recent decision by MNHQ

[NetworkGuy]

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. )

Proxy access depends on how comprehensive the controls and filters are. Basic content filters won't stop proxy access. More complex filters can, with some difficulty, and at the risk of affecting other entirely innocent services (eg Skype, iChat, BBC iPlayer download manager etc) as well.

Isn't some kind of subscription service needed?

No. What is needed is for parents to keep an eye on what their children are doing on the Internet. If a parent can't be arsed to do that then no technological measure in the world is going to stop a determined teenager from seeing pictures of naked people.

LeninGrad "just use proxy servers and so on, is that true even with parental controls on the PC and no admin access"

Visit www.hidemyass.com/ and in the input box type www..com (or something innocent!)

Unless 'hidemyass.com' is blocked (and not by any porn filter it wouldn't be)... then you would be able to view the images, but playing the videos might not work very well (since this is free access, the speed of traffic from the hidemyass.com server to your home PC might be too low for streaming to work - there are usually low speed 'trial' facilities, whereas someone paying for access would get full speed for downloading. i don;t know if xhamster would reduce the speed of video going to hidemyass as well, or whether hidemyass would buffer some of the data if it was coming in faster than it was being passed on to the end user.

To reliably block images, analysis would need to be done while data was being sent to the ISP and before it was sent to your home connection, a significantly more complicated task [when you click the link for a web page, the HTML (web page text) starts to load, and embedded in the text will be references to images and other media (Flash or Shockwave files).

The browser will usually start to download those files as well, possibly downloading as many as 10 different files at once (a browser setting which commonly starts at say 4). A proxy may limit the number of simultaneous transfers but even so, to analyse each image it would need to be rebuilt at the ISP on the filtering system, then analysed to determine if it is innocent or not. A page with "thumbnail" images for say 100 'scenes' would need each of those 100 images to be checked.

If the images are not checked, then the basic "is this web address on out blocked list" test would be used. It would be possible to request a proxy service be blocked, but there are lots of valid, innocent, reasons why a proxy might be used so it would be overkill to block just because it could be misused.

Of course, even blocking one web addres for a proxy will not necessarily be enough. Once you have entered a web address you will see the proxy puts a yellow bar across the top of the browser window. At the right is a drop-down list of alternative domain names for this 'hidemyass' service. I suspect that there are 10 or 20 proxies for every one I have come across in the last six months, and any firm could add new domain names every week. I tend to use them for checking web site changes (when moving a domain from one server to another, it helps to know that a fresh 'look up' is finding the new web address even if my PC or ISP is holding the old IP address.

PS have found that a 14 minute hardcore video from the [FREE] x-rated service did play OK through this service. however I suspect it would fail in the evening UK time, when servers overseas might be far more heavily used than at 8am Eastern time.

Kaloki's suggestion was for open source software with a database for download, that could be updated centrally, rather like the anti-virus firms do now. Childnet or similar might be in a position to maintain a list of what they think should be banned.

The flexibility comes in because a parent could add or delete entries to make the list suitable for their child, depending on gender and age (so for a girl to have access to sites which give health advice, contraception, etc IYSWIM, esp once she is in her mid teens, while her brother age 10 may still be restricted from some sites).

Open source to cope with XP, etc, etc that don't have the benefit of Microsoft's latest software for Windows 7.

LeninGrad - I would hope that there'd be enough trust such that while some sites may be blocked, you'd explain you would regard using methods to avoid the blocking (without ever mentioning web proxies) as bad as going to the worst sites available on the web.

I suspect that a check at random once in every couple of months (so there's no way for DC to know if the following day the log could show they went via a web proxy) would be enough.

Although I was involved in securing multi-user systems, the sanctions we had for students were sufficient that without the ability to use computers for study they might as well give up on getting their degree, and as a result there were few problems. More problems with 6th formers from a local school who were able to access the service (and found a bug in the system allowing them to actually crash one HP multi-user service).

The problem LeninGrad is that the current proposal means you might want to have your own filtering in spite of the ISP having some form of blocking.

It is therefore a significant duplication of effort if parents have set up their own filter arrangements, but unless the categories of website was broadened, the 'adult content' filtering would fail to stop violent sites from being visible. The wider you broaden the block, the more sites that adults want to visit could be affected, and the less useful the ISP-based blocking becomes as more and more "opt in" for 'adult content'.

Then you get the situation where everyone is being forced to fund the ISP costs for filtering, and maybe 20% of homes actually use it (presumably never needing to view sites of an adult nature). Then, when one needs to consult some specialist medical web site because of some intimate problem, the customer has to ask their ISP to unblock the connection to view it...

Filtering and being able to control the list of sites at home is the obvious solution, so a strict parent can block FaceBook until their DC is 14, while a pensioner doesn't need any filter and doesn't need to pay extra to the ISP because all s/he uses is e-mail and Skype to chat with grandchildren, ohm and to look at a few pages off the BBC website, too.

Justine on a practical note I would ask if they are confident that they could block porn whilst allowing pictures/video on eg breastfeeding positions and latch through.

I'm sure something on those lines could work, it would of course need some heads knocked together to get it done.

Knowing how Thunderbird, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox and even OpenOffice have all come out and at various times have been free, it only needs the 'willing' for it to be done.

Some funding would be nice, as an incentive, and as I've indicated in another post, the ISPs could play their part by making it easy to download from their servers (so it would not add to 'external' traffic, and they could also grab a regular update of the website database from wherever it might be managed).

I suspect the real problem, LeninGrad, is that if the Minister (and Claire Perry MP) are adamant that ISP filtering is "the solution" and the "experts" from Childnet etc say "yes, the ISPs are the obvious place for filtering", then even if MN were willing to voice their dissent, now, the odds are stacked against them without having sound technical reasons.

The fact Justine thinks parental controls won't work is a problem. Also, that there was a comparison between DVD classification and porn sites (where the nature of the problem is very different) means there's work to do to convince J before J can convince the so-called experts.

The MN campaign page says "Parental controls just aren't working ? it's time to try another approach." which in effect suggests MNHQ has given up on educating parents to make them competent to use controls and set limits on which sites DCs can visit.

^The anti-piracy blocking mechanism is being reviewed by Ofcom to see how much tailoring can be made for the blocking of parts of sites. It has similar hurdles to meet as this (ISP-based) blocking proposal, but what is being overlooked is that

a) different blocks are appropriate at different ages,

b) if the blocking only applies to porn, parents would need filtering anyway against violent content

c) if the blocking was broadened to include violent content, what other categories of site would be blocked (drug information? medical information? dieting information?)^

So *in summary:

If the ISP filtering is for a narrow selection of content (eg hardcore porn) then parents need additional filters, so it duplicates the task and the ISP filtering becomes redundant.

If the ISP filtering is for a broad selection of content (hardcore + softcore porn, drug information, dieting information, suicide sites, violent content, magazines aimed at over 16s like Nuts, Loaded, etc, currently not classed as 'porn') then odds are some parents would find sites they want are blocked and thus would cancel the block, so they then need filtering software, and the ISP filtering becomes redundant.*

I'm going to take a break from the thread. Without any feedback from MNHQ we have no knowledge whether the thread is still being read, and if views are set in stone, then however much we agree on something different to the Minister's proposal, and implicit acceptance by MNHQ supposedly on behalf of many MN users it will be a waste of our time and comments.

I was a touch concerned that Justine said that the tech people were obviously sceptical (as if she felt they would not give it reasonable consideration) yet at the same time acknowledges it isn't within her expertise.

So the meeting, on Monday, will, I suspect, be a bunch of senior people with limited IT knowledge/skills who can agree that filtering at the ISP end is the best solution, yet won't be taking notice of the various hurdles that have been identified for the anti-piracy blocking proposal, and have not yet considered the need for parents to have filters in addition to anything done by the ISP for them to truly protect against non-porn sites which will be unsuitable.

"has given up on educating parents to make them competent to use controls and set limits on which sites DCs can visit"

That is a sad if that's true - this thread alone has taught lessons. Further up with the xBox question, then this afternoon with the information about proxy access.

I think the reason if (at all) that education isn't working is

1. Because parents don't care - well if they don't care then then chances are they would probably have any ISP filtering lifted anyhow.

1. There just isn't education available for parents.

Our school had an internet safety evening recently - after they signed up to the iamlearning website and encouraged children/parents to use it at home. They deemed it important enough to give parents who wanted to know more about protecting their children online to attend. As I mentioned earlier - I didn't go - but I know it was well attended.

Looking for, and setting up a filter poses a major challenge for many parents as it's such a minefield of information, and then once you do find something they're often quite complex (if you're not really a regular coputer user yourself) to set up.

It's easy to assume that all parents that don't currently have filters and blocks set up just don't care/don't have time/are too lazy. But the fact is that not all parents know how to do it, and have no idea how to get guidance on how to do it.

I can find information fairly easily - though even then it's an awful lot of stuff to wade through for someone less experienced.

ironically all of the information I've ever seen for parents on internet safety..........is online.

Which in my mind kind of defeats the purpose of doing an "idiots guide to internet safety/filtering" as the person looking for it is assumed to have a level of "non-idiotness" to be able to find the information and understand it

IF you're wanting to cover as many parents as possible surely there's need to be pre-printed information ready - otehrwise it's like putting a non-driver in a car and expecting them to already be able to drive it. Or giving a reception age child just learning to read, a copy of a Tolstoy work and expecting them to understand it. It's all mixed up

agree marzy - if I said to my BF (she is absoltuely lovely by the way - just not very techy)."there's a new app that comes pre-bundled" she'd be