Leaked Letter Shows UK ISPs and Government At War Over Default Filters 142
An anonymous reader writes, quoting the BBC: "A letter sent to the UK's four leading ISPs from the government has made them very cross indeed. The letter comes from the Department for Education but it sets out a list of demands from Downing Street, with the stated aim of allowing the prime minister to make an announcement shortly. The companies are asked, among other things, for a commitment to fund an 'awareness campaign' for parents. They're not particularly happy about promising cash for what the letter concedes is an 'unknown campaign' but it's the next item on the menu which is the source of most of their anger."
That next item is making and marketing Internet censorship filters as "default-on" rather than "active choice": "'It sounds like a good idea until you think it through,' said one industry source. 'There are three reasons why it doesn't work. First it may be illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers. Then there's the fact that no filter is perfect, and finally kids are smart enough to find their way around them.'" From the sound of it, it might just be newspeak vs newspeak. The entire letter is included in the article.
Give them an inch... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what you got when a nation-wide filtering system is created in the first place. Not satisfied with merely blocking the pedo-porn they went after the pirates and now they want to go after everything not whitelisted. It only gets worse from here guys, kill the national filter system dead before it grows, kill it before it grows.
"Default on"==protection? Who are they kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then the idea of "default-on filter" will be busted for good (or, alternatively, the Internet as seen by UK will look like a puny list of white listed sites, all the others censored).
Re:Give them an inch... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point being that it's the same country that's wiretapping the rest of the planet?
Blacklist corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents need to be the filter... (Score:5, Insightful)
No automatic filter works better than actual parenting...
Re:Summed up in verse (Score:5, Insightful)
What would the UK gov like to memory hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole [wikipedia.org] ?
Some past stories that would be so tempting to just filter down just a bit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeknife [wikipedia.org]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/30/iraq-torture-allegations-uk-military-investigations-reopened [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163799/UK-soldiers-beat-innocent-Iraqi-men-black-ops-jails-new-secret-justice-law-means-torture-hidden-forever.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/24/undercover-officers-police-chief-met [guardian.co.uk]
http://www.information-age.com/technology/mobile-and-networking/123457043/ee-and-ipsos-mori-face-privacy-backlash-over-mobile-data-analysis [information-age.com]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9750403/MI6-codebreaker-Gareth-Williams-probably-locked-himself-into-sports-bag.html [telegraph.co.uk]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9337175/Soldiers-sacked-days-before-pension-date.html [telegraph.co.uk]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127453/M16-1m-bribe-silence-torture-victim-Spies-gave-dissident-Gaddafi-thugs.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/gchq-staff-war-crimes-drones [guardian.co.uk]
With some "filter controls" for a few days after publication and pay walls long term, an individual in the UK could have their news just reshaped a bit long term.
Ideas like the http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/jun/14/what-are-secret-courts [guardian.co.uk] will shut the press out from some UK court reporting.
This mass filter idea might be the next step.
Australia shows the mission creep eg just for a few suspected fraud sites.
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/05/16/global-eyes-are-watching-eff-condemns-australias-new-internet-filter/ [delimiter.com.au]
Re:Give them an inch... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh there IS freedom of speech in all of Europe!
There may not be much freedom after the speech, though.
Re:Give them an inch... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it an odd feeling when siding with some of the most horrible criminals feels less awful than siding with the law?
Re:"Default on"==protection? Who are they kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please do.
We cannot fight that. Not enough push behind it, aside of the 0.0001% of the population who actually gets what's at stake doesn't really matter in elections at all.
But if ISPs are scared shitless that they are facing a LOT of lawsuits because they KNOW that it is virtually impossible to impose such filtering without fail, at least not at sensible cost, they will put up as much resistance against it as they could possibly muster, knowing that it's either felling that law or closing shop.
We need someone who actually can push against it. Us trying to do it alone is akin to trying to stop the tsunami with a broom.
It is not about porn (Score:5, Insightful)
To make it clear, anyone who believes this filter will stop at porn or to protect children is on cloud 7.
This push is not about that. It is to apply a filter to content that the government can not control. The filter is here the goal. And any means is just to get popular opinion to support it.
Once this filter is in place the scope will increase incrementally, with every new legislation round. Copyright holders will push to include sites like ThePirateBay, never mind TPB is listing a lot of legal torrents; it will include radio streams that somehow slipped paying the PPL;
Later of course the filter will include "terrorists sites". And more later any critics and articles on the government politics and programs, that are deemed crucial "national security", like the Snowden leaks.
The press like the Guardian have rights like freedom of the press. But the Internet does not have any rights. There is no right to Twitter or to Blog.
Re:Summed up in verse (Score:4, Insightful)