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. )

Eek.

It is all so frightening.

Can I suggest that the best protection might be throwing salt over our shoulders, or staring at the computer whilst performing an aggressive haka? All this is bringing out the terrified primitive in me.

I was setting up networks (with cables) in the mid-80s when some of the posters here weren't born. There's a good reason not to like wi-fi, Baroque (and I studied as a Radio Officer too!)

They did wonder, for a short while, why birds would drop down dead, heated from the inside, if they strayed in front of radars... (hint, microwave effect). We had to work on the things to fix faults, and now there are such signals floating around every neighbourhood (albeit at low levels)

Don't be put off by my aversion to wi-fi, Eleison, but on the porn/violence front, I believe it's a process of education, really, so teens know what parents consider 'off limits' (but more importantly, why) and just unplugging / disabling / brute force does nothing to quench the curiosity, and, indeed, can make it such forbidden fruit as to be even more of a challenge to "bend the rules" (OK, break them!)

I remember a situation where I was offered tha use of a teen girl's PC (well, she was a guest in a fairly religious household in California, so she was the other side of the country from some family situation in Virginia).

She was put in a position where she could hardly object, as I was a guest just for a long weekend, and the first thing that was obvious was she had left the machine on all night to download about 50 porn clips sent by her boyfriend back in Virginia. That was on dial-up modem in the late 90s, using her AOL account. 50 x 10 minute video clips was an all afternoon (they left school around 2:30, after an early start) and all night process, and she was glad it was still running as it kept her connection to AOL up (as there were a lot of 'busy' tone problems, and AOL paid small ISPs to provide dial-in access back then).

In Virginia she may have been old enough to get married (she was 16) but clearly the household (a childless couple) would disapprove if they had known. It was a bit of a shock to me that she was downloading them, but then again, I got to see them before her, so she may have felt appalled at some of them, or on the other hand, have memories of giving her boyfriend oral relief!

Network Guy, that's a crusty old urban myth about radar cooking birds. If only, I could have dined off microwaved seagull during my last Costa cruise.

Just for the record, the IWF list is trivially easy to bypass.

The story found its way onto The Register this morning.

Have you ever seen a waveguide, MrsG, "up close" ? (Hint, you'd most probably be at the top of a ladder, and be very careful you are not looking into the waveguide - if it were to be switched on, your cornea gets frazzled. The advice even today for radar is not to look into the transmission horn.)

Anyway, I won't argue the matter, it's way off topic...

Have only just found my way here via the Register article as I don't tend to read site-stuff very often.

Fully support what NetworkGuy and all the others have been saying and thank goodness that the campaign seems to be on hold...for the time being. It worries me that MN went into this based on what one ISP (who are in deep financial trouble and undoubtedly saw it more as a publicity tool than anything else) was saying and flying in the face of other technical opinion.

Just the simple fact that people think they can police the internet in this way shows how little understanding there really is of how it works. Experience from other countries (the Great Aussie Firewall fiasco) and the IWF etc should show this is not the way forward. Throw your weight behind better education for parents, better awareness for children etc but not behind this kind of crap which is really nothing more than a way for extremist groups to worm their way into the mainstream and politicians to win votes using the good old 'won't someone think of the children' line.

Alternatively if you really think you're this powerful how about campaigns for mandatory chocolate fireguards, lessons for all in herding cats and juggling jelly etc.

NetworkGuy, you have clearly never handled a gravity gun.

For anyone interested, the article is here:

The Register

Usual sarcasm from the writers but accurate as usual.

Here's a simple explanation of why it won't work.

Let's say that a good hallmark of unsuitable website are those that discuss anal sex. So, let's say that any site that throws up a decent number of hits when you google for

"anal sex" site:.dom.ain

is a candidate for blocking by an ISP filter. So, let's try an example.

"anal sex" site:.mumsnet.com

Well, it gets 87 unique hits. That's quite a lot, isn't it? So we'll be blocking Mumsnet/Talk, especally as those hits are strewn over a variety of forums.

Because (and here's what Justine et al don't understand) the block applies to the connection, not any one computer, any mother who wants to access Mumsnet/Talk will need the block turned off for their house. Problem, er, solved.

What about Amazon? Over a thousand hits, and many of them have salacious covers, too. Guardian? 866 hits. Telegraph? Only 136: clean living country folk versus decadent urbanites, I guess. bbc.co.uk? 198. NHS.uk? 858. And so on. So those are the websites that'll be being blocked. Indeed, if you just google for "anal sex" the top two hits are Wikipedia and netdoctor.co.uk.

So, with a simple filter, you can protect your children from all that icky bumsex stuff if you block Mumsnet, the BBC, all major newspapers, the NHS and Wikipedia from being accessed in your house. Good luck.

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8316997/Mumsnet-abandons-support-for-anti-pornography-web-filters.html

Telegraph article

Just seen the article in the Telegraph.

Good & sensible call by Justine.

Agree the register article though rather snotty - is a much more realstic account of events. Telegraph is just .

Yes - thank you MNHQ for listening,

and NetworkGuy, Kaloki and others who spent a long time explaining it all to those of us less technically savvy and knowledgeable.

Full credit to s Kaloki, BadgersPaws, Niceguy2, and Snorbs (in no particular order) as theirs were the posts I saw when looking at the thread in Talk/mumsnet_campaigns

Mine was a critical eye when seeing the myopic politicians' fantasies about controlling the anarchy which exists within online services - just like giving 'age certification' to each web page which was proposed a while ago under Labour.

I suspect Childnet and some other organisations are similarly blinkered in their outlook, and only today I saw in clear public view a page devoted to offering users a few notes on how to avoid IWF blocking of certain web sites. (I assume those who are using such notes are actually not after child porn, but the IWF can block almost any site on a whim so it helps to know ways around such blocks!)

That telegraph story has a typical example of the sort of nonsense that supporters of the filters come out with:

"If internet users have to opt in to view pornography parents don't have to worry about protecting their children from it"

That completely misses the point that no filter can be totally accurate, porn will still get through and parents will still have to worry about their child's safety.

But that does illustrate the mindset of the people that back these filters. They're utterly deluded as to what is technically possible.

Still that's from the co-chair of the group who think homosexuality is a deviation, sex education is bad, censorship is better than informed choice, the Chinese are a great example of how to censor the internet and, perhaps most worryingly, that Steven Seagal is an influential actor.

Steven Seagal

":) Steven Seagal"

I'm sure I've said at one point that these people are nutters :)

But what's worse is that they're the people that Mumsnet is/was (depending on what the new campaign will be) working alongside...

Is this woman for real?

Pippa Smith, co-chairwoman of Safer Media, the Christian group behind the campaign for anti-pornography filters to be switched on by default, said: "I am surprised that parents would be critical of the campaign because the idea is to help parents. If internet users have to opt in to view pornography parents don't have to worry about protecting their children from it?I think there has to be censorship to protect children. If you're over 18 you won't be censored [under the proposals]".

She's right in so far as there should be censorship to protect children but the point she's completely missing is WHERE that censorship should occur. What we're saying and she's avoiding is that filtering at the ISP level is wrong.

Her last point that if you are over 18 you won't be censored is twisting the truth too. If you have a parent who has removed the block, your kids are still unprotected.

Its just another pressure group using fear, uncertainty and doubt to promote their objectives.

I'm pleased MN has listened to its members and isn't too proud to change its position when needed.

Pippa Smith and Miranda Suit watch a lot of porno as part of there work with safemedia.

They showed examples I think to the Westminster conference.Wonder where they got it all from.

Did they surf it at home,(Where Miranda has teenage kids) or do the image surf there hard core porn from the office.

Fly on the wall of safemedia:

"Oh my GOSH Pippa, just look at THIS, how the heck do you do that with a parking cone!"

"Oh no Miranda dear,you must look at this, she has just defecated into a cup, you MUST see this, it disgusting!"

They must wear clockwork orange type eye clamps as they are watching it perhaps...

oh

From The Register 19-05-2011 (small extract - should be no problem over copyright)

When it came to the issue of porn, Roberts said Mumsnet, and presumably its legion of members, was not suggesting legal porn be removed from the internet.

"Lots of people on Mumsnet are very keen on pornography," she said. Apparently late on Friday night is the best time to verify this, Roberts said.

"We're not saying we need regulation," said Roberts. Rather, she continued, parents needed to be given tools to control what's coming into their homes.

I know Justine has previously stated that MN is not in favour of censorship, concerning what can be legally viewed/bought, but I think the wording could have shown a little less "keen interest" and that statement might have been better prepared as "We have no wish to censor legitimate erotic material and on a Friday discussions may enter that area of life"...

Rather different from portraying MNet as a hotbed of porn-lovers (which I think many would dispute) - one thing to say a portion of the users, another to say "many", but perhaps I'm just veering towards the level which might be more acceptable to more of the regulars (or do so many sneakily enjoy porn and I've missed a few thousand threads about the likes and dislikes in suburbia ?)

:)