No Porn From Public WiFi Hotspots In the UK Proposed 390
whoever57 writes "Prime Minister David Cameron is proposing that porn should not be available through WiFi hotspots in public areas. Exactly how this will be implemented has not been identified, even to the extent of whether the ISP or the hotspot operator should implement the blocking. From the article: '
The Prime Minister said: “We are promoting good, clean, WiFi in local cafes and elsewhere to make sure that people have confidence in public WiFi systems so that they are not going to see things they shouldn’t.”
His intervention comes after a long-running campaign from children’s charities to ensure a blanket ban on unacceptable sites on public WiFi networks.'"
Does that include Women Porn? (Score:4, Funny)
Like People Magazine and fashion sites?
Re:Does that include Women Porn? (Score:5, Funny)
It'll be much simpler just to ban children from cafes.
They've got no business drinking coffee at their age anyway.
Re:Does that include Women Porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this belongs in the "clueless idiots want to control something they have no right to control..." basket.
Sometimes I think that the world has a chance of evolving in the right direction when insightful or intelligent laws are passed, but for each of those moments, I seem to have at least a dozen facepalm or forehead-table moments.
If a cafe owner finds that many of his/her customers are turning away to other cafes because there are too many folks holding coffee in one hand and their other hand is under the table - shouldn't it be up to them to install some sort of blocklist/filtering software? Why the fuck does it have to be a government mandated, nay regulated, nay again, state policed offence to NOT have this set up?
I am all for libertarianism, but with a touch of ethics and morals thrown in - I want people to be able to do whatever they want, and sincerly hopethat they will do the right thing - but if they choose to have effectively a red-light-district cafe, then they should be able to - hopefully ina red light district part of town. There MUST be some point where common sense kicks in with capitalism surely. You have a cafe, in the center of three primary schools, politely ask folks watching porn to move on as they are disrupting your normal business of soccer moms. Oh, you don't want a dingey establishment in the first place, okay, ask anyone watching risque content to move on if anyone notices. And if no-one does, who the fuck is it harming?
I really want to beat some common sense into idiot meddling politicians trying to force their public policies down the throats of others with a really big hard, solid, heavy stick - with nails in the end of it. There is a difference between making laws that prohibit unsafe buildings, or fire hazzards or man-eating-star-wars-type-desert-creatures and trying to ban anything that the politician doesn't want to admit to or show that he/her is doing in public from being an offence.
Re:Does that include Women Porn? (Score:4, Funny)
I really want to beat some
You already said what I wanted to say, so I'll just take a quote out of context and giggle a bit.
Re:Does that include Women Porn? (Score:4)
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You might find the phrase "classic liberal" handy.
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"They're just trying to look like they're trying to do something about a problem which concerns their constituents, in order to ensure reelection."
Then they are doing their job: Representing their constituents.
The problem isn't just with the politicians. It's also with the wider public, most of whome will happily throw their rights away to satisfy their pet cause (whatever that may be) while simutainously condemning all the other people who will happily throw their rights away for a different pet cause.
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Or ban children alltogether. It could replace many other prohibitions with a single one.
Porn is bad and dirty (Score:5, Funny)
You definitely shouldn't see it!
We, the British government, will protect you from this bane.
Re:Porn is bad and dirty (Score:4, Interesting)
The what happens is that people move their porn to Linux, take a file like, say 'manandwoman.mov' and do:
split -b 10M manandwoman.mov $HARMLESSFILE
for s in $HARMLESSFILE*; do
$ENCRYPT -password "${HARMLESSFILE}MrFlibble$HARMLESSFILE" $s -o $s.bin
done
# copy the files to multiple free cloud storage facilities and post links to friends, passing instructions for reassembly
# via other means (sneakernet?)
# do this for many innocent files too, so that if someone catches you, you may deduce how they did it before
# you do and realise that they have been cheating at the Game of Life, or else have supernatural powers.
# In case you need to buy yourself out of jail, present evidence in completion of a certain challenge.
Re:Porn is bad and dirty (Score:5, Insightful)
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What makes you think this kind of thing is just for Linux users.
Splitting and encrypting files is userland stuff that you can get done on pretty much any OS.
I like to use Linux, but it's not magic.
It's a Catholiban terrorist dictatorship (Score:2, Insightful)
That's where the whole notion of sex/porn being "dirty" and "bad" comes from. Churches and mental illness.
Imagine they'd try the same for other basic human things like... for instance.. eating.
- I bet you like the smell of a freshly cooked meal... Perv!
- Of course food sites and cooking shows should be forbidden!
- A glass of milk being shown on national television? Moogate!!! Chaos!!
- You eat by yourself? Ewww, you perv! Don't you know you will go blind?
- You had dinner in public? Off to jail with you!
- A m
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If church attendance is your metric, then the UK is an overwhelmingly non-religious country.
In the 2009 British Social Attitudes survey 50.9% said "no religion", 19.9% Church of England, 8.6% Catholic.
That contradicts the 2011 census, mind you, which says 59% Christian (with no published breakdown of denomination). Must be slightly differently worded questions.
I think that part of it was probably because the question was voluntary in the census [jainology.org]. Some agnostics, and people who might feel an affiliation to a religion but not believe it, would probably have not answered rather than picking the rather definite sounding "no religion".
Re:It's a Catholiban terrorist dictatorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Sex is not a sin.
Oppression is.
As a Christian, I agree with this 100%.
Many sins have been committed in the name of God, and calling sex a sin is one of them.
I mean, think about it: assuming you believe in God, then you also probably believe people were designed and created by God. In that case, sex was also designed by God, so how could it possibly be a sin?
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I agree with you, but find your logic flawed. Sex is an action. If it was created by god and is therefore good, murder is also an action that was created by god...
Your reasoning falls into the "all natural things (like arsenic) are good and all man-made things (like computers) are evil" bucket.
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That's where the whole notion of sex/porn being "dirty" and "bad" comes from. Churches and mental illness.
It always comes up, this, in discussions about porn. Sex is normal and healthy. What could be wrong about looking at depictions of a couple engaging in this healthy, normal act.
And if that's what porn was about, I'd agree. But a great deal of porn is about transgressive acts, and nasty attitudes. Rape fantasies are common. The notion that "no means yes" is common. The notion that all women turn into sluts when you scratch the surface. Getting pleasure from spitting, slapping and insulting someone (or I gues
Re:It's a Catholiban terrorist dictatorship (Score:4, Insightful)
But a great deal of porn is about transgressive acts, and nasty attitudes. Rape fantasies are common. The notion that "no means yes" is common. The notion that all women turn into sluts when you scratch the surface. Getting pleasure from spitting, slapping and insulting someone (or I guess from being subjected to that). And of course, body parts of abnormal size.
And how do you know this?
In any case, even if that were true, I believe banning it (even just in certain places) would be morally wrong.
But children find it more difficult.
Interestingly enough, I don't see children running around raping and murdering random people very often, so I highly doubt it's a widespread problem even assuming it actually happens.
But neither am I dumb enough to say that porn is harmless.
Porn is most likely harmless to a grand majority of people. There.
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How many would it take?
A large percentage of the people who view pornography. A few news stories where the reporters make assumptions about the cause of whatever happened will not be enough.
Earlier this year there was the widely reported rape of an unconscious girl at a US college party -- made all the more horrifying because so many of the people there thought there was nothing wrong with what had happened.
You assume that that happened because of pornography? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You will not be able to convince me like that. As I read the rest of your comment, it looks like you just blame everything on pornography. But again, even if it was the fault of pornography (How could it be? It would be the fault of people who are inf
Re:It's a Catholiban terrorist dictatorship (Score:5, Insightful)
It always comes up, this, in discussions about porn. Sex is normal and healthy. What could be wrong about looking at depictions of a couple engaging in this healthy, normal act.
And if that's what porn was about, I'd agree. But a great deal of porn is about transgressive acts, and nasty attitudes.
A great deal of people talking is about transgressive acts and nasty attitudes. Should we ban talking from places? Seriously how is "Pizza's here - open the box to my cock - fucking" worse than two frat boys talking about beating the shit out of someone else or wanting to? Or two girls trash talking another?
Rape fantasies are common. The notion that "no means yes" is common.
define "common". If you mean it to be more than 50% umm, then I'd like to see some citation. 30% isn't common. Even then this needs a big fat [citation needed]
The notion that all women turn into sluts when you scratch the surface.
Wait, I thought porn was about rape? Which is it?
Getting pleasure from spitting, slapping and insulting someone (or I guess from being subjected to that).
People don't need porn for this. People insult other people on a daily basis, if not more. I've seen 5,000 times more slapping on run of the mill TV shows than I have in all the porn I've seen. If you're that offended by spitting, do yourself a favor and never ever go to China. Or hang out near prepubescent boys.
And of course, body parts of abnormal size.
Fuck you and your holier-than-thou attitude on how people should look. So some people like fat porn. Oh, wait, you're talking about 18 inch cocks? So what am I not supposed to go outside anymore? Or are you talking about girls with big fake tits? If so, don't watch any sort of South American TV.
Most adults can tell the difference between fantasy and reality (although, possibly, fewer than you'd hope -- especially when there's the 'gonzo' genre that masquerades as amateur). But children find it more difficult.
You're so right. We need to get on banning Harry Potter before more children think they're wizards. Non-fiction is hereby banned because kidz iz dumbz.
So we have boys growing up with these unpleasant ideas about what it's OK to do to women, and girls growing up with these harmful ideas of what society expects of them.
From porn?! Men beat their wives because they watch PORN?! Girls have weight issues because they watched PORN?! You're dumb and so are the retards that modded you insightful.
(I'm talking about hetero porn, because that's what experience I have).
I have experience with it all and well, I can tell you 95% doesn't have any of the shit you've been spouting in it. Except for that German stuff. Freaky~!
Sure, there *is* porn in which two people are mutually attracted and have mutually enjoyable, considerate sex.
You mean like most of it?
But it's not all that common,
Inconceivable! You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
and consumers tend to shift up to something more interesting (i.e. more extreme and transgressive).
Umm, you're full of it. I've got over 20+ years of pron watching experience and I'm not into BDSM, skat, snuff, beast, or anything more than guy-meets-girl guy-fucks-girl. Hell, I'm not even fond of anal. People like what they like. They don't start liking shit because they're bored. Again, you are stupid.
I don't know the answer. I'm opposed to censorship. But neither am I dumb enough to say that porn is harmless.
No, you're just dumb. I'm surprised you didn't say anything in there about going blind or hairy hands. The rest of the drivel you spouted sounds just the same.
Re:Porn is bad and dirty (Score:5, Funny)
We, the British government, will protect you from this bane.
The British Government can go suck my **** !
(just so long as they don't watch the recording over public wi-fi)
Re:Porn is bad and dirty (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure there's a joke about the catholic church somewhere in there.
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If you think of the children that much, you are a pedo.
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I would absolutely LOVE to see a politician use that line against another.
Wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
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I could see a few groups who would enjoy to make sure you cannot access certain content. The idea is mostly that porn is dirty and bad and everyone who is against filtering it must be a pervert. Then, if it is installed, a certain group comes in and says that if you can filter porn out, you can certainly filter other content, too.
Re:Wrong question (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I certainly think that children should not be exposed to filth like the Bible (Ezekiel 23:20 for example) or the Koran. If this law comes in I will be submitting links to every online copy of said books for blocking.
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Darn right. This is the way to close free wifi hotspots.
Providers will not be able to pay for "approved" filtering, so one dodgy site slipping through would be grounds for prosecution; and so all free hotspot vanish.
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I'm guessing the mobile phone companies. Porn is already banned on mobile internet, so they have the infrastructure to do it. At the moment if I am on O2, porn is illegal (unless I prove I'm over 18 and opt in to receiving it) over the 2.1GHz 3G network, but if I go 0.3GHz up the dial to their public wifi network, which my phone will do any time it is at a train station, pub, McDonalds etc that has O2 wifi, then I can get all the porn I want.
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I take it jonbryce means "illegal" in the sense a compiler might complain of an illegal instruction or a shell prompt might complain of an illegal operation. Not against the law of the land or the laws of physics, but rendered impossible by local constraints. A command that's illegal in Java might be perfectly legal in C, and an operation that's illegal on 3G might be legal on WiFi.
Language is like that: sometimes words have multiple meanings.
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No technical solutions for social problems (Score:5, Insightful)
In general, you shouldn't try to solve social problems with technical solutions.
And in this case, it's not even possible unless you also forbid encryped sessions, which would mean people can't access their VPNs. And nobody in his right mind would surf from a public hotspot without a VPN or at least an SSL/TLS encrpyted session.
And as if that's not enough proof for you: a determined person can still use steganography to embed an encrypted stream inside a regular port 80 HTTP session. Therefore you cannot prevent people from accessing porn over public wifi. All you can do is make it more inconvenient for everyone to browse securely.
Conclusion: You can't stop it, so don't even try.
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In general, you shouldn't try to solve social non-problems with technical solutions.
Conclusion: You should't stop it, so don't even try.
In general.. (Score:2)
Technically illiterate people shouldn't make policy decisions regarding technology.
Re:No technical solutions for social problems (Score:4, Informative)
And nobody in his right mind would surf from a public hotspot without a VPN or at least an SSL/TLS encrpyted session.
Yeah, when I'm reading the BBC news website in Starbucks it's vital that it's over a VPN or SSL. Not.
Public wi-fi should be fine to use. Most email now uses encrypted connections, and beyond that just teach people the rule of thumb that if you don't know what you're doing (i.e. can't confirm it's secure), it's best to avoid using sites that you log on to when using public wi-fi.
And no, you can't stop it, but that's because it's impossible to identify. Do you block google image search? Only have whitelisted sites? Other than that, it's impossible to block, but can be made hard enough that most people won't bother.
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hopefully nerds have the basic social skills to know not to view porn in Starbucks. Maybe I'm wrong.
I think you're over-optimistic. But it doesn't matter, because the sort of nerd who doesn't know better still isn't going to be doing it. At least, not until Starbucks open a branch in his mom's basement.
Guess he has never heard of VPN and proxies (Score:3, Insightful)
There is really no other way he could claim something as stupid as this otherwise. Just your average clueless control-freak politician. I do not even find the strength to despise him, this has gotten far, far too common.
Re:Guess he has never heard of VPN and proxies (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont think they care, about VPN or proxies. If you have these, then you're obviously old and wise enough to be able to look at whatever you want, whenever you want.
This is about minors, kids, who end up getting porn on there phones/tablets by accident, while looking for something innocent.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but there are more 15 year olds out there who could set up a VPN network than 50 year olds...
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Who the hell stumbles on porn by accident? In my 15 years of internet use, I have never ever hit a porn site by accident. I have seen too many adverts for porn though; perhaps he should start there.
I do visit a site with funny pictures, and they have a sub-section where lovely ladies like to show their tits. Would that be on the list t
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This is about minors, kids, who end up getting porn on there phones/tablets by accident, while looking for something innocent.
I don't think it's anything to do with "accident". Yes, occasionally, some idiot posts some disguised link and managed to get people to click on it (I've been caught out a couple of times in slashdot posts before they started putting the domain after the link)
But mostly I suspect it's 13+ year olds going looking for porn. Which we all did. Back in my day though it was all still photo
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Let us all remember that since we are on the Internet, some kind of guide is bound to appear and be searchable through google. Such guide will show you how to bypass the filter (bypassing localhost filters anyone?) and with enough word of mouth teenagers will be all over them. I mean, in my high school, facebook was blocked (or at least they tried to). My classmates found a way around it, and a rather simple one (I believe they used google cache and exploited the lack of blanket filter on facebook.com/*). W
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Google is pretty good at filtering porn from its results. I don't know about Bing and Yahoo but I would imagine they are too. That is where the filtering needs to be - in search results.
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If the average user can't access porn easily, they won't be able to access porn full stop.
Anyway, what is the big deal? Who wants to view porn in a McDonald's anyway? I just don't see the terrible infringement on liberty here. You're not allowed to pull down your trousers and start wanking off to a printed porn mag in your local coffee shop anyway.
The idea that you should be able to do whatever you want wherever you are because it's on the internet is
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Just your average clueless control-freak politician.
He's not just a politician, he's a world leader!
So, slightly more objectionable and clueless than average for a politician, but within normal variation. Of course, this is an uncosted kite that he's flying, so who knows whether it will manage to get implemented. (Mind you, it's a stupid policy that I'd bet is driven by the latest moral panic in the Daily Fail, so it's got far more legs than it actually merits. Oh well.)
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So:
The smart kids will successfully circumvent this by setting up VPNs, and if they prevent encryption, possibly using steganography.
The stupid kids will not get their daily fix of digital porn and will start looking for the real thing, and procreate.
Sounds like a brilliant plan!
Cue all the problems that AOL had when they tried (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe instead of blocking the whole of Sussex we should be educating children to be sensible online and deal with the real world that is full of borderline pornographic images on TV and in advertising anyway.
OpenDNS (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course a complete block would be impossible. What's needed is something like OpenDNS [opendns.com]. I use it for my home network, with (in)appropriate categories blocked. This means it's far less likely the kids will stumble across (in a few years' time, read "successfully search for") anything we'd rather they didn't see.
The router acts as a DNS forwarder for OpenDNS's servers, and it blocks outgoing port 53 requests from machines on the LAN. This stops anyone configuring their own DNS server to get around my block.
This is by no means infallible: a proxy, a DNS server not on port 53, an external online IP address lookup - all of these will get around it. My intent is to reduce the likelihood of inappropriate material making it onto the LAN.
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Listen, we can't have this discussion if you insist on using common sense and this "objectivity" thing. Get of my lawn.
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Aren't you just creating an atmosphere where a child interested in the opposite sex (or the same sex for that matter) has to be ashamed of that, and subsequently have to go around you to satisfy said interest? How is your "solution" even solving a problem? The kid sheltered like that is just going to have a much harder landing when they actually do have interact with the rest of the World.
Not at all. If you look objectively at most of the porn on the internet (I can think of a few people who would apply for a job, if that was in the description...), and consider that any children looking at the same material probably have much less sexual experience than you do (I say "probably", because I am sure there are one or two 40-year old virgin geeks on this site), that porn will come to form the majority of their "sexual experience" until they start to have such encounters themselves. So things lik
Re:OpenDNS (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pointing out that there is no problem to solve with this "solution". Apart from the "solution" being a false sense of security on the part of the parent at the very best, there are no benefits to this.
The child who wishes to see pornography (or other controversial content for that matter) will do so through other channels. The solution has already fostered an atmosphere where the child cannot tell this to the parent, because there is already a blanket ban on porn in the household. So as a parent implementing this kind of thing you have effectively cut yourself out of a very important part of your child's life and upbringing.
If the parent chose to talk to the child about these things, and many other things they are bound to run into out in the real world, the "solution" is not necessary. It is akin to the debate on drinking. You can either ban it and risk having you teenage girl featured on girls gone wild, or you can teach your kid to drink responsibly (because trust me, chances are high that they will drink) and significantly lower that risk.
What a great use of money (Score:5, Insightful)
His intervention comes after a long-running campaign from children’s charities to ensure a blanket ban on unacceptable sites on public WiFi networks.
Because when I donate money to a children's charity, that's exactly what I'm hoping the money will be spent on. Think of all the children saved by these campaigns.
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His intervention comes after a long-running campaign from children’s charities to ensure a blanket ban on unacceptable sites on public WiFi networks.
Because when I donate money to a children's charity, that's exactly what I'm hoping the money will be spent on. Think of all the children saved by these campaigns.
But did you donate money to censor what people can view ?
Um What are these kids parents your trying to save from viewing porn doing?
Its a case who's watching Big Brother ?
What happens when someone viewing (a hypothetical headline ) on "free" WiFi, British troops massacre Afghan civilians becomes unacceptable ? or horror of horrors Prince Harry mistaking kills an Afghan tribal chef in his role as Gunner on a Gunship ?
Is it considered war porn and therefor banned ?
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We are in total agreement here. I *can't count* the number of times I've gone to the market and seen someone watching videos of goat porn.
(Literally.)
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Government censorship is a lot more likely to hurt people than icky videos.
But what sort of porn? (Score:3)
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Wow, dozens of comments and then finally this. It was the first thought of mine: "unacceptable sites" sounds very political, and reeks of plain old censorship.
And while I know the sentiments against porn as such, there is a lot more perversion on the internet - and definitely far worse stuff than a beautiful naked lady.
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Most of the stuff I deem unacceptable for kids on the internet is religion based, actually.
Re:But what sort of porn? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone in the UK aught to add that they want religious material blocked as well. After all if you're blocking "offensive" content you better make sure you block everything people find "offensive". You should block all "offensive" content or none of it. I personally find exposing children to religion is harmful, more so than pornography.
"Think Of The Children!" (Score:2)
The top trump rallying cry of those with no regard for anyone else's freedom. While I support the prevention of children accessing porn, I have greater support for maintaining cultural freedom for the majority adult population.
Imposing access controls (administered by who?) differentiated between two groups (on what criteria, exactly?) across all public networks (enforced by what means and deterrents?) will have huge costs (economic, cultural and social) that a technically and morally ignorant special inter
Do people look at porn in public ? (Score:2)
Not that I have noticed. I will not pretend that I deliberately look at what is on other people's screens, but I have not seen anything. So if someone is looking at smut in public, but no one knows, what harm is being done ?
Is Cameron going to announce that people must not read playboy in a public place ? What would be the point, it is not a problem, so why fix it ? Oh: I see, this will appeal to those Torygraph & Daily Fail readers who have not yet come to terms with their own sexuality or have their m
/facepalm (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_tunneling#SSH_tunneling [wikipedia.org]
Excellent (Score:3)
I can see that he's this generation's Marie Antoinette. "Derp, derp, no pr0n from wifi hotspot, do it because I'm a political bigwig!" "My lord, it's impossible to censor anything without whitelisting..." "Just do it, DERP!" 10 weeks later. "OMG, I can't get anywhere on these hotpots, WTF did you guys do?" "Only what you asked us to." "I didn't ask you to do this! Fix it!" "I shall have the elves get to work on it right away sire, but it may require one of the Crown Jewels..." "Umm...what?" "Nothing" 10 weeks later. "OMG, people can get to pr0n sites!" "Umm, h@x0ors?" "Ah."
And ? (Score:3)
From my point of view (and it is only that!) I don't see what is so wrong with banning it from public wifi spots. Two things occur to me:
Firstly, it means less issues with people who don't know better browsing for it in Starbucks for example.
Secondly, if you want it, go home and download or if you are really stuck, just buy a personal hotspot thingy from your provider.
Lastly (ok that makes 3) it probably reduces your susceptibility to lawsuits (Oh my little johnny say a nipple and is now traumatised, show me the money) as the providers have made a reasonable effort to keep it clean.
How to do it? (Score:3)
Exactly how this will be implemented has not been identified, even to the extent of whether the ISP or the hotspot operator should implement the blocking.
Just ask China.
Now that the UK economy is roaring under Cameron (Score:3)
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You can say that again. I thought the US was very anti-pornography, and if you believe anything Bill Maher says, Americans are more sensitive to that kind of thing than anybody. Yet other than child pornography, there hasn't been any significant effort to ban it from either private homes or public places. This, as well as the recent European parliament nearly banning all forms of pornography, hints to me that it may not be quite what it seems.
I probably shouldn't be surprised though. The US has this reputat
Re:wtf, mate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most Europeans only know about the US what is spoon-fed by their government-friendly media and their state-run education systems. And those governments love to tell their people how evil the US is because it allows them to advance their own extreme left and extreme right agendas. That's not a new phenomenon: monarchs and dictators have been telling Europeans how lucky they are not to be in America for nearly 200 years (just as millions of Europeans were voting with their feet).
Here's a quote from a famous German "politician":
It's scary to think that a large fraction of German politicians think and say pretty much the same thing today.
People In Glass Houses... (Score:2)
FTFY:
Most Americans only know about Europe what is spoon-fed by their lunatic-friendly media and their corporate-run education systems. Their government loves to tell it's people how backward the rest of the world is because it allows them to advance their own extreme left and extreme right agendas. That's not a new phenomenon: politicians and militarists have been telling Americans how lucky they are not to be in Europe for nearly 200 years (just as billions of Europeans were looking at each other with con
Re:People In Glass Houses... (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying that Bush's quote is wrong?
You're saying that Europeans are not using negotiation and consensus to resolve their differences? That beyond Europe's borders, the world is not violent and full of totalitarian governments? Really, I'm trying to understand what part of Bush's quote you find objectionable.
(The first part of your message just demonstrates your complete ignorance. "Billions of Europeans"? Corporate-run education systems?)
Re:People In Glass Houses... (Score:5, Insightful)
As apparent from 50+ years of foreign policy fail, I'd say it is about time to abandon the meme that everything can be solved with guns and enough boots on the ground. It didn't work in Korea, It didn't work in Vietnam, it didn't work in Iraq the first time, it didn't work in Iraq the second time, it didn't work in Afghanistan (not even for the Soviets). How is that not sinking in yet? How fucking stupid do you have to be to not get that?
Re:People In Glass Houses... (Score:4, Insightful)
Third world countries are generally third world countries because they are prone to uncivilized and backwards politics and agendas.
If you don't keep an eye on them, they not only will tend to strong arm tactics towards their people, but externalize the source of the problems to first world countries leading to aggression. Like North Korea did little more than a week ago, like Libya once was fond of doing, etc.
Re:People In Glass Houses... (Score:4, Insightful)
Enough guns and boots can overthrow any regime, but that doesn't solve the problem. Answering aggression with more aggression is going to cause even more aggression (insurgents for instance). If you really want to solve the problem in a third world country, not only do you have to dispose of the ruling class/despot, you also have to educate the majority so that the country as a whole does not relapse.
You cannot expect swift application of bullets to be able to deliver the same kind of social evolution that has taken hundreds of years for the western world. This is not some kind of recipe that you can just point to and say "hey look, that's how society is supposed to work, now implement it". Education, information and negotiation is key. Once people understand why change needs to happen, you can apply guns at will. The people might even help you.
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A ex-RAF regiment friend of mine and I have come to the conclusion that Afghanistan is where nations go to lose wars - including the Afghans.
Re:wtf, mate? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really agree with that in modern day Europe. The media companies don't toe the government line more than you'd expect in any country with a free press. There are often concerns about the closeness of ties between politicians and media but I think that's pretty common in Western countries. Moreover, in the UK the government itself makes a big deal of how important our relationship with the US is. Besides that, I'd argue that you're underestimating the reach of both the Internet and US culture generally. The Internet makes it easy to get access to a wide range of news sources, at least for those who are motivated to do it.
Probably more importantly, I'd guess that easily half the popular TV and most of the movies in Europe (and probably much of the world) comes from the US - there's a lot of information about US culture, self-image, even simple turns of phrase that continuously percolates into everyone's minds from this alone. People continually get (arguably idealised, since this is Hollywood) images of what the US stands for, what it's like to be American, etc. In terms of the vast entertainment industry, I'd argue that Europeans are routinely shown the same image of the US that Americans themselves receive.
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Re:wtf, mate? (Score:5, Informative)
What the hell does the UK government have against porn? This is the second time they've tried to ban it.
I think you'll find that a large proportion of the UK population would agree that porn in public is a bad thing. We still cover up "top shelf" magazines in newsagents so you can't see the boobs. It wasn't until the advent of widespread internet access that any sort of hardcore porn was legal here. (I assume they just gave up at that point).
Supporting porn is not a vote winner here.
Re:wtf, mate? (Score:4, Insightful)
And, as the other poster pointed out, there is a difference between a public hotspot and being in a public place.
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There's a difference between being opposed to porn in public and being in favour of government-mandated censorship.
No, there is no such difference.
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What the hell does the UK government have against porn? This is the second time they've tried to ban it.
They want to keep it all for themselves
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I'm not sure they are against pornography; this is the sort of thing that comes out of listening to your voters. The thing is, many people are concerned about internet porn, perhaps especially conservative voters, and perhaps especially parents who don't want their children to find that sort of things too easily.
Personally, I'd say 'Screw the children' - except, that sounds a bit wrong, doesn't it? What I mean is, porn is one of the things I just can't be bothered with, and the less chance I have of stumbli
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But is there anything you can do about the shit?
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Because i'll still masturbate in the starbucks bathroom to 2girls1cup and there aint shit you can do about it.
Yeah! Fight the power!
Re:Define pornography (Score:5, Informative)
Define it first you Socialist prick!
Whatever kind of prick David Cameron is, it's not a socialist one, genius.
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Shit, here in flyover country many people would call that communism. Don't worry they will pray for you though.
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I'm not sure the Lib-Dems would claim to be socialists either.
I don't think there's a mainstream socialist party left in the UK -- although I still cling to the hope that Labour will swing back to the left one day.
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I didn't think Cameron and Clegg were that easily confused.
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Define it first you Socialist prick!
David Cameron... a socialist? BWAHAHAHAHA! what planet do you live on?? that prick is slightly right of Atilla the Hun!
Re:1984?? (Score:4, Insightful)
You will only ever see what you search for on a WiFi system. Forcing ISP's and/or individual establishments that provide free internet access to monitor and block specific traffic is tantamount to authoritarian governance. I see absolutely no difference between this concept and how Egypt or Israel or Iran are manipulating and controlling the information that their citizens have access to. Honestly, please explain the difference? if any?
This is about accessing material over public wi fi. I may be unusual here, but I prefer to view porn in the comfort of my own home, and I certainly don't want to watch people jizzing into their coffee in Starbucks.
And even if the UK government banned porn entirely (which is of course not technically possible without completely abandoning internet access) it still wouldn't amount to censorship like in Iran or China.
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Oh it's the old "people might accidentally go to porn sites" excuse. Is this a particularly common occurrence? Has anyone here gone to a site and misspelled the name and ended up at a porn site?
I did once at work! Wanted to go to dictionary.com, but accidentally typed in dictoinary.com. Pop-ups with breasts were coming up everywhere. Both my boss and my boss's boss were standing behind me at the time... Turns out that kind of domain misspelling is often registered by unscrupulous operators.
But I can't say that it's a common enough occurrence that mandating massive amounts of infrastructure is indicated.
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Why not just encourage people to stare at public porn fiends? I mean, looking at porn in public is gross and weird. This is just one of those things that takes care of itself, though, you know?
Indeed. Looking at internet porn in public is no different than 20 years ago the grubby be-mackintoshed guy "reading" a dirty magazing in public. It's gross and weird and people like that were generally dealt with just fine.
It's a social problem (if it is really a problem at all---I'm sure the scale has been exaggerat