Posts by jason

Brit porn filter censors 13 years of net history

@ass-ume

'Congrats, you saved 438,000 legitimate users from accidentally seeing child porn... or annoyed 438,000 paedophiles... or not. 'Cause you don't actually know those URLs were blocked for any good reason do you? You only have IWF's word that there were illegal... I mean "potentially illegal". You only have IWF's word that they may have been illegal. Sorry, but that's not a very impressive success story.'

I think if either the two or correct then yes that is a success....given the fact that only 2 non legitimate sites have been blocked. If it was the 3rd of your choices then we would have had masses of complaints from customers... we did not. If we had we would have dropped the list as it was not a legal obligation to implement. So yes, the IWF are accountable. Accountable to the ISP#s becuase if they were blocking non CP websites the ISP's would drop them and they would not be funded. I spoke on many occasions with people from the IWF and guess what? they dont wear black suits and sunglasses....

@frank Fisher

'I still oppose net censorship, even of child porn'

and this is the frank fisher who did not oppose the broadcasting of radio messages in rawanda calling for the massacre of tutsi's all in the name of 'free speech' and freedom....

I really hope Frank that you are in the minority...

MMmmmm

Sorry, had to coment.....

'If some homeless loon were to run up to you and open a large poster of kiddie porn and it was witnessed by a police officer then YOU would be breaking the law for accidentally seeing it?'

No... but viewing it on a computer caches the image. You will then goto prison if caught. pretty straight forward... Im also sure that if they can prove you viewed it (not cached) then this is also illegal but im not 100% sure without research.

'(Come on. Banning the album cover on Wikipedia? There are a billion other sources for the image'

I refer you again to http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/09/iwf_wikipedia_ban The image was potentially illegal. The fact that it is also elswhere on the interweb does not make it a legal image.

'of course, it was okay for you to see the list because you're a special case, right'

I never said that I saw the list.

@hikaricore

'Get off my internet, no really, you're not wanted here.'

now theres censorship.. ironic...

'Why not start banning books that talk about underage sex? They're evil and will hurt our children right?'

are they illegal? if you don't like the legality part of it then at the next general election vote for someone who will repeal the law...

I agree in principle with George-Cristian Birzan. Yes its not perfect but thats no reason just to give up on it. instead of all the bitching about freedom (and im sure in Zimbabwe right now the MDC are organising a rally in support of you all) have healthy debate about making system work better.

thats my last post as I'm spending too much time on something that just aint important... and watch out.. the goverment at this very moment are tapping your phones, monitoring your movements adn collecting your DNA !!!!

@anonymous and any one else..

'but you need to realise that we won't ever stop people from getting aroused by that material'

Does that mean we should do nothing?

'They are there to "prevent accidental access to inappropriate material." Not to stop the actual criminals who are actively searching for such filth.'

Yes to a degree... but stop demand... stop supply... economics..

'Also, for the record, their blocklist has only been enforced for around 4 years now, not 12'

ok so 2 incidents in 4 years...my bad...

'It's inspiring how selflessly you're prepared to see eveyone else's freedoms curtailed in the name of thinking of the children'

Im sorry but again so out of perspective.. have you been locked away in a cell? have you been put under house arrest? no. you have not been able to browse to a couple of web pages.. is that a price im willing to pay to help try an stop child porn? your damn right i am.

I know the IWF from experience. I worked at an ISP when it was implemented. We were not a massive ISP but saw on average 300 attempts a day to access banned urls (we didn't see the details just the stats.) so say over 4 years thats 438,000 attempts to view and that was just us... and the price? just potentially 2 sites unbrowsable for a day (and one might not even be related)

'Are you implying that we're all too thick or depraved to censor ourselves?'

Self censorship does not work for the masses. we are human and fallible.. also accidental viewing would happen and once its cached on your machine you have broken the law.

@david hicks

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/09/iwf_wikipedia_ban/ for an true perspective of what happened last time.

also David, whats the alternative?

@David Hicks

Im sorry but you are just showing your ignorance. The IWF do not block anything! The IWF supply a list of URL's that has images that are potentially illegal under UK law. The IWF is unelected, but has been running for 12 years and is manned by a lot of ex policeman who have dealt with child crime/exploitation and are versed in the laws. It is the ISP's who implement this list and the way that they do it that causes these "outages"

Are you implying that because legitimate web browsing is occasionally interrupted (twice as far as i know in 12 years) that access to these images should be available?

This whole discussion is seriously out of perspective. If it had been google or the bbc site that got blocked then yes I could see a reason for some kind of uproar. But this is ridiculous.

My comment about the mag was just made in the context that with freedom comes responsibility and responsibility means sometimes you have to curtail freedom etal censorship. We have a responsibility to protect children and I for one support any method that helps rid our planet of this disease.

Get a perspective

Sheeeeeesh...... People on this thread need to get a life. Im sorry but all this ranting at "censorship" is just bollox. In the past six months theres been 2 major outages due to the implementation (its the ISP's implementation not the IWF list that is at fault here by the way) of the IWF block list, yes they were two high traffic sites , Scorpions wiki page and this site (sarcasm intended) now how many indecent images has it legitimately blocked in comparison? Supply/demand etal.....

suppose most people on here would not want to ban a child porn mag if it was to be published...

@Graham

Heaven forbid but if it was your child that was being abused to satidfy just the .1% would you still object?