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United Kingdom Censorship Privacy The Internet

UK Mobile ISP Blocks VPN, Citing Access To Porn 195

New submitter santosh.k83 writes with this snippet: "TorrentFreak has learned that VPN provider iPredator is already blocked under the 'adult filter' of some, if not all, mobile providers. TorrentFreak has seen communication between the mobile provider GiffGaff and iPredator which makes it clear that the VPN's website is blocked because it allows kids to bypass the age restrictions. Based on the above it is safe to say that censorship is a slippery slope, especially without any oversight. VPNs are used for numerous purposes and bypassing age restrictions is certainly not the most popular one. If this holds up then proxy services and even Google's cache may soon be banned under the same guise."
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UK Mobile ISP Blocks VPN, Citing Access To Porn

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @06:55PM (#44792941)

    You report all suspicious packets, yes?

  • You can switch off the blocking if you so wish on the giffgaff web site.

    News at 11.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:01PM (#44792983)

      Even if opt-out, this is NOT acceptable, NOT negotiable.

      This is parasitic madness and shall be treated as such.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Monday September 09, 2013 @03:39AM (#44795117) Homepage Journal

        I have been corresponding with my MP about this and in her last letter she indicated that circumventing Cameron's porn filter would become illegal. I asked her for urgent clarification of this point as it would appear to outlaw many vital technologies, including VPNs.

        I just hope it was a mistake on her part, otherwise privacy will be criminalized.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Xest ( 935314 )

          May I ask who your MP is?

          I like to keep an eye on the most retarded of politicians in case, you know, they get promoted.

        • I have been corresponding with my MP about this and in her last letter she indicated that circumventing Cameron's porn filter would become illegal. I asked her for urgent clarification of this point as it would appear to outlaw many vital technologies, including VPNs.

          I just hope it was a mistake on her part, otherwise privacy will be criminalized.

          ISTR that social services had already made a comment on the radio that they would use whether you'd turned the filtering off to determine your fitness as a parent. Unfortunately I can't find a recording of the interview. :(

      • by Xest ( 935314 ) on Monday September 09, 2013 @04:56AM (#44795409)

        Yep, switched mobile provider lately and got opted in. Went to a news story about some new Lego product, clicked the link to view pics of it

        YOUR ADULT CONTENT FILTER PROHIBITS YOU FROM VIEWING THIS MATERIAL

        Lego. Fucking Lego for god damn sake. I cannot fucking view pictures of a Lego set, because of a fucking opt out porn filter I never wanted.

        All opt-out filters must fucking die.

      • by jaseuk ( 217780 )

        No, this is excellent news.

        This means that there are absolutely legitimate reasons to ask your ISP to turn off the filter. There was an implication that if you had kids and disabled the filter you might get some funny looks from the authorities. I run several VPNs for work based purposes, so good to know I have a cast iron reason for switching off any porn filter.

        Excellent!

        Jason.

    • by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:01PM (#44792987)

      Yes, I'm on giffgaff and have turned off all restrictions. It's mostly to do with Camoron wanting all UK ISPs to 'think of the children' and opt out of censorship.

      If our Prime Minister gets what he wants it's going to be an awkward time for people who host a lot of different types of website. Many that allow users to submit their own content such as forums may be blocked too, perhaps even slashdot.

      That said, if the blocks are too tight then most people will opt out, but this censorship needs to be nipped in the bud before it gets too out of control. At the beginning it's marketed as a way of keeping children safe from porn and other possible controversial content, but when the infrastructure is in place it'll be easy to block anything the government doesn't want.

      • by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:51PM (#44793209)

        It's mostly to do with Camoron wanting all UK ISPs to 'think of the children' and opt out of censorship.

        Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely by other people just like them.

        They are invariably the lowest form of scum humanity has to offer, worse even than rapists and murderers... because at least you know where you stand with them, and you know they're evil. "For the children" people are just as evil, but they wrap themselves in robes and go about talking about how holy they are. Put them all on the island, setup cameras, and wait.

        I assure you, within a few months... most of them will be dead, because they'll all be trying to one-up each other with dogmatic proclaimations... and invariably when you have a high concentration of such ideology... people start dying. A lot.

        • by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @09:28PM (#44793589)
          I'm trying to come up with an appropriate island.

          Oh! Got it! Antartica will work wonders.

          And they can debate global warming too!

          • by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @10:17PM (#44793807)

            Nah, there's no reason to give them an entire continent, especially since there's a slim chance they could actually survive there. I'm thinking Ilha da Queimada Grande [wikipedia.org], colloquially known as "Snake Island".

            Why is it called Snake Island? Well, there's a lot of snakes there. Just one species - the Golden Lancehead, which is extremely venomous. But legend holds that there are so many of them, they cover the island to a density of one snake per five square meters. Oh, and they can live in the trees. The island is so dangerous the Brazilian government (not particularly famous for caring about the safety of its people) has prohibited people from even visiting.

            With all those snakes, I'm sure the politicians will fit right in.

          • They'll melt it with all the hot air they generate.

          • I'm trying to come up with an appropriate island.

            Oh! Got it! Antartica will work wonders.

            And they can debate global warming too!

            The problem with Antarctica is that once the ice has all melted, there will still be a lot of land.

            The North Pole on the other hand...

          • If Antartica is now an Island, than Eurasia is an Island, Africa is an Island, and the Americas are an island.

        • Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely by other people just like them.

          I say ship them to an island with other people's children.

          Enjoy....

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday September 09, 2013 @03:27AM (#44795041)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by lxs ( 131946 )

          Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely by other people just like them.

          Yeah but iPredator does sound awfully like an app for child molesters.

        • It's mostly to do with Camoron wanting all UK ISPs to 'think of the children' and opt out of censorship.

          Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely by other people just like them.

          The UK has bad enough immigration problems as it is.

        • Already being done, although sadly that island appears to be Britain :-(

        • From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

          Daily Mail Island, a reality TV show where several normal people are deposited on an island and not allowed access to any media other than the strongly right-wing and conservative Daily Mail newspaper, leading to them becoming progressively more irrational and brutal as the series progresses - for example, tying teenage lovers together with sacks on their heads and beating them, or sealing a teenager caught masturbating into a coffin filled with broken glass and dog faeces and throwing it over a cliff and their language devolving into rhetorical questions and sarcastic snorts.

          As with all the best satire, it's hilariously difficult to distinguish it from reality. Sadly (and I say this as a resident), Daily Mail Island feels like it's becoming synonymous with the United Kingdom.

        • Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely by other people just like them.

          I was about to post something along the lines of maybe you will feel differently when you have kids of your own but then maybe you never will judging by your profile saying DYKE in big letters. I get the impression you are still quite young though so that may change, many women do when they start looking at the menopause in their late thirties.

          The thing is, I have no real problem with attempts to block porn that can be turned off by adults. I know they are not 100% effective I know that have tons of false p

          • As a parent myself, I'm really glad you're not responsible for raising my children.

            My kids are still too young to be aware of porn in any way shape or form (the oldest is 2). However something I've done from day one is to say that I will not shelter my kids from the world - I will teach them about it.

            Do I want them looking at porn when they're older? No... but I don't really mind if they do either - as long as I've had a chance to talk to them about it and help them understand what it is. Once they start

        • Think of the children.

          Think of letting them grow up in a world where freedom is the norm and not a special privilege.

          Think of them growing up in a world where sharp edges abound and ugly sights are to be seen and won't come as a massive traumatic event because they grew up in a big fuzzy mind-numbing cocoon.

          Think of the parents taking responsibility for their own children and teaching them how to deal with the seamier sides of life as they encounter them. Many of the most scarring events of life aren't goin

        • girlintraining wrote:
          >Anyone who uses a 'best interests of the children' argument
          >should be immediately shipped to an island populated entirely
          >by other people just like them ... Put them all on the island,
          > setup cameras,

          The island is called Great Britain[1], do feel free to visit us. Everyone over the age of about, oh, five, has a mobile phone. 3G mobile data and fibreoptic broadband has near-complete coverage in all of the island's urban and suburban areas, with rollout plans for all rural ar

      • perhaps even slashdot.

        No perhaps about it, mate.

        I specifically remember when and why I got my phone connection unblocked. After finally getting round to getting data on my phone, I want to check slashdot and BAM. Blocked.

        What's really curious is that it was blocked from the phone browser, but not from data connections treating the phone as a 3G modem.

    • by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:06PM (#44792999)

      Few people know they can do so. For the vast majority, there's no option but the default.

      • by pla ( 258480 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:24PM (#44793081) Journal
        Few people know they can do so. For the vast majority, there's no option but the default.

        While I agree with you in principle, and 100% oppose attempts to censor the net by anyone, for any reason... I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who would use a VPN in the first place know all about "Hadrian's Firewall" and that they can opt out of it (for now).

        That said - Seriously Cameron, WTF? Yes, the internet makes porn easier to get to than ever before; don't act all stuffy about the idea of kids seeing it, however, when we old-timers made due juuust fine with our dads' stash of Playboys, and turned out well enough.

        / Started "reading it for the articles" sometime around age 7.
        // Gainfully employed, debt-free, and in a happy, stable, long-term relationship.
        • by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Monday September 09, 2013 @01:35AM (#44794627)

          however, when we old-timers made due juuust fine with our dads' stash of Playboys, and turned out well enough.

          For what its worth, that stash of playboy's is not the same as the porn online.

          Going online is like finding your dad's stash of hardcore gangbang masochistic anal humiliation fetish porn. Except my dad didn't have a stash of that. So although I was exposed to porn as a kid, it wasn't anything like that. And frankly, I'm not sure kids starting to look at porn should be dropped headfirst into the deep-end of the porn-pool.

          It would be nice if one could somehow start with "playboy",and then move up from there in the modern world. The main pages of modern internet porn hubs are crammed full of stuff that doesn't look like fun, doesn't look pleasurable, and that most people don't find the least bit erotic or sexy. A lot of it is pretty grotesque.

          Its like learning about food and the pleasures of eating by watching eating contests, food related clips from fear factor and jackass, followed by someone getting their stomach pumped, then someone popping mentos and rootbeer, then 2 girls 1 cup.

          I don't object to the stuff that's online existing, or that its legal, or that some people choose to produce and consume it, or that some people get off on it.

          But when an 8 or 12 or however old kid starts to be curious about sex and porn... I'd prefer they not have to be subjected straight to that on the first day out.

          • by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Monday September 09, 2013 @01:57AM (#44794707) Journal

            If only there were some way of monitoring or teaching a child as they grow up. I know, we could appoint one or two adults who would be responsible for looking after the child, teaching them right from wrong, preventing them from doing some things, encouraging them to do other things.

            And I suggest this be named "parenting".

            I'm pretty sure this would work out much better for everyone instead of having a secret list of web sites you can't access without gov't permission.

            I wonder what the percentage of blocked sites is that don't actually have most people would consider "porn" on them is up to on this secret list? 10%? 20%?

            • Yes, but we still have to live in a world where people were raised with neglectful or absentee parents. I don't live in Britain, but if they were proposing a block like this in the US I would oppose it. Still, while I agree this is definitely the parents' responsibility, we shouldn't necessarily craft policy based on what could happen in an ideal world.

              • by amiga3D ( 567632 )

                Face it. If parents aren't paying attention to their children then internet porn is the least of their problems.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

            You have stumbled on the key problem that makes sex education extremely difficult and ineffective. We won't give our children pornography. They want it, they want to learn about sex and and to be aroused. They are bombarded by sexualized imagery every day. Everyone knows this, we all joke about teenagers and boxes of tissues, but for some reason it is preference to make them seek out porn by themselves online instead of just giving them some that we approve of.

            Maybe schools should give out non-violent, cons

      • But if you go to so much effort and have the knowledge to set up a VPN on your mobile device, surely you'd know to go to the giffgaff site and switch this blocking off anyway.

        • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @09:47PM (#44793661)

          I am using giffgaff right now. You need to give your passport number to giffgaff in order to lift the ban.

          Bloody goodthink.

          The entire point of this is to prevent anonymous internet use. It has nothing to do with pornography.

          • You need to give your passport number to giffgaff in order to lift the ban.

            And what if you don't have a passport? The last I heard possessing them isn't mandatory if you never wish to leave the country...

        • I'm sorry, but there are lots of mobile business users that don't know dick about this. These people will call their companies help desk to get the problem sorted.

          I wouldn't let anyone in to my office network without a VPN. No that VPN got blocked. Any provider that generates extra work for me or my department, will be on the list of "too bloody expensive" and will lose my business. My current employer happens to have a few hundred people in such a contract and often customers have similar or higher number

    • by RussR42 ( 779993 )
      Can you still switch it off if your a traveler on a hotel NAT that needs to VPN to the office? What if you're trying to do some business from a coffee shop or other public wi-fi location? I hope they all remember to opt out for you.
    • by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      2: fine-grained opt-out.
      3: automatic opt-in for upon re-categorization of websites.
      3: hourly re-categorization and fine-grained opt-out at the URL level.
      Overreaction? False slippery slope?

    • by N1AK ( 864906 )
      The summary is also pretty biased, intentionally or not. Using VPNs to dodge filters probably isn't the most common use however it may well be the most common use by people who aren't the contract owner and thus aren't able to turn the filter off.

      I'm not in favour of auto-on filters, nor do I think they will be effective enough; that doesn't mean that blocking VPNs doesn't make a lot of sense if you are trying to limit someone's ability to get around a filter.
  • by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @06:57PM (#44792955) Journal
    When are they going to figure out that they're not qualified to make public policy on technology matters? Censorship sucks (and doesn't work), filtering doesn't work. Here's a suggestion for you instead: How about you get parents to actually pay attention to what their kids are doing instead of making the internet tougher and more annoying to use for everyone?
    • by 10101001 10101001 ( 732688 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:24PM (#44793073) Journal

      When are they going to figure out that they're not qualified to make public policy on technology matters?

      Depends on what you mean by "not qualified". You're also presuming a lot on the politicians (and their supports) stating their true intentions.

      Censorship sucks (and doesn't work), filtering doesn't work.

      For people who want censorship, censorship is great. To the extent that the filter hassles anyone, the filter is working. You have to understand, the purpose isn't to really block porn. It's to stigmatize it and those who would commit actions that seem designed to be able to view it.

      Here's a suggestion for you instead: How about you get parents to actually pay attention to what their kids are doing instead of making the internet tougher and more annoying to use for everyone?

      Except that's the whole point. It's to (a) allow irresponsible parents to have the ISPs (through UK government mandate) be a babysitter. More importantly, it's to (b) allow busybodies to force their viewpoint on group (a) because group (b) believes they *are* responsible parents and it's everyone else's kids who are doing all sorts of evil things, spurred on by lustful things like pornography. The more annoyed they may people of group (a) and the more vocally against the censorship group (a) is, the more group (b) can counter with vocal chastising of "irresponsible parents". Because if those in the media chose to voluntarily not make moral judgments in their news reporting, that's oppression of (b) and their God. But, if group (b) actively uses the government to suppress access to pornography against the wishes of more liberal-minded, responsible-acting parents, well, that's just fine--because you can always get your name added to the, possibly made pubic in the future, opt-out list.

      • by Velex ( 120469 )

        Funny how kids of holier-than-thous usually tend to end up being lonely alcoholics. If only the holier-than-thous would actually do what's best for the children, like, oh I don't know, I can't have children myself because of what my ex-parents did to me, but maybe we could start from the premise that in 18 short years, your innocent child is going to be all growed up no matter whether you shelter him or not. And if you had a female child, god help you, because sheltering her about sex is going to get her

      • by PRMan ( 959735 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @08:47PM (#44793405)
        Funny how in the UK, TV is full of near porn but the internet is blocked. In the US, the internet is full of porn but the TV is nearly blocked (unless you buy special channels).
        • So over the air networks are regulated by the FCC. Nudity, strong language, etc are all regulated. So they have legal limits they have to comply with. However the cable channels, they can do as they wish. Why then are only the premium ones the only ones with (more than a little) nudity? Ad money. The networks all have standards and practices divisions to work with the creators of shows to keep things such that advertisers are happy, and to work with advertisers to keep them happy. Advertisers worry about th

      • >Implying that anything you're talking about is good or right, or what the majority wants
    • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      They're not qualified to make public policy - period.
      • Anyone who can gets themselves elected [to public office] should not be allowed to do the job! ---paraphrasing HHGG.

    • by trawg ( 308495 )

      When are they going to figure out that they're not qualified to make public policy on technology matters?

      When we stop voting the same people in, I guess

  • Spooks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EEPROMS ( 889169 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @06:57PM (#44792959)
    Or the spooks have been putting a bit of pressure on the CEO's. You would be surprised what you can do with a bit of information regarding the lifestyle of board members of an ISP.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @06:58PM (#44792967)

    I thought the "point" of the filter was to make access to pornographic content opt-in? Wouldn't using a VPN like that just imply you're opting in?

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The filter would be sold to the public for 'evil' content been opt-in.
      Long term expect web 2.0 posts that disagree, US web based private sector news sites, political blogs to just stop working.
      Local UK issues are going international and been debated at a national level in the UK.
      A good UK web filter might slow this interactive web 2.0 problem just enough for gov spin to work again.
      VPN was good, easy, fast, cheap, a set and forget method that would have kept UK news flowing.
    • The argument is that it lets minors subvert their parents' wishes. If the parents wanted their kids being able to access porn, they would have turned the filter off in the first place.

  • by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:09PM (#44793011)

    Ban every possible means of bypassing an age filter.
    VPN's
    Google
    Email
    Facebook

    See how popular it becomes.

    • The *internet* is objectionable. There is no content that is inane. Every letter can be abused for multiple purposes. The whole internet should be an opt-in.

      • Re:Do it! (Score:5, Funny)

        by iamhigh ( 1252742 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:47PM (#44793197)

        The whole internet should be an opt-in.

        Good idea. It would be awesome if we implemented a system where you had to actually call up specified companies and request that they hook your house up to the internet. Maybe we could even set it up to have a monthly charge!

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      No more cool running, cheap, low power chip projects as the digital 'branding' of the UK to the world?
      Welcome to a sealed digital Berlin (Hadrian's) wall? To be seen to put that up is very telling about the political mindset.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      This may be the solution. Presumably there will be a mechanism for people to report sites and we can flood that, but more over it seems like it would easy to get all sorts of things banned just by posting risqué material. An avatar image, some ASCII boobs, even a perfectly innocent an obviously joking threat to blow up a regional airport.

    • by Burz ( 138833 )

      That's why TAILS comes with I2P built-in... Like Tor it can get around censorship, but its more robust and can handle multimedia torrents and such. Mere VPNs are not a very smart way to share stuff because IPs can be so tightly linked with identity. On I2P, you can share stuff with friends, having the traffic-mixing benefits of both onion routing and P2P, and if the default isn't fast enough then you can reduce the number of hops for a speed boost and still have more anonymity than a VPN can provide.

  • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:24PM (#44793077)

    Just give it time... remember, remember the 5th of November

  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @07:43PM (#44793179)
    free speech tomorrow, its only a matter of time before the internet is dead (worldwide)

    maybe pirate radio will become more popular again, and the free speech will flow over the airwaves, the pirate radio i hear lately is crappy music over static on shortwave, yeah, thats what i want to hear low fidelity music on shortwave when i have a nice stereo sitting right here in the room with me, pirate radio has gone to hell nowadays, what i want to hear on pirate radio is something i dont hear anywhere else, like news that is suppressed on mainstream, criticizing of the government that needs to be said but the mainstream is afraid to touch it
    • by Burz ( 138833 )

      No doubt, when there is another (non-sports) riot in the UK there will be a network clampdown.

  • The more people will find $2/month VPS machines running OpenVPN.

  • by fnj ( 64210 )

    UK the censors. We who are about to censor salute you. /s

  • Don't be fooled. This is a blatant power-grab. A black-hat operation wrapped in a white cloak.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Yes the legal step of you been your 'ip' is getting more political and legal traction.
      No more finding your VPN provider, getting the legal paperwork and tracking you back to your ISP for long term logging.
      The vision seems to be of local gov workers/contractors well below any court, police or security services getting direct details from any UK ip.
      An automated realtime or historic lookup would give your details and the option to "request" net use logging.
      Wonderful if your staff have gone to the press ab
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @08:23PM (#44793329)

    Living in South Korea (not North Korea, but the actual democractic South), and they're censoring stuff like crazy, and not just porn. Websites like Fark.com can't be accessed at the PC rooms, and I assume that's only going to get worse. If they follow suit with the UK and eliminate access to VPN (the current way to deal with the censoring), what are the ways to deal with this?

    (PS: I'm not technologically literate -- it was a real coup just to get VPN working in the first place.)

    • Living in South Korea (not North Korea, but the actual democractic South), and they're censoring stuff like crazy, and not just porn. Websites like Fark.com can't be accessed at the PC rooms, and I assume that's only going to get worse. If they follow suit with the UK and eliminate access to VPN (the current way to deal with the censoring), what are the ways to deal with this?

      (PS: I'm not technologically literate -- it was a real coup just to get VPN working in the first place.)

      I think you've answered your own question...

    • by Burz ( 138833 )

      I2P is better for sharing media files than Tor or a VPN, and its included with TAILS. It has both iMule and bittorrent, and it has played an anti-censorship role in North Korea. You can also change the hops setting to improve the speed if you don't need as much anonymity; The full number of hops can be kind of slow.

      http://geti2p.net/ [geti2p.net]

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @09:22PM (#44793563)

    Growing up in the 1990s I hit puberty right around the time the Internet exploded. I'm first hand evidence that *heavy use of pornography* is not indicative of anything harmful. I started masturbating to really creepy stuff at about 11 too. Creepy has good side effects for some people and there is nothing wrong with that. If anything it probably kept me sane in a world that shuns any sexual deviations.

    On the outside I probably didn't seem that different. I had numerous short 'sexual' relationships. However without pornography I would have had a very depressing 'childhood'. I knew from a very early age (after puberty) that there was a near zero percent change I'd ever find a compatible mate and for 17 years I was alone. I gave up dating before a I even really started despite a dozen or so relationships over the years. Statistically there was a near zero chance of finding someone with sufficiently similar tastes (this is after you take into account the Internet and knowledge of how to use a search engine).

    One day though I came across someone in the most unlikely of places whom I found interesting. Both sexually attractive (rarity for me) AND with near-identical interests. At first I didn't do anything as it was statistically unlikely they would be in the same boat as me. After 4 days or so I decided to contact them anyway. I took chances occasionally over the years-always being turned down. Turns out he was interested in me as well and he too had an uncommon sexual orientation. We did some fast dating over less than a week (real world) and after a month and 300 miles later he turned his whole life upside down for me. We're now inseparable.

    And guess what else- I'm a very important and respectable figure. I'm the CEO of a startup and growing corporation. The only thing that has ever been a real problem for me is other peoples perception of my sexual orientation. Something I've had no choice but to keep quiet about. Everybody has a screwed up view of the world. The media and others have scapegoated people like myself and put forth a negative undeserved stereotype that gives the perception of danger. In reality you can make any group out to be a threat given you pick out crazies from within that group and then use the right communication, of biased words, repeatedly, in a continuous stream of negative shocking propaganda over decades of time.

    • Awesome, and good for you.

      You can never run for public office; The character assassination will be horrific. You will also lose business if some of your clients find this out about you. Prejudice at work, my friend.

      This is why we don't want domestic spying: People can't be trusted to not let personal prejudice affect professional decisions.
  • Great news! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LihTox ( 754597 ) on Sunday September 08, 2013 @09:31PM (#44793599)

    The tighter the filter, the more people will be annoyed by it and turn it off. And if it really were strictly a porn filter, people might be too embarrassed to opt-out. Now everyone has plausible deniability: "I need to run a VPN for work" or whatever.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08, 2013 @10:20PM (#44793825)

    This has nothing to do with VPNs in general. It has everything to do with the fact that iPredator was co-founded by Peter Sunde, former spokesman for The Pirate Bay and long term, all-around pain in the ass for the intellectual property complex.

  • Time to dust off the guillotines.

  • In the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lapm ( 750202 ) on Monday September 09, 2013 @12:32AM (#44794407)
    In the beginning it was "Think of children". In my country they drived throw illegal censorship (Our constitution denies censorship). They claimed it would be overseen, etc... It wold only effect servers not in our country.. Today its used for much more then just what it was originally intended. It censors sites critical to to this censorship system, it censors pirate sites (not even claimed to distribute child related material), etc... Censorship is such a dangerous road. Once you take the first step, its so easy to take another and then another and then another.... Until you are light year away from what was originally intended. Theres no oversight of system. List is classified, Who manages that list is classified, and theres no court oversight of it. So if you are wrongly places on censor list, theres no way to get out. It volantery system for ISP to be part of, except if you dont implement it volantery theres law we can make it... Personally i believe its problem of democracy. Too many old folks on power that dont understand modern world. They think sweeping problem under the rug is doing something, because that seemed to work in past. Child related issues will not go away if you put them under the rug, you need to take action... Unfortunately censorship is the wrong choice of action. Smoke and mirror trick that leaves problem un-handled..
    • by kegon ( 766647 )

      I have been to other countries, such as Singapore, where porn and censorship laws are stricter. They don't have problems accessing porn. They have less easy access to free speech, but they know where they can talk freely.

      Most of the time the justification for such things is not "think of the children", but social harmony or "protection of public morals".

      It's like a handful of sand. The tighter the grip, the more slips through your fingers.

  • vodafone in the mobile contracts/lower tier of Internet offerings also blocks voIP here in Portugal; at the end of the day this operations are just penny pinching.
  • Bottom line is thus (and im a Giff-Gaff customer), is that it's a pay as you go network. From what I understand, these are designed to lock down on adult content (including betting sites I learnt the hard way) because anyone can buy a payg sim card. I had to put my driving licence number into the website to prove I was older then 18 (which is ironic considering in the UK you can have one at 17 but I digress...).

    There was no "opt out of Tory porn lockdown" button to click, and giff-gaff will let me watch por

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