@cheeseweasel 556847 wrote:
Signed. I can choose to censor nutters who live on ‘raw food diets’ etc myself by just ignoring them – I don’t need the government to do it for me.
although this should not deter anyone from signing the petition if they think it will change matters. I’ve looked closely into the links and info provided by that site and believe the real reason for both the secrecy and “blunt instrument” nature of the censorship is commercial rather than directly political, and even if it does get authorised anyone with basic IT knowledge will be able to get round it.
Cameron and Clegg are not even half as IT-aware as Thatcho was (although in reality the Germans were ahead of us IT-wise in the 1980s), there is no easy or cheap way to achieve what Cameron wants effectively. One method could easily knacker the Internet for a large chunk of Northern Europe and knock out comms to BT, Cable and Wireless and GCHQ at once, (Pakistan managed this whilst trying to block Youtube, and this was on a circuit provided by China to many Asian nations where they expect less online freedom). It would make the whole UK look like chumps in front of the world and risk a lot of business relationships with the rest of Europe. If he wants the level of censorship that China have, that involves spending a lot of taxpayers money (and the Chinese aren’t exactly poor).
Even the rest of the Asian nations concentrate on surveillance and censor very few websites (I’m amazed at what countries PVR gets through to!)
So what the ISPs are hinting are that they will ship routers with the “family friendly” option turned on by default or nudge folk into installing “router setup software” that activates this, and that Cameron should keep quiet about this, as its very easy to bypass. He’s probably been told exactly the same by BT, the Security Service, GCHQ and Ofcom, all of whom employ a lot of smart, ambitious young people who know their stuff (even if the management are often stuck two decades behind).
If any filtering was applied at ISP level it would be discovered very quickly – they would have to spend more money and risk losing business (as people can and do boycott companies doing things they disagree with or they would start using encryption methods that increase traffic level and bandwidth costs to the ISPs) and the Govt aren’t offering to compensate ISPs for potenial loss of business or reputational damage.
So most of this works in router (perhaps with a link to a server elsewhere which supplies the blacklist) and has to work within the resource constraints of a low cost device, it isn’t very smart and just works on keyword searches and often outdated or bizzare blacklists compiled by conservative Americans who outsource this work to random Asian countries. On most routers it can be switched off – or replacing the ISP supplied “free” router with a decent quality replacement from any computer equipment supplier will remove the censorship (and you will often find the wi fi signal is stronger and your Internet is faster).
Some British ISPs claim they will not support the use of other routers. Whilst they do not have to hand hold you through setting up advanced functions, it is illegal for them to refuse to provide you with the username/password/VPI/VCI details provided your router or modem is approved for connection to the network.
They can make a commercial decision not to keep you as a customer but must refund the cost of your service (they might send you a bag to post their router back to them). If you are getting a new ISP connection it is worth checking out their contract terms – also if you work from home and/or run a business from there its worth going to a smaller company which provides business grade services – these usually allow you to use your own router (at least for ADSL).
Currently VM coax cable circuits and the FTTC broadband resold by Openreach do not let you easily use other devices to connect, although this situation is changing.
If you look on the back of any router you see a lot of odd symbols sometimes with the names of some countries against them. These means the Communications Ministry of those countries have approved the equipment. The two important ones for the UK are CE and sometimes a (!) exclamation mark in a circle. The first one means that it can be connected to any telecoms network in Europe (i.e it has been checked to ensure it will not send incorrect signals or strong voltages onto the phone line). The (!) is found on some wifi routers and means “this device can transmit a radio signal on a shared frequency allocation. Read the instruction manuals and take heed advice from your country’s Communications Ministry or it might not work well and/or you can cause problems to other users of the same frequency”. (i.e don’t leave it set on channel 6 / 11 if everyone else is on there and wonder why your laptop only works a metre away from it!) Provided the router has these symbols then the ISP must at least help you get online with it.
There are such things as ADSL modems which provide a raw Internet connection that would unearth any ISP-level blocking
