one-to-many messaging

[PeteM]

Richard Clayton wrote  on 1-04-08 12:17:
> 
> At the time that BT rolled out their system (and they were not the only
> ISP to roll out architecturally similar systems at that time, just the
> first to go on the record [because a campaigner leaked news of the
> system to one of the Sunday papers]), it could at least be said that the
> blocking didn't do much harm (assuming that the IWF list could be
> trusted -- which [unlike the recent situation in Finland] does seem to
> be the case), 

How would we know?

snip
> 
>> The content of normal traffic is left uninspected.  IP address matching
>> (clearly traffic information) re-routes packets to suspected sites hosting
>> images of child abuse.  In order to avoid accusations of censorship and
>> logistics of IP address recycling, this traffic is then "shunted" via a
>> proxy server, which then decodes HTTP layer and checks specific URLs against
>> the IWF list.
> 
> I don't think it could be said that the system avoids accusations of
> "censorship" -- it's just that very few people are prepared to stand up
> and say that suppressing access to child abuse images is "censorship".

Aren't they really? ISTM there can be no argument about that. Of course 
it is censorship. Whether it is *justified* censorship is certainly a 
matter of dispute, but that's a different argument.

It doesn't help rational discussion to blur the meaning of words like 
that, although the pro-censorship side probably favour it as a 
rhetorical trick.

> 
>> The two-stage process ensures there are good grounds for intercept before
>> the content of a data packet is inspected.
> 
> BT would (I've no doubt) say that the blocking system was part of their
> service, and hence the exemption in RIP s3(3) means that their
> interception was lawful...  if indeed there is any interception of
> content since in practice the system works entirely by inspection of
> traffic data.

Be that as it may, what is clearly not lawful is the presentation of 
forged 404s to people trying to access pages on the blocked list.


-- 
Pete Mitchell