BT Blocks 10,000 Child-Porn Site Visits A Day 503
jb.hl.com writes "The BBC is reporting that British Telecom, the predominant telecommunications company in the UK, is blocking 10,000 attempts to access child pornography a day. In the first three weeks of the system being operational, BT allegedly blocked 250,000 attempts to view such pages. They apparently have no idea how many of these hits were accidental, or caused by malware. The block affects 2.5m of BT's customers. Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said with regards to privacy concerns that "we don't know their motives or who does it and honestly we don't want to know"." onion2k reminds us that we first mentioned the block in June.
Medical sites...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Marketing stunt (Score:5, Interesting)
Putting up filters are just a smokescreen. If people want child pornography they WILL be able to find it - through closed communities, IRC, doing tunneling, p2p, etc.
I don't believe for a second that even half of the blocked accesses were illegal material. Even though media is blowing the child pornography thing up , there is (thank god) a very small minority of people actually into this stuff. So my guess is that BT is probably just annoying a big amount of legitimate customers.
Motivation? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if 25% of people had a sexual urge for children (not an exclusive urge, that would then be pedophilia). Would that explain why 1/6 boys and 1/4 girls have some sort of sexual enounter with an adult by the time they reach 18?
Instead of pretending that people or children are not very sexual perhaps its time to actually discuss this issue and what it means to society.
"Website not found" not good enough (Score:2, Interesting)
If BT has gone to the extend to block access, why can't they put in a message to warn of such illegal activities? Or is BT blocking access 'secretly' and hopes the 'problems' will go away?
Re:Medical sites...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Motivation? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know there are lots of parents in the UK who have no big problem with their 14 year old kid having sex with some other kid. The problem comes in when it's a 30 year old man having sex with their 14 year old. Why? Control. It's assumed that two kids having sex is just 'mucking around', whereas an older person could goad or cajole someone underage into doing something they don't want to do. Other than that, people view big age gaps as being obscene.
So, if many parents don't mind their 14 year old having sex with another 14 year old, but would murder a 30 year old who did the same.. it's clearly not an issue of sex, but of control. This is why, IMHO, having the age of consent in a worthwhile idea.. it's not a barrier that controls when you have sex, but a barrier that determines when society thinks you are old enough to go out and screw your life up without society looking bad.
stats (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:2, Interesting)
well of course not, but it lets them quote nice statistics. also philosophicaly, is not being able to do something good, perfectly, a reason not to do it at all? i'm anti censorship but can't make my mind up in this case, because, well, i would like to do something nasty to some pedophiles.
sorry for the awful spelling in this post.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:1984 (Score:2, Interesting)
In addition, the Secretary of State has statutory powers to require us to take certain actions in the interests of national security, international relations and the detection of crime.
The full 'cosy' relationship [btplc.com]
Re:Motivation? (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd need to be more careful with stats here I think.
However there is no possibility here of the child being an equal participant. This is specifically adults looking at kids.
Greeks - Context of Society. (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't mix AoC with age to appear in pics/vids... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kjella
Gain (Score:5, Interesting)
Well if I was working at the IWF a list of my brother's business competitors websites would be on that list lickidy split.
You are nieve to think no one can gain from the use of unaccountable censorship power.
FUD Retardant (Score:5, Interesting)
"The internet is CRAWLING with pedophiles!!!!!"
"OUR CHILDREN!!!!!"
"Pedophiles fund terrorists!!"
"Please BT!! Censor MORE!!!"
"Ladies and gentlemen. I am assumming absolute power over...."
Some FUD dowsing is needed.
The article states.
BT said in its first three weeks its new system, which bars access to particular sites, registered nearly 250,000 attempts to view web pages containing images of child pornography
OK 250,000 hits in 3 weeks/21 days
That's about 11905 hits per day or 496 hits per hour. Let us assume, as most will, that every hit was from someone out looking for that paticular site.
Lets assume the average kiddie porn junkie will check 30 sites for one hour every two days. Sound unreasonable. I'll get back to this.
This means that there are about 17 seperate pedophiles checking porn every hour or 816 pedophiles every two days. Which rotated leaves only 816 pedophile on the BT network
Unrealistic? Maybe? But let's assume every KP junkie checks 30 sites every week
That means 90 sites in three weeks
And with 250,000 hits thats gives us approx 2778 pedophiles on the whole BT net.
Wow. 2778. That a little over 0.000046% of the population. I guess it's time for rallys, restrictions and roundups.
Ain't maths great?
Re:Motivation? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with this is that this definition of paedophile (the clinical definition) doesn't match up with what you've said about sexual maturity coming at different ages. In legal terms, someone who gets their kicks off of a fully developed 15 year old -- or even a 17 year old, in the US -- (who may be more sexually developed than a 20 year old) is a paedophile. Admittedly, the high profile cases seem to be people who've been grabbing pictures of babies and 4 year olds, which is gruesome indeed, but, yes, clearly the law needs some reworking. I think society, however, will take a bit longer!
I tend to steer clear of the whole problem by being a Slashdotter, however.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be trivial for a kid to download eMule, install it. They then instantly have access to porn of every kind, ever.
Do parents care? No, since they're convinced their happy little filter is working. Do the (insanely small number of compared to column inches devoted to) paedophiles care? Yup, they have a new source of smut.
Re:Why block child pr0n ? (Score:1, Interesting)
ANd if the consensus is changed then it would be ok then, just like the greeks used to
Re:Obligatory question (Score:3, Interesting)
Bob
Re:Obligatory question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't this police matter? (Score:1, Interesting)
There probably aren't many http child pornography websites in existance, but there are many thousands of 'child model' sites. They have children from 8 to 16 in sexual poses with access available by paid subscription. If these sites have many visitors, I wouldn't be surprised. Many a non paedophile and 15 year old boys would be pretty pleased to see a teenager in a bikini.
I think it shouldn't be legal to make finacial profit from a child's body. These sites go too far.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:1, Interesting)
While I can agree that child porn is bad, I'm coming around to the viewpoint that it shouldn't be illegal. Creating it, sure, or maybe distributing it, but I'm not convinced that criminalising mere possession is helpful in reducing child abuse. Knowing the meagre technological resources of the police, I'd prefer they concentrated on stopping the producers of these websites. It seems as if each week the coppers catch a few new people with a handful of dodgy photos on their disks but I don't remember the last time anyone got convicted for running one of these sites.
Also sad that I feel I should post this as AC...
HTML spam? (Score:3, Interesting)
if you're using the preview pane on outlook or OE, and someone sends you an HTML spam with dodgy content, you'll get hits to a dodgy site. This could explain a lot of it...
Re:HTML spam? (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, do they class a visit as a single HTTP conversation or an access to a base HTML document or what?
does a single page with 20-30 images (frame edging etc) constitute 21-31 individual statistics?
lies, damned lies and statistics.
Please, there are no WMD here, get the "intelegence" right before you start waging war.
FUD rules again, Timothy should know better (Score:4, Interesting)
1/ the BBC article in question uses a graphic which shows an NNTP client displaying the group alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen
http://newsim
2/ the article CLAIMS the filters are blocking 10,000 attempted accesses to kiddie porn per day, without some specifics on these filters there numbers are LESS than worthless
3/ There is an english seaside town names scunthorpe, because it contains the word CUNT in the name it is routinely blocked by world + dog using cheap filters, again we need to know what these filters consist of, if it is merely "teen" then it's bullshit, 19 years old porn queens abound...
4/ if it is usenet then it isn't a case of filters, just BT having totally shit NNTP service which all by itself blocks 99.9% of usenet just because they are too cheap to provide the bandwidth and server spools for a decent usenet feed.
5/ The BBC website HABITUALLY has many stories per day that permit and encourace user feedback.. ok, this feedback is just as corrupt as slashdot editors, and just as invisible, neverthless it is notable that THESE types of "headlines" NEVER ask for feedback / comments from readers....
6/ since this sort of article is increasingly forming the staple output of slashdot editors, QED slashdot editors are by far the greatest trolls on slashdot and therefore the greatest contributors to slashdots ever decreasing relevance as it dissapears up its own UART
'Child' Pr0n (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is a lot of people are hysteric about this issue, but i think it is about time it was broken down a bit.
I think there are two groups lumped together in the peado label, that are entirely seperate psychologically. There are those that favour sexually imature children upto the age of say 12ish. And those that are interested in sexually mature 'children' age 14-16/18 (pending on country).
The former group i believe are sexually devient no doubt due to some psychological trauma (or potentially some genetic inability to distinguish appropriate age of female partners), and should be identified and recieve psychotherapy of some sort. The later group i believe to some degree encompasses most adult males. From evidence of taste in other pornography, more general media and through cultural experiance, it is plain that girls of this 'jail bait' age are found attractive. Approaching the issue from an evolutionary standpoint it would also seem quite natural for a sexually mature male of any age to be interested in sexually mature females, no matter what age the pertaining law says is legal.
I believe at present that these two groups (and of course the grey area inbetween) are all lumped in to the same group. If society acknowledge openly the fact that sexually mature girls are attractive, then i believe less confusion would ensue and a large number of men who feal criminalised for finding girls under 18 (but over say 14) attractive would be a great deal releaved.And back to the point in hand how many of the 10k child porn blocks a day are for site containing images of sexual mature,underage,'children'
Caveat: I know i haven't mentioned the issue of child abuse to obtain the images and the rights and wrongs of such. This is deliberate in an attempt to try and cut through the hysteria.
Re:Sheesh. (Score:3, Interesting)
I appreciate that it probably is out of context, but its either very very bad article writting and/or polical spin. The UK gov. do have rather a habit of the latter though.
Re:Perceptions (Score:1, Interesting)
Last year, when I was 25, I had a relationship with a 17 year old. In Canada, where this is legal, no one thought much of it (apart from the fact that it likely wouldn't work because of maturity differences, and they were right). However, I recently moved to the US, and as I'm not ashamed of this fact, I've confessed it openly only to have people raise an eyebrow at me and judge me as some kind of pedophile. Ridiculous, given that I'm now in a long term relationship with a 22 year old and the thought of prepubescent children as sexual objects is utterly repulsive to me.
Re:Why block child pr0n ? (Score:4, Interesting)
That depends on what criteria are used to determine what is and isn't child porn. In many parts of the world, possession of synthetic child porn is illegal.
Toronto Artist Eli Langer was charged with possession of child pornography for owning paintings of people who appeared to be under the age of 18 engaged in sex. John Robin Sharpe was arrested for possession of a text entitled Sam Paloc's Flogging, Fun and Fortitude, A Collection of Kiddie Kink Classics. The only crime that is evidenced in these cases, is possession of unpopular fantasy material.
But even if we ignore the laws against synthetic porn, I still don't get why the sexual abuse of children is the only crime for which possession of photographic evidence is classified as contraband? Why don't we outlaw video footage and photographic documentation of other crimes?
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
1. What is the base of any culture? Socialisation and education.
2. What is the root of our western culture? Ancient Greece.
3. What was the base of socialisation and education in ancient Greece? A pedophile tutoring system.
4. So isn't anyone condemning pedophilia attacking the very base of our society?
But seriously now. There are only two general rules to sex in my opinion:
1. All involved have to be sexually mature.
2. All involved have to be consent.
The problem is with the interpretation of those two rules. Sexually mature is to me, who is biologically mature, e.g. a girl with a period and a boy that can ejaculate. Extending this to mental maturity is simply not possible. Then noone should actually have sex.
Consent is complicated too. What if you are consent at first, but your partner turns out to be a sadistic pig, or just an "insensitive clod", and you don't like it that way? Is every sex you regret afterwards sex without consent, e.g. a rape? Or you are not consent, are somewhat pressed into it and it turns out you like it. Unlikely, but I bet that happens once in a while. Is that still unconsenting sex?
So, to me the problem with child porn is not primarily the young age. Only to the extent the young age implies not being biologically ready for sex (which is sadly quite often the case, hence the name child porn). The problem is, plainly, that there is no consent, that the children are exploited and used for commercial means. Speak, the problem is the market, and humans are a ressource to exploit and throw away.
For the major part of history in the vast majority of the world it was the rule that very young girls got married to older men. And I don't want to put myself into the position, to judge the vast majority of mankind that ever existed as mental cripples due to sexual abuse.
That being said, I think child porn is terrible, but probably not for the reasons most people think. And I'd also like to add, I never had sex with a minor, not even when I was a minor myself (I'm a
This is a BRILLIANT point (Score:1, Interesting)
I have never, ever heard a discussion of what's supposed to go on with "children" who want porn. Consider the case of a 14-year old with a girlfriend. They're sexually active. In most districts, early teens of equal age can have sex. Fine and dandy.
But if that 14-year old and his girlfriend play with a camera they've created childporn. It just sits there on his hard-drive, most likely. Maybe a CD to keep it from the parents.
What happens four years later when he's an adult and he has these pictures of 14-year old girls? Is he legally required to throw out his own photos of his own life? Probably. Certainly if he had his computer repaired and the shop found the photos, he'd be investigated, with the usual rumoured "rubber-hose" treatment.
These sorts of questions are doubly relevant when you consider that using a webcam "creates" child-porn in the usual backwards "a cached copy is still a copy" legal mindset. There are many, many districts in which sex with a girl may be legal but then chatting with her over her cam when you get home is not.
Weird stuff.
Vagueness (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stuff and nonsense (mostly nonsense) (Score:1, Interesting)
Thank you for promoting rational thought in the midst of a topic that gets covered in irrational cries of "won't someone think of the children!!"
The idea of sexuality + anyone under the age of 18 seems to scare people on a fundamental level. If you don't want kids having a lot of unsafe sex, don't tell them not to fuck. Instead, pull a South Park. Scare the shit out of them with stories of AIDS, syphilis(sp), chylmidia(sp), herpes and teenage pregnancy.
After all, we can't possibly hope that young people won't fuck. The best we can hope for is that many will choose to abstain and the ones that don't will be safe about it.
Of course, now I'm off topic. Oh well, that needed to get off my chest. I agree with your logic. How can it be legal for a 30 year old to bone a 14 year old in Canada, but be illegal to take a picture? Even if the age of consent was raised to 18, you couldn't possibly make it illegal for 16 year olds to fuck other 16 year olds. Involve a camera and suddenly everyone's a sex offender.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand your protectiveness, but wouldn't you be almost as upset at someone older who emotionally screwed with your daughter in a non-sexual context?
And, just to play devil's advocate, who says a nine-year old isn't ready for sex? Do you give her a backrub? Does she ever give you one? That's physical pleasure with someone much older, and a family member... Sounds pretty kinky if you think about it, but few people would say it was a problem. But as soon as it crosses the line to genitals it's suddenly morally wrong?
To me it's an issue of exploitation and coercion, not the body part involved. Our society places a lot of weight on sex, and this means that because a taboo was broken (and the child will know this from the hush-hush way things are discussed) they're more likely, imho, to be damaged by the feeling that they did something wrong, or are somehow unclean, than by the physical act.
Care to back those claims up? (Score:1, Interesting)
People always say "rape is about violence, not about sex" too; and I always believed it. Then I actually had a couple of personal experiences (that I do not wish to share with you) and discovered that demonizing rapists might be politically or socially worthwhile, but it oversimplifies a psychologically complex act. Rape can be about thwarted love, for example, and have no violent intent whatsover, and the violence is incidental.
I think your statements about paedophilia reflect what you wish to believe, or what you've been propagandized to believe. I don't think you have every done any rigorous research in this area. Care to prove me wrong?