Web-blocking; changing our policy.

[Duke]

Our current manifesto says:

We pledge that we will not allow government censorship of the internet for anything but the most extreme reasons (such as military secrets or images of child abuse).

I know that this has been debated elsewhere, but with web-blocking back on the political agenda, I think it may be time for us to revisit this issue.

I think that the Party should strongly oppose any form of ISP-wide web-blocking; government-led or voluntary.

Yes, this would mean campaigning to reduce the IWF back to their original function. Web-blocking is impractical, expensive, and often counter-productive. It should not be used as a technical "solution" for dealing with social issues.

Incidentally, on the subject of censorship, it may be worth reading these two articles discussing super- and hyper-injunctions. If we start allowing web-blocking to be used in child abuse cases, that opens it up for use in copyright cases. We allow it on copyright grounds, and then it turns up on other grounds (such as libel). At the moment, I have no doubts that the information blocked by the above injunctions is readily available elsewhere online, although obviously I cannot tell you where to look (also see the Trafigura case), but if we allow any Internet censorship, how long until it is suggested that ISPs use the system already in placed to block access to sites hosting information covered by other types of injunction?

While I accept that freedom of speech and expression must be balanced with other "fundamental human" rights such as copyright, reputation, personal dignity and privacy, the balancing must be done very carefully, and I feel that allowing any sort of web-blocking goes far too far.

[The compromise position, which I hold to be a bare minimum, but still unacceptable, would be completely open and transparent web-blocking, but that is usually shot down as being self-defeating.]

Any thoughts?

[scuzzmonkey]

Agreed - even the "military secrets" bit goes against our support for Wikileaks.

[plooterman]

I am very alarmed to hear the government wants a sort of Great Firewall of Britain. I think this is definitely one of our issues. Of course ‘military secrets or images of child abuse’ would not go away because the UK tries to block them. So I would agree with that phrase being removed.

[lhsi]

I'm also opposed to a "Hadrians Firewall". I seem to recall any site level blocking is fairly trivial to get around, which makes it pointless for anyone determined enough. I suppose it would stop some accidental discovery, but the potential for abuse is too high, as is being shown here.

[glambert]

Agreed.

[LozKaye]

Why this is significant now is that we can see that Ed Vaizey is making statements in support of web-blocking. As I have said before, I do not think the British people want to hand Mubarak type powers to the government, or an unelected quango. We must not allow them the pretext to do so.

[borgs8472]

I think that the Party should strongly oppose any form of ISP-wide web-blocking; government-led or voluntary.

You're going to have to clarify voluntary as the way the ISPs 'voluntarily' sign up to the IWF is rather ambiguous at the moment.

As I've said before, ISP level content classification is going to happen, it's a case of when, not if IMO. This will happen because there is demand for it. I see it as a natural extension of desktop antivirus and desktop net nanny software that this will become a service that ISPs will offer for a monthly fee, or as an option.

I feel a commercially led model will be pretty fair and allow people to choose the level of smuttyness or piracy they wish to be exposed to. Thus consumers are better protected from seeing stuff they don't want to see, or not sure if legal to download - if they wish to be.

The current situation is problematic because internet censorship laws are (or at least should be IMO) there to protect people against accidentally breaking the law, people require protecting one way or another. However it can be hard for a consumer to make informed decisions on these fronts, hence 3rd party services are useful.

The problem is the government plays of these consumer protection fears and uses them as an excuse to 'stop' (e.g. not stop, block) them with the same service. Consumer protection and taking down dubious internet content do not align perfectly.

Anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that ISPs will offer content classification services in the future, the pirate party will look stupid trying to oppose this, though we should obviously lobby for the correct level of transparency surrounding any such process. Back to the issue of the role of IWF and web blocking that currently takes place, due to the lack of an existing consumer protection service, I don't think IWF scope creep can be entirely stopped. We should simply lobby for transparency and consultations surrounding any new powers, and the existing ones of course.

[Gavman]

people require protecting one way or another

Woah, sorry there is so much wrong with that statement!

Sorry to pick up on just this one line and not address the rest of your post but it leapt out at me and I feel I have to respond.

People need protecting from what exactly? As soon as you arbitrarily decide people need protecting you open the doors to those in power deciding who needs protecting from what and that is where scope creep comes in and soon we are in a position where we have no control over what we are protected from and this is the sort of thing the Party is attempting to stop being put into force!

Also I do not believe the Party has stated anywhere that if someone wants to pay to be denied access to services that we don't want that. What the Party does not want to see is Web blocking as the de facto common with the idea that 'Its for your own good'. If someone wants this enforced upon themselves then fine opt-in but lets never allow or accept such opt-out services which unfortunately already exist (O2 mobile broadband amongst others, springs to mind instantly).

[borgs8472]

People need protecting from what exactly?

All sorts of things. But to take just one example, something I recently followed up was how Nominet want the power to more quickly pull .co.uk domains that are used for phishing. There are layers required here. Modern browsers have variable anti phishing technologies, and there are variably effective methods of pulling down phishing sites. A service like this belongs at the ISP IMO. And of course, I assume transparency like your browser technologies have, but potentially more powerful.

As soon as you arbitrarily decide people need protecting you open the doors to those in power deciding who needs protecting from what and that is where scope creep comes in and soon we are in a position where we have no control over what we are protected from and this is the sort of thing the Party is attempting to stop being put into force!

I don't consider the many problems with the internet that need managing as something that is a personal arbitary concern, rather a fact. Going on from this I see a gap in the market for services to manage these problems, something the private sector has only provided in limited terms, e.g. client side tools. This is why businesses invest in fancy firewall solutions to manage all kinds of internet threats. Currently consumers can't afford this level of service, and I think ISPs will eventually offer this.

What the Party does not want to see is Web blocking as the de facto common with the idea that 'Its for your own good'.

Web blocking is too risky if not managed and transparent, and there's no money in putting together a decent appeals procedure or doing it properly. This is why when ISPs do this eventually, I think it'll work and the government can stay out of it.

If someone wants this enforced upon themselves then fine opt-in but lets never allow or accept such opt-out services which unfortunately already exist (O2 mobile broadband amongst others, springs to mind instantly).

True fact, I'm currently on Vodaphone mobile broadband and I hit the same problem. But it didn't block my top sites so I didn't need to opt out. Default settings are powerful indeed, but I think the mobile broadband issue could go either way.

[Duke]

[Finally, a response that can be argued with... sometimes everyone just saying "yes, this is a good idea" is unhelpful.]

As I've said before, ISP level content classification is going to happen, it's a case of when, not if IMO. This will happen because there is demand for it.

The big issue here is how the ISP works out how to classify content. To give the two obvious examples, how does an ISP differentiate between me downloading the latest episode of Pioneer One using BitTorrent, or me downloading an episode of Doctor Who? Similarly, how does an ISP differentiate between a website hosting child abuse images and one hosting holiday snaps?

From my understanding of the way the IWF currently works, the public (or police, or whoever) report sites to them and then a person there has to check each site, guess whether or not the content could be found illegal (and within their remit) and then add the content to the list. While this may work for a few hundred online locations, trying to do this for the entire Internet is impossible. The only way around it would be to use white-lists and some form of compulsory "tagging" of sites, but I really don't think we want to go there.

I feel a commercially led model will be pretty fair and allow people to choose the level of smuttyness or piracy they wish to be exposed to. Thus consumers are better protected from seeing stuff they don't want to see, or not sure if legal to download - if they wish to be.

An issue here is that for a commercial model to work, people have to have a real, free and open choice. In this case, there is no real choice, as that would require a competitive ISP market, with clear guidelines on what content might be blocked. There isn't a free (as in freedom) choice as there are all sorts of social pressures inherent in having to ask your ISP for access to smuttyness or pirate content. This is clear from the speculative invoicing schemes where a significant part of the plan was to use material that an individual would not want to risk being publicly associated with, and I think this would apply to having to go to an ISP to ask for access. In terms of openness, I guess that will depend on how the ISP implements the service; how easy it is to find out there's blocking going on, how easy it is to change etc..

The current situation is problematic because internet censorship laws are (or at least should be IMO) there to protect people against accidentally breaking the law, people require protecting one way or another.

Ah, this is more of a legal theory point, rather than a technical one (and to my knowledge, we don't have any internet censorship laws in E&W). In my opinion, people should not need to be protected against accidentally breaking the law. Until the 19th century (iirc) you couldn't accidentally break the law as intent was required for illegal activity. While strict liability offences and infringements have their place, I feel that they have expanded far too much over the last 40 or 50 years. It shouldn't be possible for me to be arrested etc. for accidentally stumbling across illegal material online (and in the UK, afaik, it isn't); while ignorance of the law shouldn't be a defence, ignorance of the facts (i.e. a lack of intention) should be in nearly all cases.

In any case, the copyright lobby isn't pushing for web-blocking to stop people accidentally visiting tPB et al., they're doing it to stop people willingly doing so - they don't want people accessing music etc. (for free or paid) (legally or otherwise) from any site not paying them money.

Modern browsers have variable anti phishing technologies, and there are variably effective methods of pulling down phishing sites. A service like this belongs at the ISP IMO. And of course, I assume transparency like your browser technologies have, but potentially more powerful.

I think that this is a good point; my browser has some form of web-blocking stuffs; every so often I try to go to a site and get a warning saying it has been reported as an attack site or something similar. I quite like that. The difference between that and ISP-level web-blocking (as currently in action) is that the browser window has a button to ignore the warning and carry on to the site. If I trust the site (or trust my various defences etc.) I can visit it anyway. What doesn't happen is I get a page telling me I have to get my account holder to call up the ISP, or even just a 404 page.

The other big difference here is that phishing, malware etc. are technical problems, not necessarily legal or social ones; phishing sites are blocked (if they are) to protect our computers etc., not to protect our 'souls' or morals. As such, a technical solution might be of some good. Child abuse and copyright infringement are not technical problems. They are clearly social/moral issues; i.e. our society says that they are unacceptable (well, in theory; in the latter case society is divided). In my opinion, a technical measure (blocking) is not an appropriate way of tackling either of them.

what I'm trying to say is that ISPs will offer content classification services in the future, the pirate party will look stupid trying to oppose this, though we should obviously lobby for the correct level of transparency surrounding any such process. Back to the issue of the role of IWF and web blocking that currently takes place, due to the lack of an existing consumer protection service, I don't think IWF scope creep can be entirely stopped. We should simply lobby for transparency and consultations surrounding any new powers, and the existing ones of course.

Whereas I think that we should oppose it, with a compromise option of accepting very high levels of transparency. Of course, no one is talking about any new powers - in fact, existing powers don't exist anyway (afaik the IWF has no legal authority to do what they do) and that is another problem. There's no discussion about new powers, as this is all being done by the ISPs behind closed doors. ISPs could start blocking access to huge chunks of the web tomorrow and there is nothing (legally, politically or commercially) anyone could do about it.

I think we can and should be opposing this, we should be trying to stop (and reverse) the scope creep of the IWF and campaign to return them to their reporting function alone (a function I fully support).

[Duke]

[Double post - I blame the forum going down, but clearly not as down as I thought.]

[Duke]

[Triple post - gah - admin-people, feel free to delete this post and the double post above it.]

[PeterBrett]

Triple post?

[borgs8472]

The big issue here is how the ISP works out how to classify content. To give the two obvious examples, how does an ISP differentiate between me downloading the latest episode of Pioneer One using BitTorrent, or me downloading an episode of Doctor Who?

For me to take the net neutrality position for a change (gasp) I don't think the file you actually download should be the concern of the ISP. There isn't any way (that I know) to effectively control content being downloaded from the internet, other than via whitelisting all known legal software and blacklisting the rest. This is what various enterprise level domain policy and software controls allow - and it's a good idea, rather than trying to stop virus X, Y and Z, just allow adobe pdf reader, notepad++, firefox etc etc). I can't imagine such a service ever being economical for an ISP to run. Though I imagine ISPs and 3rd parties offering more and more managed desktop solutions (where you remote to your desktop to get your internet service) which are more locked down.

Therefore the only way to control what gets downloaded it via the websites that serve the content, be the content .jpg or .torrent. That's why I say this is the only place controls can take place.

Similarly, how does an ISP differentiate between a website hosting child abuse images and one hosting holiday snaps?

To extend my idea a little further then, I imaging a fairly complex system of checks and balances. First of all any ISP content services would have to have disclaimers 'makes no guarantee as to the accuracy and verifiability of the service', like with say, Youtube content disclaimers, e.g. we do our best to enforce policies, but if something slips through, you can report it but don't sue us.

Anyhow, content classification feeds could come from the following sources:
* Search engines
* Other websites performing classification tasks
* Phishing feeds
* User submitted tagging via 3rd parties
* Hopefully not the government!
* ISP aggregated suggested feeds

To be honest, I don't know off the top of my head the details of how maliciously misclassified data would be handled. I imagine a wikipedia like process, something that doesn't get it right all the time, but it far more useful than problematic.

From my understanding of the way the IWF currently works, the public (or police, or whoever) report sites to them and then a person there has to check each site, guess whether or not the content could be found illegal (and within their remit) and then add the content to the list. While this may work for a few hundred online locations, trying to do this for the entire Internet is impossible. The only way around it would be to use white-lists and some form of compulsory "tagging" of sites, but I really don't think we want to go there.

Correct, lots of parties would have to start offering comprehensive services before this idea is at all viable.

An issue here is that for a commercial model to work, people have to have a real, free and open choice. In this case, there is no real choice, as that would require a competitive ISP market, with clear guidelines on what content might be blocked. There isn't a free (as in freedom) choice as there are all sorts of social pressures inherent in having to ask your ISP for access to smuttyness or pirate content.

Agreed we're not there yet and there is not competitive market.

This is clear from the speculative invoicing schemes where a significant part of the plan was to use material that an individual would not want to risk being publicly associated with, and I think this would apply to having to go to an ISP to ask for access. In terms of openness, I guess that will depend on how the ISP implements the service; how easy it is to find out there's blocking going on, how easy it is to change etc..

The fact people can choose to watch adult channels on their cable tv packages hasn't stopped that area being lucrative, unless you're Jacqui Smith and have no idea about this sort of thing of course

A semi-mature content filtering system I imagine could only be effectively managed via a self-service control panel in any case. You have a point, but I don't think it could be so much of an issue as you suggest.

In my opinion, people should not need to be protected against accidentally breaking the law. Until the 19th century (iirc) you couldn't accidentally break the law as intent was required for illegal activity. While strict liability offences and infringements have their place, I feel that they have expanded far too much over the last 40 or 50 years. It shouldn't be possible for me to be arrested etc. for accidentally stumbling across illegal material online (and in the UK, afaik, it isn't); while ignorance of the law shouldn't be a defence, ignorance of the facts (i.e. a lack of intention) should be in nearly all cases.

Within the borders of the UK, fair enough that's making sense. But if I hand over my credit card details to some dodgy Russian mp3 selling site for example and get defrauded, identity stolen and all sorts, that's a serious consumer protection issue, going back to phishing, a serious issue on the internet.

Also, I have probably broken the law on various occasions by watching live streaming events on the BBC without owning a TV license.

What I'm getting at, and is quite core to PPUK policy, it's very hard to use the internet and know your rights, know what is legal, illegal but no ones cares, or plain illegal. I (and other pirates I hope) care about this sort of thing and would seek some clarification. For moderate use and higher use internet users it's simply impractical to obey every EULA, follow all allowed format shifting limitations, download only content you're 100% sure is legally in the public domain. Rather than racking up liability after liability (did my ISP log that? did that software call home?) we need to be in a position where one can control ones liability, and perhaps accept it if you choose to.

In any case, the copyright lobby isn't pushing for web-blocking to stop people accidentally visiting tPB et al., they're doing it to stop people willingly doing so - they don't want people accessing music etc. (for free or paid) (legally or otherwise) from any site not paying them money.

To be honest, that doesn't worry me too much, as I think it'd be so counter productive. I would (as would others) most likely keep a list of P2P sites blocked in the UK and go about publicising the poor transparency in the process and issuing guides how to circumvent the blocks, to make the list could be a badge of pride that a p2p site has 'made it'.

my browser has some form of web-blocking stuffs; every so often I try to go to a site and get a warning saying it has been reported as an attack site or something similar. I quite like that. The difference between that and ISP-level web-blocking (as currently in action) is that the browser window has a button to ignore the warning and carry on to the site. If I trust the site (or trust my various defences etc.) I can visit it anyway. What doesn't happen is I get a page telling me I have to get my account holder to call up the ISP, or even just a 404 page.

I imagine this being needed at the ISP level however, if you're securing your internet connect against say your kids clicking on such a site and ignoring the error.

Child abuse and copyright infringement are not technical problems. They are clearly social/moral issues; i.e. our society says that they are unacceptable (well, in theory; in the latter case society is divided). In my opinion, a technical measure (blocking) is not an appropriate way of tackling either of them.

Well you know I'm against the proposed blocking implementation in any case.

Whereas I think that we should oppose [IWF scope creep], with a compromise option of accepting very high levels of transparency. Of course, no one is talking about any new powers - in fact, existing powers don't exist anyway (afaik the IWF has no legal authority to do what they do) and that is another problem. There's no discussion about new powers, as this is all being done by the ISPs behind closed doors. ISPs could start blocking access to huge chunks of the web tomorrow and there is nothing (legally, politically or commercially) anyone could do about it.

I disagree. If UK censorship became more widespread, there would be more mistakes. More mistakes would lead to more people publicising the mistakes and circumventing the blocks routines, undermining the system. The IWF works while it doesn't piss anyone off and doesn't make mistakes.

I think we can and should be opposing this, we should be trying to stop (and reverse) the scope creep of the IWF and campaign to return them to their reporting function alone (a function I fully support).

I think I agree, however I believe there needs to be an alternative user-controlled process to compliment the rest of the stuff.

[Duke]

To extend my idea a little further then, I imaging a fairly complex system of checks and balances...

In my experience, "complex" in computer terms usually means "expensive", "impractical", "full of holes". I agree that such a system would be a good idea, I just ... can't see it ever working with the Internet - not least as user-generated feedback could be subject to abuse.

Within the borders of the UK, fair enough that's making sense. But if I hand over my credit card details to some dodgy Russian mp3 selling site for example and get defrauded, identity stolen and all sorts, that's a serious consumer protection issue, going back to phishing, a serious issue on the internet.

Interestingly, I think this is more of an issue for credit card companies and consumer awareness (i.e. telling consumers not to give out their credit card details, and reversing transactions). However, we already seem to have some browser-level phishing protection, so perhaps it is more about making sure consumers have sensible browsers, and know how to use them. But then I tend to go more for the consumer education aspect of things, than the protect consumers against stupidity "for their own good" approach.

Also, I have probably broken the law on various occasions by watching live streaming events on the BBC without owning a TV license.

That would be ignorance (or possibly intent) not accident. These two things are significantly different. One involves not knowing what you are doing is illegal (which I think should be a defence in most cases), and the other involves stumbling across something and then saying "oh no, I should stop, this is illegal" (or hastily pressing the "back" button). Blocking stops both of these, but isn't needed in either case to "protect" individuals from acting illegally imho.

What I'm getting at, and is quite core to PPUK policy, it's very hard to use the internet and know your rights, know what is legal, illegal but no ones cares, or plain illegal. ... we need to be in a position where one can control ones liability, and perhaps accept it if you choose to.

Again, I don't think that the way to 'control' this liability is by getting your ISP to put in place black-lists, covering various sites various people don't like or object to. Surely, the way to deal with this is by raising the threshold for liability; by limiting the legal effect of EULAs, providing defences of "honest use" or something, and generally opening the Internet up, rather than closing it down?

I imagine this being needed at the ISP level however, if you're securing your internet connect against say your kids clicking on such a site and ignoring the error.

This is a common sort of rationale given for Internet-nastiness. It is, imho, complete rubbish. If you are worried about your kids doing bad things online, either don't let them go online, or monitor them when they do. If you're not sure whether what they're doing is safe or not, chances are you're use isn't safe either, so go out and learn... ISPs are ISPs, not nannies, and in my experience, if kids really want to do something online, they will find a way, despite any technical measures.

I disagree [on IWF scope creep]. If UK censorship became more widespread, there would be more mistakes. More mistakes would lead to more people publicising the mistakes and circumventing the blocks routines, undermining the system. The IWF works while it doesn't piss anyone off and doesn't make mistakes.

Doesn't this argument basically come down to "censorship is good because the more censorship we have, the more support there will be against it"? Surely the better argument is "all censorship should be opposed at the start"?

... I believe there needs to be an alternative user-controlled process to compliment the rest of the stuff.

Last time I checked, internet access was user-controlled...

[borgs8472]

In my experience, "complex" in computer terms usually means "expensive", "impractical", "full of holes". I agree that such a system would be a good idea, I just ... can't see it ever working with the Internet - not least as user-generated feedback could be subject to abuse.

I can, but we're still years away from this.

Interestingly, I think this is more of an issue for credit card companies and consumer awareness (i.e. telling consumers not to give out their credit card details, and reversing transactions).

Interesting point, however digital downloads are one of the areas where AFAIK you DON'T have normal rights to return goods and such. My concern is of poor data protection you get when you hand over your details to a company in the 2nd or 3rd world.

However, we already seem to have some browser-level phishing protection, so perhaps it is more about making sure consumers have sensible browsers, and know how to use them. But then I tend to go more for the consumer education aspect of things, than the protect consumers against stupidity "for their own good" approach.

Whilst I'm keen on everyone getting clue on how to use the internet, I accept that as an expert others will continue to be less informed than me. I mean it fits in with getting some decent internet use education in schools, something I could draft a framework for when I get some time.

TBH I suppose as browser markets develop, everyone will get these browser-level protections...

These two things are significantly different. One involves not knowing what you are doing is illegal (which I think should be a defence in most cases), and the other involves stumbling across something and then saying "oh no, I should stop, this is illegal" (or hastily pressing the "back" button). Blocking stops both of these, but isn't needed in either case to "protect" individuals from acting illegally imho.

What I think I'm getting at is that laws will only continue to get more specialised like the DEA capable of going after huge swaths of internet users, and whilst we oppose this obviously, we also have to live with it. Controls to defend yourself against liability for internet (mis)use, be they 3rd parties, client side or at the ISPs are suddenly attractive propositions. The UK government perhaps having realised how many people the DEA effects has to block sites in order to try and limit the legal fallout caused by their own laws!

if kids really want to do something online, they will find a way, despite any technical measures.

Unlike Joe Bloggs Internet user, you can't train the kids to do things to limit their legal liability easily. The more the scope of the liability increases, the more parental controls will be in demand.

Doesn't this argument basically come down to "censorship is good because the more censorship we have, the more support there will be against it"? Surely the better argument is "all censorship should be opposed at the start"?

I'm saying that IWF style censorship if it increases in scope, will not work, therefore there's nothing to be worried about on that front.

Last time I checked, internet access was user-controlled...

I wish it was, however I still get spammed, still deal with some popups I can't block and have 101 people out to farm my personal information at the slightest notice. Sure, users have some level of control of their internet experience, but they certainly don't have full control.

[borgs8472]

Rather than starting a new thread, I'll bump this. Talktalk are now offering integrated anti-malware services:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/09 ... _homesafe/

So, I'm assuming all PPUK members except me will be lobbying against this?

[Duke]

This isn't an anti-malware service. It is a web-blocking and censorship service that also includes anti-malware use. If you read the press release from TalkTalk, you'll see that this is mainly aimed at controlling children - including blocking access to "pornography, violence and/or gambling" and other stuff (the BBC article on this includes blocking websites on self-harm), and blocking access to other sites (i.e. Facebook) at certain times.

On the anti-virus part, it should be noticed that they generate their block-lists by tracking people's internet use and scanning all the sites their users visit - something that the ICO told them off for originally and something that (from what I remember) caused all sorts of technical issues and glitches.

The other big issue is that this is "voluntary" and "opt-in" - for now. Given the history in this area (I'm thinking Cleanfeed), how long before the "voluntary" part goes the same way as previous things have? Not only that, but now that TalkTalk have a web-blocking system, I imagine it won't be long before we get cries of "just add the sites on our list as well" from all the different lobby/censorship groups (copyright ones, religious ones etc.).

So yes, I am worried about this.

[scuzzmonkey]

This isn't an anti-malware service. It is a web-blocking and censorship service that also includes anti-malware use. If you read the press release from TalkTalk, you'll see that this is mainly aimed at controlling children - including blocking access to "pornography, violence and/or gambling" and other stuff (the BBC article on this includes blocking websites on self-harm), and blocking access to other sites (i.e. Facebook) at certain times.

Not to mention of course that this is completely unneeded and _much_ easier to do from the Computer in question - NetNanny, CyberSitter, etc etc.

[gooch92]

Not to mention of course that this is completely unneeded and _much_ easier to do from the Computer in question - NetNanny, CyberSitter, etc etc.

It doesn't take a child prodigy to turn off any of those NetNanny or CyberSitter applications, where-as having it done from the network makes it "almost" impossible.

Still however, more and more ISPs may adopt this type of system, it would only be a matter of time before the idea of the UK super awesome ban list gets brought to Westminster and a bunch of politicians that think its in the "public interest" to have such a thing.

Hello Australia?