Posts by Cam S

ISPs and Vaizey set to bump heads over default porn filter

Bombarded?

Who exactly is being "bombarded" with porn? Seriously, who? It's not like you go to Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, Facebook or anything like that and 6 porn videos instantly start playing simultaneously without warning. You generally have to be looking for it in the first place. I'll admit that sometimes one comes across it by accident, such as when conducting certain searches of an ornithological nature, i.e. great tits. (NSFW, but a Google Image search with Safesearch off turns up lots of birds and great tits hehe). The solution to that is to practice safe browsing. Use Firefox, Adblock Plus, NoScript, a good hosts file, and even OpenDNS if you so wish. There are more than plenty of tools out there for parents to safeguard their kids' online experiences. Hell, the ISPs are even offering help! However, the best tools of all are supervision and talking to your kids about what they see online. Oh wait, that would require people to actually take some responsibility for themselves.. can't have that! It MUST be someone else's fault, someone else's burden, someone else's responsibility!

The worst part is that groups like Safermedia never stop. They create the illusion of a problem so they can push their solution. They make it seem like the only reason they exist is to get porn blocked, but if they succeed they don't just say, "Job well done, let's pack it in," they find some new monster under some kid's bed to blow out of proportion. Where does "think of the children" stop? Where does the filtering stop? Who decides what gets filtered? Is the process transparent? Is there a way to get a site removed if it's added by mistake? Will it always be optional? Will Mother Government tuck us in at night and tell us nice, happy, censor-approved bedtime stories? "Don't worry, we've always been at war with Eastasia..."

Bradley Manning 'is British' – campaigners urge UK.gov to act

Not possible, even if they wanted to

Bradley Manning is a US citizen, and, as the article pointed out, in active military service in the US military. He is also being held within the US military justice system.

Even if he held British citizenship through his mother, it wouldn't make a difference. Diplomatically, the UK's hands are tied because this is a US internal matter involving one of their own citizens. It's the same thing as if a dual UK/"Wherever" citizen were arrested in "Whereverland" for whatever reason. The UK can offer to provide assistance, but "Whereverland" can refuse on the basis that it's an internal matter involving one of their citizens. Complicating matters, "Whereverland" might not recognize dual citizenship, or it might even be illegal.

Nice try, but ultimately a big fail for suggesting it and getting people's hopes up.

EU launches bid to bin telco regulations

Why?

From a North American perspective, I can't possibly imagine why a phone call should cost extra, unless of course you're dialling a sex chat line.

I know we have long-distance calling (i.e. anywhere outside your city, usually excluding very nearby outlying areas), where you guys don't have that, and have one rate to the whole country. However, every provider here offers deals where you can ring any number in the USA or Canada for free, any time of day. The majority of the time, you have to be bundling another service from them, like DSL or a mobile, but that's usually not an issue.

As for the comment about prank callers, since everyone here effectively has a freephone number to anyone in the local calling area, we should be all receiving endless abuse from bored children as soon as they arrive home from school, but we aren't. Aside from the occasional wrong number, I haven't had a prank call for ages & ages. Sure, they do happen, but never as frequently as you've described, and most often to people in the phone book with amusing names (I.P. Freely, etc).

I just wish it was legislated that incoming phone calls on mobiles be free of charge. That's one thing I love about European phone systems.

I wonder if the EU is going to force a common dial tone and/or a common emergency number as a result of all these changes?