UK Govt to censor the Internet
Cub Reporter
Firms may be ordered to block abuse sites - but campaigners say move
will be counterproductive
By Jane Merrick, Political Editor
Independent, UK: 6 September 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/internet-providers-face-child-porn-crackdown-1782530.html
[ http://tinyurl.com/lo2ns5 ]
Internet service providers that fail to curb child pornography on the
web would be criminalised in a crackdown to be introduced in the
Queen's Speech this autumn.
The Home Office is drawing up plans for what, in effect, would be the
first form of state intervention in Britain in relation to the
internet.
British ISPs would face heavy fines for failing to block sites
containing images of child sexual abuse, according to the contents of
a leaked Home Office document seen by The Independent on Sunday.
The move would be welcomed by children's campaigners, but it has
triggered concern in Whitehall that it is a "headline-grabbing
gesture" that would penalise the wrong target while potentially
weakening existing regulation of child pornography.
Figures show that 98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block
illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation
body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images
to police.
Opponents of the move say the IWF is "working well" and claim a new
crackdown would force ISPs to deal with Scotland Yard, which has less
experience of blocking websites, and in the process allow more illegal
images to slip through the net.
Insiders also point out that the majority of hardcore pornographers
swap obscene and illegal material between themselves through
peer-to-peer file-sharing, which is more difficult to police. They say
the new law would make little difference to that.
The NSPCC warned earlier this year that obscene material was being
transmitted using file-sharing software.
The leaked Home Office letter says a clause in the Police, Crime and
Private Security Bill in the Queen's Speech would "compel domestic
ISPs to implement the blocking of illegal images of child sexual
abuse".
The new laws would hand "police and local authorities powers they need
to stand shoulder to shoulder with communities in tackling crime", the
letter says. The Government has a "clear commitment" to prevent abuse
on the internet, it adds.
There will be a four-week consultation with ISPs on the proposals, but
insiders said the firms had not been informed about the proposed
crackdown.
A Whitehall source said: "This is a gesture which will undermine the
real work that is going on to tackle child porn abuse. The Internet
Watch Foundation is already working to take down sites and people are
getting arrested.
"Under the new law, ISPs will have to deal instead with Scotland Yard,
who have less experience in this area, and the IWF will be
undermined."
The IWF uses police guidelines to determine what constitutes illegal
or obscene images. When illegal material is found, the IWF contacts
the ISP hosting it and the content is taken down or blocked.
Material hosted in the UK is reported to the police, while content
hosted abroad is blocked, making it near-impossible to track down
through search engines.
Other countries use goverment controls to block illegal content on the
internet. In Germany, the police directly monitor websites.
Nick
> Figures show that 98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block
> illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation
> body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images
> to police.
>
> Opponents of the move say the IWF is "working well" and claim a new
> crackdown would force ISPs to deal with Scotland Yard, which has less
> experience of blocking websites, and in the process allow more illegal
> images to slip through the net.
>
I would have thought this was a good thing. Censorship is a very
delicate topic. If the government wishes to censor sites it should be
forced to be open and accountable as to why a site has been censored.
Censorship should be handled via an official legal process.
Censorship should be not be handled by a self-elected, secretive,
unaccountable body such as the IWF.
Cub Reporter
>Cub Reporter wrote:
>
>> Figures show that 98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block
>> illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation
>> body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images
>> to police.
>>
>> Opponents of the move say the IWF is "working well" and claim a new
>> crackdown would force ISPs to deal with Scotland Yard, which has less
>> experience of blocking websites, and in the process allow more illegal
>> images to slip through the net.
>I would have thought this was a good thing. Censorship is a very
>delicate topic. If the government wishes to censor sites it should be
>forced to be open and accountable as to why a site has been censored.
>Censorship should be handled via an official legal process.
"Dealing with Scotland Yard" means that the police will decide (or
mediate government decisions) about what we are or are not allowed to
view on the Internet.
They (police or government) aren't about to open up the process that
decides what is or isn't banned.
>Censorship should be not be handled by a self-elected, secretive,
>unaccountable body such as the IWF.
The current system is slightly better than official censorship as ISPs
can opt out of the IWF blocking if they wish. Whether they actually
would (if overblocking were evident) is a different matter.
--
Cub Reporter
...
I would have thought this was a good thing. Censorship is a very
> delicate topic. If the government wishes to censor sites it should be
> forced to be open and accountable as to why a site has been censored.
> Censorship should be handled via an official legal process.
>
> Censorship should be not be handled by a self-elected, secretive,
> unaccountable body such as the IWF.
=========
Way to miss the point entirely. This is not about CP, just as
Australia's Great Firewall is not about preventing online CP. It's
about hiding behind the excuse of 'preventing CP' to engineer state
control and censorship of online spaces. Most Western governments are
at it in some form or other. Legislation like this is what is known as
an 'enabler' - that is to say such law opens the door to future
amendments which will not have to endure the light of public scrutiny
and consultation in the same way as the opening salvo. Police in
particular are very fond of 'enablers' - through the likes of ACPO and
others they can lobby to expand upon existing laws to include a whole
shopping list of hitherto unincluded 'offences' and thereby widen the
original remit. Just consider how laws on terrorism have been utilized
against common citizens in ways unimagined at the time of their
inception...
So, this legislation gives the Government and police the powers to
snoop on internet traffic, specifically DPI (deep packet inspection)
of P2P file exchanges. They'll broadcast very loudly they are doing it
to 'protect children', and nobody will argue with them (which they
depend on), but it just happens they also be able to use the same
legislation to spy on just about anyone else they might not like the
look of for one reason or another. This is how 'enablers' work.
It's also worth noting that here is another news story reporting that
the vast majority of CP passes between collectors via P2P
(filesharing), rather than some 'global network' of nebulous
commercial websites - that is to say there is very little, if any,
'commercial' CP these days (despite what the police keep parroting to
an increasingly disbelieving media). By the IWF's own statistics (in
their latest report - available free in PDF format from their website)
the UK itself hosts less than 1% of all online CP, though just how
much of that is P2P or the much-touted (by police) 'commercial' kind
they do not say. It wasn't so long ago we have policemen on both sides
of the Atlantic standing up and claiming in all seriousness that the
'global CP industry' was worth $20billion.
Just have a think about that. Just how many 'predatory paedophiles'
does it take to build a global industry worth £20billion?
Nick
> On Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:59:20 +0100, Nick <Ni...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>> Cub Reporter wrote:
>>
>>> Figures show that 98.5 per cent of ISPs already take down or block
>>> illegal sites through the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulation
>>> body created in 1996 that monitors content and reports obscene images
>>> to police.
>>>
>>> Opponents of the move say the IWF is "working well" and claim a new
>>> crackdown would force ISPs to deal with Scotland Yard, which has less
>>> experience of blocking websites, and in the process allow more illegal
>>> images to slip through the net.
>
>> I would have thought this was a good thing. Censorship is a very
>> delicate topic. If the government wishes to censor sites it should be
>> forced to be open and accountable as to why a site has been censored.
>> Censorship should be handled via an official legal process.
>
> "Dealing with Scotland Yard" means that the police will decide (or
> mediate government decisions) about what we are or are not allowed to
> view on the Internet.
>
> They (police or government) aren't about to open up the process that
> decides what is or isn't banned.
>
The IWF allows the government to evade responsibility for censorship. It
presents the idea that this censorship is a no-brainer that everyone
would agree with, thus allowing it to occur below the radar. If an
official process is introduced it will face more careful scrutiny.
In the current zeitgeist a politician can gain support for criticising
government/police censorship. It is much harder to speak against
independent public spirited citizens such as the IWF. It is much harder
to establish the idea that the government effectively controls the IWF
for its own purposes.
>> Censorship should be not be handled by a self-elected, secretive,
>> unaccountable body such as the IWF.
>
> The current system is slightly better than official censorship as ISPs
> can opt out of the IWF blocking if they wish. Whether they actually
> would (if overblocking were evident) is a different matter.
>
Censorship isn't about stopping people who really want to get hold of
something. Censorship is about denying easy access to the majority. At
present it is possible to block a site without the public knowing,
without even having to tell the site why it has been blocked or even
that it has been blocked.
Nick
> On 7 Sep, 09:59, Nick <N...@spam.com> wrote:
> I would have thought this was a good thing. Censorship is a very
>> delicate topic. If the government wishes to censor sites it should be
>> forced to be open and accountable as to why a site has been censored.
>> Censorship should be handled via an official legal process.
>>
>> Censorship should be not be handled by a self-elected, secretive,
>> unaccountable body such as the IWF.
>
> =========
>
>
> Way to miss the point entirely. This is not about CP, just as
> Australia's Great Firewall is not about preventing online CP.
I didn't mention CP. I was talking about censorship, the IWF isn't just
about CP.
[snip]
>
> So, this legislation gives the Government and police the powers to
> snoop on internet traffic, specifically DPI (deep packet inspection)
> of P2P file exchanges. They'll broadcast very loudly they are doing it
> to 'protect children', and nobody will argue with them (which they
> depend on), but it just happens they also be able to use the same
> legislation to spy on just about anyone else they might not like the
> look of for one reason or another. This is how 'enablers' work.
>
I really don't understand how DPI would work, surely it would be easy to
set of encrypted communication protocols to avoid this. In fact the
government have to be a little careful, strong encryption of email is
easy and is only uncommon as people are unworried by snooping. If the
government overplays its big brother monitoring, encrypted email will
become the norm and telephone will follow soon afterwards.
Cub Reporter
What makes you think that there will be "more careful scrutiny" and
what form do you think this scrutiny will take, bearing in mind that
the (explicit) censorship concerns 'child porn' which is illegal to
possess?
--
Cub Reporter
Nick
>> The IWF allows the government to evade responsibility for censorship. It
>> presents the idea that this censorship is a no-brainer that everyone
>> would agree with, thus allowing it to occur below the radar. If an
>> official process is introduced it will face more careful scrutiny.
>
> What makes you think that there will be "more careful scrutiny" and
> what form do you think this scrutiny will take, bearing in mind that
> the (explicit) censorship concerns 'child porn' which is illegal to
> possess?
>
AIUI our concern isn't about 'child porn' it is that the government will
use this as an excuse for general censorship. It is much easier to
present the case for this if they are doing it via an official
government body. If the IWF are caught blocking inappropriately it can
be presented as an unfortunate mistake of well intention amateurs, we
already have the example of them blocking wiki. If the police do the
same thing it is far easier politically to present it as insidious big
brother/secret police/ state control and call for formal accountability.
Cub Reporter
You can "call for formal accountability" but there's absolutely no
guarantee that you would get it, and, meanwhile, you've allowed the
government to control what we look at. At least the IWF can be kicked
into touch if they misbehave.
--
Cub Reporter
Golden California Girls
> You can "call for formal accountability" but there's absolutely no
> guarantee that you would get it, and, meanwhile, you've allowed the
> government to control what we look at. At least the IWF can be kicked
> into touch if they misbehave.
That kicking should start today. I'm sure the IWF is just like catholic priests
in the USA, all molesters and molestation enablers. Round them up, burn at
stake, problem solved.
Dave J.
12:07:31 +0100, in uk.politics.censorship, 'Nick' wrote:
>>
>
>I really don't understand how DPI would work,
That's part of the problem. 'Joe Blogs' out on the street has no clue as
to what's between him/her and the data they're looking at.
>surely it would be easy to
>set of encrypted communication protocols to avoid this.
That's close to the crux of the argument that establishes (almost proves)
the actual intent behind legislation like this.
This particular step 'forward' isn't an especially good example, though
once the mission's crept a little toward 'sites that may incite terrorism'
or some such excuse (think anti G8 or anti Israeli war-crime stuff) it'll
start to join the rest of the population-control legislation. Just like
the rest, the surrender-pass-phrase anti encryption laws, the anti
demonstration stuff, the anti photography stuff and so on, its only real
effect will be upon the strictly average person.
Joe-Average won't stumble onto sites the government thinks are negative,
he'll give up his passphrase on demand, won't dare publicise pics of pigs
clubbing protestors, will quite rapidly realise the effect of a record of
active demonstration and so on.
Meanwhile, the true antisocial types, folk that perhaps we *should* worry
about, can continue on their merry way using simple tricks to stay under
the radar.
Any true criminal can use multi layer encryption (the anti 'rubber hose'
stuff if anyone wants to do a lookup). They can take any pictures for
whatever plot with minuscule cameras, they can use encrypted white-list
p2p networks and so on.
Serious child abusers likewise. Anyone with half a brain who wants to
circumvent restrictions and monitoring can do so. The entities trying to
slide this infrastructure into place may be classifiable as lower forms of
life by anyone pro-social but they're not *completely* stupid. They simply
cannot be stupid enough to miss that fact.
Therefore the conscious intent, the only remaining possible target, has to
be the mass of average citizens. It can't be intended to protect against
any real threat, it's not capable of doing so; the first thing any
genuinely anti-social individual or conspiracy would do is to side step it
all.
Just like most of the negative stuff that's been slipped into place over
the last decade or so; all it can really do is monitor and regulate
Joe-Clueless-Average. Thereby ensuring he or she stays that way.
The impending 'officialisation' (what is the right word?!) of the data
filtration is, as someone else said, the thin end of the wedge. Once the
law's are in place the newborn govt department can openly install whatever
ingenious hardware they fancy. The mechanisms to control what Mr Average
sees and hears of the world will be neatly in place. Once it's begun it'll
be a standard progression over time; cheaper and cheaper hardware, deeper
and deeper inspection, more and more potential 'missing pieces' from what
most people think is reality.
With no effect *whatsoever* on any actual heavyweight criminals.
Just watch and wait.. Creepety-creep...
Dave J.
Ricochet Rabbit
"Dave J." <req...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:hau598$j96$1...@news.datemas.de...
> In MsgID<00e95e83$0$12445$c3e...@news.astraweb.com> on Mon, 07 Sep 2009
> 12:07:31 +0100, in uk.politics.censorship, 'Nick' wrote:
\
>
> This particular step 'forward' isn't an especially good example, though
> once the mission's crept a little toward 'sites that may incite terrorism'
> or some such excuse (think anti G8 or anti Israeli war-crime stuff) it'll
> start to join the rest of the population-control legislation. Just like
> the rest, the surrender-pass-phrase anti encryption laws, the anti
> demonstration stuff, the anti photography stuff and so on, its only real
> effect will be upon the strictly average person.
If the UK imposes a filtering regime, someone could simply use
an offshore VPN to circumvent the filters, and there would
be no possible way to know what you are up to, as VPN
cannot by analysed, monitored, cracked, or sniffed
Phil Stovell
> If the UK imposes a filtering regime, someone could simply use an offshore
> VPN to circumvent the filters, and there would be no possible way to know
> what you are up to, as VPN cannot by analysed, monitored, cracked, or
> sniffed
But VPN could be made illegal, think of the terrorists.
Lee
<ph...@stovell.nospam.org.uk> wrote:
>
> But VPN could be made illegal, think of the terrorists.
To do that, they'd have to ban all cryptography (say goodbye to all
ecommerce and modern business)
and it still wouldn't stop a damn thing (woo steganography)
In the information age it is impossible to prevent the passage of
information without completely cutting off from the entire world.
--
Lee
Brave New Britain
wrote:
It's still possible to make life very difficult for law abiding people
with only average technical competence.
--
Brave New Britain
Ricochet Rabbit
"Phil Stovell" <ph...@stovell.nospam.org.uk> wrote in message
news:pan.2009.10.12....@stovell.nospam.org.uk...
Howeer, there are a lot of businesses that NEED VPN
for remote secure access to their networks. It is becuase
of this that government would not DARE outlaw VPN.
Phil Stovell
> Howeer, there are a lot of businesses that NEED VPN for remote secure
> access to their networks. It is becuase of this that government would not
> DARE outlaw VPN.
Life inside for not having a VPN licence.
Ricochet Rabbit
"Phil Stovell" <ph...@stovell.nospam.org.uk> wrote in message
news:pan.2009.10.12....@stovell.nospam.org.uk...
You just simply ignore the law and use VPN anyway, then use
a utility like KillDisk to wipe the entire disk clean, so no evidence
could be used against you.
Also, the owners of VPN sites outside of Britain would not be
subject to prosecution if someone in Britain just happened to
use their facilities.
ItsHidden, for example, and its owners are not subject to
any British laws becuase the site (and its owners) are
in the Netherlands, making then not subject to British
law.
Ricochet Rabbit
"Ricochet Rabbit" <Rich...@alphacrucisradio.net> wrote in message
news:eMGdnS9z1ar6Lk7X...@posted.sonicnet...
>
> "Phil Stovell" <ph...@stovell.nospam.org.uk> wrote in message
> news:pan.2009.10.12....@stovell.nospam.org.uk...
>> On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:45:54 +1100, Ricochet Rabbit wrote:
>>
>>> Howeer, there are a lot of businesses that NEED VPN for remote secure
>>> access to their networks. It is becuase of this that government would
>>> not
>>> DARE outlaw VPN.
>>
>> Life inside for not having a VPN licence.
>
>
>
> You just simply ignore the law and use VPN anyway, then use
> a utility like KillDisk to wipe the entire disk clean, so no evidence
> could be used against you.
>
> Also, the owners of VPN sites outside of Britain would not be
> subject to prosecution if someone in Britain just happened to
> use their facilities.
>
One other solution that will exist, as long as dial-up internet
exists, would be to dial up to an dial-up ISP outside of
Britain. Those who could afford the costs of overseas
calls could do this. When dial in to, say, NetZero, they could
then invoke VPN on there, so that the local authorities
tried to tap the phone line, they would get nothing. NetZero,
as a United States ISP, could not be compelled by a British
court to hand over any information about where their customers
surf, even if said customer is a British citizen.
Golden California Girls
Does the owner of Netzero have a cottage in the UK for holiday? Perhaps he
might want to cooperate anyway. Have you read every treaty? Besides if a
little gift is given to an FBI agent, he'll be happy to use the USA Patriot Act
to send the deep packet inspection logs off.
But that isn't really necessary anyway. Only a few hours computer time to lay
open the encryption.
Phil Stovell
> You just simply ignore the law and use VPN anyway, then use a utility like
> KillDisk to wipe the entire disk clean, so no evidence could be used
> against you.
ISPs are mandated to monitor all connections for VPN traffic and to report
to HM inspector of the Internet any detected, or face an unlimited fine
and/or 10 years clink for the ISPs' directors.
KillDisk being installed on your system would give rise to suspicions that
you are either a foul paediatrician or a terrywrist planning to wear a
heavy jacket, or, even worse, a paediatrician concealing
kiddiepr0n in terrywrist plans using steganography.
> Also, the owners of VPN sites outside of Britain would not be subject to
> prosecution if someone in Britain just happened to use their facilities.
>
> ItsHidden, for example, and its owners are not subject to any British laws
> becuase the site (and its owners) are in the Netherlands, making then not
> subject to British law.
ISPs could be made to block access to their IPs and report to the HMII any
attempted connections.
Turk182
Brilliant. And so they should be. They have far more access to
accumulated knowledge about a web-sites content than the user has.
What is wholly worng, is that a child / teenager / student etc types
in a harmless word like 'playstation' or maybe some current TV fad
name, they are repeatedly, unknowingly offered links to porn
websites. It is also grossly unfair that adults, who may wish to view
'Playboy' style content, who may even place a specific searh term such
as 'adult or 'woman', are nonetheless fed images of children. That
can't be fair or right. I spoke to a journo who worked on a case
recently, where a man was convicted of having one image on his
computer - I don't know the details of the case, but from what I have
picked up, this man was not searching for child content.
If a seedy corner shop offers illegal porn for sale, he gets busted.
By exploiting the internet for financial gain, ISP's have elected
themselves 'distributors' of porn. IThey are making money from it, in
the form of charges for usage from the customer). If they don't wish
to profit from that industry, they should block adult websites. If
they do wish to profit from them, they should be liable for the
distributing content where child abuse and sexual exploitation is
featured.
By the same token, BT take 50% at least of the profit from sex phone
lines. Along with the wholesome image of BT they promote, depicting
themsleves as a child loving, caring business - they should also
acknowlegde, that a good chunk of profit comes from newspaper adverts
of the type that say "talk dirty to a filthy teen slut on this
number" . BT - WE CARE! (About the profits!) I don't mind much that
BT does it - just that they should include that in their company
results and PR handouts such as 'Update'.
I hate censorship - but children need to be protected more than I hate
censorship!
Turk182
Lee
>
> If a seedy corner shop offers illegal porn for sale, he gets busted.
> By exploiting the internet for financial gain, ISP's have elected
> themselves 'distributors' of porn. IThey are making money from it, in
> the form of charges for usage from the customer). If they don't wish
> to profit from that industry, they should block adult websites. If
> they do wish to profit from them, they should be liable for the
> distributing content where child abuse and sexual exploitation is
> featured.
>
> By the same token, BT take 50% at least of the profit from sex phone
> lines. Along with the wholesome image of BT they promote, depicting
> themsleves as a child loving, caring business - they should also
> acknowlegde, that a good chunk of profit comes from newspaper adverts
> of the type that say "talk dirty to a filthy teen slut on this
> number" . BT - WE CARE! (About the profits!) I don't mind much that
> BT does it - just that they should include that in their company
> results and PR handouts such as 'Update'.
>
> I hate censorship - but children need to be protected more than I hate
> censorship!
>
> Turk182
sounds like you desperately need to look up the concept of "common
carrier".
BT, ISP's, the royal mail etc Aren't responsible in any way for the
material that passes over their networks, and should never BE made
responsible.
The only party/parties who can (and should) ever be held responsible are
the Sender of the information, and as long as they knew what information
they were requesting, the reciever of said information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
Of course, there is some debate on this issue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
but in general, if you hold a communications provider liable for what they
carry, they will not be able to operate and will have to either increase
prices to absurd levels to cover checking of every piece of information
they carry by human eyes (computers SUCK at discriminating legal from
illegal content) or cease to operate.
--
Lee
Turk182
>
> - Show quoted text -
I do not see that it is possible to hold them liable for everything.
But this is a tough responsibility and it requires people to work
towards a positive solution. It is simply not good enough if the
public are to glimpse illegal sexual material that they do not choose
to see, and for children to be exploited and then humiliated in public
with a crowd of supportive viewers. As we apparently can't get to the
makers quickly enough to deal with the problem, we need a radical
approach.
In your argument, a shop who sold drugs in packets of Bisto, should
never be required to check them, and the person who places the sachets
in the boxes would be the only one who is liable - even if the
shopkeeper had been warned about it, If I were a shopkeeper in that
position, I would stop stocking Bisto until the problem had passed -
all ISP's should get together and say we are only going to take adult
sites approved by ........whoever. If you went to your Odeon cinema,
you would not expect to see children being tortured without wondering
why the cinema has not been closed down! This matter is so serious,
the solution has to be tough. It is a war by another name. These
children are the casualties of a war on humanity - we are talking
about the destruction of childhood, even the maiming and death of some
children. We are talking about a living horror that would make
soldiers squirm. This is war - they should turn the whole internet
off until they it's sorted. Credit card companies should be forced
to reveal in advertisements each time their card is used on a child
sex website.
An SAS rescue squad, paid for by international funds, should be sent
to any part of the globe to rescue these kids just as if they were
hostages of terrorists.
The people who do this ARE terrorists. They bring terror into the
lives of kids for a start and may actually be invloved in wider
crime. We have to stop pussyfooting around - the country should hold
a National Turn Off The Internet Week in disgust. I hate big
government - but here is a chance for them to make a big decision now
on a vital subject. NOTHING is more important.
Turk182
Dissenter
People need to be exempted from prosecution on such flimsy grounds
>I hate censorship - but children need to be protected more than I hate
>censorship!
It's doubtful that the 'child porn' laws ever protect children from
anything.
And the 'collateral damage' is much too great.
--
Dissenter
Lee
>
> I do not see that it is possible to hold them liable for everything.
> But this is a tough responsibility and it requires people to work
> towards a positive solution. It is simply not good enough if the
> public are to glimpse illegal sexual material that they do not choose
> to see,
This simply doesn't happen, and it's an unfortunate meme that various
people, organizations, and governments say that it does.
There's been very little actual research done, there is some.
ALL the research that's been done says that accidental exposure is
absolutely the least likely source of exposure.
see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/isttf/ for the largest and
most comprehensive study of child internet safety ever undertaken.
> and for children to be exploited and then humiliated in public
> with a crowd of supportive viewers. As we apparently can't get to the
> makers quickly enough to deal with the problem, we need a radical
> approach.
Not that radical - take down the hosting sites. This takes less effort
than implementing a filtering system, and is MUCH more effective at
preventing access - ALL filtering schemes are trivial to bypass,
whereas if the site is no longer available, then it is no longer available.
>
> In your argument, a shop who sold drugs in packets of Bisto, should
> never be required to check them, and the person who places the sachets
> in the boxes would be the only one who is liable - even if the
> shopkeeper had been warned about it, If I were a shopkeeper in that
> position, I would stop stocking Bisto until the problem had passed -
> all ISP's should get together and say we are only going to take adult
> sites approved by ........whoever.
Nope, it simply won't work. In your example, instead of that you'd say
to the shopkeeper "who is your supplier of bisto" and then go after them.
it's not that hard. A bunch of researchers in germany downloaded the leaked
denmark/norway (can't remember which off the top of my head) filter lists,
located the server hosts of each site which they'd confirmed was hosting
obviously illegal images, and sent a bunch of automated emails to the
hosting companies. Within a week, more than half of the sites had been
taken down. Some (most) of those sites had been up for months.
(snip)
> Credit card companies should be forced
> to reveal in advertisements each time their card is used on a child
> sex website.
Most sites are free, most of the data is sent via private p2p, not
websites, most/all Credit Card details used to pay for hosting Child porn
are stolen, also a lot of those used to purchase the same are stolen,
see the huge mess around the suspect credit card data used in Operation Ore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore
and the estimated 39 suicides of potentially, and in many cases probably,
innocent people.
>
> An SAS rescue squad, paid for by international funds, should be sent
> to any part of the globe to rescue these kids just as if they were
> hostages of terrorists.
First you have to locate the kid. This is VERY difficult. If they can be
located, there is no doubt that getting them out of that situation is
absolutely imperative. In some cases however, the images are old, very
old, as in taken as far back as the 60's
Note that money spent on filters does NOTHING to help the child.
> The people who do this ARE terrorists. They bring terror into the
> lives of kids for a start and may actually be invloved in wider
> crime.
True - you might be interested to read
https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/My_life_in_child_porn
which is an inside look at what you could consider the child porn
"industry" as horrible as that sounds.
> We have to stop pussyfooting around - the country should hold
> a National Turn Off The Internet Week in disgust. I hate big
> government - but here is a chance for them to make a big decision now
> on a vital subject. NOTHING is more important.
You seem to think that the internet is somehow worse than the real
world - it isn't. It is a reflection of the real world, and we should
instead be going after the bastards who abuse children.
It is important to make sure that the facts are known, before action
is taken. Most child abuse is perpetrated by somebody related to the
child. The internet is just one of the transport mechanisms - shutting
it down completely would do almost nothing to prevent child abuse or the
trafficking of images of it - the only thing we can do is to cut it off
at the source, meaning the host (sometimes on hacked websites, sometimes
on bespoke sites paid for with stolen credit card details) or preferrably
the scum who abused a child and took pictures.
>
> Turk182
--
Lee
Ricochet Rabbit
> On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:53:23 +1100, Ricochet Rabbit wrote:
>
>
> ISPs could be made to block access to their IPs and report to the HMII any
> attempted connections.
Outlawing VPNs would force companies like VPNGates to close
down their VPN servers in Britain.
VPNGates has servers in several countries, and the one in Britain
is mainly used by people who want to circumvent the geographic
restrictions to get onto UK only sites, such as iPlayer, or to listen
to any webcasts that are restricted to UK IP addresses.
VPNGates, HideMyAss, BananaVPN, and several other
companies have VPN servers housed in Britain so that
people outside of Britain can access Uk-only websites.
Cynic
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>But that isn't really necessary anyway. Only a few hours computer time to lay
>open the encryption.
Completely incorrect. A decent modern encryption, correctly
implemented cannot be cracked with present day equipment and knowlege,
even with the resources available to government agencies.
Which is not to say that it might not be compromised if the other
party were to cooperate with the authorities.
--
Cynic
Cynic
<digital...@aol.com> wrote:
>By the same token, BT take 50% at least of the profit from sex phone
>lines. Along with the wholesome image of BT they promote, depicting
>themsleves as a child loving, caring business - they should also
>acknowlegde, that a good chunk of profit comes from newspaper adverts
>of the type that say "talk dirty to a filthy teen slut on this
>number" . BT - WE CARE! (About the profits!) I don't mind much that
>BT does it - just that they should include that in their company
>results and PR handouts such as 'Update'.
>
>I hate censorship - but children need to be protected more than I hate
>censorship!
Yes, it is possible to justify almost any form of suppression with the
"think of the children" mantra.
I'm not sure how you believe children are being harmed by adult sex
lines or Internet sites.
--
Cynic
Mr X
"Cynic" <cyni...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:qbled51q7v1ouj180...@4ax.com...
> I'm not sure how you believe children are being harmed by adult sex
> lines or Internet sites.
>
Do you think that children should view hardcore porn?
Cynic
<digital...@aol.com> wrote:
>I do not see that it is possible to hold them liable for everything.
>But this is a tough responsibility and it requires people to work
>towards a positive solution. It is simply not good enough if the
>public are to glimpse illegal sexual material that they do not choose
>to see, and for children to be exploited and then humiliated in public
>with a crowd of supportive viewers. As we apparently can't get to the
>makers quickly enough to deal with the problem, we need a radical
>approach.
>In your argument, a shop who sold drugs in packets of Bisto, should
>never be required to check them, and the person who places the sachets
>in the boxes would be the only one who is liable - even if the
>shopkeeper had been warned about it
That is indeed the position. You don't really expect shopkeepers to
have to perform tests on the contents of everything they sell to
ensure that it contains what it says on the packet, do you?
The analogy you make would *not* be that of a shopkeeper warned
specifically that packets of Bisto might contain drugs, but that a
shopkeeper is warned that some unspecified product that he might stock
could contain drugs.
>position, I would stop stocking Bisto until the problem had passed -
>all ISP's should get together and say we are only going to take adult
>sites approved by ........whoever.
So you want an inclusive type of censorship - that you only have
access to sites that a government agency has approved. How often
would you want sites on the "approved" list to be checked, given that
content can be changed within seconds?
> If you went to your Odeon cinema,
>you would not expect to see children being tortured without wondering
>why the cinema has not been closed down!
I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
prevent it?
> This matter is so serious,
>the solution has to be tough. It is a war by another name. These
>children are the casualties of a war on humanity - we are talking
>about the destruction of childhood, even the maiming and death of some
>children. We are talking about a living horror that would make
>soldiers squirm. This is war - they should turn the whole internet
>off until they it's sorted. Credit card companies should be forced
>to reveal in advertisements each time their card is used on a child
>sex website.
You are getting hysterical about a problem that is grossly over-hyped,
and furthermore you are concentrating your efforts on an area that has
the least problem. Child sex websites are mainly a figment of the
imagination. You also confuse the symptom with the cause. *Even if*
you could somehow prevent all child pornography from being seen, it
would have absolutely no significant effect on the number of children
who are being abused, because, contrary to the propaganda, Internet
child porn is *not* a money-making industry.
You fear that adult porn sites contain child pornography that people
will stumble upon accidentally. Please give the URL of a single adult
porn site where that is the case.
Newsgroups, chat rooms and P2P networks are far more likely to contain
illegal material. Would you really want the whole of Usenet to be
closed down because of the possibility that an anonymous poster may
one day upload a sick image to uk.legal?
--
Cynic
Mr X
> I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
> involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
> being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
> prevent it?
>
tortured?
How odd.
Of course if I saw children ebing tortured in my garden I should do
something. If I didn't then I should be punished for not doing so.
AlanG
wrote:
>
>"Cynic" <cyni...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:4iled5l7o8ea5lie1...@4ax.com...
>> I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
>> involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
>> being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
>> prevent it?
>>
>So you think the Odeon should be allowed the show images of children being
>tortured?
>How odd.
There are plenty of pictures of dead children in the press and on the
internet. You think their murders should be hushed up?
>Of course if I saw children ebing tortured in my garden I should do
>something. If I didn't then I should be punished for not doing so.
>
Then ask yourself why a disproportionate amount is being spent on what
is effectively censorship when the real crime is the sexual assaults.
Golden California Girls
> On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:01:55 -0700, Golden California Girls
> <gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>
>> But that isn't really necessary anyway. Only a few hours computer time to lay
>> open the encryption.
>
> Completely incorrect. A decent modern encryption, correctly
> implemented cannot be cracked with present day equipment and knowlege,
> even with the resources available to government agencies.
You are forgetting that modern encryption isn't permitted on the net. Key
lengths are held short on purpose so that governments can read all
transmissions. Yes, they are long enough to prevent casual snooping but give
Moore's law a decade.
Oh, only 30 days to factor a 12.8 million digit prime number on a 3.0 Ghz Intel
Core 2 processor. Might want to rethink your key lengths.
http://www.mersenne.org/
Golden California Girls
> Would you really want the whole of Usenet to be
> closed down because of the possibility that an anonymous poster may
> one day upload a sick image to uk.legal?
Funny you should mention that. New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo,
actually thinks so and has filed lawsuits against ISP's who carry Usenet, which
he drops as soon as they agree to drop Usenet. If it has hapened in the USA, it
will happen world wide. Face it Governments insist on thought control.
Graham Murray
> Oh, only 30 days to factor a 12.8 million digit prime number on a 3.0 Ghz Intel
> Core 2 processor. Might want to rethink your key lengths.
> http://www.mersenne.org/
If it is (known to be) a prime number, then no matter how many digits it
has I can factor it instantly without the use of any computer! By virtue
of it being prime it has just two factors - the number itself and 1.
Big Les Wade
>
>"Cynic" <cyni...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:4iled5l7o8ea5lie1...@4ax.com...
>> I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
>> involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
>> being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
>> prevent it?
>>
>So you think the Odeon should be allowed the show images of children being
>tortured?
>How odd.
Presumably then the Odeon shouldn't be allowed to show that photo of the
little girl running from an American napalm attack in Vietnam. I'll bet
Kissinger and Nixon would have agreed with you there. Out of sheer
altruism, of course.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
Big Les Wade
>Cynic wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:01:55 -0700, Golden California Girls
>> <gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>>
>>> But that isn't really necessary anyway. Only a few hours computer
>>>time to lay
>>> open the encryption.
>>
>> Completely incorrect. A decent modern encryption, correctly
>> implemented cannot be cracked with present day equipment and knowlege,
>> even with the resources available to government agencies.
>
>You are forgetting that modern encryption isn't permitted on the net.
Rubbish.
>Key
>lengths are held short on purpose so that governments can read all
>transmissions.
Held short by whom?
Maybe you are posting from the Land of the Free where key lengths are
restricted to save the world from French duplicity. I can't speak for
the law there, this is uk.legal.
--
Les
Klingsor
wrote:
The US gave up restricting key lengths years ago. They tried to stop
the PGP program from being exported, but couldn't stop the printed
copy of the code being sent abroad due to their free speech laws.
--
Klingsor
Cynic
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>>> But that isn't really necessary anyway. Only a few hours computer time to lay
>>> open the encryption.
>>
>> Completely incorrect. A decent modern encryption, correctly
>> implemented cannot be cracked with present day equipment and knowlege,
>> even with the resources available to government agencies.
>You are forgetting that modern encryption isn't permitted on the net. Key
>lengths are held short on purpose so that governments can read all
>transmissions. Yes, they are long enough to prevent casual snooping but give
>Moore's law a decade.>You are forgetting that modern encryption isn't permitted on the net.
Utter nonsense There is no UK law that makes it an offence for me to
use any size encryption key I choose.
>Oh, only 30 days to factor a 12.8 million digit prime number on a 3.0 Ghz Intel
>Core 2 processor. Might want to rethink your key lengths.
>http://www.mersenne.org/
If I were you, I'd stop reading about things you don't understand. If
you understood what a prime number is, you would realise that you
don't need a computer to factor a prime number, no matter how large,
but can do so instantly in your head.
That article was nothing to do with factoring numbers.
--
Cynic
Cynic
wrote:
>> I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
>> involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
>> being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
>> prevent it?
>So you think the Odeon should be allowed the show images of children being
>tortured?
They already do. I have seen plenty of horror movies that have had
depictions of high-school teens being tortured and mutillated. The
IMDB shows 9 films that have a child torture theme
<http://www.imdb.com/keyword/torture-of-child/>
The BBC is permitted to show images of horribly injured children on
the news. UK TV news reports are carefully edited so as not to put
too many people off their dinner, but it would certainly not be
illegal to show graphic images of children being tortured rather than
the carefully edited scenes of the aftermath of a bomb attack by our
glorious forces in Iraq, followed by the sanitised videos of limbless
children in a hospital bed that were shown. If you have satellite TV
you could however have seen the more stomach-churning images from Al
Jazeera with no risk of having the police break down your door and
charging you with "making" illegal images of children on your video
recorder.
>How odd.
I'm not that partial to horror movies myself, but they are far from
uncommon, and a large percentage of them involve nasty things
happening to schoolchildren.
>Of course if I saw children ebing tortured in my garden I should do
>something. If I didn't then I should be punished for not doing so.
What law do you believe you would be breaking if you did nothing
whatsoever about it?
--
Cynic
Cynic
wrote:
>> I'm not sure how you believe children are being harmed by adult sex
>> lines or Internet sites.
>They might phone them.
And? What harm will that do to them? (Apart from the harm that may
occur when the person paying the phone bill finds out).
>Do you think that children should view hardcore porn?
I do not believe that it is significantly likely to cause any harm
unless they are forced to look at things that they don't want to look
at.
Tell me, what age were *you* when you saw your first hardcore porn
image? I think I was 12 or 13 when I was first shown a hardcore porn
magazine by a classmate at school - and that was over 40 years ago,
long before the Internet, and was in South Africa, where even softcore
porn such as "Playboy" was illegal.
What percentage of the population do you believe had *not* seen
pornography before their 18th birthday? Do you believe that everyone
else was harmed?
--
Cynic
Golden California Girls
> That article was nothing to do with factoring numbers.
You need a math an crypo education before you make a bigger ass of yourself.
Klingsor
I don't know anything about crypto or primes, but I can read. The
article is about finding the *largest* prime number.
--
Klingsor
Golden California Girls
Precisely!
Modern crypto is about large numbers being hard to factor. How do you make a
number hard to factor, why pick a prime! How do you prove prime? You can't
find a factor. So being able to factor huge numbers fast is being able to break
crypto or find huge primes. It is the same problem.
Lee
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
Have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsa#Integer_factorization_and_RSA_problem
It's a little more complicated than you think - given a long enought key
(2048 or higher), RSA is essentially uncrackable with current computing
power.
--
Lee
Klingsor
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
A prime is easy to factor, as the only factors are 1 and itself.
In cryptography you *multiply* two big primes together giving a third
(non-prime) number - cracking the encryption involves discovering the
original primes - which takes a lot of computation for big primes.
This is the basis of the difficulty in cracking encryption.
--
Klingsor
Mr X
> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:06:53 +0100, "Mr X" <inv...@invalid.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> I'm not sure how you believe children are being harmed by adult sex
>>> lines or Internet sites.
>
>>They might phone them.
>
> And? What harm will that do to them? (Apart from the harm that may
> occur when the person paying the phone bill finds out).
>
to tell the child the facts of life.
>>Do you think that children should view hardcore porn?
>
> I do not believe that it is significantly likely to cause any harm
> unless they are forced to look at things that they don't want to look
> at.
>
> Tell me, what age were *you* when you saw your first hardcore porn
> image? I think I was 12 or 13 when I was first shown a hardcore porn
> magazine by a classmate at school - and that was over 40 years ago,
> long before the Internet, and was in South Africa, where even softcore
> porn such as "Playboy" was illegal.
>
I was 11 or 12. It was something that someone had printed off the internet
(we did not have the internet at home back then).
I don't think it did anything to me at all.
> What percentage of the population do you believe had *not* seen
> pornography before their 18th birthday? Do you believe that everyone
> else was harmed?
>
There is an argument that internet porn and the free access to hardcore
images is making men more sexually agressive and conditioned into thinking
that women should perform sex acts they would not otherwise do on the
grounds tha ttney are "normal". Anal sex is an example of this.
Mr X
> On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:50:29 +0100, "Mr X" <inv...@invalid.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> I would only expect the cinema to be closed down if the owners were
>>> involved in the torture. Suppose that someone were to see children
>>> being tortured in your garden - should you be punished for failing to
>>> prevent it?
>
>>So you think the Odeon should be allowed the show images of children being
>>tortured?
>
> They already do. I have seen plenty of horror movies that have had
> depictions of high-school teens being tortured and mutillated. The
> IMDB shows 9 films that have a child torture theme
> <http://www.imdb.com/keyword/torture-of-child/>
>
> The BBC is permitted to show images of horribly injured children on
> the news. UK TV news reports are carefully edited so as not to put
> too many people off their dinner, but it would certainly not be
> illegal to show graphic images of children being tortured rather than
> the carefully edited scenes of the aftermath of a bomb attack by our
> glorious forces in Iraq, followed by the sanitised videos of limbless
> children in a hospital bed that were shown. If you have satellite TV
> you could however have seen the more stomach-churning images from Al
> Jazeera with no risk of having the police break down your door and
> charging you with "making" illegal images of children on your video
> recorder.
>
>>How odd.
>
> I'm not that partial to horror movies myself, but they are far from
> uncommon, and a large percentage of them involve nasty things
> happening to schoolchildren.
>
Normally older ones.
>>Of course if I saw children ebing tortured in my garden I should do
>>something. If I didn't then I should be punished for not doing so.
>
> What law do you believe you would be breaking if you did nothing
> whatsoever about it?
>
Conspiracy to commit GBH I guess.
Cynic
I have both. I suggest you stop bluffing and admit that you don't
have a clue what you are talking about.
--
Cynic
Cynic
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>Precisely!
You are incorrect in so many ways I really don't know where to begin
to correct your misunderstandings.
I will simply leave you to mull over the idea that proving whether or
not a solution exists is not the same as finding the solution.
--
Cynic
Cynic
wrote:
>> The BBC is permitted to show images of horribly injured children on
>> the news. UK TV news reports are carefully edited so as not to put
>> too many people off their dinner, but it would certainly not be
>> illegal to show graphic images of children being tortured rather than
>> the carefully edited scenes of the aftermath of a bomb attack by our
>> glorious forces in Iraq, followed by the sanitised videos of limbless
>> children in a hospital bed that were shown. If you have satellite TV
>> you could however have seen the more stomach-churning images from Al
>> Jazeera with no risk of having the police break down your door and
>> charging you with "making" illegal images of children on your video
>> recorder.
>I have no desire to see such images.
Whoopie-do. I have no desire to watch football. The question was not
whether you or anyone else *wants* to see such images, it is about
whether or not it is *illegal* to do so.
>>>How odd.
>> I'm not that partial to horror movies myself, but they are far from
>> uncommon, and a large percentage of them involve nasty things
>> happening to schoolchildren.
>Normally older ones.
Nope. In many films the children are depicted as being under the age
of 18 (which as you know is the age below which an indecent image of a
child is illegal).
>>>Of course if I saw children ebing tortured in my garden I should do
>>>something. If I didn't then I should be punished for not doing so.
>> What law do you believe you would be breaking if you did nothing
>> whatsoever about it?
>Conspiracy to commit GBH I guess.
Not unless you did more than simply watching an act that you played no
part in setting up. UK law does not oblige an ordinary member of the
public to prevent or even report a crime being committed by someone
else (there may be an exception wrt terrorist offences). The same is
true if the act in question was sexual (the only difference being that
you would be permitted to photograph an act of torture to a child, but
not an act of sexual abuse to a child).
--
Cynic
Cynic
wrote:
>>>> I'm not sure how you believe children are being harmed by adult sex
>>>> lines or Internet sites.
>>>They might phone them.
>> And? What harm will that do to them? (Apart from the harm that may
>> occur when the person paying the phone bill finds out).
>They might start asking about sex and disrupting what plans the parents had
>to tell the child the facts of life.
So it might make the parents uncomfortable. It is unlikely to harm
the child.
>>>Do you think that children should view hardcore porn?
>> I do not believe that it is significantly likely to cause any harm
>> unless they are forced to look at things that they don't want to look
>> at.
>> Tell me, what age were *you* when you saw your first hardcore porn
>> image? I think I was 12 or 13 when I was first shown a hardcore porn
>> magazine by a classmate at school - and that was over 40 years ago,
>> long before the Internet, and was in South Africa, where even softcore
>> porn such as "Playboy" was illegal.
>I was 11 or 12. It was something that someone had printed off the internet
>(we did not have the internet at home back then).
>I don't think it did anything to me at all.
So it did not harm you. What makes you believe it would harm any
other child?
>> What percentage of the population do you believe had *not* seen
>> pornography before their 18th birthday? Do you believe that everyone
>> else was harmed?
>There is an argument that internet porn and the free access to hardcore
>images is making men more sexually agressive and conditioned into thinking
>that women should perform sex acts they would not otherwise do on the
>grounds tha ttney are "normal". Anal sex is an example of this.
There are many unsubstantiated opinions regarding sexual matters.
AFAIAA the only thing that credible research has shown is that
pornography increases the variety of sexual acts as people copy what
is depicted, which is similar to what you have stated. It does *not*
however show that it makes people any more likely to engage in
*non-consensual* activities, or to do things that they do not really
like doing. On the contrary, research suggests that pornography can
increase the pleasue obtained from sexual activities.
Most people regard pornography in a similar way to any fictional film.
It may stimulate the imagination, but is not mistaken for the way
things are or should be done in real life.
--
Cynic
Mr X
> Whoopie-do. I have no desire to watch football. The question was not
> whether you or anyone else *wants* to see such images, it is about
> whether or not it is *illegal* to do so.
>
are indecent while the harm is occuring.
> Not unless you did more than simply watching an act that you played no
> part in setting up. UK law does not oblige an ordinary member of the
> public to prevent or even report a crime being committed by someone
> else (there may be an exception wrt terrorist offences). The same is
> true if the act in question was sexual (the only difference being that
> you would be permitted to photograph an act of torture to a child, but
> not an act of sexual abuse to a child).
>
I'm fairly sure there is an obligation under the Children's Act of 1980 to
prevent harm coming to children. Someone else can confirm or deny this.
Mr X
> So it might make the parents uncomfortable. It is unlikely to harm
> the child.
>
> So it did not harm you. What makes you believe it would harm any
> other child?
>
something different if I hadn't been exposed to such filth.
> AFAIAA the only thing that credible research has shown is that
> pornography increases the variety of sexual acts as people copy what
> is depicted, which is similar to what you have stated. It does *not*
> however show that it makes people any more likely to engage in
> *non-consensual* activities, or to do things that they do not really
> like doing. On the contrary, research suggests that pornography can
> increase the pleasue obtained from sexual activities.
>
You could be right. I've heard both arguments but am not interested enough
to read enough to decide which one has more credence.
Lee
>
> "Cynic" <cyni...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>> AFAIAA the only thing that credible research has shown is that
>> pornography increases the variety of sexual acts as people copy what
>> is depicted, which is similar to what you have stated. It does *not*
>> however show that it makes people any more likely to engage in
>> *non-consensual* activities, or to do things that they do not really
>> like doing. On the contrary, research suggests that pornography can
>> increase the pleasue obtained from sexual activities.
>>
> You could be right. I've heard both arguments but am not interested
> enough
> to read enough to decide which one has more credence.
>
>
So, based on no actual evidence whatsoever, you want to ban it.
Good for you, but I'd rather not be prevented from doing or viewing
things based simply on your vague discomfort, rather than any solid
evidence of harm. If the default action is to ban anything which any
person is offended by, then *Everything* will eventually be banned.
Is that really what you want?
Incidentally, have you seen the film Equilibrium?
It's quite a good movie, I think.
Mr X
"Lee" <tard...@gmail.com.remove> wrote in message
news:op.u13v7...@leethal.local...
> So, based on no actual evidence whatsoever, you want to ban it.
>
conduct the studies.
You could not do a randomised control trial of whether childhood sexual
abuse is harmful.
> Good for you, but I'd rather not be prevented from doing or viewing
> things based simply on your vague discomfort, rather than any solid
> evidence of harm. If the default action is to ban anything which any
> person is offended by, then *Everything* will eventually be banned.
>
I don't think that harm should be the only criteria.
I think that public moral and expectations are important. Harm is also
difficult to define and establish. For example being obese is hamrful in
that you'll have a reduced life expectacy. On the other side, you may enjoy
your life more by not eating rabbit food.
> Incidentally, have you seen the film Equilibrium?
> It's quite a good movie, I think.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)
No, I've never seen it.
Lee
>
> "Lee" <tard...@gmail.com.remove> wrote in message
> news:op.u13v7...@leethal.local...
>> So, based on no actual evidence whatsoever, you want to ban it.
>>
> Very often evidence cannot be obtained beacuse it would be unethical to
> conduct the studies.
> You could not do a randomised control trial of whether childhood sexual
> abuse is harmful.
>
I've no doubt whatsoever that *abuse* is harmful, and there is piles of
evidence supporting that. *Images* of abuse, however, there is Much, Much
less evidence about, and almost none supporting harm from it.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/isttf/
is a peer reviewed study on the dangers on the net, pornography is
apparently less of a threat than predation.
More studies of *effects* of media exposure in general are here
http://libertus.net/censor/resources/index.html#sr
and the dodgy studies with bad statistics and bad methods are here
http://libertus.net/censor/resources/fallacies.html
>> Good for you, but I'd rather not be prevented from doing or viewing
>> things based simply on your vague discomfort, rather than any solid
>> evidence of harm. If the default action is to ban anything which any
>> person is offended by, then *Everything* will eventually be banned.
>>
> I don't think that harm should be the only criteria.
> I think that public moral and expectations are important. Harm is also
> difficult to define and establish. For example being obese is hamrful in
> that you'll have a reduced life expectacy. On the other side, you may
> enjoy
> your life more by not eating rabbit food.
Sure, but in general, if there is a choice, and the person is capable of
making that choice, and the choice doesn't result in harm to others unless
they also have a choice with the same conditions first, then who are you or
I to stop them?
With children, their parents are responsible for making these kinds of
choices when they are very young, with the child gradually taking
responsibility for their own choices and actions as they grow up.
Note that I differentiate between 'Harm' and 'discomfort' or 'offend'
This is, however, a blurry line, that depends significantly upon the level
of
discomfort or offence caused, whether that was intentional, and the laws
and
society in which it occured.
I tend to be utterly against pre-emptive measures though.
--
Lee
Cynic
wrote:
>I'm fairly sure there is an obligation under the Children's Act of 1980 to
>prevent harm coming to children.
Only if you are in a position that gives you a duty of care over the
child, or have an obligation to report due to your professional
capacity.
--
Cynic
Mr X
Thanks.
Cynic
wrote:
>> So it might make the parents uncomfortable. It is unlikely to harm
>> the child.
>It could well do so.
>> So it did not harm you. What makes you believe it would harm any
>> other child?
>I do not know if it harmed me or not.
I suggest that if you are unable to say that you were harmed, then it
is highly unlikely that you *were* harmed. It is certainly no basis
upon which to conclude that something is significantly likely to cause
harm.
Perhaps you would similarly have turned out better had it not been for
the harmful effects of exposure to cellphone radiation. Should we
therefore ban cellphones just in case they are causing serious harm
that nobody knows about?
BTW, sex is a natural and very necessary biological function, and IMO
it is completely wrong to describe it as being "filthy". To describe
it thus is effectively stating that you yourself are the product of a
filthy act, which would indicate a very low self-worth.
--
Cynic
Cynic
wrote:
>I've no doubt whatsoever that *abuse* is harmful, and there is piles of
>evidence supporting that.
Abuse is *defined* as being something that causes, or is significantly
likely to cause harm, so it is not possible to disagree with you.
What is not so clear in many cases is whether a particular act *is*
abuse or not. Many people believe that smacking a child is abuse,
whilst others do not think so. Allowing a 12 year old to drink a beer
would be an act of abuse in the opinion of some people, whilst others
see it as potentially beneficial to the child.
A man was convicted of taking photographs of girls in bikinis at a
public swimming pool after a court decided that the images were
indecent. We are told (by CEOP) that *all* indecent images of
children are child-abuse images. It therefore follows that a child
who wears a bikini in a public swimming pool is being abused.
Such is the double-think we are expected to swallow when it comes to
the highly emotional subject of children and sex, anyway.
Incidentally, research has shown that non-forced sexual activity with
a child is *not* highly likely to cause harm to the child
--
Cynic
Ricochet Rabbit
However, dialing up to an ISP outside of England
is something that could not be stopped. I am
chatting with somoene right now in one chat room
who is in Britain, but is dialing up long distance
to an ISP in Nigeria, to avoid monitoring by the
British authorities.
Making a dial-up connection to a foreign ISP
is another "achilles heel" of any filtering regime
Golden California Girls
Uh, you do realize they can monitor all phone calls going to any number out of
the country. It is a simple matter for them to decode the modem signals.
Ricochet Rabbit
"Golden California Girls" <gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote in message
news:hbtdqb$84m$1...@aioe.org...
No problem there. Someone could encrypt their
communications with VPN, so the authorities could not
eavesdrop on the connection. And an ISP in
Nigeria, like this person was using, cannot be
forced by UK authorities to hand over any
server logs. This person could dial up to his
Nigerian ISP, and then use one of numerous
subscription VPN services all over the world.
There is no possible way they the British
authorities could stop someone from
dialing up a Nigerian ISP, and then logging
on to a VPN from there.
Golden California Girls
You aren't nearly paranoid enough to see the hole in dial up. When the modem
answers, there is no VPN yet. There is no encryption protocol. Everything is
done plain text. Just think what a little pretexting can do with that
information along with a government database entry for the user, a dump of the
bank records, etc. Never mind they pull the tape of where you set up the
account and get your answer to the secret question. Also realize anyone dialing
outside the country to use VPN is automatically going to be put on a special
watch list. Resources will be directed to breaking the encryption and that key
length may only be long enough to prevent casual snooping not a military grade
assault.
Cynic
<gldnc...@aol.com.mil> wrote:
>Uh, you do realize they can monitor all phone calls going to any number out of
>the country. It is a simple matter for them to decode the modem signals.
Not *quite* that easy. A simple monitor ("phone tap") cannot decode a
bidirectional high-speed modem stream because the signals in each
direction have tio be separated in order not to interfere with each
other. That is easy at each end, because the transmitted signal is
known and can be subtracted from the combined signal on the line. To
monitor at at intermediate point however, the call needs to be routed
*through* a circuit known as a "hybrid" in order to separate Tx and
Rx.
That is of course perfectly possible, but is not as simple as
"tapping" the signal.
--
Cynic
Ricochet Rabbit
One thing where VPN can help is watching BBC
News without a TV Licence. Atdhe, right now, has
a live stream of BBC. Someone could use an offshore
VPN, then connect to adthe, and then connect to
stream of BBC news, and neitther the BBC, TV
Licensing, or the British government would ever know
what you were up to.