Internet Censorship, scary prospect!

[SouthernComfort]

The government is currently consulting ISPs on plans to create a kind of Great British Firewall to block sites accused of copyright infringement. The Act permits such injunctions for sites where "a substantial amount of material has been, is being or is likely to be obtained in infringement of copyright". Could that mean a search engine, a whistle-blowing site like Wikileaks or a user generated content site such as YouTube? Maybe.
It's enough to worry Google, certainly: when the Act was being finalised, Google expressed its concerns that the Act's site-blocking amendments were "introduced 24 hours before a crucial vote in the House of Lords, without a full debate over whether such a policy is right in principle," and argued that "blocking through injunction creates a high risk that legal content gets mistakenly blocked, or that people abuse the system."
BT and TalkTalk are currently mulling over the verdict and whether they will appeal. If they don't, Gary Marshall has a suggestion: get Google to buy the entire music business. "Which would you rather see?" he asks. "Google-owned record labels, or an internet where you can only see what record labels say you can see?"


China anyone?

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...#ixzz1KJRfjzmt

[cablefreejunkie]

another nail in the coffin for free speech
WAKE UP

[MrFug]

Censorship is bad mmkay, although sometimes.... have you seen /b/ lately? not cool at all.

[SouthernComfort]

The ramifications of these proposals go a lot further than simple filesharing websites. Users take note, if people do not react to the Governments planned censorship agenda the "interwebz" as you know it will be no more. Look at the China example, Google can't even penetrate it.

[masur123]

There are still various ways and means around these sort of censorships. The government needs to be seen to be doing something to appease the money men, but there are lots of various tools and services that can counter act this.

[SouthernComfort]

Be under no illusion, these proposals don't entail a simple site or IP restriction. What we are talking about is a Government run, commercially sponsored, firewall. Simple proxies or VPNs will provide little assistance. Search results and address translations can be filtered based on 'keywords'. Anything they don't like can be stopped dead in it's tracks.
Google the 'Golden Shield Project' for example.

[masur123]

Does Tor not get around this, my understanding was that it does.

[SouthernComfort]

'Keywords' <<<

[masur123]

Tor is secure, as is ultrasurf so all data is encrypted....

[masur123]

Actually Tor is not secure, but ultrasurf is....

Tor hides the IP address only, but is based on proxy networks.

[SouthernComfort]

To be fair, I am taking a very simplistic view of the situation. There will always be ways, for those that know how, to circumvent the obstacles put in their place. What does that mean for the average user? Of the people you know how many are even aware of what TOR is? (It's also not as secure as you might think ).
A website can only function if it's users know how to find it, the 'net' until now has been a free thinking arena. The Government/Media hope to change all that.

Typed before i saw your comment, think of it this way, compare your budget and expertise to theirs. Most of this technology is new to them so they are still figuring it out. At present they are consulting experts on ways to implement these systems, not long ago there was a recruitment drive for 'young security analysts' for certain intelligence agencies, this 'new breed' will be used to secure and monitor systems nationwide, this will all be wrapped up and sold to you for your own protection, after all your kids must be protected from predators and terrorists, heaven forbid they should download the latest mp3 .

Probably should have posted this in the conspiracy section on rereading.

[bas83]

did not adolf have similar ideas in the 1930,s about books

[masur123]

Reading on the Great Firewall of China, they do not seem to block VPN that is based outside of China, Tor is fully active and they appear to have no intention of stopping it. The "technology" appears impractical, quote from Wikipedia:

"The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical."

Now if China can not complete this task, not sure how good the UK would be at it. Also as we all know, these sort of things spawn a new generation of hackers who will spend their free time finding flaws and vulnerabilities to publish to the communities.

[SouthernComfort]

Reading on the Great Firewall of China, they do not seem to block VPN that is based outside of China, Tor is fully active and they appear to have no intention of stopping it. The "technology" appears impractical, quote from Wikipedia:

"The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical."

Now if China can not complete this task, not sure how good the UK would be at it. Also as we all know, these sort of things spawn a new generation of hackers who will spend their free time finding flaws and vulnerabilities to publish to the communities.

Have a read about Dr Fang Binxing's intentions, remember the scale of China's network.

[chroma]

To hell with the average user to be fair.

Brought up the same thing when the Phorm DPI (deep packet inspector) gear was being installed and trialled. Average Joe didn't care.

Similarly when the DMCA was finding its way into the house of commons, Joe public didn't care.

A firewall will have little effect on me, I can work around it, Joe public on the other hand... as soon as there's no access to ~~~~ and movies maybe then the nation might actually get off their collective asses and begin making positive changes.
Until such times as this happens Joe public wont give a toss, might as well let happen what's inevitably going to happen. The problem will eventually solve itself.

The scary part is that ive had more luck discussing these things with MEP's than with my own MP/SMP's
Foe all everyone seems to loath the European Union, this speaks volumes.