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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

recent decision by MNHQ

508 replies

NetworkGuy · 02/02/2011 23:33

Please, MNHQ, do have a read of this thread and consult your Tech people so they can give you the answers as to whether your support for this campaign and the Minister's plans are worth going on with.

I would hope you not only reverse your position but assuming you get sufficient technical reasoning in 'Plain English', that you go public and explain how unworkable the proposal is likely to be. I feel sure journalists at Computer Weekly and Computing will be able to provide confirmation that filtering is a hiding to nothing and can be very costly because of the millions of GB of data flowing through the bigger ISP networks.

For anyone baffled, and wondering if I'm a nut case, this concerns a proposal to get ISPs to "filter out" all porn, unless a customer "opts in". For numerous technical reasons the idea is never likely to achieve filtering without blocking access to legitimate sites or not blocking access to better than say 95% reliable, thus making it a costly exercise in futility, while parental vigilance and filtering software at the home would still be essential for peace of mind.

(Incidentally the wording of the campaign page implies the parents need to ask, at the same time as someone wanting not to have censored content needs to ask - it is one or other, but not both that would need to contact ISP. )

OP posts:
Snorbs · 03/02/2011 22:18

I would be very interested in the answer to one question from the meeting on Monday:

Is this proposal specifically about filtering pornography and only pornography, or is it about sites that aren't child-friendly in general?

Because if it's the former then you'll still need to run a filter on your PC to keep your kids away from sites that aren't porn but that are still completely inappropriate for children to see.

If it's the latter, then you'll likely find a lot of non-porn sites that you as an adult may want to access will be blocked. So you'll have to opt-out of the filtering and then run a filter on your PC to keep your kids safe.

Motherfunster · 03/02/2011 22:17

Justen, it boils down to how or who defines pornography.

And that is for now out of the range of even the most advanced computing as in certain areas, this remains subjective.

MNHQ
JustineMumsnet · 03/02/2011 22:03

@MmeLindt

Ok, I do not fully understand the techy bits, and I guess that many other MNetter will not either. But as I understand this, it boils down to this:

  • If my PC is locked down but my neighbour's is not, then their child can show my children porn.
  • My neighbour's child can download and distribute porn on his phone.
  • It does NOTHING at all to stop the production and distribution of porn, as those who want to access it will opt in.

Is this correct?

Child protection would be better served if the money was spent on searching for the bastards who make, distribute and watch child porn.

I don't believe that MN should get involved in this campaign.

No that's not quite right - the idea is that the default for all is that pornography is off - you need to actively turn it on to view it. So the likelihood is that it will be off for your neighbour's child too. The problem now is that you actively have to understand and set controls and even if you do, there is every likelihood that your neighbour will not have.

Switching the default to off is an idea that has been supported on MN boards when it's been discussed in the passed. The objections voiced here are about the feasibility/practicality of achieving the desired aim, rather than the aim itself.

And, of course, if it's impractical, that's a very good reason for not trying to do it. The people in the know who we've spoken to - most notably the folks at Childnet and other child protection agencies who've been monitoring this and talking to the phone companies about it for some time - seem to think it is feasible. We obviously don't know (we're not experts) and obviously there's some scepticism from techy types here.

There is a meeting with the relevant government ministers - Ed Vaizey and Tim Loughton- the ISPs, the NSPCC, the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety on Monday. We're going along too. We'll get a very good sense there I think of what the ISPs think about this and whether it is or isn't feasible and we'll, of course, report back.

Thanks for all your input.

Original poster
NetworkGuy · 03/02/2011 21:55

I held an Amateur Radio Licence for around 10 years but didn't bother to renew it as half of my interest was shortwave listening, and then when I moved 200 miles to a fresh job, lost touch with the people I had regular conversations with down south.

I did use RTTY and AX.25 (the Amateur Radio packet switching) in the late 80s around the time I was using PSS from BT and helped get my employer onto JANET (the Academic network) so I liaised with JANET staff in London and used their satellite link to the USA when necessary, or sent e-mail via BITNET (a network of IBM systems mostly in the USA but also across Europe and there was a UK gateway between JANET and BITNET so we could exchange e-mail (with rather long mail addresses, specifying interconnection gateways).

Although I studied radio for the Navy at college, and did Morse code to 25 wpm, I never took the Amateur Morse test at 12 wpm, as the whole method of communication was different. I was trained not to interpret the message, just to copy it down, and for sending, assume one was sending a pre-written telegram, where in Amateur use, a person thinks the message and sends it simultaneously or decodes the message and absorbs it.

The training I had rejected that interpretation method completely, because interpreting would lead to incorrectly guessing a word ending, for example. Think of the Two Ronnies and their slow chat in the pub, where several different 'next word' options would be offered for comic effect.

OP posts:
Motherfunster · 03/02/2011 21:40

Just a vision of a Dr Strangelove like scene of a fanatically moralizing politician waving a pair of bolt cutters. But then he would have trouble cutting the cable as his knees would jerking too much..

Motherfunster · 03/02/2011 21:31

So there is an off button, there called bolt cutters.

Iv always been intrigued by ham radios..

Iv just been told by the resident tecy that the wireless peer to peer method being developed will make the www less fragile or controllable..

Original poster
NetworkGuy · 03/02/2011 21:15

even if your average 9yo hasn't heard of proxy servers, it won't take too much discussion before someone with an older sibling passes on how they avoided firewalls and blocking software.

Yes, it's true about the origins, but in truth things were far less fragile back then, IMO, because the amount of traffic was low and therefore it would have been relatively easy for the different nodes to learn a different route with minimal time and programming.

Now, with thousands of GB of traffic, there are relatively few interchange points at the ends of undersea fibres, where any significant damage could cut a country off. Even without such a disconnection, if some switching centre is misconfigured millions of users might get no data for hours before that is sorted out (and it is likely to be a human task to reconfigure, not automatic the way DARPAnet would have been).

A lot of traffic goes to the USA (as many of the servers are in warehouses over there, and a large portion of demand is within the USA). However, funding is such that other countries pay for all the connecting links with the USA so they get their traffic from outside the USA for free (if they are actually looking at websites outside the USA, of course!)

When I mentioned 'fragile' earlier, it was because there are under 10 major interconnections in the USA and a computer science lecturer or professor was warned against including some information in talks he gave because from a terrorist viewpoint the details could be used to cripple the USA economically if a few of those were knocked out of action at the same time.

As well as crippling the USA, you can perhaps imagine that other links not going to the USA would be used to provide connections, but would probably be overwhelmed.

If you try to access a server in Japan, New Zealand or Australia, odds are that the connection will go "the long way round" via USA, simply because the major traffic routes converge there.

OP posts:
Motherfunster · 03/02/2011 20:59

I?m absolutely terrified of what?s out there on the www Lenn as much as I would be sending my dd off to town on her own. I kept her with me while she young and now she?s becoming a teenager, hope to god Iv armed her with enough savi to deal with things, and places to avoid.

Earlier this thread has however demonstrated one of the more viable solutions to the problem at hand; it lies in the sharing of information on how to deal with this on a practical level at home, i.e. questions on Xbox and the like earlier on.

We have a hypothetical technical proposition from a politically motivated individual(s).Id rather get my technical information from a technical source.

Basically you could say the www escaped from a military lab, it was built to withstand attacks on its ?nodes? and buy pass blocks such as in the event of nuclear war. You ether switch it off completely, (that?s not even completely possible given the recent use of dial up modems in Egypt to get news out) or you learn to live with it on an individual level in you family home.

You block, you average 9 year old could figure out how to proxy serve with in a matter of minutes.

This is a parenting issue. We just need the information and the tools to deal with it.

LeninGrad · 03/02/2011 20:24

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LeninGrad · 03/02/2011 20:22

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KalokiMallow · 03/02/2011 20:18

You know the fuss over EE? MN got behind it because a large amount of users asked them to. So how come when a large amount of users ask them not to back something (haven't seen any threads where the majority are backing it) they do the opposite?

Snorbs · 03/02/2011 19:37

Motherfunster, indeed.

A policy of "We're all for it until and unless it proves unworkable. Meanwhile, we'll ignore all the attempts at similar things that have already been proven to be unworkable" is just absurd.

I note that MNHQ still hasn't found the time to let us know which experts they consulted that told them this was a good idea.

Motherfunster · 03/02/2011 19:31

"If a default filter option turns out to be unachievable, then of course we'll rethink"

Shouldn?t MN of found out first if this was actually a feasible proposition before lending its support to the idea, as in talking to the ISP?s rather that consulting with a MP on the matter.

Or to take note of the parts of the world where this kind of thing has been attempted.

KalokiMallow · 03/02/2011 19:24

Spam has been reduced in email. Yes.

However, any website with user produced content (eg. forums, social networks) can still contain spam, it is far harder to police. Spam and porn are two different beasts.

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 03/02/2011 19:13

I think the thing I'm Most uncoomfortable about this whole idea is of a blanket "opt in" "opt out" system.

So either I can access adult - non-pornographic websites - and have access to all porn.........or I can have access to no adult orientated websites.

Not to menion the fact that there's nothing stopping DS1's friend getting something on hi parents "opted in for porn" computer, sending it to DS1 o his phone and it being accessed that way.

LeninGrad · 03/02/2011 19:09

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Snorbs · 03/02/2011 19:06

Spam is a technically easier proposition to deal with at the ISP level rather than filtering access to adult websites due to the way email is transmitted and handled. Even then, spam emails do get through and you do sometimes get legitimate emails mis-identified as spam.

LeninGrad · 03/02/2011 18:53

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
NetworkGuy · 03/02/2011 18:45

Eleison - there are some similarities to the block piracy web sites proposals under the Digital Economy Act but if you look at ThinkBroadband here you can see that some ISPs suspect they will come up against Human Rights claims and are requesting legal scrutiny.

A separate ThinkBroadband article http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/4517.html about the "block porn" proposal says

"On hearing of the proposals, industry came back with mixed responses. BT said it would be happy to discuss the implementation of such a system but there are many 'legal, consumer rights and technical issues' that need to be evaluated before it could go live.

Trefor Davies of Timico was less keen on the idea and questioned how well a system like this could work. There are millions of sites that would need to be blocked and these are changing all the time."

OP posts:
Snorbs · 03/02/2011 18:45

MmeLindt, the other big issue is that in blocking porn there is a very strong chance that other, non-porn sites will also be blocked either erroneously or because the definition of "porn" is too broad.

So if you as an adult want to access a non-porn but nevertheless adult site - such as lovehoney or b3ta - then you will have to opt-out of all filtering for everyone using your Internet connection.

lessnarkypuffin · 03/02/2011 18:43

DH was at boarding school and it was way more than 60% of boys if we're talking pictures rather than film. They rented out porn mags.

Eleison · 03/02/2011 18:31

It can't really be that ridiculous a proposal can it? I'm sure that MN will have done an amount of research. I wouldn't want to caricature it as daft, or to adopt a reflex anti-'censorship' stance.

But the many objections from all most all of the apparently extremely well-informed posters on MN do seem to be very telling (and certainly undermine any suggestionthat this is an MN user campaign).

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 03/02/2011 18:21

ok, I just actually read the campaign stuff.

"Research suggests that 60% of boys under 16 have been exposed to pornography, either accidentally or deliberately."

This is surprising in how low it is. And I'll bet 99.9999% of the 60% was deliberate!

The mumsnet bandwagon is really becoming a bit of a runaway juggernaut at the moment. I joined mumsnet because it has a bunch of intelligent people who can debate an issue.

Recently mumsnet has turned into the oh my god, its going to hurt my child. ban it. ban it. ban it.

What about a bit of personal responsibility mumsnet?

This campaign is just embarrassing to me, and something I would expect of lesser parenting websites. I genuinely thought that MNHQ were savvy enough to do their own research, ask people who know, like Networkguy said, even ask their own Tech support for petes sake.

Sorry this is badly spelt, punctuated, and ranty. This ISP thing is a personal bugbear of mine, always touted as protecting the children, when in reality it is completely unworkable, and very 1984.

Shame on you mumsnet, backing this ridiculous campaign has made you seem very ignorant.

Tee2072 · 03/02/2011 18:01

I also would like to know who these 'experts' are who are saying this is doable. Is it doable without costing the ISPs a lot of money that they would have to pass along to us?

What about ISPs that may not originate in the UK or Europe, if this is an EU thing? Because I would certainly choose a foreign ISP that didn't have filtering regulations on it, if possible, over a UK one with it, taking the money out of the UK.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 03/02/2011 17:53

I can't believe mumsnet has decided to speak for me on this. What a load of bollocks. It is an unachievable aim and will just cost millions to no effect.

And since when do you accidentally come across porn? I have been using the internet since it was invented and never accidentally seen anything dodgy!