British Telecom to ban child porn sites

[Dionysos]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...232506,00.html

British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy.

The move, previously thought to be at the limits of technical possibilities of the internet and prohibitively expensive, was given the personal backing of BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland at a board meeting last month after intense pressure from children's charities.

Known as Cleanfeed, the project has been developed in consultation with the Home Office and will go live by the end of the month, The Observer can reveal. Other major players in the internet market, such as Energis and Thus, which owns rival Demon Internet, are said to be preparing to block banned sites.

Subscribers to British Telecom's internet services such as BTYahoo and BTInternet who attempt to access illegal sites will receive an error message as if the page was unavailable. BT will register the number of attempts but will not be able to record details of those accessing the sites.

A list of illegal sites compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, the industry's watchdog, has been available for some time, but until now there has been no way to prevent people accessing them because most are based outside the UK.

The initiative would not have been possible a year ago, but improvements in computer processing speeds means that the company is now able to block websites, offensive pages and even individual images of abuse.

The move is the brainchild of John Carr, internet adviser to children's charity NCH, who wrote to Home Office Minister Paul Goggins last July urging action on paedophile websites after a successful campaign to block internet newsgroups (electronic message boards which paedophiles used to share images of children). Goggins approached internet providers last September to ask them to investigate if it would be possible. At first they were resistant, but BT came back to the Home Office last month to announce early tests of Cleanfeed had been successful.

Blocking websites is highly controversial and until now has been associated only with oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and China, which have censored sites associated with dissidents. But many in the field of child protection believe that the explosion of paedophile sites justifies the crackdown.

'British Telecom deserve to be congratulated on this bold move,' Carr said. 'I expect every other service provider will now look at what they are doing to see if they can achieve a similar result.'

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, added: 'You are always caught between the desire to tackle child pornography and freedom of information. But I was fed up with not acting on this and always being told that it was techically impossible.'

Originally posted by Dionysos
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...232506,00.html
Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, added: 'You are always caught between the desire to tackle child pornography and freedom of information.

Caught? What the hell? Where's the confusion between a six year old force to fellate a 40 year old man and the encyclopedia britanica?

[johnny861]

While they are at it, European governments need to do more to crack down on the sex slave trading going on...

[prince vlad]

Originally posted by johnny861
While they are at it, European governments need to do more to crack down on the sex slave trading going on...

where can i get on some of that sex slave trading.

[johnny861]

Originally posted by prince vlad
where can i get on some of that sex slave trading.

[woodyrosen]

Originally posted by xiannaix
Caught? What the hell? Where's the confusion between a six year old force to fellate a 40 year old man and the encyclopedia britanica?

Agreed.

I also was frightened.

Hmm...

Something a multi-national corporation doesn't like = The mass censorship of that something.

Should be very discomforting.

The project's name, cleanfeed??? As opposed to what, dirt-feed? What do they have the capacity to feed or ween people on?

They're listing sites that they deem "dangerous" and blocking people from using them. This is not good.

Pierre Denon sounds like a troubled loner.

I'm against child pornos, just not censorship.

[Dionysos]

Originally posted by xiannaix
Caught? What the hell? Where's the confusion between a six year old force to fellate a 40 year old man and the encyclopedia britanica?

I imagine it's much the same issue that public libraries have had over here, the filters they want to employ on their computers can't be used because they also block legitimate sites that have nothing to do with adult topics. I used to do tech support for an ISP that was basically an ISP run through a proxy filter, once in awhile we would get calls about the opposite problem(porn filtering in with the legit sites). One in particular I remember was when a guy was searching for 'Black Bear Canyon' and got, well, I don't think I need to illustrate any further.

[woodyrosen]

Originally posted by Dionysos
One in particular I remember was when a guy was searching for 'Black Bear Canyon' and got, well, I don't think I need to illustrate any further.

[Hey Bubu]

Originally posted by Dionysos
One in particular I remember was when a guy was searching for 'Black Bear Canyon' and got, well, I don't think I need to illustrate any further.

Originally posted by Dionysos
I imagine it's much the same issue that public libraries have had over here, the filters they want to employ on their computers can't be used because they also block legitimate sites that have nothing to do with adult topics.

quite likely - but his choice of words was poor -

That sucks. Child porn isn't nearly as hot to me if it's in Russian or Czech.

This is a tricky legal area.
Ok, we have a system that is open and shares all sorts of information. Everything from nuclear bomb making, AL-Quida propaganda, Nazi propaganda, weapons making, drug recipes, illegal pornography, to how to care for you baby, and collecting "My Little ponies"
Now, we also have laws that forbid things. You cant make the drugs, nor form groups supporting the violent overthrow of the government, nor show illegal exploitation of children.
Now, with some of this content comming from overseas, how do we enforce our laws on something that is clearly free of international control. (I use a german based file sharing program, and chat regularly to people from south america on there)
Then add on that it is all so open.

All this adds up to one whole legal and logistical mess.

[Hey Bubu]

In response to Dropzone:



....which adds to the beauty of the net.