from the people-don't-want-to-be-censored dept.
Recently, UK ISPs were encouraged by the government to offer network level filters that blocked naughty content to new users signing up. It appears that people aren't as keen on these filters as the government hoped.
Only 5% of new BT customers signed up, 8% opted in for Sky and 4% for Virgin Media. TalkTalk rolled out a parental-control system two years before the government required it and has had much better take-up of its offering, with 36% of customers signing up for it.
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The UK internet "porn filters" have been found to be blocking more than just porn, including TorrentFreak & Linuxtracker. Twitter, Facebook and reddit have been blocked by some ISPs as "potentially dangerous to children ".
This data has been collected by the Open Rights Group's website that checks to see if a site is blocked on a certain network (as this information is not released from the ISPs). Ironically, this site, blocked.org.uk has itself been blocked by some ISPs.
A new tool released by the Open Rights Group today reveals that 20% of the 100,000 most-visited websites on the Internet are blocked by the parental filters of UK ISPs. With the newly-launched website, the group makes it easier to expose false positives and to show that the blocking efforts actually ban many legitimate sites, TorrentFreak included.
The results of ORG's new tool show that what started as a "porn filter" has turned into something much bigger. Under the guise of "protecting the children" tens of thousands of sites are now caught up in overbroad filters, which is a worrying development to say the least.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ticho on Wednesday July 23 2014, @12:46PM
They just need to engineer a leak of a fake "internal classified document" which details how everyone who opts out gets put on a special watchlist, and instruct their loyal mass media to make a fuss about it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Wednesday July 23 2014, @12:54PM
So, basically, almost every single subscriber is on that watch-list already because they did not wish to opt-in.
We just add the rest too and be done with it. Who cares if the list is (in)accurate. Everybody is a terrorist anyway, according to government logic.
(Score: 2) by ticho on Wednesday July 23 2014, @01:00PM
The point is not the overly broad watchlist, but the media scare which will work on all the grandpas, stay-at-home moms and Joe Sixpacks.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:51PM
No, this "filter" actually puts EVERYBODY on the watch list, because everyone's connection goes through the filter, even if you uncheck the box. The filter logs the websites that everyone visits.
A "normal" implementation would go "
if don't filter url
pass url through
else
filter url
because that would greatly reduce the workload of the filtering data system
but no, the UK demanded it work like this
filter url
if don't filter url
pass url through
And that was the real snake-in-the-grass.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday July 23 2014, @08:11PM
funny! :-)
(Score: 3, Informative) by present_arms on Wednesday July 23 2014, @12:57PM
I never have used the censor as everyone here are adults and can look at whatever they like as long as it's legal, it's up to the individual if they want the software do the "baby sitting" for them, instead of actually taking time to educate their children in the first place, and even then that wont work as all the child needs to do is use their phone in a open wifi hotspot and circumvent whatever anyway. It's like when i was younger, maybe 11 or 12 when my mate found a load of porn in a shed, my parents would have never let me read such stuff, but behind their backs... Anyway as it has been proved time and time again, censorship is always circumvented. Just as Barbara Streisand.
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday July 23 2014, @12:59PM
that should of said "Just ask Barbara...."
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @01:05PM
that should of said "Just ask Barbara...."
And that should have said, "That should have said..."
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday July 23 2014, @01:23PM
Give me a break, I'm a Brummie :P and type pretty much how I talk
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @01:53PM
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday July 23 2014, @02:54PM
Yeah I should've, could've, would've but didn't
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 23 2014, @02:55PM
Because it was so obvious to anyone not from England.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday July 23 2014, @03:03PM
Indeed, thank you for that
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by elgrantrolo on Wednesday July 23 2014, @02:46PM
In my case, the engineer subcontracted by BT stopped by, did the cabling installation and once the line was tested asked me to use the browser to finish the sign up process and run speed test. When the web filtering bit came up on the screen he just said to untick the box and press next. I knew what the screen was about but there really was no time to read the T&Cs.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday July 24 2014, @09:30AM
I've been a BT customer from before the nanny filter, but moved house after it was turned on. The engineer had to come round to connect wires in the cabinet. I told him that the VDSL modem was fine, but there was no way I was having a "home hub" on there -- it doesn't even support static routes, let along ospf. How can anyone run a network like that?
After he connected the wires in the cabinet, everything sprang to life and I wass getting 60mbit down 20mbit up, no problems.
No filter page was presented, and I can still get to hotfilthygirlswithguns.net, so I assume the filtering is only on new customer accounts?
The only filtering on my network is a fake DNS entry for "*.dailymail.co.uk". Too many times I've accidentally followed links to this site.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday July 23 2014, @02:50PM
Seriously, why would most people want such a thing? If I don't want to see "naughty" websites, I won't visit them. I don't need my ISP to block my ability to do so, especially with the long list of inevitable false-positives and "political blacklist" stuff that will also be blocked. The only reason I would even consider doing such a thing is if I'm an irresponsible prude with children that I want to allow to use the 'net unsupervised, and am gullible enough to believe that the ISP filter won't let boatloads of stuff slip through anyway.
(Score: 1) by turgid on Wednesday July 23 2014, @08:28PM
The Tory government brought it in to appeal to the IQ = 80 Daily Fail readers who have a substantial influence in General Elections.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:18PM
An easy fix to increase take-up rates - advertise your choice to the neighbours.