Britain getting its own firewall?

[roachcoach]

Ok, title is a bit poor because we already have it, but I was trying not to be too scare-mongerish or sensationalist. If anyone can think of a better one, let me know

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13927335

One in the court pipeline at the moment, leveraging the IWF child porn filter for other sites.


Personally I hope the courts boot it into touch, far far too open to abuse if this gets through.



Elegant proof of scope creep of censorship though. Child porn to illegal downloads is quite the jump, not even terrorism websites merit this treatment. Also ingenious is the fact the list is confidential, so you don't know if you're on it or not.

[aidanjt]

Slow poke: http://www.hexus.net/trk/rt.php?item=30985&company=198

[roachcoach]

Ach, caught the story at work and not long in, didn't see a thread here yet.

Mods, lock away

[petercook7]

They need a new business model, where does it stop are we going to end up like china?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Only horrible communists like those in China censor the internets!!

None of the democratic governments like Australia would ever do that!!

[TooNice]

Frankly, I think the IWF filter sucks. Not because I have any remote interest in kiddie pr0n, but because they sometime block entire file hosting sites. Not the offending links, they just block the whole site so you either have to use another site to upload / mirror to download.

[yamangman]

IWF is opt-in. ISP's aren't (yet) forced to filter according to it.

[Lucio]

I'm still not impressed with our government's efforts to filter the internet, even less so than our ISP's who haven't decided to offer "child safe" subscription packages. If there's a reason to filter the internet, then parents should be able to sign up ISP's packages who offer either a password protected filter, or a complete blacklist. It's no good offering software solutions as most kids are smarter than their parents at using the PC and could circumnavigate them.

And despite the howls of protest, there are arguements for a national firewall, such as cutting down on the number of viruses and malware attempts made against people.

[TooNice]

Correcting myself, they do not block whole domains. However, use of proxy server to implement the system still break file hosting sites and any sites which my restrict the number of request from a single IP (since the request would then be seen from the ISP's proxy). Still annoying.

[roachcoach]

IWF is opt-in. ISP's aren't (yet) forced to filter according to it.

I understood the party line from the government was "filter it, or we'll make it law so you have to filter it". So it kind of works rather like a Mafia boss of old making a suggestion.

[aidanjt]

And despite the howls of protest, there are arguements for a national firewall, such as cutting down on the number of viruses and malware attempts made against people.

If national firewalls would work at that, then ISP firewalls would do it. You can't firewall against stupidity.

[Lowe]

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-channe...k-newzbin.html

Over there please.