IWF asking for web sites to be blocked
Percy Picacity
asking for undesirable web sites to be blocked, and BT has apparently
agreed to be the first ISP to do this. The mechanism, what is recorded
about the attempt to access the site, who this information will be
available to, and what error message the user will receive seem
unclear. In characteristic fashion, the IWF will not say which sites
it has asked ISPs to block, but at least we can be confident that the
police are playing a full part in censoring the Internet.
--
Percy Picacity
James Coupe
<k...@under.the.invalid> writes:
>The mechanism, what is recorded
>about the attempt to access the site, who this information will be
>available to, and what error message the user will receive seem
>unclear. In characteristic fashion, the IWF will not say which sites
>it has asked ISPs to block, but at least we can be confident that the
>police are playing a full part in censoring the Internet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1232506,00.html is one
article I was pointed at about it, which seems to cover most of the
basic points.
I'm unsure how this will be implemented, of course. ISPs with
transparent web proxies and the like might well be able to simply insert
non-expiring entries for any such sites the IWF wants blocked.
The more difficult thing would seem to be in the situation where an ISP
doesn't have a cache (or has an optional one). Where do you block
there? At the level of routing packets to that machine? Which would be
a little tricky if a given site contained a lot of legitimate material,
for many other websites (since HTTP 1.1 allows that easily) e.g. a
webserver with many legitimate porn sites hosted there, but the IWF want
to block only one of them.
Tangentially (because the above made me think about it), what's the
situation like where materials are legal in one country (e.g. the
country of hosting) but not in some other, with an entirely different
age of consent and so on? Could a company in $country be sued by people
in $country2 for allowing illegal, underage porn to be downloaded - but
which is perfectly legal in $country, because of different age laws.
--
James Coupe Cos I used to be the loser kid
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Who always ran anyway and hid
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 And no-one took the time to know me
13D7E668C3695D623D5D The 'kick me' sign was always on me
Chris Croughton
<ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
> The more difficult thing would seem to be in the situation where an ISP
> doesn't have a cache (or has an optional one). Where do you block
> there? At the level of routing packets to that machine? Which would be
> a little tricky if a given site contained a lot of legitimate material,
> for many other websites (since HTTP 1.1 allows that easily) e.g. a
> webserver with many legitimate porn sites hosted there, but the IWF want
> to block only one of them.
If it 'works' as well as the "net nanny" type software, it will block
the legitimate ones as well. If you want to access those, you can just
persuade the owners of the legitimate content to move to a site which
doesn't host nasty stuff, can't you? Like a UDP, which will hit far
more legitimate users of the blocked server than it will hurt spammers,
but is aimed at getting the host to throw off the unliked users.
> Tangentially (because the above made me think about it), what's the
> situation like where materials are legal in one country (e.g. the
> country of hosting) but not in some other, with an entirely different
> age of consent and so on? Could a company in $country be sued by people
> in $country2 for allowing illegal, underage porn to be downloaded - but
> which is perfectly legal in $country, because of different age laws.
There you get into the mess of international law because it isn't
unified. What happens if a UK citizen goes to the far east and has sex
with someone who would be 'underage' in the UK (but is legal there)?
Australia, at least, has arrested their own citizens who did that. Or
if a US person aged 18 comes to the UK and gets drunk on alcohol, is
that person or the UK bar owner responsible in law?
In practice, the result is, that if the complaining country is the USA
then they will insist that their laws are the ones which count, just
like with the DCMA. If your country doesn't have enough guns and nukes
to stand up against the USA then you're stuffed, because "Macht macht
Recht"...
Chris C
Clive D. W. Feather
<ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes
>>In characteristic fashion, the IWF will not say which sites
>>it has asked ISPs to block,
The list is available from IWF under NDA.
>I'm unsure how this will be implemented, of course. ISPs with
>transparent web proxies and the like might well be able to simply insert
>non-expiring entries for any such sites the IWF wants blocked.
BT's solution is specific to their network. The IWF list of URLs is
converted to a set of IP addresses, and traffic from their customer BGP
domain to those addresses on relevant ports is diverted to a special
proxy. Requests matching the URLs generate fake 404s; other requests are
proxied in the normal way. All traffic to proxies (presumably determined
by port number) is also diverted to the special proxy.
>The more difficult thing would seem to be in the situation where an ISP
>doesn't have a cache (or has an optional one). Where do you block
>there?
All ISPs will have to determine if they wish to do that and, if so, how,
based on their own network.
>Which would be
>a little tricky if a given site contained a lot of legitimate material,
>for many other websites (since HTTP 1.1 allows that easily) e.g. a
>webserver with many legitimate porn sites hosted there, but the IWF want
>to block only one of them.
The proxy would handle that.
>Tangentially (because the above made me think about it), what's the
>situation like where materials are legal in one country (e.g. the
>country of hosting) but not in some other, with an entirely different
>age of consent and so on?
Complicated.
>Could a company in $country be sued by people
>in $country2 for allowing illegal, underage porn to be downloaded - but
>which is perfectly legal in $country, because of different age laws.
Very probably not. In particular, if $country is in the EU, then the
E-Commerce Directive would make the company immune. However, if they
also have significant assets in $country2, a suit there might be
possible.
--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home: <cl...@davros.org>
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: <http://www.davros.org>
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work: <cl...@demon.net>
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is: <cl...@davros.org>
Percy Picacity
news:LBVV51Vk...@romana.davros.org:
> In article <4JOE+1mG...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>, James Coupe
><ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes
>>>In characteristic fashion, the IWF will not say which sites
>>>it has asked ISPs to block,
>
> The list is available from IWF under NDA.
>
snip
Do they supply different lists depending what flavour of illegal
thought or picture the given ISP wishes to block, or is there just one
list including pornography, racist politics, and "information likely to
be of interest to a terrorist"?
--
Percy Picacity
Paul Booth
>
> BT's solution is specific to their network. The IWF list of URLs is
> converted to a set of IP addresses, and traffic from their customer BGP
> domain to those addresses on relevant ports is diverted to a special
> proxy. Requests matching the URLs generate fake 404s; other requests are
> proxied in the normal way. All traffic to proxies (presumably determined
> by port number) is also diverted to the special proxy.
So essentially trivial to work around then?
Who sets the list of what is legal and illegal?
Who deems which items breach the OPA?
What about criminally racist sites? Abroad? Here? White power? Black
power? Is it actually what passes as criminally racist, or just what
the police like to think is criminally racist?
Historically I've always thought of the IWF in conjunction with kiddie
porn, particularly with regards to newsgroups and article cancellations.
Are you now taking a wider stance of censorship?
Jaques d'Alltrades
from Percy Picacity <k...@under.the.invalid> contains these words:
> > The list is available from IWF under NDA.
> >
> snip
> Do they supply different lists depending what flavour of illegal
> thought or picture the given ISP wishes to block, or is there just one
> list including pornography, racist politics, and "information likely to
> be of interest to a terrorist"?
It wouldn't be a bad thing if any website not observing AUP (Which would
have to be thoroughly defined) could be blocked. This should reduce
drastically spam, a lot of sites distributing viruses/trojans etc, kill
known child porn sites and scams.
Of course, there would be squeals from Transpondia about denial of free
speech - however, there's no curtailment of free speech: it's just that
there's no-one listening, as any fule kno.
--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/
Jaques d'Alltrades
from Paul Booth <pab...@grumpy.co.uk> contains these words:
> Historically I've always thought of the IWF in conjunction with kiddie
> porn, particularly with regards to newsgroups and article cancellations.
> Are you now taking a wider stance of censorship?
I most sincerely hope so.
Dave J
uk.net.regulation, 'Paul Booth' wrote:
>Clive D. W. Feather <cl...@on-the-train.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> BT's solution is specific to their network. The IWF list of URLs is
>> converted to a set of IP addresses, and traffic from their customer BGP
>> domain to those addresses on relevant ports is diverted to a special
>> proxy. Requests matching the URLs generate fake 404s; other requests are
>> proxied in the normal way. All traffic to proxies (presumably determined
>> by port number) is also diverted to the special proxy.
>
>So essentially trivial to work around then?
Yes, but the trouble is that while child porn freaks are well versed
in getting around such restrictions, the same is not true of the
general public, who stand to be denied access to information when the
government gets around to abusing the control that the IWF is
gathering for itself.
Just think China.
Then think Blancket and Blair..
--
Dave Johnson - req...@freeuk.com
Chris Croughton
You don't need conspiracy theories or paranoia, even. Just look at the
track record of the "net nanny" software at blocking perfectly innocuous
sites and letting porn through. The IWF might have up to date
information (well, only a few days out of date anyway), but how many
other sites will get blocked by ISPs because they are in the same block?
Just like happens with ORBS and the like. And how long will it take to
get off the lists? Well, if the response of many ISPs in deleting
newsgroups is a guide, many years...
Oh yes, there is plenty of potential for abuse as well, but I'm more
worried about incompetance...
Chris C
Don Aitken
The thing I feel is really objectionable is the "fake 404s". Not only
are we not allowed to access the site; we are not allowed to know that
we are being actively prevented from doing so.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being
read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com".
Wm...
uk.net.regulation Clive D. W. Feather <cl...@on-the-train.demon.co.uk>
Where do you think this should have been raised if not here, Clive?
--
Wm ...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days from date of posting
Mike Bristow
Wm... <tcn...@blackhole.do-not-spam.me.uk> wrote:
> Mon, 7 Jun 2004 17:44:20 <LBVV51Vk...@romana.davros.org>
> uk.net.regulation Clive D. W. Feather <cl...@on-the-train.demon.co.uk>
>
> Where do you think this should have been raised if not here, Clive?
--
You dont have to be illiterate to use the Internet, but it help's.