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.
Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:5, Informative)
The Malware one is harder, but I would have thought some fairly clever traffic analysis would throw up a good guide as to how much of the traffic is from Malware.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like it'd be no big deal to actually find out if these people are doing it intentionally, but looking beyond it, the implications of usage monitoring is just looming ahead.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Although almost no one can agree precisely on just what child pornography is, since even the concept of "child" is highly amorphous. ("Honey, I'd really like to just take your picture, but that might be a crime, so why don't we just fuck. That's black letter legal.")
A friend of mine has come up with the only working definition that seems to apply. Child pornography is whatever gives a particular judge in a particular case a hardon.
In practice that means that one is only convicted of child pornography by someone who could be legally classified as a paedophile.
KFG
Re:Stuff and nonsense (mostly nonsense) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stuff and nonsense (mostly nonsense) (Score:5, Insightful)
In my state the age of consent is 17. In the closest neighboring state it is 16. In a country just a 4 hour drive away from me it is 14. In the next closest country, one I have driven to, it is 12.
By black letter law.
You need to read up on the age of consent yourself.
. .
The age of universal agreement would seem to be under 12. Is that the age you had in mind for child pornography, or is there perhaps still some area of disagreement here? In any case the age of 18 is black letter law.
3)A pedophile is, legally, one who engages in acts with children which are prohibited.
You also need to read up on the current methods being used to test for paedophilia. They use a "dick polygraph" now, only unlike the regular kind it's even less accurate (assuming that's even possible) and have legally compelled people to be subjected to it, "for the children."
You're a troll, and you would appear revel in posting flame bait. Positively none of what you've said has any factual basis. .
4) And this is simply false, a troll and flamebait.
KFG
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
it's not that i agree with censoring any webpage, but let's not make BT look more "big brother like" than they really are.
now, my personal view is that *nothing* should be blocked, but people should be educated instead. type in "child porn" or "kiddie porn" in google, and you will find a plethora of sites saying it is a bad thing and how you can fight it (no i didn't use 'safe search'
information is freedom. but people need to know what to do with freedom... and there lies the challenge IMHO
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
In an ideal world this would be the case.
But ... People know child porn is wrong, and they look anyways. Educating them won't change their habits. Imposing very long term jail sentences won't change them. Pedophiles do not get rehabilitated, and surfing for child porn is something they can do in the safety of their own home (or so they think).
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
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
Most 11 and 12-year old females are sexually mature. Do you honestly think you'd try to have sex with a 12-year old? Your post indicates you would. If that's the case, you're very twisted. I
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
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
If they really can't be rehabilitated, I suppose I'd rather have them surfing the web for child porn than actually wandering the streets looking for children.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that the child porn exists indicates there are still children being abused to produce the porn. In addition, all that surfing is going to increase the demand for the material, and thus lead to an increase in the abuse itself.
IMO the surfing is not a safe activity. It is the activity partaken in lack of opportunity. Would you rather surf porn or have sex? The porn is a placeholder until the opportunity for the real thing presents. Why would that be any dif
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, no, it is not.
Child pornography is already illegal. Surfing child porn is illegal. It is not making any new rules or laws. What it is doing is preventing people from accidently surfing to child porn sites. Now if they made it illegal to hit the block then it would be something to worry about. Is BT the only ISP in the UK? if not then you still have the choice to go with one that is not blocking.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
BT isn't the only ISP here, but it controls the network used by nearly all ADSL providers, and they are talking about applying the filter to other ADSL sellers "on a non-commercial basis." [bbc.co.uk] There are a few ISPs around that don't use BT, including cable companies NTL [ntlhome.com] and Telewest [telewest.co.uk], and companies that take over the phone lines from BT such as Bulldog [bulldogdsl.com].
I don't like the fact that blocked pages are replaced with a "Website not found" message rather than a message explaining why the page was blocked.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
It's better to say "You can't prosecute the people who we're blocking because we don't know if they really wanted the page or just got tricked into loading it not knowing what it was." because then there's no need for them to bother with a log that they'd have to turn over.
Re:Accidental vs. Deliberate, Trend Analysis (Score:2)
Whereas 'deliberate' attempts would remain fairly constant as users go from site to site and new users come in, and old ones go out.
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...
How do they know what's child porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they have staff consisting of "smut surfers", that surfs the web and makes note of URL with unwanted content?
Although I'm of the opinion that free spech doesn't nescessarily secure the rights of spreading child porn, I always get a little suspicious when I read about these things. I always think "what can or will they block next".
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Informative)
From the article:
and
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:2)
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:3, Informative)
I understand that looking stuff up for yourself isn't really the done thing on Slashdot, so let me help you out
According to their webpage [iwf.org.uk] (linked at various other points in the comments as well)
and
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact they're not sharing their blacklist with the public, and that blacklisted sites simply get 404d shows that even they're not convinced as to its quality. If a blacklisted site was marked as such inappropriately, it's be a lot easier to complain about it rather than just assuming the website is down.
And lets be honest: This is going to save no kids from child pervs. Cleanfeed gives the impression of a safe internet, when it does nothing about usenet or p2p (which i'd assume have far more kiddie porn than the web), and simply serves to put kids in more danger by letting parents think they don't need to supervise their kids use of the internet. It's simply a warm fuzzy feeling for lazy parents. Great.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Informative)
The idea is that if you create a good self-regulating industry body, you prevent govt. interference.
Knowing British censorship laws, and the attitude of UK governments to consenting porn in the past, if the IWF hadn't been set up, they'd have passed laws to get ISPs to block ALL porn including consenting and non-consenting.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:3, Insightful)
KFG
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:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:3, Funny)
In fact it'd be safer if the children monitored their parents downloading habits.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the scary bit. I'm not a child molestor or a paedophile, but I use the web a lot, and I'm not a stranger to the occasional bit of pr0n. We all know how easy it is to get redirected to a site, to download a deliberately mis-named file through P2P, to click a file in a newsgroup that isn't what you expected, or even to have your computer compromised and "evidence" placed on it.
The way I see it, if you get caught doing any of these things, the level of hysteria in this country, and the public pressure on the police to "stop these monsters" means the burden of proof is on *you*. People are not prepared to believe anyone charged with these offences might be innocent. The file's on your computer, the ISP log says you were at the site, ergo you're fucked. Even if you are acquited, remember that "there's no smoke without fire".
So, you're probably going to prison (as a "nonce"), when you get out you're on the sex offenders list, and if the moral majority get their way, that list will be public. Anyone can go to the library, find out where you live, then come round and set fire to your house while you're asleep. (Look what happened when The Sun printed some names and addresses from said list.)
Even if you did it deliberately, five mintues looking at a couple of pics (which might very well disgust you anyway) really shouldn't be enough to destroy your life.
It's staggering that people will swallow the argument that some loser tugging over pics he found on USEnet in his spare room is what perpetuates child abuse. BUT THEY DO!
This government seems intent on making us all criminals. Preferably ones that are easy to catch and fine. It shows they're tough on crime, getting results, and keeping our children safe, and how could it be easier to catch criminals than to make up a few new web related offences, then sit back and watch those log files? That's where it's heading, and it's frightening.
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:2)
Websites assessed by the IWF [iwf.org.uk] as "illegal to view" under the 1978 Child Protection Act were targeted by BT.
The IWF keeps a real-time live database which is updated every time an illegal site is found.
i haven't checked out how the IWF work, or ever heard of them before now, but on the face of this this has some credibility. anyone know otherwise? notice also they would appear to be blocking racist material also. interesting.. what we
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:2)
If it is what it seems to be -- people surfing the web hunting smut -- I can't help to think that it's a little like hunting a moving target. New sites appear regularily, others are shut down, so this has to be a job that's never completed? In other words, BT can't guarantee that they've covered everything?
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:2)
Granted, but is that necessarily a valid reason for not trying?
Re:How do they know what's child porn? (Score:2)
Think of... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do the newspapers and others think of the internet as only www?
All the fools who think that 'disturbing' pictures are blocked now, amazing!
Re:Think of... (Score:2)
This technology doesn't catch the bad guys, but it takes away an ability for the bad guys to try to lose themselves in a croud.
Re:Think of... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funnily enough, the article has a screenshot showing "...ictures.erotica.teen...", clearly a Usnet binaries group; but I doubt these are blocked -- no mention of NNTP.
Also was flabbergasted by the statement: ... told the Today programme: "Every image of a child that appears on the internet is an image of a child that's abused." -- WTF??? I really hope that he was misquoted, or is this the same mentality that bans parents taking photos at school pantomimes because it might excite paedophiles?
Home Office minister Paul Goggins
And it's rather disturbing that "anyone trying to access such a site would be presented with a message reading 'Website not found'." Why not be honest about it -- "this website blocked as illegal to view under blah blah blah. If you believe this is in error, please fill out this form anonymously if you wish it to be reviewed."
Re:Think of... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the perpetual moral panic that is Britain. On your left, you'll find the latest bullshit paedophile scare which has no grounding in reality. On your right, you'll find out how nobody wants sexually active kids to have safe(r) sex because they shouldn't be active in the first place, leading to an increase in teen pregnancy rates which forms the other moral panic just ahead of you.
Any wonder why I want to move to Canada?
Re:Think of... (Score:5, Funny)
1960's (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Canada soon to be even worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Think of... (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost anyone who uses Usenet, especially binaries, subscribes to a "premium" news server. And aside from these, there are many companies that run their own news servers to provide support (such as Opera, news://news.opera.no/, Corel, news://cnews.corel.com/, etc). And as for selectively blocking groups, that ju
Medical sites...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Medical sites...? (Score:5, Funny)
They've been seen by the Internet Watch Foundation and classified.
Internet Watch Foundation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their definition of child pornography is...? And I trust this organization because...?
Unless 1/5 internet users on BT are attracted to children, I think Internet Watch Foundation is using overly broad definition of child pornography.
Re:Internet Watch Foundation? (Score:2)
Re:Internet Watch Foundation? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Internet Watch Foundation? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Medical sites...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Medical sites...? (Score:2)
Same thing here. They want rid of child porn, but would be very pissed as soon as undertrained medical patients injure one of their kids.
I love the public's double standards. I suppose it would be funny if it wasn't so deep-rooted and had so much grip on the nati
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.
Re:Marketing stunt (Score:2, Informative)
RTFA!
Re:Marketing stunt (Score:2)
Small Minority? (Score:2, Informative)
"...a very small minority of people actually into this stuff..."
Is that why: "one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of sixteen" here [darkness2light.org] and here [coolnurse.com].
25% of all children had a sexual encounter with an adult, either PeeWee Herman has been really busy or there are *a lot* of people very sexually attracted to children, not a 'small minority'.
Where are the studies and discussions on this issue? Oh I forgot they are being condemned by the United States Congress [conservativenews.org] and state le [state.or.us]
Re:Small Minority? (Score:4, Insightful)
What you said: Is that why: "one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of sixteen"
The reference [coolnurse.com] you quote, lists the definition of abuse, as:
...and continues: (My highlights) "Of course, this list goes on. Sexual abuse involves forcing, tricking, threatening, or pressuring a child into sexual awareness or activity. Sexual abuse occurs when an older or more knowledgeable child or an adult uses a child for sexual pleasure.
The problems with statistics like this is definition of the sexual abuse. There is a huge difference in the listed items (rape vs. "peeping into bedrooms") - especially to the child. I personally don't consider peeping into the bedroom of my child a sexual offence, but rather that I care about my child.
In the "offender"-part, there is also a big difference if it is an adult, or an equally aged child that does it. Childen below 15 ARE interested in sexual affairs, and often explore these things with their friends - primarily verbally or through imagery. Stating that this is sexual abuse is IMO problematic.
So getting an overview over the amount of offences isn't easy, as it is very hard to get good information about it. I think the information provided in the article, as well as your reference is bad statistics, because the definitions are way too broad to be of any use.
Re:Small Minority? (Score:3)
Since when is PeeWee a pedophile? I thought he got caught cranking it to some normal porn. Did something happen after that?
'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.
Shenanigans (Score:5, Insightful)
250,000 attempts is one attempt for every ten subscribers. Does that sound realistic? Hell, if you're a BT broadband paedo are you going to continually hammer on the sites, or consider that a firewall is in place and either give up or go elsewhere?
Who thinks that the BT marketing arm is inflating those figures? After all, what sites are they counting? How are they counting? Are they looking for malware? I somehow doubt even 10% of those numbers are really from the sex offender types.
This type of reporting is dangerous. People think that these type of people are more prevalant than they are, they react by denying kids a normal childhood in the name of safety. Meanwhile 'child porn' becomes a convenient black brush to daub all over anything, or anyone, someone wants to attack.
If child porn really is this prevalant, why is no one asking why?
Re:Shenanigans (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that every 10th BT user is making one attempt. It's that the 1/10000th or so customers who are malware victims are making hundreds...
Re:Shenanigans (Score:2)
I suspect - and I have no evidence for this - the nastiest stuff is distributed on IRC and in closed groups. I can only hope the government succesfully arrests and prosecutes those responsible.
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.
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.
S
Re:Motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents have an extremely hard time coming to terms with the fact that their little boy/girl/hermaphrodite is growing up and becoming a sexual creature, and so there's all sorts of FUD about the subject.
16 is an arbitrary limit set by the Victorians when there was an outcry about the number of child prostitutes working in London at the time.
People mature at different rates - some people aren't ready for sexual experiences till they're 18-20. Some a lot longer before. Until society has a way of looking at the situation on a case-by-case basis we have to work with an arbitrary number which means that 90-95% of those over it are "ready".
And instead of villifying those labelled as paedophiles, we should be trying to work out what has gone so badly wrong in their sexuality that they are attracted to a person who hasn't developed sexual characteristics yet, and see if they could be cured.
"Kids messing about"...I know somebody who was told that was all that happened to her. She still wakes up crying sometimes, 10 years later. No simple rule will suffice to adjudicate all cases.
Re:Motivation? (Score:3, Insightful)
On a purely physical level the sheer size difference causes trauma that leads to scarring and in females fertility problems in later life.
Our instinct towards the next generation should be to protect and nurture, not use them for gratification of desi
Re:Motivation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait, that's what people want most of the time. Silly me.
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.
Perceptions (Score:5, Informative)
People don't understand what paedophillia is. Paedophillia is the specific and sole (or overwhelmingly primary) attraction to children who have _not_ entered puberty. Puberlescent physical features as much of a turn off to them as females having beards and bald spots are to the average teenage male.
Many are so misguided that they cry "paedophile" if a 20 year old so much as holds hands with a 15 year old. Paedophiles largely don't care for teenagers. People like that famous Belgian sociopath who raped those teenage girls aren't paedophiles, they just treat young people like this because they're easier to abuse.
One little fact is that males are attracted to females at much younger ages than society accepts. Back in 19th century England, it was socially recognised that no morallistic female could want sex. We now know this isn't true, but there were strong social taboos on the matter and females wouldn't speak up about it, and males dominated public debate. Today, any adult male is terrified to admit he may find an under 18 year old attractive. Yet most do. The social taboos on the issue are made very strong by hysterical media stories. Another factor is that females are so influential now, and as they are usually unable to find males younger than themselves attractive, they're far less understanding that males do, and become more ridged on the subject.
According to scientific studies performed by psychologists, the ages females are at their _peak_ of physically attractivenss to adult males is 14 to 24. This is a severe contradiction with social perceptions. It also doesn't take a genius to figure out that 12 is alot closer to 14 than 45 is to 24. Historically puberty happened later (and we still don't know why), while children were psychologically very grown up by age 13 because of the lack of modern society's failings. We have today the double negative of children entering puberty too early (and confusing males' attractions) on the one hand, while young people mentally grow up far too late on the other. We also seperate different age groups from social contact because of schools and workplaces. If these three factors didn't exist, then we'd think nothing of a 30 year old dating a 16 year old, which is exactly how it used to be since the dawn of time. Girls regularly got married in their mid teens. This was almost the case where I live only a generation ago.
Also, paedophillia is a rare thing. Mathematically, there aren't many of them. Statistically, most child abuse is committed by hetrosexual parents and other close family figures. Sexual abuse by paedophiles only makes up a very small percentage of sexual abuse. One recent survey of prisons where I live found that only a very small minority of prisoners convicted of sexual offenses against children were paedophiles, and most committed these crimes on impulse and because the children were accessable.
Some European countries have such a different attitude about children and sexuality from English speakers that 12 year old girls may literally take their clothes off in a public park on a hot day while playing, and nobody thinks anything of it.
Ultimately, sexual abuse happens because people don't care for others. You have to either lack empathy or be delusional to treat a child in this way. If you want to save the children from these horrible things, have a more caring and open society. Knee-jeck social taboos don't help, no matter how certain you are of the subject.
Re:Motivation? (Score:3, Informative)
Don't mix AoC with age to appear in pics/vids... (Score:3, Interesting)
Kjella
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt this will lead to actions taken by people who don't even understand what the internet is or what's going on here.
From an earlier slashdot article, a comedian got a member of parliment to say, in all seriousness, "Using an area of the Internet the size of Ireland, pedophiles can make your keyboard release toxic vapors that can make you more suggestible." [slashdot.org]
Re:FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, you're on the money about the "pedophiles are more common than they really are" thing. The UK media, BBC included, is locked in a perpetual state of moral panic, in which paedophiles lurk in every chat room, on every street corner and in every cereal box. A TV programme [wikipedia.org] caused major (and I mean MAJOR-questions were asked in Parliament, tabloid newspapers went berserk-anybody who knows the Daily Mail knows what that means) outrage after it questioned the seemingly unfounded moral panic. I personally thought it was one of the funniest things ever made, but people were very offended, despite never having actually watched it.
So there you have it. We have a media which is currently in the middle of a massive deviancy amplification spiral [wikipedia.org], and this frankly fucking stupid move by BT is just an upshot of that.
I'm sure other Brits will back me up on this: it's all a load of crap.
"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:"Website not found" not good enough (Score:2)
1984 (Score:4, Informative)
Big problem here is 'child pornography' is being used as a stepping stone to censorship on the Internet (as was 9/11 a stepping stone to the Big Brother approach to tagging/wathcing/montoring everybody in the name of terror we have now), and although BT is _not_ a Government owned Company, it is to a certain extent controlled by Billyliars Government.
This to me, although maybe done in good faith, is not the way to go.
What is needed is the sites/ISPs running this stuff shut down - and I cannot see how the FBI/CIA/Scotland cannot find them!
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
There is certainly regulation [ofcom.org.uk] of the telecommunications industry, but I struggle to see how it can be called control.
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]
stats (Score:4, Interesting)
Sheesh. (Score:5, Funny)
He told the Today programme: "Every image of a child that appears on the internet is an image of a child that's abused."
See? It's not just America that's governed by idiots.
Re:Sheesh. (Score:4, Funny)
It's True [microsoft.com]!
Microsoft abuses children! Think of the Children! Switch to Linux!
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.
Tracy Lords (Score:2, Informative)
All of these have been forbidden and, should you get her Playboy issue (even now), you wouldn't get her naked pictures because she was below the legal age.
Now, how many access to Tracy's pictures (or pictures/movies banned for similar reasons despite the model's past and present willingness to be featured) were part of these 10000 pages ?
In the days of yore... (Score:3, Insightful)
The contractor came back and said that they could save 60% of their disk space, but since he also analyzed their NNTP logs he told them that porn was also their major source of revenue.
They're still around. Guess which path they chose.
Good beginnings != good endings? (Score:5, Insightful)
2004/ child pornogaphy is blocked
2005/ pornography is blocked
2006/ anti-bush websites are blocked
2007/ all weblogs are taken offline
1984/ freedom is slavery
this may be a little bit extreme, sure, but it's axiomatic that freedoms are lost in tiny increments.
Re:Good beginnings != good endings? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
Another reason fro all those hits (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
This should have been implemented earlier (Score:3, Funny)
It doesn't matter to me even if this would make it difficult for me to finish my research on child abuse. Has this program started, say, only a few years ago, I wouldn't have become a registered pedophile. Dammit.
Pete Townsend
p.s. I've been using news groups lately. They are awesome!!
Doesn't look like useful information (Score:3, Insightful)
Which would be typical of pop media sociological reporting. One of my old soc profs wrote a book called Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists. His favorite quote was "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled". Which, of course, meant that if a kid did, in fact, get gunned down in 1950, we must have hit a billion child gun deaths by 1980.
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
Vagueness (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Scary? Scary that you make such an assumption? (Score:3, Insightful)
Britain isn't a paedophile-free society (Where is?) but assuming that all the access attempts are genuine, conscious attempts to access child pornography is very dangerous assumption to make.
Re:Why block child pr0n ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that its illegal and not moral to watch, but still it seems like sertain people have an urge for it.
Those sites are blocked because it's contents is illegal, duh.
In order to produce this crap children (who are by definition not able to consent) are abused and based on societal consensus this is not acceptable, period.
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:Obligatory question (Score:3, Interesting)
Bob
Re:Obligatory question (Score:3, Interesting)