Parenting Fail?
I'm sure I'm not the only reader of El Reg who's simultaneously a parent and a technically literate Internet user. As an experienced hosting and network engineer of almost 15 years, and a parent for 7, I can see quite clearly that:
* most readers of El Reg know that a global filtering system is doomed to fail. False positives only have to happen once (or worse, more than that) to drive a bus through the whole argument. False negatives are even worse.
* most parents are perfectly responsible for their own children.
* too many Daily Fail readers and their ilk big up the "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" so loudly that those parents who aren't technically savvy get taken along, because explaining the technical difficulties behind such a scheme in terms they understand is very, very difficult - it's far easier to follow the soundbites.
As a parent, my main worry when my kids get a bit older isn't that they'll stumble across some porn when using the Internet at home (and remember, kids, The Internet is rather more than just The World Wide Web). It's that they'll be exposed to something using a mobile phone by a friend. I just hope that they'll be comfortable enough to talk about it to me when they do, and let me deal with it rather than some "parent by proxy" system which kids can work around.
To cap it all, a pair of technical question (which you should write to your MP to ask): Who would be responsible for the system, and how would they enforce it in multi-occupant properties? You know - family homes, with multiple age ranges?
I think a less sensationalist approach to the whole issue by all concerned would work wonders, personally.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
