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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

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. )

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acalacaboom · 30/06/2012 18:41

So the government consultation on this is now live except it isn't actually available at the moment, they've been reported to the ICO for some pretty fundamentally privacy breaches

Are MN adopting a position on this or providing interviews to organisations?

Who was behind the public wifi survey the members panel got a few weeks ago? Was that MN? What were the results of the responses

What are you (and your good friends McDonald's) defining as 'family friendly' for this kind of stuff. Notwithstanding my position on webfiltering/controls (which I personally do not see as ISP/government responsibility) I have some concerns about how family friendly is being defined and there's a strong element of 'leading the witness' - the survey lumped some interesting examples in alongside porn in the definition of 'non family friendly sites'...

It seems to be a 'given' that it means porn is blocked but what about other things that you need to be over 18 to do - eg streaming 18 certificate films, alcohol/tobacco marketing sites, gambling etc. Plenty of people work in the alcohol or betting industries - what happens when we try to do work on a hotel WiFi if this kind of filtering becomes widespread and 'family friendly' is basically only stuff a preacher in the Deep South would approve of? Have people realised that they'll end up having to opt in to access perfectly reasonable stuff online and at that point they'll need to exercise their own parental controls and responsibility in any case?

NetworkGuy · 02/07/2012 23:25

prettybird - something you might be interested in, is that an option on the FreeSat HD box (sold online by Tesco and includes free dish installation [or upgrade to Quad LNB if you have a dish already] for 90.00).

You can "Hide Adult channels" (just by ticking a box on screen) so there cannot be an accidental "channel hop" to BabeStation or similar (though of course another channel might have something undesirable on).

I bought online a couple of weeks ago, collected box from nearby Tesco store and after ringing for an installation on Thursday afternoon, had a dish on the side of the house and service working by 09:45 the next morning (it was exceptional service from he aerial firm, as the guy who drove 2 hours from Ripon to Merseyside was only given this job around 18:30 on Thursday evening).

I already have a dish on the front of the house with 4 cables plugged in, so they added a second dish on the side of the house to feed the rear bedroom.

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NetworkGuy · 03/07/2012 11:42

Bump so MNHQ can see the post by acalacaboom and respond!

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NetworkGuy · 08/09/2012 08:19

The 10 week consultation on the proposal to get ISPs to block porn ended on Thursday. The BBC had a *> discussion on FiveLive PC Pro

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Maryz · 09/09/2012 01:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NetworkGuy · 07/10/2012 23:57

Sorry Maryz - the BBC clip is no longer available.

Even more important than the survey of parents was the PC Pro test of the TalkTalk filter showing how it has flaws (like blocking a website but via Google showing thumbnail images and even expanding them to cover a 'this site is blocked' message!

No doubt this 'block porn' topic will come up again in Parliament, in not too distant future, and there's a bit from the survey findings that suggests parents need advice and prompting for blocking porn, to protect their youngsters. It's daft to expect ISPs to do it, and attempts to do so are pretty much bound to fail anyway...

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NetworkGuy · 21/12/2014 22:44

Have recently seen a few reports (I can link to them if anyone is interested) about some of the big ISPs (BT, Sky, VirginMedia) now prompting customers to decide if they want 'adult filtering' on or off.

Have just been trying out a free SIM card from EE (giving 100 GB of data, for first 2 months, no top-up required) and see that while it blocks some websites, it doesn't block Mumsnet (I remember seeing post from 14-02-2011 by Snorbs *> link

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NetworkGuy · 28/04/2015 17:23

Seen recently in The Guardian -

*> Link

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