Here we go again : ISPs under pressure to control online porn

[DorsetBoy]

Minister thinks of the children

Campaigners will meet with the internet minister, Ed Vaizey, to lobby for ISPs to be forced to control access to pornography.

Vaizey issued the invitation to Tory backbencher Claire Perry, who said the availability of sexual material online is "a fire is burning out of control".

The minister offered to act as an "honest broker" between campaigners and ISPs in the hope that action will be agreed.

"We are talking about preventing children from having access to inappropriate content, and how we can work with ISPs to make it that little bit more difficult for them to do so," Vaizey said.

The issue raised by Perry in a Commons debate on Tuesday is separate from that of blocking child abuse material. She wants tighter controls on material that is legal for over-18s to access.

"The current way of controlling access to pornographic material on the internet is via safety settings and filtering software, installed and maintained by users-parents, teachers and carers across the country," she said...... (more)

Yet again they want to end neutrality and impose restrictions on the net.

Surely ignorance and laziness are the problem here, there are already safety measures in abundance many totally free , M$/Windows builds in very effective controls . OpenDns and other services are there ....... where are the parents, why are children allowed unrestricted access to PC's, why are they not being supervised?

Simple answer as far as I can see......... the parents are NOT taking responsibility for their kids.

We also have the issue that it is not possible for an ISP to know who is actually viewing content, age restrictions are meaningless, anyone can change their age/dob online.

So what do you think ?

[Rik]

I think it's time that parents accepted responsibility for their kids, Dorset. Nanny states are not to my taste.

[pctech]

If an ISP wants to offer a proxy filtering service that they charge for fair enough but I disagree with any fiddling with the packets whatsoever.

However, I do want to see those responsible for crimes against children caught.

[Gary]

If an ISP wants to offer a proxy filtering service that they charge for fair enough but I disagree with any fiddling with the packets whatsoever.

However, I do want to see those responsible for crimes against children caught.

There are enough ways to block porn sites, this is just another step to control of the net by the police/government. Parents should step up and take responsibility, also as children get older they want to 'look' god at school playboy was looked at by all the boys, its natural curiosity. Fine line between letting children grow up and explore their sexuality and making it seem a taboo and harming their view on something natural 

[DorsetBoy]

If an ISP wants to offer a proxy filtering service that they charge for fair enough but I disagree with any fiddling with the packets whatsoever.

However, I do want to see those responsible for crimes against children caught.

Child porn is another subject Mitch, this is about access to adult material on "ordinary " XXX sites.

The child porn issue is a thorny one with thousands of new URL's in use a month BUT there are huge strides being made and it is much easier now to report illegal content and activity.

[pctech]

Fair enough, yes it should be accessible to those that want it and ISPs should be at liberty to provide optional filtering should they want to.

[Gary]

Fair enough, yes it should be accessible to those that want it and ISPs should be at liberty to provide optional filtering should they want to.

is that an opt in filtering, Mitch?

[DorsetBoy]

There are enough ways to block porn sites, this is just another step to control of the net by the police/government. Parents should step up and take responsibility, also as children get older they want to 'look' god at school playboy was looked at by all the boys, its natural curiosity. Fine line between letting children grow up and explore their sexuality and making it seem a taboo and harming their view on something natural 

Exactly Gary, my lad went through a stage of doing all he could to take a look, I stopped it as best I could but they keep finding ways around your efforts, now he is 14 and well aware of these things I just let him look, once he had seen something really OTT he decided he really didn't want to see any more.Fact is sometimes the restrictions and "you must not " angle make matters worse.

[pctech]

Yes Gary, there will also always be ISPs that cater for the education sector that will filter traffic and I would expect that.

[Rik]

Fact is sometimes the restrictions and "you must not " angle make matters worse.

I agree. That which is forbidden becomes a target.

[Simon]

Looks pretty unanimous so far.  It's time parents took responsibility for their children's actions.

[Ray]

  it's the parents responsibility

[Niall]

I think it's obvious that it is the responsibility of the parent to monitor what their children do on the net. There are so many sites out there with warez, porn, etc that are targets for virus/malware attacks that at one point it got so bad that even genuinely innocent sites were having their adverts hijacked which takes you to dodgy sites. When I first got my PC in 1999 and got on the net, I was redirected to a quite horrific site (the effected site was download.com or something similar when I was looking for a zip program. As you can tell the experience is burned into my mind ).

This immediately led me to look for ways of protecting my PC. God knows what could have gotten on my PC if I hasn't started using various protection on there.

As for what your children do, I firmly believe you've got to tell them in no uncertain terms of the horrific things that are out there, and also the destructive effect it can have on the PC itself.

For a while now I've had a list of things that I block in my router via IP or URL. Sadly most dodgy sites are based on seemingly random IPs, hosted somewhere different each time with no apparent web address so it's near impossible to block them. Only this week I clicked on an advert claiming to be related to an RPG on someones forum, which sent me to a porn site.

This brings me to another point. I firmly believe that people should be held responsible when selling domains or hosting services mainly, to check exactly what is on their servers. 34sp for example were great for me. They always upgraded and improved security, and even implemented very strict security on their servers which actually limited you to certain types of forum, etc. If companies do not monitor their servers, then you're immediately fighting a losing battle.

Sadly most sites of a dubious nature seem to come from Russia or China in my experience. Other than doing your utmost to advise children and block what you can with blacklists and add blocking programs that have whitelists, there's not a great deal you can do about it

[armadillo]

We are in danger of being unanimous! I agree with everything said so far. It is absolutely unquestionably the parents' responsibility. We should categorically resist any attempt by the government to censor anything which is legal. And the law should stay out of morals. If someone has a particular point of view on what they regard as moral, then it is acceptable for them to attempt to persuade others of their viewpoint through debate. But to impose their moral stance through legislation or censorship is completely unacceptable. They believe they are protecting children. I believe they are simply trying to impose their narrow-mindedness on everyone else. I have no objection to opt-in filtering and no government action is required to enable that to happen. Some ISPs already offer it.

The next step is getting ISPs to restrict content that some particular campaigner regards as inconsistent with their religious or political point of view. That happens in China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It must not be allowed to get a hold here.

I also think there is something very perverse in a stance which regards pictures or video of naked people, or legal sexual acts, as corrupting but accepts the depiction of violence, which is always illegal.

How do we get rid of Vaizey then? I certainly did not elect him.

[.Griff.]

I think it's time that parents accepted responsibility for their kids, Dorset. Nanny states are not to my taste.

Exactly.

On another forum I use (Internet related) a question often crops up.

"How can I stop my 12/13/14 year old accessing the internet at night? They spend all night on their laptop on Facebook and don't do their homework"

My, perhaps, blunt approach is if you're the parent then either turn the bloody router off or take their laptop off them.

Does it have to be that complicated?!?!?

[zappaDPJ]

An ISP is a conduit for information. Why should they have jurisdiction or responsibility for what information is passed through that conduit. The Royal Mail is not charged with reading through everyone's mail to filter out what an uptight politician deems unsuitable for a particular section of the population. There would be rioting in the streets if that was allowed to happen.

[DorsetBoy]

Exactly.

On another forum I use (Internet related) a question often crops up.

"How can I stop my 12/13/14 year old accessing the internet at night? They spend all night on their laptop on Facebook and don't do their homework"

My, perhaps, blunt approach is if you're the parent then either turn the bloody router off or take their laptop off them.

Does it have to be that complicated?!?!?

On a Windows system just set up user profiles and the timer in parental controls, child tries to log in and can't outside of their permitted hours, it is free and simple to use. Equally Windows provieds free content controls for age groups, there is zero excuse.

[Gary]

On a Windows system just set up user profiles and the timer in parental controls, child tries to log in and can't outside of their permitted hours, it is free and simple to use. Equally Windows provieds free content controls for age groups, there is zero excuse.

Thing is Dorset kids these days would suss that out I bet. Content control can be got around by proxy I bet, were there is a will there is a way, just hide the bl**dy router 

[pctech]

An ISP is a conduit for information. Why should they have jurisdiction or responsibility for what information is passed through that conduit. The Royal Mail is not charged with reading through everyone's mail to filter out what an uptight politician deems unsuitable for a particular section of the population. There would be rioting in the streets if that was allowed to happen.

I agree Zap but I think ISPs should be at liberty to provide such filtering if they want to.

[Rik]

Though that's a different issue, Mitch. 1&1, for example, provide spam and virus checking on my email, but it's up to me if I use it.

[Rik]

And the law should stay out of morals. If someone has a particular point of view on what they regard as moral, then it is acceptable for them to attempt to persuade others of their viewpoint through debate. But to impose their moral stance through legislation or censorship is completely unacceptable.

I agree with you on morality, Dill. Martin Booth, in his book "The Iron Tree", gave his 'hero' this speech:

"As for morality, I don't believe in it. It's a man-made set of judgements, fashioned by each society to validate its own actions."

I believe it sums it up perfectly. The Mafia has its own set of morals, which differs from society at large, but which is part of their belief system. The Victorians were prudes, but didn't mind child labour, while drug-taking was an acceptable middle-class behaviour. The poor were restricted to gin. Certain religious or cultural groups believe in honour killings - all this in the name of morality. Give me no morals any day.

[zappaDPJ]

I agree Zap but I think ISPs should be at liberty to provide such filtering if they want to.

If they want to offer a filtering service, that's fine, I'd just don't want to see it becoming mandatory

[Simon]

Exactly.

On another forum I use (Internet related) a question often crops up.

"How can I stop my 12/13/14 year old accessing the internet at night? They spend all night on their laptop on Facebook and don't do their homework"

My, perhaps, blunt approach is if you're the parent then either turn the bloody router off or take their laptop off them.

Does it have to be that complicated?!?!?

I agree totally with that approach - except that turning the router off would obviously stop the parent from using the internet too.

I don't actually know if kids need to be online to do homework these days, but would one solution be to disable network access on their personal laptops, and only allow them online on the main 'home' computer?

[Rik]

That's at the heart of it, isn't it, Simon. Let them use the 'net, but where they know they can be seen. It's not just the porn sites etc, but parents need to protect their kids from grooming, and they can't do that if they don't keep an eye on things.

[pctech]

I don;t think kids should have Internet access full stop.

[Rik]

It's been shown that those without access are disadvantaged at school though, Mitch.

[pctech]

acadenic or socially?

[Simon]

I would guess, both.

[Rik]

Academic, Mitch. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11738519

[pctech]

supervised access after school then?

[cavillas]

Parents took the responsibility to have children, it is their responsibility to bring them up, teach them right from wrong, become respectable citizens and watch over everything the have access to.  Childrens upbringing has nothing to do with the State, Public or Private companies and is the responsibility of the parents alone.  If you want children then you have the responsibility for their lives and safety, if you don't or can't accept that responsibility then DON'T have children.

[Rik]

Hear, hear. 

[Ray]

Agreed, Alf, 

[pctech]

I'd agree Alf but alas most see them now mainly as a way to get money.

[Technical Ben]

Thing is Dorset kids these days would suss that out I bet. Content control can be got around by proxy I bet, were there is a will there is a way, just hide the bl**dy router 

Linux live CD etc I suppose.
Answer, Laptop in the living room for homework, then bed. 

[Niall]

It wouldn't surprise me if this sort of thing is one of the reasons behind the surge in console sales. You can play games, but only use the net monitored by us or in school.

[armadillo]

The Victorians were prudes, but didn't mind child labour, while drug-taking was an acceptable middle-class behaviour. The poor were restricted to gin. Certain religious or cultural groups believe in honour killings - all this in the name of morality. Give me no morals any day.

Exactly!

[Rik]

We are as one, Dill. You should read the Iron Tree if you can get your hands on a copy, I think you'd be nodding your head a lot about what is said, it's a damned good read too.

[armadillo]

I just googled it. Not keen on buying 2nd hand books but would happily buy one if it were in print.

[armadillo]

And another "hear hear" for Alf. 

[Rik]

Most of his stuff isn't, sadly. Might be worth checking your local library.

[armadillo]

Will do.

[Rik]

With a bit of luck, they can get a copy for you if they don't have one. I've read the book several times over the years, and have found its journey through humanity has never failed to move and involve me.

[armadillo]

I'll have to ask them. I just searched the on-line catalogues for York city libraries, Leeds libraries and North Yorkshire libraries and none of them has it. I'll try the british library catalogue next. I used to work there!

[Rik]

Nothing like determination, but it is worth it. His Gweilo and Hiroshima Joe are worthy reads too.

[pctech]

Google books?

[Rik]

Possible, maybe even Kindle.

[armadillo]

Thanks for that. Google books draws a blank. British Library has 2 copies in Reference Division but not available for loan. Usually, they will not allow any Reference Division material to leave the building. People who live in London can go in and use the reading room. A bit too much effort when you're 200 miles away though

OK Rik, I'll try Kindle now!

I can also try online catalogues of other large city public libraries. York could get it via interlibrary loan if I can tell them where the book is.

[Rik]

Good hunting, Dill.

[Gary]

While I totally agree with Alf, ideology rarely gets us where we want these days.

[Rik]

It never has, Gary.

[Gary]

It never has, Gary.

True, but when younger I think you hope that it can.

[Rik]

Sadly, I am no longer younger.

[armadillo]

While I totally agree with Alf, ideology rarely gets us where we want these days.

Sadly, I think you're absolutely right. I was wondering what we can do to ensure that the initiative makes no further progress. Writing to an MP will probably do little to change his or her personal opinion. They will oppose or support based on what they already feel. Is there something to be gained in seeking a commitment from our ISP to oppose any attempt by the government to force them into compliance? ISPs should make a stance to preserve net neutrality in which no restrictions are made on the grounds of content.

Is IDnet prepared to do that?

[Rik]

IDNet has indicated in the past it will do no more than it is required to by law, Dill.

[Gary]

Sadly, I am no longer younger.

Glady in some ways nor am I 

[cavillas]

I also think children under the age of 21 should be banned from the internet, it would free it up for us more mature users.

[Rik]

 

At least, by our age, Alf, we know what we're looking for. 

[armadillo]

Thanks Rik. I'm glad IDnet said that.

Alf - great piece of lateral thinking.

[wdforte]

I think both the ISP and the parents have a responsibility to filter access to minors.

[DorsetBoy]

I think both the ISP and the parents have a responsibility to filter access to minors.

Please tell us how any ISP in the world can filter access to minors? How do they identify who is online at any given time ?

[Rik]

It's simple, Dorset. They ask you to tick a declaration that you are over 18.

[Gary]

It's simple, Dorset. They ask you to tick a declaration that you are over 18.

Been doing that since I was 15  I looked older than I was so getting into bars at that age was no problem either 

[Rik]

Naughty.

[DorsetBoy]

It's simple, Dorset. They ask you to tick a declaration that you are over 18.

Exactly Rik, it is impossible, COPPA in the USA was a useless joke of an idea. Anyone able to type a few words can pretend to be any age ,gender or status on the internet.

Look around the coding/webmaster sites to see all the "How can I prevent under 18's accessing my site ?" questions , simple truth is you cannot unless you only allow access to invited known members and even then once they have accessed the site how do you know they didn't leave the log in details for others to use or even pass them to 3rd parties.

[Lance]

I guess the only way would be for any connection to be logged into by the customer at the ISP end of the circut (rather than on the home PC), with the customer having a 'adult' password and a restricted access password.

[pctech]

You mean AOL?

[Rik]

 

[pctech]

I think they did something like that but can't say for sure as never used them.

[Rik]

I had to, at one time, as Adobe had a forum there. Hated the whole experience.

[pctech]

It is really geared for people that buy mass market consumer PCs preloaded with junk that tells them how to use it.

[Gary]

It is really geared for people that buy mass market consumer PCs preloaded with junk that tells them how to use it.

That can be  a good thing Mitch 

[gizmo71]

That can be  a good thing Mitch 

It would be if it worked, but it doesn't - what most people need is simpler stuff, not more instructions.

Unfortunately it's us power users who lose out when our stuff gets dumbed down to lowest common denominator level too.

[Rik]

I  couldn't agree more. And it's not just limited to computers.