Teh One Who Knocks
07-22-2013, 03:12 PM
By Adario Strange - PC Magazine
http://i.imgur.com/OC9XKK5.jpg
Over the last few decades, the U.K. has earned a reputation for being on the cutting edge in terms of harnessing technology to fight crime, including London's "ring of steel" surveillance camera network. Now, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for another tech-powered initiative - blocking Internet porn by default for all U.K. citizens.
The details of the plan were laid out in a speech, which focused on stamping out illegal pornographic images on the Internet, as well as limiting the ability of Web surfers under the age of 18 to access legal pornographic images.
"By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account, the settings to install family friendly filters will be automatically selected," Cameron said.
Officials worked with U.K. ISPs TalkTalk, Virgin, Sky, and BT, which "rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account," Cameron said.
"Once those filters are installed, it should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing," Cameron continued. "So we have agreed with industry that those filters can only be changed by the account holder, who has to be an adult."
The new rules will also apply to existing customers, who will be contacted by U.K. ISPs by the end of next year and presented with, in Cameron's words, "an unavoidable decision about whether or not to install family friendly content filters."
Cameron's plan to regulate the distribution of pornographic images won't just be limited to the home. An agreement was also reached with O2, Virgin Media, Sky, Nomad, BT and Arqiva to apply the automatic family filters to public Wi-Fi access points by the end of August.
A good portion of Cameron's speech, meanwhile, was dedicated to placing more responsibility on search engines when it comes to images of child porn.
"I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty," Cameron said. "I simply don't accept the argument that some of these companies have used to say that these searches should be allowed because of freedom of speech."
In a BBC report detailing the new Internet guidelines, a spokesperson from Google told the news service, "We have a zero tolerance attitude to child sexual abuse imagery. Whenever we discover it, we respond quickly to remove and report it."
Nevertheless, reaction to the new rules appears to be mixed. The BBC's own technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, said, "civil liberties campaigners fear that blocking certain searches in one country could set a precedent elsewhere, making other governments more confident in applying censorship."
In related news, The Guardian reported that Twitter will also add a "tagging system" to stop child porn images from being posted to the micro-blogging site. Twitter is aiming to introduce the service, which is powered by Microsoft-developed PhotoDNA, this year, but it is not directly related to Cameron's campaign, the paper said.
http://i.imgur.com/OC9XKK5.jpg
Over the last few decades, the U.K. has earned a reputation for being on the cutting edge in terms of harnessing technology to fight crime, including London's "ring of steel" surveillance camera network. Now, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced plans for another tech-powered initiative - blocking Internet porn by default for all U.K. citizens.
The details of the plan were laid out in a speech, which focused on stamping out illegal pornographic images on the Internet, as well as limiting the ability of Web surfers under the age of 18 to access legal pornographic images.
"By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account, the settings to install family friendly filters will be automatically selected," Cameron said.
Officials worked with U.K. ISPs TalkTalk, Virgin, Sky, and BT, which "rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account," Cameron said.
"Once those filters are installed, it should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing," Cameron continued. "So we have agreed with industry that those filters can only be changed by the account holder, who has to be an adult."
The new rules will also apply to existing customers, who will be contacted by U.K. ISPs by the end of next year and presented with, in Cameron's words, "an unavoidable decision about whether or not to install family friendly content filters."
Cameron's plan to regulate the distribution of pornographic images won't just be limited to the home. An agreement was also reached with O2, Virgin Media, Sky, Nomad, BT and Arqiva to apply the automatic family filters to public Wi-Fi access points by the end of August.
A good portion of Cameron's speech, meanwhile, was dedicated to placing more responsibility on search engines when it comes to images of child porn.
"I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty," Cameron said. "I simply don't accept the argument that some of these companies have used to say that these searches should be allowed because of freedom of speech."
In a BBC report detailing the new Internet guidelines, a spokesperson from Google told the news service, "We have a zero tolerance attitude to child sexual abuse imagery. Whenever we discover it, we respond quickly to remove and report it."
Nevertheless, reaction to the new rules appears to be mixed. The BBC's own technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, said, "civil liberties campaigners fear that blocking certain searches in one country could set a precedent elsewhere, making other governments more confident in applying censorship."
In related news, The Guardian reported that Twitter will also add a "tagging system" to stop child porn images from being posted to the micro-blogging site. Twitter is aiming to introduce the service, which is powered by Microsoft-developed PhotoDNA, this year, but it is not directly related to Cameron's campaign, the paper said.