[Sussex] Censorship

[Steve Dobson]

Evening all

While surfing I came across an nice little article by Bill Thompson
[1] and I was wondering what the different views of the people on
this list are.

Personal I side with Cory Doctorow; any erosion of our civil
liberates is a bad thing.  I am not a supporter of paedophilla, but
I am uncomfortable with the blocking of such sites because I believe
that it does set a dangerous precedent.

Did you guys see a recent (2 or 3 weeks ago) repeat of "Yes Minister"
where Hacker used misinformation to stop his daughter from staging
a nude demonstration?  The writers of "Yes Minister" were courting 
two top political advisors to get raw material.

It is everybody's right to demonstrate, and we need access to good
information to do it right.  Blocking with a "Page Not Found" message
*is* misinformation.  

We all make stupid mistakes from time to time, sometimes these things
come back to haunt us.  Also, we could be really, really embarrassed by
those near and dear to us.  I don't think that it is a stretch of the
imagination for a politician to extend a block to include information
that would damage their career.  So I see any Internet legislation as
"the thin end of the wedge".  We don't need new laws to stop 
paedophilla, the existing ones should be enough - they were good 
enought to stop Gary Glitter.

Of course we do have to draw the line somewhere.  There are people
(kids for example) that need to be protected.  But we need to know
where the line is being drawn and who is drawing it.  

I went to BT's site to see if their pages told me that they were 
using blocking technology.  I followed the links and got to [2].
No mention of blocking as a feature there, nor in the Broadband FAQ.
But there was a search engine - so I entered:

   What sites are blocked by BT broadband

These are the links it gave me.

   Where can I find more information about BT Broadband for my home?	

   Where can I find information about BT Business Broadband?	

   Where can I find more information about trigger levels and whether
    BT Broadband is available in my area?	

   Where can I see a comparison between broadband/ADSL speed, ISDN
    speed and PSTN speed for Internet access?	

   What sort of things can I do once I have broadband in my home?	

I hope you agree that only the first one looks to have the information
on blocking.  No - it's a link to [2].

So I tried with a very simple query string: "blocking" - no results.

I then tried to be a little more direct, and entered "Cleanfeed" -
again no results.  It looks to me that BT are hiding the fact that 
they are blocking sites from their customers.

Is anyone on this list a BT Broadband user?  If so would you like 
to contact them and ask if they are blocking sites on the Internet?
And if they answer "yes" please ask them why they are not telling 
us.

I have no problem with ISPs using blocking technology for those that
want it.  AOL make a big thing about it in their adverts on "Parental
Control".

But I really don't like it when anyone (Government or private) deny
me access into information without telling me that is what they're 
doing.  BT advertises it's broadband service as give fast access to
the Internet.  But it doesn't - it only gives you access to some of
it.

Well enough from me.  Now it is your turn.

Steve

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3797563.stm
[2]: http://www.bt.com/broadband/bb_info.jsp