back to article 'Porn lock' heralds death of WikiLeaks, internet, democracy, universe

The British government wants to gag WikiLeaks, and is drawing up Orwellian plans to exploit fears over the effect of online smut on children to achieve that aim. That was the snap conclusion drawn yesterday in fruitcake-friendly corners of the web in response to a Sunday Times front page splash, which reported that the …

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  1. Evil Weevil
    Paris Hilton

    Someone's got to say it.....

    ..... "Will anyone think of Paris Hilton?"

    I'm worried that if this idea gets the go ahead, the El Reg "Paris" icon will be barred !

    Mines the long trench coat and I'm wearing no trousers!

    1. It wasnt me
      Thumb Down

      hmmm....

      So, you're wearing no trousers, and, since you're going to get it, currently no coat. That brings to mind the sort of scene that these rules are trying to stop. It may be no bad thing after all :-)

    2. LinkOfHyrule
      Paris Hilton

      "I'if this idea gets the go ahead, the El Reg "Paris" icon will be barred !"

      You can take our interwebz. You can take our freedom. But you'll never take our Paris!

      I'm also wearing no trousers as a mark of solidarity!

    3. LinkOfHyrule
      Paris Hilton

      Oh and just one more thing, Evil Weevil...

      Oh and just one more thing, Evil Weevil - you're real name doesn't happen to be Lt Columbo dose it? The flashers mac you're wearing is what gives it away!

      You're the original mac fanboi!

  2. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Disturb who?

    > on a political level it [an opt-out censor] would be likely to disturb many Lib Dems

    Hardly, likely. We've discovered recently that the L/Ds are just as much power-tarts as all the other parties. When given the choice between sitting to the right of the Speaker or sitting to the left, they are willing to sacrifice any principles they might have persuaded us they had.

    1. mmiied
      Troll

      point of order

      I know lib dem abshing is the new sport but can I put up a bit of a defence

      I sugest you look up the meaning of the word compromise

      to sumerise in the nogations in order to get any form of goverment (and if we had no goverment it could have killed the country) both sides had to drop some of there promises one of the ones the libdems droped was there failey recent opsertition of an increse in tuitions fees but they did get some of what they have wanted for longer namley a refremdum on electrol reform

      1. kissingthecarpet
        Headmaster

        Is your spelling

        a deliberate joke? If not, I suggest that you should be the one to be browsing the dictionary

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: Is your spelling

          No, the comment was done in the style of Officer Crabtree from 'Allo 'Allo!

          1. mmiied

            I wish

            I had thought of that

        2. mmiied

          excuses

          dyslexica and lasyness

      2. Andrew Meredith
        Thumb Down

        Nothing new

        > I know lib dem bashing is the new sport but can I put up a bit of a defence

        Not for people round here it isn't. It's LD vs Con in our constituency, which under the old boundary fell mostly to the Con vote. Labour comes 4th to UKIP most times. However, we now have a LD MP who is the ultimate in political glyphs. He supports exactly what everyone around him supports wherever he happens to be. Put him in a bunch of cannibals and I would be unsurprised if he just chowed down with the rest of them. He looks the very image of a stereotypical modern politician. I wouldn't trust him if he said the earth went round the sun.

      3. Jon 52

        coalition agreement

        The Libdems negotiated to be allowed to Abstain on the fees issue, to keep their pledge not to vote for higher fees. However as tory back benchers also hated the fees certain lib dems were needed to vote for, so they were whipped into voting for a policy they pormised they would not.

  3. Scorchio!!

    What is wrong..

    ..with using an aftermarket DNS provider? If people don't know how to use such a thing perhaps there needs to be a modem driving test FGS. For an extra 10 quid they can have all of the bells and whistles.

    I emailed Perry with details of this and other ways to improve internet security, but it seems that she'd prefer to grovel around her senior patrons in the Tory party.

    The Tories and Lib-Dems are traditionally the parties of the market. Bending to a band of incompetent parents who've not done any research to see how to look after their kids is not the way forward. If parents cannot learn how to do this they ought not to have a connection. Expecting others to do it for them is over the top.

    Correct software, correct hardware and an aftermarket DNS provider, even if only the free version. It's a bit like owning a car; the owner is required to maintain and keep it safe. The same applies to an internet account. No security, no account or. In fact, those who fail to implement proper security could be fined, since they are among the most likely to create a nuisance by having a bot on board, never mind the 'sex' issue.

    (I hope that you are reading this, Ms Perry.)

    1. Adrian Challinor
      Coat

      That s the correct answer...

      If you want to put a block on things "for the children", then educate people on how to use a seperated DNS provider. Such as OpenDNS. With OpenDNS you can block exactly what you think that the children should not see: which is not just pornography. It should also include gambling, drugs, phishing sites, etc.

      The answer is Education, Education, Education. If you want a block , get yourself educated to do it. Maybe set up agreements between the ISP's and DNS providers to have this autoinstalled on commercial modems from the get-go.

      Want to lossen the shackles? Then go online and do it.

      Want to change the modem? Well, then you are definitely out of the job public, lets-have-a-BT-HomeHub brigade. Like kit cars, you are on your own.

      What I object to the Opt-In lobby is that there will almost certainly be a subclause that demands that anyone who decides to manage their own DNS will be reported to out 1984-style overlords. Just because I don't want my ISP deciding what I can and cannot access does not make me a pornographer and does not impact on my children. If the government wants to see what websites I access, get a frickin court warrant - don't try it by any backdoor.

      The internet see's restrictions like this as a failure and routes around them.

      Mine's the dirty mac with "Routing for Boys" in the pocket

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        ..unless

        Playing the devils advocate like Pacino, but with the cast of Bedazzled, don't most kids now have phones?

        Setting your router to point to another DNS will not prevent little timothy from seeking MILF Fisters #6 from t'internet.

        Disclaimer: I feel blocking porn would ruin the web. Long live Usenet!

    2. Annihilator
      Unhappy

      Solution #2

      I dearly hope that Mr ISP brings the following solution to the table:

      "We can sell a discounted copy of Net Nanny if it helps?"

      Why on earth would an ISP want to build a highly complex system off the back of a government imposed sanction? If it were wanted by the public so badly, an ISP would have launched it as a product.

      My only hope is that the Tories don't really like public service ideas, and prefer the markets to take care of themselves...

      1. Rob 5

        If it were wanted by the public so badly, an ISP would have launched it as a product.

        That's more or less what the pub industry and others said about the smoking ban. Didn't work then...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          But it's a good idea

          We should pressure the Daily Mail to take the lead. Rather than demanding the government do something, the Mail should see how many of the grotesques who buy the paper actually subscribe to its 1950's net-curtained view of world.

          They could guarantee that there will be no porn, a Queen's head on every page, payments in Pounds sterling only, absolutely no blacks, gays or Irish, and lots of bulletin boards where people can fume, fulminate and exude generally toxic levels of moral superiority over the state of the country.

          And the rest of us can add their domain name to our black lists.

          Everyone wins.

        2. Tom 35
          Thumb Down

          Straw Man...

          "That's more or less what the pub industry and others said about the smoking ban. Didn't work then..."

          A pub is not like your home, more like a library (where the internet is filtered). You don't have a smoking ban in your home (though some think that would be a good idea) unless you set it your self.

          If you want a porn ban in your house you can do that your self now. This is about people who want to ban stuff they don't like (and don't think anyone else should be able to chose different), and people who want to get the infrastructure in place to block stuff so they can easily add more stuff they want to block later.

          And there are such products available in some places like the bible belt USA.

        3. Andrew Meredith
          FAIL

          Smoking Ban ?

          > That's more or less what the pub industry and others

          > said about the smoking ban. Didn't work then...

          So therefore the government stepped in and slammed down a totally over the top, one sided brick of a bill. Step two, we find out that yes, the majority of people who go to pubs to drink beer actually do like a cig with their pint. So they have to either stand outside in the freezing rain, or stay home with their mates and a slab of sub-tax-priced tinnies from Safeburys. And so the pub trade starts a death spiral that is seeing more pubs shut per month than we have ever seen before, through any recession, ever.

          So that worked really well didn't it.

          turns out the market had been doing the balancing ok all along. The promised hordes of non-smokers who were supposedly put off from going to the pub by the pong simply didn't exist. We now see what the publicans knew all along; if you ban smoking in pubs, they will empty and go out of business. Tadaaa!

          You either trust the market to do the job or you make up the truth for yourself based on party dogma .. choose.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            WTF?

            Well, sorry to not fit your model....

            ....but I now go to the pub because it isn't polluted with smoke any more, whereas when smoking was legal I didn't.

            Most people I know that don't smoke have much the same opinion too.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Well, sorry to not fit your model....

              "....but I now go to the pub because it isn't polluted with smoke any more, whereas when smoking was legal I didn't."

              Yes, all the whining about how the atmosphere would be ruined without all the smoking turned out to be the usual "I'm living really hard - look, I'm smoking!" nonsense: it was the booze that made that hazy atmosphere, of course.

              And in various places, the pubs which suffered the most appear to be the ones that were the haunts of chain-smoking, all-day "local" drinkers where the management probably turned a blind eye to stuff like serving under-age people or people who are already too drunk to be served. The smoking legislation probably put a lot of iffy places on the spot, and then out of business altogether.

              What were we discussing, again?

          2. Rob 5
            Stop

            Wrong end of the stick.

            You appear have it.

            My point, with the smoking ban analogy, was that government doesn't have a very good track record for letting the market continue to take care of things when it sees an opportunity to interfere.

      2. Scorchio!!

        Re: Solution #2

        That is a solution that should be dear to every Tory and Lib-Dem public school boy, since most of them are used to nannies. "Nanny knows best!" ;->

    3. Jim Morrow

      dns is not the answer

      using your isp's dns service or third party dns providers to filter access to smut simply won't work. though there's a lot of money being made selling that snake-oil to the gullible 'think of the children' clowns.

      rewriting dns replies or making servers tell lies will crash and burn when secure dns gets used. once you validate responses, you'll be able to tell when someone's been fiddling with the data.

      1. OffBeatMammal

        not tainting...

        blocking.

        OpenDNS (for instance) has an option to disable access to certain sites or categories of sites... and takes you to a nice page explaining why (just like when ISPs hijack results to serve their ads)

        I actually like the Live Family Safety app ... runs on the PCs that the kids use and does the same thing but no DNS fiddling required (and unlike the pretty crap NetNanny, it's free)

      2. Cameron Colley

        @Jim Morrow

        In what way can it fail? Your device queries its primary DNS server and gets a reply of "not found" or a different IP address and, because your OS knows it's fake, queries the second DNS server which gives the same replies -- so, how does your device then get to the blocked site?

        If you are designing a system to stop anyone from getting to a certain site (library or school computers etc.) then yes, I agree, but from a home user perspective if your kids type in twogirlsonecup.com because they're looking for the latest "Barbie shares her cup" model they will not get to a scat site by mistake -- that is, as far as I know, the point of this kind of thing. DNS filtering is to stop kids browsing for porn "accidentally" not to lock the machine down in Aussie Firewall style.

      3. Scorchio!!

        Re: dns is not the answer

        It certainly is a big part of the answer. I use very little of my DNS provider's options because it restricts me too much, but I can see that some scared chicken might like the idea. Then there are firewall rules, hardware firewall rules, rules for the AV system (mine can block specific sites), hosts files, malware blockers and cleaners... ...and if Ms Perry and her friends find this too much trouble I suggest they discontinue their account and use the public library.

        1. John Smith 19 Gold badge

          @Scorchio!!

          "and if Ms Perry and her friends find this too much trouble"

          Believe it or not, that is *exactly* her argument.

          They're all too *complicated* to set up and maintain. Interestingly she never mentions that quite a lot of her target audience, the Middle class, relatively well off Mumsnet types (not the 7 MP's present at the recent debate) with either substantial jobs or a very well paid husband, would certainly be able to hire some tradesmen to do it for then.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Happy

            Oh dear...

            Bored housewives..."My husbands is away!"...(rough)tradesmen at the front door...oh dear, I think I need an internet filter and a lie down....

            1. Scorchio!!
              Happy

              Re: Oh dear...

              Now it is funny you mention it but precisely those thoughts went through my mind as I read the response to my post. Then there's the tradesman's entrance.

          2. Scorchio!!
            Unhappy

            Re: @Scorchio!!

            These are not so very different from their like minded colleagues in the Labour party. As someone once said "There are no longer people to vote for, only people to vote against".

  4. phuzz Silver badge
    Go

    Opt-In

    I can't help but think there's a market opportunity for ISPs to offer an opt-IN system so people can keep their little darlings safe in the big bad interwebs.

    Any by the time you think about switching it off, they'll probably be old enough to hack round it anyway.

    1. Charles 9

      Don't those already exist?

      Are you referring to technologies like Net Nanny? I've never used them myself, but do these softwares BLACKlist or WHITElist? For the purposes of making a guarded webspace for children to surf (still supervised), I would think the WHITElist approach would be safer so that "stranger" sites are excluded until they've been vetted first by either the provider or the parent.

  5. Jolyon

    stooge-agitator

    Stoogitator.

    Merry Christmas.

  6. Ian Yates
    Joke

    Wrong time of year

    But why not ask all the nefarious websites to use the new HTML5 tag: <meta name="evil" content="yes" /> and filter by that?

    1. Scorchio!!

      Re: Wrong time of year

      Now that you mention it, don't most modern browsers have a filter set up which only the sysadmin can touch, meaning that kids can be given guest accounts? Or are the parents not internet savvy... ...hmm.

  7. Marco Mieshio
    Thumb Down

    oh not again

    As an ISP owner I will not pander to the governments control of the Internet. I didn't set up an Internet Company 16 years ago now to be bound and gagged by the commons. If you don't want your kids seeing Internet porn then don't let them go on the Internet and don't let them mix with any other children or adults for that matter. In fact wrap them in cotton wool and keep them by the fire (but not too close). I am tired of legislation, there is already far far far far far far far far far far too much of it already. This is a ticking time bomb, only time will tell....

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    commercial proxies ?

    I've often wondered, if people are *that* concerned about internet smut, why no one has successfully set up a service offering a "clean feed" proxy. Open an account, download a settings file, lock your (kids) browser profile in, and away you go.

    I'm always wary of governments barging in where free markets fear to tread ... could it be there's not as much demand as the Daily Heil will have us believe ?

    1. Davey Bee

      <sigh>

      The Daily Mail's coverage of this was essentially as a news item (the article was uncritical, but then that is equally true of the Daily Mirror's reporting on the proposal). I can see no evidence that the Mail imagines there is huge public demand for an opt-in system.

      In addition, the Mail's online replies were overwhelmingly hostile to Vaizey's plan. Very few supporting it.

      But then actually reading the items in question before ranting on about the Mail would probably be too much to ask of you.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        and ?

        Whenever the Daily Mail runs a story about cannabis, the replies are 90% in favour of decriminalisation.

        Just pointing to the publics desire for, or against a particular measure has no correlation to it's being implemented. Ask the 1,000,000 who marched to stop a war we still got involved in.

        And my use of the Daily Heil was *representative* of the hectoring media we have today with their "think of the childrun" approach to persecuting paediatricians. - understood by most here.

    2. Ray Simard

      @commercial proxies

      There are ISPs specializing in filtered content. One I've heard of is called IntegrityOnline. There must be others. I don't know much about it, but if it's what it seems to be, it's the best kind of answer: those who want it can get it; those who don't want it aren't subject to unwelcome and probably politically-driven interference, and the market decides if there's enough demand for the product to justify its existence.

  9. Gusty O'Windflap
    FAIL

    hang on...

    the last goverment told us we could not have "extreme pornography" whilst actually leaving the definition of extreme a little vague for the courts, and now the new lot are saying that all porn should go because children could access it? And i guess if you wanted to be able to look at pornography you would have to register yourself as an opt-out and therefore be flagged immediately by the powers that be as some sort of wrong un.

    I have posted it many times before and I shall continue to do so as long as I keep reading things like this...

    "My final point about alcohol, about drugs, about pornography...What business is it of your's what I do, read, buy, see or take into my body as long as I don't harm another human being whilst on this planet?

    And for those of you having a little moral dilemma on how to answer this, I'll answer for you:

    NONE OF YOUR F**KING BUSINESS." - Bill Hicks

    1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
      Boffin

      Ah but it isn't you see!

      The Gov allowed you to be born, they own you and unless you want to be flagged up as some sort of paedo-terrorist-anti-Brit-trouble-making-wrong-un in need of "correction", you will toe the line and do as we say!

      "Shut your mouth and get back in line

      and if you don't like it -

      well it suits us just fine.

      WE pull the levers

      WE hold the strings

      and these are just a few of our favourite things.

      Learn the words of the company song

      "The right IS right, IS right IS strong".

      Come on children all sing along

      'cause if you think you can change

      you were never more wrong."

      1. galbak
        Go

        cut, pasted, printed, stuck to bus shelters, and pub windows. just waiting for the boot on the door

        great little rhyme, anyone know who wrote it originaly?

        "Shut your mouth and get back in line

        and if you don't like it - well it suits us just fine.

        WE pull the levers, WE hold the strings

        and these are just a few of our favourite things.

        Learn the words of the company song

        "The right IS right, IS right IS strong".

        Come on children all sing along

        'cause if you think you can change

        you were never more wrong."

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. cannon
    Big Brother

    Porn

    So are they going to ban the sun's page 3 as our children can pick it up. parenting is the parents responsibility not some fascist dictators...

    its always the same line though, we must control you to "protect our children", if its not padophiles, its terrorists or pirates used as a fear tactic to gain popularity to remove our liberties...

  12. Pypes
    Stop

    Here we go again

    "We’ve got to stop treating children like adults and adults like children.”

    few months later

    "You can't be trusted to raise your kids, so we are going to do it for you, won't you please think of the children"

    New boss, old boss, etc.

  13. Ged T
    Big Brother

    And, if truely concerned, what about TV access to 'porn'?

    In the UK, there are numerous TV channels readily available to view on Freeview and Freesat, without any real controls in place. Even where there are controls, the "pornographic" content is rarely any different than you could find in many UK papers, magazines or even regular TV.

    Before getting all bent out of shape about the 'internet', shouldn't this government minister first look into the these 'low hanging fruit' opportunities to rid the UK of cheap sleaze? At least, then, we may gain a channel or two for HD (DVB-T2/Mpeg4) services...

    Maybe it's some other agenda, then...

    Surely, that fact the owners of such freely broadcast 'smut' make lots of money from it (0900 numbers, paid subscriptions etc) and that some of those broadcasters even channel some of that money, by way of political donations, to thier politician friends and parties isn't a factor? Is it?

    Maybe, then, its that the 'purveyors of porn' are being targetted by UK gov because they make no contributions to UK political parties?

    Or maybe its because the 'minister concerned' can't think of a way of 'monetising' or taxing it?

    Or maybe its because this UK gov and the 'concerned minister' are just as determined as the last UK gov and minister to erode all notions freedom to choose as well as corrode notions of personal responsibility...

    1. Chad H.
      Stop

      Tv porn

      Tv porn is regulated by ofcom and you need a license to broadcast. Go too far or show at the wrong time, bye-bye license.

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