Think of the Children! 11 December 2008

Earlier this week UK web users found the Wikipedia page about the album Virgin Killer by The Scorpions unavailable should they want to find it. This was due to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), an unaccountable quasi-governmental body deciding that 32 years after the album release date it was unacceptable to British eyes. Human nature is thoroughly predictable and all the IWF managed to do was drum up public interest in the album… meanwhile Amazon.com was still happily displaying the image, as was Google Image Search, and now a previously non-technical people were discovering the joys of open proxies.

The IWF have now lifted the ban, claiming that the “context” of the image needed to be taken into account. Although more likely it was the bad press, and an indignant public asking just who this un-elected body was deciding what we could and could not see online. According to the Guardian about 10,000 web pages are added to the IWF blacklist, a secret list implemented by all the big ISPs. Now this sort of blanket, unannounced internet blocking normally takes place in those naughty places like Burma, China and North Korea, but one has to wonder- in a week that opposition MPs are arrested as part of a Home Office leaks investigation… what could be hidden from our eyes next? What Wikipedia pages will they be censoring tomorrow?

North Korea with a BBQ

Meanwhile, Internet freedom took another bashing with the news that the Australian Federal Government is trying to force the ISPs to censor the Internet for all Australians. This means that material thought to be “harmful and inappropriate” for children will be censored. Filtering will be mandatory in all homes and schools across the country, and the filtering will target legal as well as illegal material.

There are obviously huge technical problems with mass internet filtering, first the cost of keeping up to date blacklists and servers to manage this sort of thing, the use of filters would slow the internet down by an average of 30%, and more importantly it protects no one from online sexual predators, viruses, or identity fraud. Also alternative methods for online activity such as this BitTorrent would not be affected.

This wholesale one-size-fits-all conservative Christian morality is clearly is a huge violation of Australian adults civil liberties and rights to free-speech. Be careful Australia, you’re the cool place where fun stuff happens… don’t become North Korea with a BBQ! Further information about the plans can be found at nocleanfeed.com.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

As always the bogeyman of ‘protecting the children’, is used as a cover. After all who would ague against protecting children from harmful and inappropriate material? Well I will for one. Personally I think that the X-Files is mostly inappropriate for children. But I am an adult and I don’t want my access to it blocked. I think the BNP is a racist organisation of bullies, half-wits and xenophobes, but I don’t want their website blocked. Anyway, if the end goal of our Government is ‘protecting the children’ from ‘harmful and inappropriate material’, first to go should be the bible- a collection of barbaric, murderous, xenophobic, fairy tails used to scare children and adults alike into servitude and unquestioning belief. It should be kept well away from children, they need to be protected from this brainwashing indoctrination. They should also be kept away from “celibate” priests, but that’s a subject for another time.

Just incase you are still not convinced of donning the tin-foil hat just yet, let me bring to your attention one more thing. The “Intercept Modernisation Programme”.

The British Government has put forward plans to monitor ever phone call made, ever email sent, and ever website visited by UK citizens a giant central database. Given the Government’s track record with keeping data secure, I can’t say I find this news particularly encouraging. Not only is such a plan impractical and expensive, but this is an unprecedented intrusion into ordinary peoples’ lives. The only way to stop obscene letters being sent, would be for the Post Office to open every package, every envelop and take a look, the same is true for the Internet. It would require ISPs to examine all web traffic.

This time the mantra is ‘protecting the public’ from ‘terrorism and crime’ although this will, as the Wikipedia example above proves, hit that most troublesome of predicate events- human nature. Ordinary people will lose their privacy, whilst those with something to hide will turn to encryption, thus rendering the system utterly pointless and kill that precious democracy it is allegedly trying to preserve.

The Internet is a wild jungle. It is too large, too slow to adapt to new ideas, and new technologies. Yes there are some undesirable elements online, but what I deem to be acceptable and unacceptable, what I think of as ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ is unlikely to entirely match yours, or Gordon Brown’s, or the Ayatollah. Yes it probably is a good idea to keep child pornography off the internet, if only to stop the exploitation required to produce it. But will blocking off this site or that help? Will it end child pornography? No of cause it won’t. It is a worthy goal, sure, but no it would never catch every site 100% of the time. The Police can try and intercept all terrorist communications, but it won’t stop a crazed whack-job taking a kitchen knife out on a killing spree.

Who would you give the keys to your unfettered access to the Internet? Me? Your mum? The Archbishop of Canterbury? Right now, I don’t know… but I know the Internet Watch Foundation is the last candidate on my list.