UK's pornography age checks come into force from 15th July

[philehidiot]

Analysis of Hexus news and posts:

Incredible story about how Intel have fallen so far behind they may be using Samsung to cook their new GPUs.... 61 views, zero comments.

Expected but brutal news for Samsung as their new £2K phone falls apart in the hands of journalists leading everyone to think "saw that one coming".... 126 views, 9 comments.

THEY'RE TAKING OUR PORN! 695 views, 47 comments (now 48).

[spacein_vader]

your kidding right - is that actually a thing?

Its not far off being the only thing. Aside from the hardcore flight/racing sim crowd for whom the cockpit view makes a difference all other VR games seem massively underwhelming. That leaves movies, and you don't see many mainstream ones on VR. So that leaves...

https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/04/how-...g-the-industry

If it was good enough for VHS it's good enough for VR.

[lodore]

If that's what I'm thinking of, then it works well for access at a home via wifi, but it doesn't address mobile usage over the cellular network.

Balance is important, so while I'm also on the side of generally not restricting the internet, it is worth highlighting that this isn't meant to be foolproof/exhaustive/a silver bullet. It's one small measure aimed at trying to reduce early, accidental, exposure - to material which is far more extreme than what you'd find in a magazine in the shed back in the day. The problem of distorted norms and introducing violence to sexual relationships is affecting children and young adults' mental health, and this is one facet, alongside calls for more appropriate education etc. to try and address that.

I thought mobile networks blocked adult content /gambling content by default?
I know vodaphone and O2 do.
I still think that the mandatory block of adult content on internet connections and then this is just a way to avoid parental responsibility.
Has anyone noticed recently that most alcohol websites don't require date of birth anymore? are you over 18? yes or no. not a hard choice. I know that date of birth isn't 100% but it will stop a certain amount.
Trusting a third party with personal data to access adult content is such a bad idea. so many data leaks how long until everyone knows not only that mr smith accesses porn but which websites and type of content?

[philehidiot]

Its not far off being the only thing. Aside from the hardcore flight/racing sim crowd for whom the cockpit view makes a difference all other VR games seem massively underwhelming. That leaves movies, and you don't see many mainstream ones on VR. So that leaves...

https://www.vrfocus.com/2018/04/how-...g-the-industry

If it was good enough for VHS it's good enough for VR.

But if it's that immersive, how do you hear the footsteps of a mother approaching the bedroom door?

[Saracen999]

But if it's that immersive, how do you hear the footsteps of a mother approaching the bedroom door?

Locks, dear boy, locks.

And a few drawing pins "accidentally" left on tne stairs.


I recommend a good physics textbook in tne seat of your trousers if you try the latter. I learned that the hard way.

It also meant I got some benefit from physics text books ... object lesson in the application of force equations. I learned about anatomy too.

[Porthos2020]

Having worked in a school, this isn't going to stop kids accessing porn anyway. They are always far ahead of most adults in terms on knowing how to bypass restrictions. People this is going to inconvenience the most is adults tbh.

[Saracen999]

Having worked in a school, this isn't going to stop kids accessing porn anyway. They are always far ahead of most adults in terms on knowing how to bypass restrictions. People this is going to inconvenience the most is adults tbh.

Quite agree. Kids do seem to be streets ahead of most parents, tech-wise, but I rather doubt this is going to inconvenience even most adults much.

But for those too tech-illiterate, or just stupid, to type a search term into a search engine they could always pop down to the nearest school and ask a passing 10-year-old how to bypass government age-verification porn filters, 'cos I'm sure that won't have any unforeseen consequences at all. What could go wrong?


For any passing readers that really are terminally thick .... I'm kidding.

Oops, "kidding" might be the wrong term. I'm joking, okay?

[Corky34]

Analysis of Hexus news and posts:

Incredible story about how Intel have fallen so far behind they may be using Samsung to cook their new GPUs.... 61 views, zero comments.

Expected but brutal news for Samsung as their new £2K phone falls apart in the hands of journalists leading everyone to think "saw that one coming".... 126 views, 9 comments.

THEY'RE TAKING OUR PORN! 695 views, 47 comments (now 48).

Well to be fair you probably summarised most peoples thoughts on the fist two stories with those words you put in quotations, Intel's supply and demand issue have been know for quiet some time and is there anyone, other than Samsung, who didn't see the problems of a foldable phone.

[peterb]

Analysis of Hexus news and posts:

Incredible story about how Intel have fallen so far behind they may be using Samsung to cook their new GPUs.... 61 views, zero comments.

Expected but brutal news for Samsung as their new £2K phone falls apart in the hands of journalists leading everyone to think "saw that one coming".... 126 views, 9 comments.

THEY'RE TAKING OUR PORN! 695 views, 47 comments (now 48).

But 600 of those probably went away disappointed because the tread showed up in a search for PORN!

[kalniel]

But 600 of those probably went away disappointed because the tread showed up in a search for PORN!

This could do wonders for Hexus' SEO...

[nacasatu]

Can't even blame Europe for this one, it's purely a UK censorship.
It's like you're going backwards.

Can only imagine what's coming down the line now once the UK are away from the EU restrictions based around human rights and protections for consumers, won't be too far in the future that internet access itself will require a personal license.

[Mr_Jon]

won't be too far in the future that internet access itself will require a personal license.

Chinny reckon.

[atemporal]

so I did a (very quick) bit of research on this. Took off the filters and DNS blocking and tried to see how bad this really is/how easy etc. My thoughts are this:

1) yes, it does seem far too easy to access it. Doesn't take much effort whatsoever without router filtering in place
2) it is really easy to use a VPN, even I could manage it
3) google searches or whatever are far more random in their results - and the user has far less control over what they show.
4) search engines do indeed play videos quite easily.
5) Flicking on the DNS filtering nobbles 4) quite easily. Less so still images in 3) though.

All in all it seems a bit of a waste of time. By not including search engines WTF is the point? It protects no-one. Dare I suggest that for those clearly seeking out such content I'd much rather people could visit the proper sites. The way those pages are set up on the main sites that came top in the listings it seems to me you're less likely to be shown content you didn't want to see. Everything seems quite well categorized, even if I don't know what half of it means. By contrast a fairly innocuous browser image search just spits out images blanket style from all over the web and there are some things I wish I could unsee. Stuff I definitely was not trying to see. I would imagine it also risks spitting out stuff from sites that are less... legit/self censoring?

It seems to me that jonny-innocent not intentionally trying to view adult content is no better protected. He is likely to still be able to blunder across nude pics and the like via search engines unless the parents have properly set up his devices and their home router. And how many people bother/don't know how?

My research was not that intensive or thorough but to me it does seem a bizarre waste of time. Well intentioned - and I applaud the desire at the heart of it all - but ultimately a waste of time in regards the stated aim, and potentially a foot in the door to far worse government intrusion if you want to go machievellian/orwellian about it.

So TLDR research supported the general arguments in this thread. Seriously though, my eyes, my eyes. Things I did not want to see. And I guess that's the point. They're trying to protect minors from seeing those same things. Just a pity they are doing such a half-baked job of it!

[blueball]

Just a pity they are doing such a half-baked job of it!

Did you expect anything else?

[atemporal]

Did you expect anything else?

what annoys me is that took me less than an hour. WTF have they been doing all this time apart from seemingly chasing a pipe dream?

[Corky34]

At least now when voters ask politicians why the same rules don't apply online as offline then can claim they do.