Internet censorship

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 21 Nov 2011, 08:44

Over the years several people have posted about how the Internet will be an early victim of collapse. Here's a pre-emptive campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czY-dZQsd-k

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 21 Nov 2011, 09:10

The internet is already censored in the UK, about 98% of users receive censored content. Blocked sites return 404 page not found errors.
Sites are blocked by "specialy trained" staff and there is no judicial oversight, blocked sites are not informed that they are to be blocked, nor is there a publicly available list of blocked sites.

It would be very easy to reverse the system and allow only approved sites.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 21 Nov 2011, 10:38

Dom,

I'm not saying you are wrong, but evidence please.

We all know it is closely monitored. I expect some censorship of right wing and Islamic fundamentalist content, and some content 'useful to terrorists'.

I expect there is honeypot content left on the web to trap the naive, to track the freshly radicalised.

However, how wide this goes I do not know. What we have seen with undercover police operations suggests 'they' cast their net wide, and I have some idea who 'they' are, but I suspect a lot of it is more keystone cops than Stazi in its scope.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 21 Nov 2011, 11:10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 21 Nov 2011, 11:11

RalphW wrote:Dom,

I'm not saying you are wrong, but evidence please.

We all know it is closely monitored. I expect some censorship of right wing and Islamic fundamentalist content, and some content 'useful to terrorists'.

I expect there is honeypot content left on the web to trap the naive, to track the freshly radicalised.

A couple of months ago Alex Jones was asking his readers/viewers to send in their recordings of his show because he "didn't have time" to dig them out... Bloody weird behaviour if you ask me; why couldn't he get someone else on his staff to do it? Maybe I'm wrong but that screamed "honey trap" to me.

Then there's the professional-looking "Above Top Secret" site in the US - rumoured, on what basis I can't remember, to be run by the CIA.

It's naive to imagine that only Islamists and right-wingers are being targeted. TBTB will be wanting to track anyone with half a clue what's really going on in the world. And that includes us

I think Ralph you're still labouring under the delusion that our leaders are there to protect us. IMO that changed a long time ago.

I think it's naive to imagine that TPTB won't be monitoring this site. I feel increasingly nervous about what I write here... but then I think, ah well, the future's going to be s**t whatever happens so what's the difference?

I suppose it's even possible that some regular posters to this site are not what they seem

However, how wide this goes I do not know. What we have seen with undercover police operations suggests 'they' cast their net wide, and I have some idea who 'they' are, but I suspect a lot of it is more keystone cops than Stazi in its scope.

Probably once a week I click a link to a controversial-sounding page, and get a "page not found" or "this page no longer exists" error.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 21 Nov 2011, 13:01

DominicJ wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation

Definitely Keystone Cops end of the spectrum. More a sop to Daily Hate readers than serious attempt to censure.

At the level described in that article nobody with any IT wherewithal would be even mildly inconvenienced. Of course, it is useful as it blurs the legality of censorship boundaries, and provides an operating framework for honeypot operations.

I am a bit alarmed to discover they are based in the village next to mine. I knew it had a high level of God fearing prurience, but I didn't know they took it to this extent.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 21 Nov 2011, 13:05

Ludwig wrote:
I suppose it's even possible that some regular posters to this site are not what they seem

I think I've posted before about my links to GCHQ....

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 21 Nov 2011, 13:35

Ralph
I thought the only way to get round it is to not use their feed?
If you send a request to the BT servers asking for a blocked page, they respond that the page doesnt exist.
Proxy servers arent going to bypass that, unless they arent going through the BT servers, so your using a PC out of the country, which I think goes a bit beyond basic understanding to bypass.

And remember, you had forgotten it even existed, so even if you could bypass it, you didnt know you should.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 21 Nov 2011, 14:03

I'm not saying that this inept attempt at censorship couldn't or doesn't inconvenience me, (not that I attempt to access the kind of content they claim to be blocking). However, most people who do provide or access that kind of content have very quickly learnt to use work arounds, encryption, social media, peer to peer, etc. which this tin pot operation cannot hope to control. The internet is a rapidly evolving place, and the UK is a rank amateur (as far as I can tell) when it comes to keeping it under control. The serious internet monitoring is done by GCHQ and the US and is heavily automated. I would guess they are far more interested in tracking the people who write or read stuff, rather than censoring the content. That is why they won't allow secret intelligence in open court. They don't want people or organisations to know they are being monitored.

If they do bother to block stuff on peak oil, then so be it. I don't want to get into that level of paranoia, because I can never know the truth (my brother won't tell me !)

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 21 Nov 2011, 14:37

RalphW wrote: They don't want people or organisations to know they are being monitored.

And they don't want people to know they are not being monitored.

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 21 Nov 2011, 20:50

RalphW wrote:
DominicJ wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation
Definitely Keystone Cops end of the spectrum. More a sop to Daily Hate readers than serious attempt to censure.

At the level described in that article nobody with any IT wherewithal would be even mildly inconvenienced.

I think Ralph you're exhibiting "Cambridge Syndrome" - the assumption that the IT awareness of the general population matches that of the geekiest city in the country

Most people have no idea or interest in how the Internet works. As for me - I work in IT but I don't know how to access forbidden sites off the top of my head. I suppose I could find out, but really I can't be bothered. I spend too much time on the Internet as it is

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 21 Nov 2011, 20:59

I suppose this article in the WSJ might be relevant:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology

Peter1010 · Post by **Peter1010** » 22 Nov 2011, 07:43

Each month there is roughly 20,000 PBytes of data transferred over the global internet, PB = 1 000 000 000 000 000 bytes, I think it is extremely unlikely that the content of all that traffic is exaimed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_traffic

OK so some websites could be crawled and censored, but once again new websites are popping all the time.