of business.

      1. AegisPrime
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Worthless.

        The uh, 'big guns' of the industry (PornHub, RedTube etc.) will have no choice but to comply - not through fear of being fined but because they won't want to fall foul of the Great Firewall of the UK.

        The smaller porn aggregators will likely slip through the net since clearly UK.gov has no clue how many porn sites there are out there.

        Even Paris can see that this whole thing is just (ironically) political masturbation.

        1. RedCardinal

          Re: Worthless.

          Except that (as far as I can see) there's no suggestion of UK ISPs blocking access to porn sites which don't comply.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Worthless.

            Um, 2nd paragraph?

            It'll be a game of whackamole, but anyway.

        2. theModge

          Re: Worthless.

          > "Great Firewall of the UK."

          I rather assume this is an excuse to implement same

      2. Teiwaz

        Re: Worthless. British porn industry

        Britain has a what now?

        Ah, the proud era of the classic british porn industry - steam powered - all coming out of the ears of the classic British conservative prude (the steam - not the porn - but stranger things).

        All I can think of per example is Razzle and it's sometimes more tasteful ilk.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Worthless. British porn industry

          IIRC the best parody of the British sex film industry was the 1975 Eskimo Nell.

          That should be the one where the finale is a mix-up in the film cans for the cinema premiere. The X rated version gets shown to an audience of people like "Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford" - who had backed a pitch for a wholesome family film variant.

        2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: British porn industry

          High class British porn is acclaimed all over the world.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Worthless. British porn industry

          Wasn't Britain the inventor of the "Readers Wife"?

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Worthless. British porn industry

          The British Porn Industry has been around for some time, they make a virtue (not sure if that is the right way to describe it) of saying "Banned in Britain" as that implies a harder (pun intended) edge to the Grumbleflicks.

          At least thats what my friends in the Home Office told me...

          Rob

          1. Boo Radley

            Re: Worthless. British porn industry

            I always preferred banned in Germany. The German hardcore stuff I've seen was damn near shocking - what would the Banned be like?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Worthless. British porn industry

              horrific I should think.

              "Give that chippy what she wants" - sorry, in - joke for a mate who I know reads this site.

  6. Ochib
    Gimp

    And registration of users etc went so well for users of Ashley Madison.

    1. Pen-y-gors

      But shirley...?

      They want to use the ownership of a CC as a way to validate age. Okay.

      But they want free sites to take CCs.

      Using someone else's card with intent to defraud is a crime.

      BUT if someone got a legit CC from overseas with zero credit limit, and used it on a free site, they could then pass the card details around thousands of people, who wouldn't be able to charge anything to the card anyway, even if they wanted to.

      Can we get a card in the names of T May and A Rudd and pass the details around? No intent to defraud after all...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How do you fine companies not based in the UK or EC? Who gets to play the endless game of whack-a-mole as companies endless change their domains? Will the credit card companies balk at the idea of their systems being used as a pseudo age verification process? Are the people who come up with these schemes really as thick as mince?

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Credit Card Companies

      They'll just charge you a £2.00 (or more) booking fee per validation.

      Champers all round then?

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "How do you fine companies not based in the UK or EC?"

      They get added to the ISP "anti-piracty block list" as we advance further down the well predicted slippery slope.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do maybots dream of electric wheat fields?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Whilst I agree in principle...

    Forcing people to give full CC details to the sort of people who run some of these sites? Sounds like an "Open Fraud" plan to me...

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "All this means that while we can enjoy the freedom of the web..."

    lol.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How does this work for sites not based in this country? (I might be being a little thick here)

    Also will tumblr be included...

    Obligatory Dilbert:

    http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-01-24

    1. Velv
      Big Brother

      "How does this work for sites not based in this country? (I might be being a little thick here)"

      The government will give UK ISPs a list of banned sites they are to block. Similar to the blocked pirate sites, but without any judicial review of the list.

      1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

        The government will give UK ISPs a list of banned sites they are to block. Similar to the blocked pirate sites, but without any judicial review of the list.

        The government will give a few big ISPs a list of banned sites they are to block. Smaller ISPs (who are generally more competent at providing a service as well, without £1/minute help lines) will remain unaffected. My ISP doesn't block anything and is always in the top three for customer satisfaction.

        A thought just occurred to me: does the existing block list of pirates apply to all net connections, or just consumer ones?

        1. Rol

          I read that legislation somewhere in the pipeline will allow businesses to sue the government for lost revenue due to their changing the rules.

          So it looks like the gravy train is about to pull out of the station and you'll need to get your porn site up and running if you want to cash in on a lifetime of government subsidised grumble.

          1. Bernard M. Orwell

            "I read that legislation somewhere in the pipeline will allow businesses to sue the government for lost revenue due to their changing the rules."

            That was part of TTIP, which I understand is now dead in the water. This is a good thing.

      2. RedCardinal

        yeah that'll work just like it does with Pirate Bay...

    2. rh587 Silver badge

      How does this work for sites not based in this country? (I might be being a little thick here)

      Also will tumblr be included...

      Or reddit, imgur, wordpress.com or any other mixed-usage services that include everything from blogs, news and opinion through to xxx with everything in between... or indeed wikipedia.

      Of course they haven't really addressed this glaring oversight "*ahem* "edge case" in their legisation. Porn only ever exists on dedicated porn sites dontcha know.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        We can't have that. We'll simply have to have DPI and ISP-installed MITM certificates.

    3. Bernard M. Orwell

      "Also will tumblr be included..."

      Or Reddit, Imgur, Pintrest, Google, Facebook, DeviantArt....? Or are they, de facto, not "porn sites"?

  13. Anonymous Noel Coward
    Boffin

    Is it limited to credit cards, or would a debit card suffice?

    1. DailyLlama

      You have to be 18 to get a credit card in the UK, you can get a debit card at 16.

      1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
        Unhappy

        Bugger. I've only got a debit card. No bland UK porn for me. I'll just have to put up with the obscene American kind.

      2. Anonymous Noel Coward
        Big Brother

        So anyone who has a bad credit rating is shit out of luck, then.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Being hard up has new meaning...

          So being hard up, has new meaning in light of new laws, if you can't get credit.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Being hard up has new meaning...

            "So being hard up, has new meaning in light of new laws, if you can't get credit."

            I wonder if there is a case for the ECHR under human rights. Depriving people of access to something in an arbitrary way.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Being hard up has new meaning...

              "I wonder if there is a case for the ECHR under human rights. Depriving people of access to something in an arbitrary way."

              Rules come into force in 2018, we leave the EU not that long afterwards and once that happens, May will be moving to get the UK out of the ECHR too. She's on record as wanting that. And at the speed justice works, it'll no longer be relevant.

      3. A K Stiles
        Facepalm

        16

        There are other things you can do legally in the UK at 16 too... assuming you can find a consenting partner, but apparently you're not allowed to look at pictures of it happening for another couple of years!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 16

          "but apparently you're not allowed to look at pictures of it happening for another couple of years!"

          IIRC its ok - possibly only in some UK jurisdictions - if you are married to the under-18.

  14. StaudN
    FAIL

    Farcical

    It's almost like they don't understand what the internet was designed for...

    1. DropBear

      Re: Farcical

      We must strap them down into a chair Clockwork Orange style and force them to watch the South Park cautionary tale called "Over logging"

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What? Get a couple of dicks to use the handy sign up, live on BBC News.

    Looking forward to the BBC News coverage showing Jackie Smith's husband, with Philip May in the background giving him a helping hand to sign up to the new rules for PornHub, xvideos.com etc. With Theresa May saying "There are boy's jobs and girls jobs you know", in the background.

    This has to be the most pointless waste of time ever, given how easy it is to share multimedia content using private messaging or usb/disk etc. The horse has bolted, I just wish Amber Rudderless/Theresa May would.

    I don't even believe this has anything to do with Porn, this is about controlling the internet, having oversight, having grey data back to individual using a particular IP.

  16. Richard Wharram

    Gambling

    The gambling model is a dumb one to follow. Gambling websites need access to your cash by definition. Streaming pr0n doesn't (necessarily, so I'm told. Obviously I don't know.) This is just a measure to make people scared to fap.

    So the purpose of the legislation is to scare people from masturb4ting by leaving them open to fraud if they do. Is that how responsible governments should behave?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What could go wrong.....?

    Visit dodgy porn site, enter credit card details, card ends up on dark web - who does HMG take advice from? Certainly not the porn industry who tried this age-wall in the 90's and found it unworkable, and I suspect not the credit card companies who's fraud rates could rocket.

    Most porn sites are not in the UK so who is going to enforce this? the ISP's who are going to play whack-a-mole with a better financed and resourced porn industry; who let's face it have few scruples and morels IMHO.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: What could go wrong.....?

      You are applying logic to a political decision

    2. Anonymous C0ward

      No morels

      Portobello or Shitake on the other hand...

  18. Sonny Jim

    Fantastic use of Godwins law

    How about, rather than introducing draconian laws, parents actually monitor and guide their childs internet usage?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

      How? When I was a kid I owned the router, network cables, and my parents computer was my hand-me-down box.

      1. Paul Woodhouse

        Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

        heh, I'm looking forward to my lad being old enough to match wits with me and try and get past whatever filters/proxies/policies or the like I set up for the household network and computers. Will prob. be a learning experience for both of us.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

          "heh, I'm looking forward to my lad being old enough to match wits with me [...]"

          You will be matching your wits against a consortium of the brightest kids in the school or even country. The school playground has long been the clearing house for useful/banned information - often handed down from one cohort to the next.

          In the old days a neighbour's young son explained how they regularly cracked the IT access bars on the school computers. A couple of nerds worked out the solutions - and they were distributed round the school as easy steps.

        2. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

          He already has found a way round it, and he's so good at covering his tracks that you don't notice.

        3. Cynic_999

          Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

          "

          heh, I'm looking forward to my lad being old enough to match wits with me and try and get past whatever filters/proxies/policies or the like I set up for the household network and computers.

          "

          What filters are you going to use to stop him bluetoothing porn from the other kids at school? And what harm do you believe it will cause?

          But if you DO succeed, he will be more likely to enlist the aid of a suitable peer(s) and simply create his own porn. He might even make a bit of money from it ...

        4. Paul 129

          Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

          They get a mobile phone. Then your screwed.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

        "When I was a kid I owned the router, network cables, and my parents computer was my hand-me-down box."

        You're parents probably didn't use computers for everything when they were at school. A fair number of current parents of school age kids did. I'd expect them to at least be aware of 'net security, safety and monitoring.

    2. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Fantastic use of Godwins law

      Children tend to know more about computers than their parents.

  19. That Steve Guy

    Another way of looking at this

    As the bill payer my ISP can verify my credit card details and open access to all content on my connection if I request it. I take control of it after all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Another way of looking at this

      Sorry but you have this all wrong.

      The law is not to stop you it's to discourage the general population from looking at porn. You can't have the ISP making it easy for you. There's also the argument that kiddies could be using your internet connection.

      It's also a series of steps that are easy to swallow when done bit by bit. lets look at the current running order.

      Obscene or illegal content.

      Copyright material.

      Football streaming.

      Porn

      What comes next?

      Government dissent? Ideologies? News?

      Basically anything is up for grabs.

  20. Terasoft321

    All this is going to do is move teens away from porn and more interested in interacting with real people online sexually, great way of attracting child predators. Not to mention that thousands of teens watch porn everyday and are unaffected, why don't you let parents do their job instead of you doing it for us.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Biology

      Just because the rest of the animal kingdom has managed to survive for millions of years by sexual reproduction without Internet pr0n, the UK Government have this crazy idea that if you don't tell children about sex, they won't discover it.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Biology

        I thought our economy was fscked because of our declining birth rate?

        Perhaps this is a plan to stop people staying at home with Ms Palm / Mr Wampant Wabbit and actually make some babies

  21. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    but...

    The under 18's get all the porn they need sent to them on their phones (sexting) so why do they need to implement this sort of thing.

    Barn Door closing after the horse bolted years ago.

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: but...

      Closing the barn door, despite the whole barn having been destroyed in a tornado...

      https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pointless+gate

    2. 's water music
      Gimp

      Re: butt...

      Barn Door closing after the horse bolted years ago.

      Personally I am happy that someone keeps the pr0n barn door bolted and so are my chickens

    3. janimal
      Childcatcher

      Re: but...

      They don't need it to work. this is just to appease parents, who will think it works.

  22. Wolfclaw

    So we can expect a leak of which Government employees are active monkey spankers !

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Theresa May / Amber Rudd "Cancer Kills" aka "Porn corrupts" type Cover Page?

    We could get Theresa May / Amber Rudd to produce one of those hard hitting legs akimbo / cancer type cover images (like they use on cigarette packets).

    I'll leave your imagination to come up with the required image .

    Each website could open with that, to put off any potential punters, save registering.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Theresa May / Amber Rudd "Cancer Kills" aka "Porn corrupts" type Cover Page?

      Excellent idea. Personally I'm hoping for a Porn Industry strikes back scenario, Spitting Image for the 2020s. And to make it more interesting, as well as the hardcore films lets have parallel 'implied' versions that go as far as they can without crossing the porn barrier. We've plenty of MPs who voted for these creepy regulations to feature in the new genre of PolitiPorn satire.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: Theresa May / Amber Rudd "Cancer Kills" aka "Porn corrupts" type Cover Page?

        Political satire utilising pornographic imagery goes back several hundred years.

        Plenty of examples of 18th century people lampooning their 'betters' by including them in pornographic images.

        Then photography was invented.

        "it's photography, hard photography."

        - Robbie Coltrane (as Police Chief) in Comic Strip Presents... Dirty Movie.

  24. Nick Kew
    Go

    Daily Mail

    Will the Mail change its entire character by getting rid of all those pics, or go behind a paywall? That could reduce the risk of following links to it!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rubber gloves

    YESSS latex!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    first they came for the terrorists,

    but I didn't speak up, because I was, ehm... busy.

    then they came for the pirates, arrr, but I was still busy!

    then they came for the porn-lovers, and I just gave them my credit card cause busy, busy, busy

    they they got hacked and I became world-famous through my card

    and then a knock on the door

    the plod to have a chat and more

    because

    apparently porn

    had been made a crime

  27. Velv
    Coat

    We must do something to stop teenagers watching porn, it's giving them seriously unrealistic expectations about real life.

    I mean, when was the last time you managed to get a plumber to visit so quickly!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hancock

    Fmnnnrr fnnnrrr

  29. Teiwaz

    Have the MPs opted themselves out of this one too?

    There's gonna be a lot of peeps caught out by handing their credit card number over to more useless poorly secured sites.

    It'll be like the late 90's all over again - only with more wolves gathering to feed.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Finger in a dyke

    OVER 18?

  31. Winkypop Silver badge

    Lazy kids these days

    We had to ride our bikes all the way to the newsagent to cop a look at a Razzle mag while the shop lady was busy!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lazy kids these days

      >We had to ride our bikes all the way to the newsagent to cop a look at a Razzle mag while the shop lady was busy!

      We just used to walk to the woods and find the porn mags people had nicely dumped in hedges.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who decides what counts as porn?

    Can we campaign to get dailymail.co.uk and thesun.co.uk onto the porn list?

  33. Swiss Anton

    How long will it be before you are required to verify your age to watch videos of cats and cucumbers (not the same thing a pussies and cucumbers, they are already covered by this legislation)

  34. RedCardinal

    Hilarity ensues....

    I'd take a quick guess that at least 95% of porn sites are operated by non UK companies situated on websites outside the UK and who's ISPS are also non UK.

    How will they be able to enforce this?

    1. Velv
      Boffin

      As per my earlier comment, they will require UK ISPs to block their customers access, much the same way they're blocking the pirate sites, but without Judicial review.

      1. Dave 15

        yup, as we all know censorship works wonders

        Of course this is going to mean that they will have to scan all cameras, tablets, phones, laptops, disks, usbs, cds etc coming into the country as well.

        Its all bollocks but then frankly have you yet met an MP wit a brain? I never have, they are just about able to find ways to fiddle the lax expenses system and get a back hander from an interested company

        Guess some porn sites want to be able to sell your credit card details on...

  35. JakeMS
    WTF?

    Woah wait a second..

    How does this work?

    "All this means that while we can enjoy the freedom of the web"

    Meanwhile:

    "The legislation was introduced in the Digital Economy Act in April, and will require websites serving up adult content to verify users' ages or be blocked by ISPs."

    Surely by blocking said websites and requiring verification, you are in fact removing freedom from the web? Not to mention all the other website blocking outside of this area they are doing.

    Freedom my arse. Wait, that may not be an appropriate thing to say with this topic.. Let me try that again...

    Freedom? Yeah right!

    Phew, that was a close one.

  36. codejunky Silver badge

    Shame

    It is a little upsetting that the libs are the ones opposing this. Not because they shouldnt but because they are the only ones who seem to be less authoritarian and I could be persuaded to maybe even vote for them if they would ditch their anti-democracy/cancel brexit stance. If they could just accept brexit they could offer a less authoritarian/surveillance state alternative that I could get behind.

    I struggle to see where the libs stand sometimes. They have such sensible alternatives as reducing state interference and more freedom but then seem to come out with some seriously bad ideas such as free tuition without reverting the university entry or overriding a democratic vote as a cheap bribe to the electorate. I do wonder if the libs underestimate how desirable some of their ideas are or if they unfortunately are lead by fantasists and fairyland nutters. It is a shame as they could be a legitimate opposition.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Shame

      It is my suspicion that "BREXIT means BREXIT" will result in more state interference in our lives. Both the current Tories and Labour leaders have totalitarian tendencies that have been held in check by rulings of the ECJ and ECHR.

      The Great Repeal Bill "Henry VIII powers" will try to avoid Parliamentary debate. It will allow the government executive to remove any current consumer protections or human rights as they wish. So much for restoring "Parliamentary sovereignty".

      Some of the apparent excesses of EU regulations were actually added by the Westminster government's implementations.

      An example is the farmer who told his MP he had voted to leave because of the delays in his subsidies by "the EU body DEFRA". He was rather put out when it was explained to him that DEFRA was a UK government body - which had already been fined by the EU for its delays in distributing subsidies.

      1. Dave 15

        Re: Shame

        Brexit... if you think May has changed then you believe in the tooth fairy, santa and the famous spot changing leopard.

        Let me tell you what is happening...

        a) All EU law is now in our law so leaving is pointless

        b) The whole 'negotiation' idea is being set up to fail in a big way to make the leave deal a disaster

        c) She deliberately lost the election - yes, that level of messing it up could not have been an accident - to make sure she has an excise to claim we need a 'revote'

        So in a couple of years time she will present us with a referendum pitting a disastrous exit which achieves nothing the British people want and costs billions vs staying in because she gets defeated in the House of Commons over the proposed exit.

        Then hey presto the leavers will vote against the deal because it is terrible. The remainiacs will vote against the deal because they dont want to leave. May gets what she wanted all along.

        This prying into peoples private viewing material was started during Blairs time and continues regardless of Europe, and actually encouraged by it... after all its all about big brother controlling your every thought and move lest you should question their authority to screw you (in the wider sense)

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: Shame

          @ Dave 15

          "Brexit... if you think May has changed then you believe in the tooth fairy, santa and the famous spot changing leopard."

          May is far from ideal. This is why I am disappointed in the libs, if they didnt tie their party to abandoning brexit they actually had some serious points to make. Labour and tory keep heading to more authoritarian territory but the libs and UKIP (Nuttall seemed to lose the plot a bit) are about the only legitimate opposition resisting it and I would like the libs to be more of an opposition than they are.

          "a) All EU law is now in our law so leaving is pointless"

          This really does point the problem of bureaucracies. They are happy to grow but never to shrink. I was disappointed to hear about this and it will make it much harder to get rid of EU laws. But at least being out of the EU we are free to. It gives hope that if this gov wont that another gov will scrap some of the EU laws.

          "b) The whole 'negotiation' idea is being set up to fail in a big way to make the leave deal a disaster"

          I am not sure about this one. Some days I hear something positive and others less so. As long as the gov accepts that a full/hard brexit is a good deal and only accepts negotiations up from there we are ok. I do fear them caving in and keeping us in. I dont have too much faith in this gov either.

          "c) She deliberately lost the election - yes, that level of messing it up could not have been an accident - to make sure she has an excise to claim we need a 'revote'"

          I dont know if it was deliberate. I am not sure they are that capable or skilled. I expect it was increasing overreach and overconfidence but you could be right.

          "Then hey presto the leavers will vote against the deal because it is terrible. The remainiacs will vote against the deal because they dont want to leave. May gets what she wanted all along."

          Cynical yet believable. With the incredible amount of rigging and dictatorship over our forced participation of this experimental political project it seems politicians are desperate to do anything to keep the gravy train and abandon elected rule.

          You get huge thumbs up from me for that last part. I dread to think how far this authoritarian approach will go before we reject it.

      2. Anonymous C0ward

        Henry VIII powers

        I prefer to compare it to the Enabling Act of 1933.

    2. Teiwaz

      Re: Shame (the libs)

      I think it's a shame many right leaning moderates got brainwashed by popularist rhetoric into voting for a nationalistic agenda thinking a facist police state in some form was not far behind.

      I'd say you got what you deserved, but we're all suffering...

      At some point you've got to ask yourself which do you want freedom from Europe or Freedom from an overbearing nutter-state bordering banana-republic head up its own arse monarchy still over-concerned over the 'permissive society' - and they'll not be another 60's for a few more decades.

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Shame (the libs)

        @ Teiwaz

        "I think it's a shame many right leaning moderates got brainwashed by popularist rhetoric into voting for a nationalistic agenda thinking a facist police state in some form was not far behind."

        Hahahahahahahahahahaaaa. I am amused you say right leaning moderates yet I am talking about the liberal democrats. What are you marxist? And how you conflate nationalistic agenda with getting out of the inward looking cartel of the EU which is also discussing hobbling encryption like the gov here and thinking it is any better is baffling.

        "At some point you've got to ask yourself which do you want freedom from Europe or Freedom from an overbearing nutter-state bordering banana-republic head up its own arse monarchy still over-concerned over the 'permissive society' - and they'll not be another 60's for a few more decades."

        You do know that blair wanted to be a president of the EU? Thats why he sold our country and would have had the euro here just so he could grab power. There is so much wrong in your comment I dont know if your trolling or delusional.

        1. Teiwaz

          Re: Shame (the libs)

          Hahahahahahahahahahaaaa

          - Seriously maniacal laughter - and to actually type it....'right leaning moderates' - I've honestly no idea what kind of frothing lunatic votes Brexit then bemoans any sensible liberal policies (I know the liberals are flawed - it's a flawed system) - I know the Eu is flawed too - but Brexit won't fixit, and won't fix the UK either. 'right leaning moderates' - I do apologies, it's probably not the right term - but you've obviously voted con or the anti-eu offshoot party - so right leaning - and you occasionally post sense on thereg - so I hedged 'moderate'.

          And what's the pseudo conservative Blair got to do with it - you're argument smells like the American view - always blame the last opposite incumbent as long as it's republic/democrat or con/lab) - Blair was more conservative than left wing - and quite frankly seemingly pressed from the same mould that was used to manufacture David Cameron (and Even Nick Clegg) - useless twats that lot that sold us all out a long time ago..(probably around the time they stood for whatever SU post they sprouted from) .Blair and the Euro in the UK ??? That decision was pre-millenium - it's almost tabloid frothing paranoia...that he'd managed to take the UK into the euro during his stint as PM.

          Honestly, what part of my comment even hinted that I would be or have ever voted labour. 'Sold our country' Blair wanted to be President. Nope I don't buy it - you talk like an American...

          Stop moaning you whinger - you won - you get May and Brexit and Porn controls and all the other baggage that came with that make Britain great mindset. You want a hands-off government - you don't vote in the screaming loonies waving flags.

          Stop blaming and take responsibility - my conscience is clear - I didn't vote con - but I'm stuck with the decisions your type made 'cause you thought you could get a euro free Britain and keep the moderate sanity we're barely clinging to when all you've done is loosen the leash on the moronic collection of inbred mostly public-school morons in whitehall - It sickened me that you have the temerity to blame the liberal party over their EU stance - if only you'd looked at the small print on the election promises of who you did vote for - but I suppose you never read past 'leave the EU'

          They convinced you most of the issues that grind on you could be traced back to one source and got permission to get rid of it - at least this time around an innocent minority hasn't been directly target from the get-go by uniformed thugs - yet.

          Perhaps I am delusional - but I'd rather be thinking outside the asylum than be manipulated like you obviously are.

          1. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: Shame (the libs)

            @ Teiwaz

            "- Seriously maniacal laughter - and to actually type it."

            Your comment made me laugh hard, it hurt. I felt strongly enough about it to share my feelings.

            "I've honestly no idea what kind of frothing lunatic votes Brexit then bemoans any sensible liberal policies"

            Eh? I was arguing the libs have some real good policies which have my interest and I admire their less authoritarian stance. It is their real loony stuff like abandoning democracy and overruling brexit which stops me even considering them.

            "I know the Eu is flawed too - but Brexit won't fixit"

            Neither will remaining (this was demonstrated).

            "but you've obviously voted con or the anti-eu offshoot party - so right leaning"

            Ah. More libertarian (not extreme). I am moderate (as far as I can tell) maybe marginally right leaning maybe, not sure. I voted anti-EU but who offered that choice? For years only UKIP and only last election cons.

            "Blair was more conservative than left wing"

            Not sure I agree there. He wasnt nutty left but he was definitely left leaning even if he tried to be economically competent (he wasnt). The reason to bring him up was his close alignment and very much agreement with the EU project and his anti-freedom stance. It was the comment of facist police state part that made me think of him and his patriotism to the EU.

            "and quite frankly seemingly pressed from the same mould that was used to manufacture David Cameron (and Even Nick Clegg)"

            They looked like a freaking boy band. All smile and no substance. But Blair would 100% have had the euro here if brown didnt hate him so much (good decision, wrong reason).

            "Honestly, what part of my comment even hinted that I would be or have ever voted labour."

            I think your comment came across wrong (to me at least). I was trying to comment my wish that the libs would scrap their foolish wet dreams because they do have good policies I like if not for their extremist ones. And you seemed to be saying I was right wing for wanting them to drop their extreme and pandering policies. I may have read it wrong which might be why I laughed so hard.

            "Stop blaming and take responsibility"

            I do take responsibility for voting out of the EU, I think its still a great idea as long as the cons dont cock up and somehow keep us in it. I dont agree with the cons authoritarian approaches but then before that I voted UKIP who were far less authoritarian. While you are stuck with this decision I dont feel sorry at all. I used to be called a eurosceptic until we were proved right. We have all been stuck with blairs dictatorial decision to sell us to the EU and have had no say at all until now, and the EU still cant get the population to support it.

            "temerity to blame the liberal party over their EU stance"

            I dont entirely blame them, I mention them for their good stance on this porn issue. I would love to vote for them and I have locally. But nationally they do seem to offer things that cannot be delivered or would be very undesirable so I cant support them. I do blame UKIP this election for being so bad at what should have been a fantastic opportunity to offer choice on brexit. A party who will actually get us out without mucking about.

            "at least this time around an innocent minority hasn't been directly target from the get-go by uniformed thugs"

            I fear it has. In polling who would admit to being a leave supporter? Hell in election polling who admits to intending to vote tory? I dont care what someone supports, I am bothered that people fear being able to admit it. Brexit won and I binned loads of snowflakes on facebook for their pathetic crying and demanding that leavers should be hung etc (no I didnt tell them what I voted because they are the thugs). The people protesting and demanding democracy be overthrown are the 'anti-fascists' , the theoretically liberal lefty groups who oppose evil in the world.

            "Perhaps I am delusional - but I'd rather be thinking outside the asylum than be manipulated like you obviously are."

            You start well, possibly you are wrong but you believe you are right and me too. But then you fall into the common stupidity trap that I am manipulated and your not which oddly is the position of every delusional nutter who believes they are right. I am willing to have my beliefs challenged but only with fact. Fact is politically in this country we have had such little choice especially in the last election. And unfortunately that leaves us with govs acting with impunity like now.

            1. MGJ

              Re: Shame (the libs)

              Abandoning democracy? Like having another vote some time later that might come up with a different result? Can we go back to the 1945 general election then, and just sit at that for the rUK for all time, with the 2015 result for Scotland. Or is it just referenda (advisory ones at that) that can never have their results changed?

              1. Dave 15

                Re: Shame (the libs)

                Abandoning democracy... yes, voting until you get the right answer then stopping is exactly that. This is what the EU has set up in every situation where they failed to get the answer required (Ireland, Denmark, France etc.)

                This government are doing the same.

                And as to 'advisory' as the MPs are in place to represent their constituents, no more and no less, then the advice 'get out' is exactly what they should do.

  37. Rosie Davies

    Just Guessing

    But based on what a devious little whatnot of a teenager I was. I'd expect this will just result in the details of Mum's/Dad's/Granny's credit card being circulated all around the playground and suddenly Maud, 94, has developed all kinds of new and unexpected interests.

    Rosie

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just Guessing

      On R4 a representative of a child protection group says it won't be credit cards - but a "verification token" obtained from an authorised issuer.

      It would be interesting to know how kids are not going to get their sticky fingers on the token. As it presumably only gets used to set up a pr0n account - and there are no monthly audit trails - then would a parent be any the wiser that it has been "borrowed"?

      1. John G Imrie
        Facepalm

        obtained from an authorised issuer.

        So that will be Crapita and friends then.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It'll make p2p popular again

    1. NoDosh
      Gimp

      Increase in P2P popularity

      Makes a change from A2M

  39. Rol

    Not Dark Web, but Lite Web

    I have very little understanding of the Dark Web, but know it requires a special flavour of web browser to access it.

    Well how's about a web browser that can only access white listed sites. And if access to the download sites of normal browsers like IE or Firefox for example are blocked then I'm sure something kiddie friendly can be rolled out, that isn't easily worked around.

    I suppose hard-wiring the browser to point at the Lite DNS and only that would be workable.

    And provided the youngsters have had their account permissions correctly set, than that should be enough.

    Well obviously there is one more thing to do:- make it an offence for an adult to allow children to access porn, whether directly or by not implementing adequate safeguards.

    1. John G Imrie

      that can only access white listed sites

      So lets do this the simple way and white list domain names. All I now need is a DNS server on my Raspberry Pie redirecting disney.com to firfox.org and the world is once again my oyster.

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Not Dark Web, but Lite Web

      V-chip reloaded?

      1. Rol

        Re: Not Dark Web, but Lite Web

        I hear what your saying, but in the same way I can download the onion browser and go all dark web if I wanted to, the choice is still with the consumer, unlike V-chip.

        If the IT community don't fix the problem of children viewing porn then as the article is pointing out, far darker forces will take that as a remit to step in and ruin it for everyone.

        Perhaps the WWW needs some radical fixing, so it becomes impossible to circumvent certain aspects of its workings, and thus be able to define safe zones.

        A little bit more overhead in nodal chit chat would suffice, like the implementation of an audit-able block-chain which would ensure nothing gets in or out of the petting zoo we set up for the kids.

        1. Alister

          Re: Not Dark Web, but Lite Web

          If the IT community don't fix the problem of children viewing porn

          Why should the "IT community " (as if there is any such thing) have any responsibility for fixing the problem?

          Parents should take responsibility for their children's actions, not expect either governments or tech companies to manage it for them.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What if...

    I ask myself..

    They could have an exemption for people without kids?

    That won't happen, this isn't about keeping kids safe, it's about controlling your reach beyond state controlled information and media.

  41. mustn't grumble

    What about the negative health impact

    Is the block is effective surely there could be an impact on the NHS (whilst its still around)

    http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/masturbating-frequently-reduces-risk-of-prostate-cancer/

  42. Dave 15

    I see a massive opportunity

    I will sign up to a huge number of porn sites.

    I will then wait for the obligatory hack.... all these sites will have my details and I suspect several of them are rogue or criminal in origin.

    When the said credit card is used by one of the hackers I will sue the UK government for all it is worth on the grounds that they forced the situation above

    Stupid egits, they really haven't a clue

  43. RyszrdG

    and so ..

    The extent of politicians self delusion that this will actually control access to porn and other 'undesirable' web sites is no surprise. Eventually they will realise the futility of this approach and adopt more draconian measures with even greater state control and inquisitiveness. Eventually we will only be able to access the internet using a state approved gateway and license fee. Welcome to the UK - the leading surveillance state of the 21st century and all self imposed.

    1. janimal

      Re: and so ..

      Except politically they don't actually need it to work, they only need to be seen to be doing something. The majority of Mumsnet users probably won't realise this is completely ineffective and allow their kids to roam free video chatting to strangers & being groomed by paedophiles.

      The internet doesn't need pics or video to be a danger to kids - ideas are enough FFS. The internet will never, ever be a place for unsupervised child access simply because it allows strangers to communicate with children.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The payment card industry will love this

    So, probably porn sites are not run by the most scrupulous people in the world (I mean, I'm sure most of them are fine upstanding citizens, but some probably aren't). And the idea is that people who want to access these will now have to hand over card details. So quite apart from a whole bunch of new places from which card details can now leak if they get hacked, there's a fairly obvious attack here: set up porn site, accumulate card details, sell details.

    This is just an insanely dumb idea. If there needs to be a way of proving age (which seems to me mostly unobjectionable) there needs to be a way of proving it which doesn't involve really obvious avenues for identity theft or just plain theft.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Small government in action

    'The government is also expected to announce plans to appoint a regulator to police the sex websites,'

    Anyone want to hazard a name for the regulator?

    Ofspurt?

    The very strict regulator?

    Paul Dacre?

  46. janimal
    Facepalm

    There are British porn sites?

    There are UK based porn sites? Who knew?

    This basically amounts to

    "we're going to spend a shit tonne of money implementing our new digital sieve defence shield."

    When will they realise that the danger to kids on the internet is not seeing porn, but in fact being able to communicate unsupervised with total strangers, by mail, txt, video etc.. That thing you were always told not to do as children?

    The internet will never be safe for children to be unsupervised on the net even if you removed all images.

    Also kids will continue to send naked selfies & film their friends, whatsapp, instagram.

    What is dangerous though is declaring it porn free & safe for kids. Because that will never be true.

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: There are British porn sites?

      "What is dangerous though is declaring it porn free & safe for kids. Because that will never be true."

      - Possibly the best solution would be to create a mini-web and bar children from the adult web - probably not workable than any other - but the gov can claim denial of responsibility to as they shouldn't have been on it - to lazy ass-non-supervising parents.

      Never said it wasn't workable - but it does have the distinct advantage that the rest of us tax-paying adults are left unbothered by bureaucatic creep and creeps.

      As to the barring bit - it needn't be any more than what some bookshops used to do for the adult section - kids could wander in - and frequently did - but were firmly ejected when discovered.

      Seriously - this facist security guard verification/token etc. crap is so creepy.

      At least this way they'd keep their heads down if they did.

  47. handleoclast

    Truly epic fail

    How much stupidity can be gathered together before it forms a singularity?

    How are they going to make this work with every porn website in the world? Especially when new ones pop up every day.

    How are the porn sites going to verify age other than by enforcing a card transaction? Will it be a one-off? Per visit? Per day? Per image? Do they refund the transaction once identity has been verified so you can surf the teasers for free?

    What prevents people setting up dubious porn sites in failed countries that just take the identification fee and provide no porn? What prevents those sites raping your bank acount and stealing your identity?

    What the holy fuck is wrong with your ISP noticing that your bill has been paid by a means which proves your age, giving you a username and password and allowing that user to define whether porn should be permitted or not? Sure, you need a list of porn websites to make it work, but at least they don't have to be porn websites that have been validated as being operated by honest porn merchants who won't rip you off when you pay an identification fee.

    Oh, wait, that last one is what we have now. That is obviously unacceptable. Because reasons.

  48. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Was this not a piece of the legislation first proposed by the Dark Lord Mandlescum?

    Or that back bench Conservative MP who had 3 children but could not work out how to engage (or perhaps disengage) parental locking on her browser?

    You know, the one who CMD put in charge of Child Exploitation & Sexualization, till they realized this suggested the Tories wanted to encourage such behaviour.

    1. janimal

      Re: Was this not a piece of the legislation first proposed by the Dark Lord Mandlescum?

      Just FYI: Claire Perry is the fucking idiot you are referring to.

      I wrote to her multiple times to point out that if you tell parents that the internet is safe for kids because you've "removed" child access to pornography you'll just increase the amount of kids being given unfettered access to the internet and the predators, blackmailers etc...

      Telling parents the internet is safe for kids is a danger to kids.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "Just FYI: Claire Perry is the fucking idiot you are referring to."

        Ah, that explains why I kept thinking "I kissed a girl, but I didn't like it" whenever I think of this twaddle.

        "Telling parents the internet is safe for kids is a danger to kids."

        Damm right.

        It's how the NSA thinks about "air gaped" networks.

        Basically "We loved it. People thought they were invulnerable. Once we got on into it we had pretty much free reign."

        The internet. It's usable by adults, but it's not safe for them.

  49. Colin McKinnon

    Fool rule fuels fullz

    (sorry, just had to get that one out of my system)

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    True story...

    I had a prostrate cancer scare about 10 years ago, it was a bit early for my age but I had the symptoms and the wonderful NHS had an appointment and check arranged in ten days.

    I won't go into the details but I came back clear which was good but I was talking to the consultant after the op about it and we wandered onto the subject of IT, firewalls and how he constantly has problems lookup up words such as penis and testicles as the firewall logs this and flags this as dodgy. This to a man who has just declared I do not have prostrate cancer and with the euphoric feeling he gave me when declaring me clear, I would happily have gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson on his behalf.

    Now if there is the slightest chance of a govt directive/instruction/law stopping this man checking on medical websites for such terms as penis and testicles, and helping ensure the health of people like myself, due to a govt cockup (pun intended) that such terms are pornography as, once we stop one type of website, its easy enough to stop the searches, I will be marching on Downing St, I will be talking to my MP, I will be standing up demanding that this is changed. I can easily see this govt making this type of search illegal, as they "think of the children". At this moment in time I'm thinking of myself and would be rather keen to extern my shelf life.

    Yet another stupid fucking law from a bunch of right wing twats who have zero understanding of technology. Can they not understand what a VPN does?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: True story...

      Talking of filtering, I tried posting a Daily Mail comment (I know, but I have to read it to know what idiocies my mother has been brainwashed into thinking [anti-tracking ad-blocking, no-script in place of course]) which included "Cambrigde Analytica" and found that in an allegedly unmoderated discussion it was impossible to get any comment containing "Cambridge Analytica" published.

      That should scare the living crap out of anyone who knows anything about Mass psychometric analysis and individual message targeting.

      FYI: Cambridge Analytica has white supremascist, ex Breitbart, advisor to president chump, cnut Steve Bannon on the board and was employed by both the Trump election campaign and the Leave.EU campaign to flood individuals identified as undecided with targeted messaging on FB.

      1. handleoclast

        Re: Cambridge Analytica

        You might be overly paranoid here.

        This is the Daily Fail we're talking about. My guess is that it's just a sCUNThorpe filter.

        A simple empirical ANALysis should prove if I'm right or wrong in my assumption that the bANAL Daily Fail has screwed up not only its reporting but also its IT.

  51. Blitheringeejit
    Facepalm

    "The government is also expected to ... appoint a regulator to police the sex websites"..?

    I wonder what kind of qualifications they'll be looking for ...

    1. Rimpel
      Coat

      Re: "The government is also expected to ... appoint a regulator to police the sex websites"..?

      >I wonder what kind of qualifications they'll be looking for ...

      O & A levels...

  52. Cynic_999

    Not a problem for kids ...

    There are plenty of paedophiles willing to stream porn over Skype in return for the kid keeping his webcam on. Win-win.

  53. herman Silver badge

    Hmm, Mr Hancock eh? Very appropriate. We can call it the Cockinhan Access Control System. I'm sure it will be a full blown government IT cockup as usual.

  54. WillCar

    There must be a thousand and one ways to achieve their stated objective of protecting children from porn without requiring personal registration for adults. For example, they could implement plans similar to this exclusively for public internet access (for example mobile internet) and then let people install their own porn countermeasures on their residential internet access as they see fit. That way children would be unable to access porn when out and about, and parents could stop them from accessing it when at home. And the rest of us could continue to use porn, at least in our homes, without have to opt in or out or register for anything.

    But I suspect this is really just creeping legislation towards the equivalent of a GPS ankle bracelet for the internet, so the government can track individuals wherever they go in cyberspace.

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >UK requires credit card information to look at porn

    >credit card information gets leaked or hacked

    >people use said credit card information to buy child pornography off Tor or wherever

    Wow, it's like the UK learnt nothing from Operation Ore.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh yes?

    Any excuse for a bit more internet regulation. A treasure trove for hackers, no doubt, for a touch of blackmail. What about foreign pron sites, which, I understand, most are? Are they somehow included in this draconian net?

    1. Tom Paine

      Re: Oh yes?

      What about foreign pron sites, which, I understand, most are? Are they somehow included in this draconian net?

      Of course. Didn't you see the headlines? The whole world is now covered by UK law, oh yes.

      Theresa May has promised to make Britain the world’s internet policeman

      https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tough-new-controls-for-web-giants-3mk0s2snq

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why doesn't el reg attack this from a different angle?

    Ask the government who they have spoken to in consultation of these laws (not just this one but all of them in relation to the internet)

    Then speak to the person they have consulted asking them what they recommended because lets be honest something is quite off about the stupidity of these laws.

    Maybe that will get us somewhere into understanding the actions of "our" government.

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    NEXT: A ban on the male clergy

    Sorry kids, you must be over 18 to ride.

    Surely these predators are a bigger threat than seeing some tits and ass!

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      " NEXT: A ban on the male clergy "

      You might be on to something there.

      A breakdown of paedos by job would be quite interesting. Male clergy could be expected to figure quite highly, along with social workers and fun fair operators I suspect.

      It's almost as if kiddie fiddlers look for places they can get access to children.....

      Who knew?

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So then, back to jizz mags in hedgerows?

    And/or download all the smut your HDDs can hold before the new laws come in.

    Anonymous, for er, reasons.

  60. Shades

    1970's/1980's = Huge porn 'staches.

    2010's/2020's = Huge porn stashes.

  61. Nicolas Charbonnier

    Corbyn to the rescue

    Simply set all internet access under "SafeSearch" parental control mode by default on every UK ISP. Google can help you filter all the porn out if you don't know how to detect it. Then any owner of an Internet access in the UK (thus an adult) can simply log in to the ISP control panel and Turn off "SafeSearch" mode, simply unlock the whole internet on that internet access point. Done. Parents can even easily Turn it on or off only on specific devices in the home, or turn it on and off easily by a one-click feature they must authenticate through. And any VPN type or other encrypted/unverified Internet activity in the home can be automatically alerted to parents email account if they want to have such tool to automatically monitor if their childrens might be doing some kind of naugty use of the internet. Enforce same system on all public Wi-Fi, at schools and etc. You still don't have to give your ID to obscure websites ever, it'd be the ISP simply showing you a Safe internet by default until you login to unlock it.

    As for banning Ticket bots, I say rather ban all secondary ticket resale markets (like stubhub and viagogo) and force all venues to sell tickets exclusively through their own websites or through their approved ticket sales websites but that all ticket resale must only be allowed on a Government-approved ticket resale network that always only resells the tickets at face value and require that every person to enter the venue must scan credit card, show ID and only allow entrance to original ticket purchaser. I even think that to prevent/forbid empty seats as a isgrace to the fans who couldn't buy a ticket, every venue must count and estimate empty seats and participate in a system to let standby fans in fill those empty seats, this could cost the same price as a full priced ticket, the point being if you buy a ticket, it should not give you the right to have an empty seat if the person who bought the ticket for any reason does not show up.

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anyone else remember Operation Ore?

    We've had credit-card age checks on porn sites before

    A third-party website took small payments to register people as over 18 for a large number of sites.

    Amongst those sites were some supplying child porn, and because of an indiscriminate reaction by UK Police, we ended up with Operation Ore.

    There was also a significant amount of fraudulent use of credit cards, some alleged to be sting operations by US Law Enforcement.

    Does anyone really want to trust their credit card details to another age verification service? The details needed to verify our age are in the same class of data that we are warned to be careful about handing out. How long before we get spam emails reporting that we have been signed up to an AVS, and if we want to be deleted from the list we must provide certain details...

    (Of course I am posting this anonymously.)

  63. Tom Paine
    Paris Hilton

    Oh dear/

    Let me share with you all the benefits of ~40 years of following domestic UK politics. (Gather round, children, old man talking!)

    This is never going to happen. It's a perfect example of May's political tin ear and lack of sound judgement. Apart from it matching her own opinions about the state of the world -- I'll be generous, and assume she's sincere in thinking this would be a good idea -- she thinks it's a vote winner because the Mail, Torygraph et al love to fulminate about the horrors of the level of s - e - x related matters in society and culture today.

    What she's completely failed to notice is the sidebar of shame on the Mail Online, and the Torygraph's multi-decadal role of printing lots of salacious details about any court case where sex is involved, as long as there are what Private Eye calls "fruity girls" involved and they can get away with printing pictures. That's because, obviously, those "Male Online" types are hypocrites who love a bit of a cheap thrill as long as there's an opportunity to wag a stern moralising finger about teenage celebs wearing bikinis or radio presenters shagging in the park. They might well enjoy blustering about the terrible state of the world today, but take their porn away and in the privacy of the voting booth, they'll be voting for the nearest thing to the Porn Party. (Lib Dems, probably.)

    Throw in the current state of Parliament, where hafl a dozen Tory backbenchers with a common cause or hobbyhorse can shoot down (or pop up) anything they like, and... well. It'll be interesting to watch how long they keep the charade up, and how long it will take for quiet murmurings on the Tory back bench to reach the ears of lobby correspondents. (Tactically they'll probably allow themselves to be defeated so they can continue posturing as moral, respectable, no-wanking-please-we're-British party, and try painting the Libs, especially, as a bunch of deviants.)

    In summary: chill.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh dear/

      "[...] and try painting the Libs, especially, as a bunch of deviants."

      Tim Farron is probably glad he doesn't have to try to square the circle with his religious dogma in the role of Lib-Dem leader.

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