British Isp's censoring users net connections

[2Cold Scorpio]

Man, that sounds pretty screwed up, no matter their intentions. Even if their intentions are good, it looks like its being badly handled...

[TooNice]

That's not really the issue, it's that this charity doesn't really seem to know what it's doing by proxying whole servers (wikipedia is just madness considering the amount of people that use that) instead of just filtering specific addresses or image recognition like they use over in China for stuff like tianamen square (in this case actually putting it to a good use)

It's just the page that has been blocked AFAIK? China has in instances blocked entire sites (including Wikipedia). And the great firewall doesn't work that well either.

Considering whats at the link i can't see this beeing a problem to/for anyone.
The second they do it with torrent sites though ther'll be riots in the streets.

What if, hypothetically, they start blocking specific torrent files (i.e. those with copyrighted materials)?

[directhex]

What if, hypothetically, they start blocking specific torrent files (i.e. those with copyrighted materials)?

And given present practice, do it badly enough to just make *.torrent show a 404?

[Perfectionist]

I can see the reason for it though, if people think it's just an error they won't be suspicious and look elsewhere or complain in the cases where this company cock things up ala Wikipedia (it seems Wikipedia had to figure it out themselves no one contacted them!) - at the moment 95% of the UK is blocked from editing Wikipedia cos of this

[Barakka]

TBH I've seen more offensive things in the Tate, but I can understand why a lot of people feel the image should be banned even though it was not deemed as obscene by the Miller Test in the US.

But by blocking the entire page on what is now widely regarded as one of the most concise and reliable sources of information on the Internet it smells of trying to erase the fact that this album existed in the first place.

[alsenior]

The IWF just released a statement regarding the blocking of the image.

A Wikipedia web page, was reported through the IWF’s online reporting mechanism in December 2008. As with all child sexual abuse reports received by our Hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council (page 109). The content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18, but hosted outside the UK. The IWF does not issue takedown notices to ISPs or hosting companies outside the UK, but we did advise one of our partner Hotlines abroad and our law enforcement partner agency of our assessment. The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child.

Via IWF

[directhex]

The IWF just released a statement regarding the blocking of the image.



Via IWF

They blocked the text, not the image

Simply put, they ARE trying it on.

[directhex]

And am I the only one who finds it particularly insidious that they use TCP RESETs to kill a connection, rather than being open enough to say "THIS PAGE HAS BEEN CENSORED BECAUSE YOU RAPE KIDS, YOU KID RAPIST"? Their methodology is secretive and designed to make it appear we have an open Internet, when we don't.

[noTHINGface]

And am I the only one who finds it particularly insidious that they use TCP RESETs to kill a connection, rather than being open enough to say "THIS PAGE HAS BEEN CENSORED BECAUSE YOU RAPE KIDS, YOU KID RAPIST"? Their methodology is secretive and designed to make it appear we have an open Internet, when we don't.

Nope, most certainly not the only person. It is pervasive and as transparent as concrete trousers. I have a sour feeling that we're going to be seeing more and more of this in the future. An ill precedent has now been set.

[jimbouk]

Who on Be wants to try and give 30 days notice for them to unblock the page otherwise the contract will be terminated?

Have to prove they are in breach of terms though, pretty difficult I guess. Sure they are not giving you "Unlimited usage" as it says on the front pages of the packages, but their terms are far from clear on this.

[directhex]

Who on Be wants to try and give 30 days notice for them to unblock the page otherwise the contract will be terminated?

Have to prove they are in breach of terms though, pretty difficult I guess. Sure they are not giving you "Unlimited usage" as it says on the front pages of the packages, but their terms are far from clear on this.

They're denying you access to a static IP, which means you can't edit Wikipedia anymore

If you paid for static, then this is a big breach

[format]

They're denying you access to a static IP, which means you can't edit Wikipedia anymore

If you paid for static, then this is a big breach

Ooh,ooh, I paid for a static IP, can I sue 'em, can I?

Seriously though, when I get home I'm going to submit a complaint ticket

[Whiternoise]

I wouldn't quit Be over this.. it's annoying, but besides that they've been a lot better than most of the other companies.

Would you rather switch to Virgin and be throttled to death?

[jimbouk]

I wouldn't quit Be over this.. it's annoying, but besides that they've been a lot better than most of the other companies.

Would you rather switch to Virgin and be throttled to death?

I wouldn't leave Be, but I would let them know I'm not happy about it.

[Agent]

The more I think about it, the more crazy this seems.

It is an encyclopaedia for crying out loud, not a kiddie fiddling website. What do they think they are achieving by blocking this page? How many magazines and books have this image in them?

They should block the page on Nuclear Weapons, you know, just in case the terrorists find it and get ideas

[chuckskull]

What a shock, another bonehead organisation draws a lot of attention to something no-one really wanted to see in the first place, and then immediately backs down http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...criticism.html

I also really don't like the idea of an organisation I hadn't heard of til the other day quietly censoring the internet and only backing down to avoid negative publicity. After reading a bit more about them, their intentions seem honest, infact something I wholeheartedly support. As should anyone with some semblance of morality and humanity, but their method seems flawed and well y'know what they say about good intentions..

From what I've read their method seems to amount to(excuse the analogy) just taking the drugs off the users as they find them, rather than directly combating the sources. I would rather see every single penny going toward stopping the images and videos of exploited children being made in the first place, failing that bringing the harshest punishments to bear on those that have done to stop them doing it again.