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David Cameron urges internet firms to block child abuse images

editor

editor

hiraethified
Really good piece in The Guardian today about the futility of web filtering - something's that dear to my heart seeing as some companies filter out urban75.
Last week's debate in the Lords on the proposal to stop opt-out pornography filters was a perfect parable about the dangers of putting technically unsophisticated legislators in charge of technology regulation.

The Lords are contemplating legislation to require internet service providers and phone companies to censor their internet connections by default, blocking "adult content," unless an over-18 subscriber opts out of the scheme.

On its face, this seems like a reasonable plan. When I wrote to my MP, Meg Hillier, to let her know I objected to the scheme, she wrote back to say that despite the imperfections in a porn filter, it was better than nothing because kids would always be more sophisticated than their parents when it came to internet technology. The last part is mostly true, but the first part is a nonsense.

In order to filter out adult content on the internet, a company has to either look at all the pages on the internet and find the bad ones, or write a piece of software that can examine a page on the wire and decide, algorithmically, whether it is inappropriate for children.

Neither of these strategies are even remotely feasible. To filter content automatically and accurately would require software capable of making human judgments – working artificial intelligence, the province of science fiction.
As for human filtering: there simply aren't enough people of sound judgment in all the world to examine all the web pages that have been created and continue to be created around the clock, and determine whether they are good pages or bad pages.

Even if you could marshal such a vast army of censors, they would have to attain an inhuman degree of precision and accuracy, or would be responsible for a system of censorship on a scale never before seen in the world, because they would be sitting in judgment on a medium whose scale was beyond any in human history.

Think, for a moment, of what it means to have a 99% accuracy rate when it comes to judging a medium that carries billions of publications.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/nov/13/children-porn-starbucks
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If they had thought of the .xxx domain when the web first began, and really encouraged a culture that respected the idea of putting adult content on sites with domains ending in it, then this sort of thing would at least be vaguely feasible. It would still ahve been relatively trivial to circumvent but at least there would be less chance of youngsters stumbling on stuff without actually wanting to. Having heard some anecdotes at my former place of employment, it does sound like there may be some boys of a certain age who are just looking for some very soft stuff and end up with far more than they bargained for.
 
I saw some top ten facts video recently and one of them was that 14% of all content on teh intarwebz in teh pr0n.
 
Web filtering makes a huge difference, most children have the majority of their internet access at home, and speaking from real life experience with my own son it stops him from being exposed to a lot of things that only adults should be exposed to.

OpenDNS stops most of it for us, and we get reports so we can add more stuff to the list. But what about children who live in households of computer illiterate parents, is it ok for them to see things they can't unsee and that could really traumatise them or mess up their expectations of sex?

If you can opt in what is the problem with starting off with a restricted view of the internet which you can then configure to your heart's content?
 
We have internet filters here and its totally hopeless. It censors deviantart as porn and wordpress :facepalm:

My concern is the more in depth logs about your internet activity once ISP are forced to put your internet traffic through a proxy.
 
Filters can be configured to many levels of security, and even individual websites can be stopped/allowed, even if they were to match the 'porn' tag. Of course when you work for a company then it's up to them what they allow you to see. In here if we think a website shouldn't be blocked we can contact the network admin to make a request.

I can see the fear that filtering at the ISP level can become very restrictive, so care needs to be taken so that adults can have real freedom and control over what they opt into, and children can be kept safe. It's a fine line, but it's no reason to just give up and say it's not possible.
 
girasol said:
Web filtering makes a huge difference, most children have the majority of their internet access at home, and speaking from real life experience with my own son it stops him from being exposed to a lot of things that only adults should be exposed to.

OpenDNS stops most of it for us, and we get reports so we can add more stuff to the list. But what about children who live in households of computer illiterate parents, is it ok for them to see things they can't unsee and that could really traumatise them or mess up their expectations of sex?

If you can opt in what is the problem with starting off with a restricted view of the internet which you can then configure to your heart's content?
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I don't think it works really well to protect children. I think it lulls parents into a false sense of security and the really computer illiterate ones don't think about things like smartphones. One of my colleagues was really shocked and horrified when his 12 year old ran up £500 of porn viewing on his phone in a month because it hadn't occurred to them to block it.

When children are young, it's much easier to filter stuff - I have a completely shut down profile for the foal. Once they get older, it becomes a lot harder and it can be a pretty blunt instrument. I worked somewhere once where the webfilter stopped you googling analysis for obvious reasons :facepalm:

What seems to me to be much better is putting on some filters but also keeping computers in shared spaces, banning access if there is any incidence of deleted history or changed passwords and insisting on total openness.

I don't have a teenager though so am probably talking out my arse :oops:
 
My network is open for my kids to view what they want.
I trust that they are wise enough to view what the want without going into dodgy territorry.
 
I am against censorship on a societal level. On a work level, it is somewhat different, the risks are far more against the organisation. Therefore it makes sense to have some filtering in place.
In the home, well yeah, when my daughter is old enough to use the internet I guess I will be filtering her stuff, at the moment she had a laptop but it's running doudou linux and is not connected to the internet.
Starbucks could implement filtering. It really wouldn't be difficult to block the vast majority of porn and adult websites.

Personally, I think some porn is damaging on some levels to some people. Would I ban it, or block it completely? Would I fuck.
 
trashpony said:
I don't think it works really well to protect children. I think it lulls parents into a false sense of security and the really computer illiterate ones don't think about things like smartphones. One of my colleagues was really shocked and horrified when his 12 year old ran up £500 of porn viewing on his phone in a month because it hadn't occurred to them to block it.

When children are young, it's much easier to filter stuff - I have a completely shut down profile for the foal. Once they get older, it becomes a lot harder and it can be a pretty blunt instrument. I worked somewhere once where the webfilter stopped you googling analysis for obvious reasons :facepalm:

What seems to me to be much better is putting on some filters but also keeping computers in shared spaces, banning access if there is any incidence of deleted history or changed passwords and insisting on total openness.

I don't have a teenager though so am probably talking out my arse :oops:
Click to expand...

yeah, smartphones are a problem, my son can't have one for that very reason. Anyway, policing a teenager's use of internet and life in general is a lot more complicated than I ever imagined. Every time we think we covered one aspect, something else comes to bite us. It's relenteless. Life is *so* much more complex for children these days, I didn't even realise how complex until secondary school started, and it's getting worse... Constant stream of potential and actual situations that I never even considered... And there's the issue that other children are allowed access to smart phones and the internet and they tell everyone in school (and show them images) - I don't think many schools ban mobiles phones out of the classroom anymore anyway.

Anyway, that's my perspective as the mother of a 13 year-old. And a word of warning, the first time we realised he had been exposed to porn and figured the real implications of the internet was when he was 9 years old! Children are growing up very fast these days, for the very reason that they are exposed to so much from so many fronts.

I hope the message regarding porn has filtered through to him, and of seeing and doing too much too young. But who knows? I can only hope, we had a few talks about it, and the rest...
 
Kid_Eternity said:
I don't know or have never known any 12 year old to go to Starbucks. If they'd said free wifi at McDonalds they might have a point...
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Do people really d/l porn in starbucks or McD's anyway? I imagined those managed access points would have filtering on them done by the supplier.
 
Mr Smin said:
Do people really d/l porn in starbucks or McD's anyway? I imagined those managed access points would have filtering on them done by the supplier.
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Try your local library next time you are in the vicinity. For a place of learning they are heavily censored. Not just porn (understandable, as public places often do attract the fruits - I had a saturday job in a library when i was very younger. A minority of our patrons were walking cum stains. And that was just to check the art books).
 
I bought the boy a laptop and downloaded some filtering software. You can set it to block various topics but if Its blocking something suitable you can temporarily override it or unblock the site completely with a password. If I can do it I'm pretty sure everyone has a mate who could sort it out.
 
Also, I think a lot of people's attitudes to porn is incredibly hypocritical. A lot of men will look at porn and fight to the death to defend their right to look at it, and say it's natural and not degrading at all.

But in reality if a woman close to them wanted to act in a porn movie they would be far from agreeable to it. I experienced that myself when I was a young girl and then realized how hypocritical, exploitative and predatory a large percentage of the porn industry is. (NOTE I have never been in a porn movie, and it's a long, personal story so won't go into details)
 
the mail aren't saying that are they though. They are saying block online porn.

It would be easier to have an opt-out which is something is far more likely to take hold and if I am not already mistaken some ISPs already offer. Its filtering at dns level. Someone up there mentioned they use opendns to block the vast majority of pornographic websites. Very simple if you have a kid who you dont feel should be able to view such material.

For what its worth, I saw porn before the internet. I believe we actively sought it out. It didn't ambush us.
 
Boris Sprinkler said:
the mail aren't saying that are they though. They are saying block online porn.

It would be easier to have an opt-out which is something is far more likely to take hold and if I am not already mistaken some ISPs already offer. Its filtering at dns level. Someone up there mentioned they use opendns to block the vast majority of pornographic websites. Very simple if you have a kid who you dont feel should be able to view such material.

For what its worth, I saw porn before the internet. I believe we actively sought it out. It didn't ambush us.
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yeah, it was probably me, I mentioned that we use open DNS. It means we, the parents, can't look at pron either, but that's fine, not interested, seen it all :D (well, not all, but enough to satisfy my curiosity) The thing with opting out, as I mentioned, what if parents aren't computer literate? I think people call for opt in because that just seems safer.
 
Mr Smin said:
Do people really d/l porn in starbucks or McD's anyway? I imagined those managed access points would have filtering on them done by the supplier.
Click to expand...
One guy famously set up shop in Federation coffee in Brixton, plugged in a chain of devices including his laptop and the started watching gay porn with his headphones on.
 
Lemon Eddy said:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=McWank
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Is urbandictionary a re-brand of Roger's Profanisaurus?

editor said:
One guy famously set up shop in Federation coffee in Brixton, plugged in a chain of devices including his laptop and the started watching gay porn with his headphones on.
Click to expand...
Class. Wonder if chain of devices include a 3g dongle, or if Federation's wifi uncensored?

Anyway, I look forward to a full national block on all porn just for the look on the faces of the Mail's web team as they realise their site is only viewable to foreigners and they have to either stop letching the children of celebs, or be nicer to foreigners.
 
Addy said:
gone are the days of finding a wank mag over the fields and getting all excited .... the kids have it too easy these days... !!!!
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Or trying to speak in a deep voice to the cashier and not bolt down the street after being given 'the goods' :)
 
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