Theresa May says internet bill critics 'putting politics before lives'
Yes, Theresa, it is probably true that if we lived in an Orwellian state with total police control and surveillance of everything everyone does, less people will die.
Well spotted. I am glad that the only consideration is number of lives saved.
Oh, and just in case "number of people that die" is the only concern - nuking the planet is a good one - the very next day the death figures go to zero, and stay there permanently.
Interestingly, infringing basic civil liberties is what usually happens before a police state. Strangely we have history books to tell us these things. The end result is usual civil unrest and wars, and somehow that means more people dying. Strange that. Civil liberties are important you know?
The other point here is that anyone doing something they do not want seen can easily bypass any new laws. There are lots and lots of ways that are easy for anyone to do, but just that bit more inconvenient, so normal people who are not criminals will not bother.
This means the law only infringes civil liberties and does not actually impact criminals at all.
Get the message please.
Arrrrg!
What about a statistic for the number of people killed and maimed everyday on the Internet?
ReplyDeleteOf course, the next step would be to make circumvention of the monitoring/surveillance illegal.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you have solved it, criminals will stick to that law, obviously.
DeleteNo, but ISPs being made to report 'suspicious' connections...
DeleteNAB - PLEASE tell me that you're being facetious
DeleteJust following Theresa May's argument to the next stage (I was going to say 'logical conclusion', but I think that would actually be far worse).
DeleteI totally agree with RevK - of course the law, any law, will be ignored by criminals, but then this proposed law has never actually been about taking actions against criminals. Anybody who believes this proposed law is about anything other than theatre is sadly deluded.
This law will have *exactly* the same effect as the restrictions put in force at airports over the last decade. It will offer absolutely no additional protection and it will inconvenience an awful lot of people.
Thanks goodness for that - I thought you'd gone over to the dark side ;)
DeleteRevK - We need some icons a la El Reg so I can tell when people are joking :)
I think an ISP should actually setup a "Kiddie Safe Internet package". Basically, it'll be aimed at Parents/Guardians who don't actually want to bother supervising their kids in any way: the package will be designed to ensure that they can't be emailed or instant messaged by any of those nasty paedophiles who, according to the media, are lurking on mass on the internet - it'll also stop them from seeing anything unsuitable (as porn is on nearly every website and can disrupt their tiny minds according to the media and MPs).
ReplyDeleteSo it'll allow access to, erm, erm, can any one actually name any site which guarantees children cannot be exposed to porn (so no advertisements), can't be contacted by "pedos" (so no messaging or interaction with others: even someones "screen name" may "be offensive to little Johnny"), and doesn't encourage them to spend lots of their parents money buying things from the site (such as Club Penguin)?
Once this "Kiddie Safe ISP" is on the market, I do hope it will be used as an example to MPs: "There is now a child safe ISP available for parents to use if they want to ensure their kids are safe - so why do other ISPs need to be regulated/restricted?"
[/fantasyworld]
You're assuming politicians are in some way sane.
DeleteWhat would happen in that circumstance is they would say 'We told you it was possible - now it's mandatory for all ISPs'.
Well, it was more to be able to say "Nobody is actually using this Kiddie Safe ISP as it is too restrictive": MPs would be put in a difficult position if they then tried to claim "People want their kiddies to be safe" as the industry would be able to turn round and say "No as subscription levels to Kiddie-Safe ISP are unsustainable."
DeleteIf we compare the number of people/children dying "because of the internet" and the amount of violence induced by alcohol consumption, it's about time to pass a law forcing anybody holding an on/off license to keep track of the identity, whereabouts, behavior of anybody buying any alcoholic beverage....
ReplyDeleteChasing number of dead people is a bad road for any politician, as car drivers are way up there and more serious that terrorists by a huge margin. They need to be careful what they wish for.
DeleteRevK, time for you to organise a virtual internet then that just uses the existing internet as a transport for encrypted tunnels. Then you can report that yes customer 1) has a connection to servers a, b, c) exactly the same as they always do every day.
ReplyDeleteConfigurable options in clueless to send all traffic via an L2TP?
ReplyDeleteHave a section on the signup that goes:
ReplyDeleteMandatory: Select one of the following:
a) I have no children
b) I am a responsible parent and recognise that AAISP is not responsible in any way for my child's browsing habits.
If they refuse to sign, send them to TalkTalk :p
We do, almost that wording, though you are right - I forgot to add that to the new Home::1 order. Fixing now.
DeleteI think everyone is approaching the problem from the wrong direction - internet filtering will never work. These "parents" just want to prevent their kids seeing porn, a walled-garden will do that much simpler; all you have to do is while the "porn filter" checkbox is active limit access to 2001:8b0:0::/48 in a potentially similar fashion to the Home::1 captive portal.
ReplyDeleteI think we're getting distracted by the fact that politicians such as Theresa May have their own agenda, and simply does not listen to any evidence to the contrary of her own opinions. The rest is rhetoric.
ReplyDelete"Theresa May, the Home Secretary, told a Westminster lunch for journalists: “I have a very tough view on drugs. That view is informed by people I speak to who have seen the damage the drugs have done to people in their family." - Telegraph 19 Jun 2012
Perhaps we should let national transport policy be dictated by people that have had members of their family killed or injured by cars,planes and trains?
(I also love the part about "In 2009 the then chairman of the group, Prof David Nutt, was sacked after claiming that horse-riding is more dangerous than taking Ecstasy, and then accusing ministers of “devaluing” scientific evidence on cannabis." then "Prof Les Iversen, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs" had his recommendations "swiftly dismissed by both the Home Office and Downing Street" we don't want any independent experts and their thinking here!)
Or look at Theresa May's permission to extradite Richard O'Dwyer, a UK subject is extradited for alleged criminal activity that took place on UK soil. She's not stupid, she has her own agendas and damn the rest of us.