T'interweb restrictions.

[innominate]

Going from this story


I am in two minds wether companies shoud be blocking ANY of our access to websites. Obvioulsy on one hand you have the reasons why to block them, exploitative in teh extreme, not to mention illegal. But surely it would also make sense to let people access what they want and then prosecute them afterwards if they have broken the law.


Also who says what go's on this banned list?
e.g. would any of the websites with the Muhammed cartoons be listed if the powers that be decide against them?


Personally I would rather have all access avaliable & then sort out the issues afterwards.





As for the increase in traffic to child porn sites, I think this is most likely due to virus/hackers, as far as I have come across it would be inkeeping with their sense of humour to have you unknowingly redirected to a child porn site.

Musing over.
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I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the customs agent. I am the coast-guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable.

[RobB]

As a general rule, free access to all, free speech, etc.

With regards to this specific story, you seem to be indicating that by blocking access to child pornography BT are doing a bad thing.

[8316]

[RobB]

A fair point Siggi. The hope that by not allowing free, unrestricted posting of child porn is that less of it occurs in the "real world". This may be false hope, but that's probably better than no hope.

I'd also hope that somebody somewhere is using these sites and mailing lists as honey traps, and that these are working well. Would have also thought that the percentage of people that will have these fantasies and will act on them is fairly low. At this point you're stuck with the fact that if someone wants to think about fiddling with kids, you can't really stop them. Free thought if nothing else.

I've never been redirected, or sent to any child porn sites yet. Been "hijacked" and sent to many adult ones, but not child ones.
____________________
- Yeah, you know the type, loud as a motorbike, wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.
- The only thing I learned from love, was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
- If I don't meet you no more in this world, I'll meet you in the next one, don't be late.

[innominate]

[feef]

There is no doubt that protecting children from paedophiles is a priority, and that preventing people from visiting such site will, eventually, mean the sites are no longer profitable and eventually shutdown. it does require, however, a gobal crackdown on visits to such sites, which would be difficult to administer and monitor.

However, the metrics behind the numbers quoted by the media is questionable, and the "cleanfeed" technology provided by BT from which these stats have been taken has been in the spotlight for a couple of years now, and it's old news. it's worth reading what follows for a bit of background on this whole concept of traffic monitoring. the big question surrounds the fact that there's no way to identify accidental visits, hijacked visits, actualy site "visits" as opposed to "hits", and intent when visited. For example, an innocent image hosted on a childporn website might be linked from anotehr site (as many of the images might be linked from external sites in this forum) each time that innocent, unrelated image is viewed on a different site, it would be classed as a "hit".


in July 2004 for example, BT reported blocking almost 250,000 attempts to access websites containing images of child abuse in just three weeks.

However, this figure represent less than one millionth of the total Internet traffic handled by BT during the period. BT has almost 2m net punters


the ISPA commented on the data from Cleanfeed in July 2004 as follows...

[ali-b]

The real point is that I want the choice of what to block, I might not care what sites I have potential access to for myself as I know what sites I frequent regularly (bcf, slashdot, theregister etc etc) and I'm not being redirected to sites I don't know.

Now take into account that I may have kids and while I'm technically competant enough to block these kinds of sites at my firewall, do I really want to spend loads of time updating this blocklist/filter.

Someone else might not be able to configure a firewall to block this kind of stuff and may well welcome their ISP having this kind of feature.

The point remains: I want that choice, I don't want to be dictated to, and that freedom of choice does not make me a perv/freak/weirdo or whatever. What gets blocked next? BT blocks NTL sites? The US blocks access to anything outside its borders?

A.

[feef]

[Ranger05]

The internet should be completely free of restrictions IMO.

Anyone looking at child porn should be punished, but you cant restrict honest internet users just because a very small minority are breaking the law.
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K5 gixxer 600, Yoshimura carbon can, Dynojet USB.- sold
04 YZF-R1- Silver/Black, Devil titanium exhaust de-cat.

[feef]

[ali-b]

[feef]

[ali-b]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that child abuse is being tackled. And I must admit I thought that the main traffic to these sites would be from 'lifetime users' rather than casual browsers, that was a bit of new info.

Interesting stuff really...is my freedom to browse the internet more important than a child's safety (of course not!!!)? is my freedom more important than vague legislation that allows ISPs or the government to block sites they don't like (because thats where it will end up)...is the government using the child abuse angle to introduce the populus to censorship in a way they can't argue about without feeling 'perverted' or 'dirty'?

A.

[NBO]

I am all for blocking such sites that deal in child porn and I think any normal decent person that wishes the web to be un policed if it were and un blocked allowing access to such material needs, well I dont know but I think these people are pretty shamless and non careing, yes, it's not going to stop some material being put up but it will make it a damn sight harder to get at which in the long term I can only feel is a good thing and a step in the right direction.

[feef]

[ali-b]

It was more of a question/debate point than a fear. Governments have a proven track record of introducing seemingly unrelated legislations only to turn around and use the new laws for something else though (just look at the most recent spate of 'anti-terror' laws).

You (feef) do make some interesting observations though. More food for thought.

My sis has arrived for lunch - to be continued...

A.

[G]

From what I remember, a massive proportion of child abuse occours within family members; yet we rarely see people nearly as concerned about this.

For this reason I feel that it is to some degree a scapegoat-warriors crusade. To some degree I would have thought it would make sense to catch both those that perpatrate it and those viewing it.

Contrary to the argument that it may awaken people 'feelings' as such; could such things also be used so that people's fantasies are fulfilled without directly harming others?
I've often used this argument for computer games - maybe the computer game that people are claiming will make people violent, can infact be used as a release for those that have violent tendancies without harming real people.

<shrugs>
Not something I've thought about to a great degree.

[feef]

[G]

[jok]

I voted for free access and no censorship. I also think that these blocks are a the right thing to do.

This is less a matter of censorship and more of matter of doing exactly what you'd expect to happen: access to material illegal on every level from production to distribution to possession being made difficult.

If someone hosts kiddie porn inside the UK, for example, it's possible for the local law enforcement to yank the physical server thus stopping distribution pretty effectively. If it's hosted outside of the UK, they can (and do) forward anything they find to the relevant authorities, but that's about all they can do immediately; except, of course, block access to it. The effect is the same (no more access), it's just the implementation that different (and not as effective). This isn't strange or draconian, it's exactly what you'd expect.

If you think the blocks shouldn't be in place, work against the laws that mandate them or come up with a very good reason why it's better to let people commit the crimes instead of stopping them at the very last point possible.

The above is not to say that the government or any other agency should have a free reign to decide what to block; what they block and how they decide to what to block must be well known and open (which it is, in this instance). As soon as someone decides to block access to something that isn't illegal or that you strongly feel should not be illegal (regardless of whether you like it), then it is time to take action.

Just my
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CG125 (stolen->recovered!) || Wars do not decide who's right, only who's left.

[innominate]

Well we have manga where people are humped to death by demons etc.


Also there are far more graphic descriptions in books etc & no one would entertain telling people what they can/can't publish as novels.


Just cause its got pictures dont make it any worse imho (talking fiction here, CGI, novel, animation or whatever.)
____________________
I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the customs agent. I am the coast-guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable.

[daz|n00by]

The starting of policing the internet has already started,
mark my words that not in the to far future we will only be allowed to see what those above allow us to see.

The End Is Nigh.
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"Its Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away!!!!!!" "Lifes a bitch and then you Die"
"I`m a tool, one with just enough intelligence to know it, just enough spirit to resent it...but not enough backbone to do anything about it. " Siggi 2006 pure class.

[G]

[jok]