UK ‘porn block’ starts April 1 – but you can unlock it by handing over ID or buying £5 ‘porn card’ on your local high street

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8565486/porn-uk-ban-unlock-card/

Guess sales of VPNs will be going up

The new rules are expected to come into effect on April 1, though an exact date has not yet been set.

Aye, right…

April 1st, who would have thought about releasing a statement like that on April 1st?

🤷‍♂️🧟‍♂️

I can see no problems with this legislation – it will work perfectly.

For an example, porn is illegal in Thailand. Anyone who has visited will be able to confirm there is no porn in that country. Making it illegal is 100% effective.

Edit, never mind

The problem these days is that the red tops post blatant lies all year around not just on April 1. So who’s to know? Best assume everything you read in a red top is bollocks.

Best assume everything you read in a red top is bollocks.

My rule is simpler – don’t read them.

First planned for some time last year but got put on hold after even the maybot realised it was badly planned.
Multiple flaws not least overseas providers can simply ignore it and others can amuse themselves by getting under the limit on porn vs other offerings.

Edukator

Member

The problem these days is that the red tops post blatant lies all year around not just on April 1. So who’s to know? Best assume everything you read in a red top is bollocks.

Or, rather than wasting precious bytes to post that, you could have just gone to your favourite search engine and typed in “online porn block uk april 2019” and got the following results and saved us all some time:

Government’s Ineffective UK ISP Internet Porn Ban Coming April 2019

https://news.sky.com/story/porn-websites-to-check-uk-users-ages-as-law-passes-11604331

Plan to require ID for all online porn from April ‘to go ahead’

Are the government trying to actively create civil unrest?

Forget No-Deal Brexit, if you want to see real riots on the streets then just try blocking porn!

“The legislation can be used to compel ISPs to block access to non-compliant websites,” added Mr Brown.

“Worryingly, this does not involve a court, and it expressly permits ‘overblocking’ – the blocking of ‘material other than the offending material’.”

Not at all bothered about a (presumably ineffective) attempt to block underage access to porn, but this is more worrying imo, another incursion into net neutrality.

A friend of mine is wondering if he will still be able to access P**nhub without a government issued masturbation license?

Start stockpiling now just in case.

Start?

A friend of mine is wondering if he will still be able to access P**nhub without a government issued masturbation license?

I don’t look forward to the test to acquire the license.

a government issued masturbation license?

🤠☝️

Not at all bothered about a (presumably ineffective) attempt to block underage access to porn, but this is more worrying imo, another incursion into net neutrality.

Pretty much my thoughts. We’re quietly turning into China.

It’s all rather pointless anyway, it’s not like it’s difficult to bypass ISP filtering.

It’s all rather pointless anyway, it’s not like it’s difficult to bypass ISP filtering.

Are you going to post a guide? Asking for a friend😉

Government issued masturbation licence

I see this going the way of the hunting ban.

We’re quietly turning into China.

I think the problem is that we’re turning Japanese. (I really think so).

It’s all rather pointless anyway, it’s not like it’s difficult to bypass ISP filtering.

I dunno some seem to struggle even using a VPN.

Its not actually being banned as such just controlled.

Are you going to post a guide?

TOR browser, for a start. Creates an encrypted tunnel (which the ISP cannot see into) with an endpoint in another country. And the only way they’ll block that is by outlawing encryption, which would be a really ****ig stupid thing to do so I wouldn’t put it past Enola May to try.

We’re quietly turning into China.

I think the problem is that we’re turning Japanese. (I really think so).

Well I laughed*

*The Yorkshire lol: downturned corners of mouth briefly twitched towards the horizontal

I think the problem is that we’re turning Japanese. (I really think so).

Indeed and where will the teenagers get their kicks then?

Its not actually being banned as such just controlled.

Yeah, but aside from anything else, part of my job is to investigate dodgy websites (OK, not grot per se, but malware-infected pages and suchlike). Anything put in place ‘for my protection’ makes my job (slightly) more difficult. I’m not a fan of slippery-slope arguments generally, but I have a real concern here that this is the thin end of a very large wedge. I don’t really want to start ringing Sky up to justify my being able to visit places like Shodan.

Cougar
And the only way they’ll block that is by outlawing encryption, which would be a really ****ig stupid thing to do so I wouldn’t put it past Enola May to try.

Didn’t they try that one already? 🤦‍♂️

In Tor you can choose a favoured country code for the exit node, so that should work. However it’s pretty slow. VPN is a lot better solution.

How long do you think it will be until one of the companies doing the verification has a data breach?

Didn’t they try that one already?

Australia are currently trying it again so why not our muppets?

How long do you think it will be until one of the companies doing the verification has a data breach?

One of the more prominent ones is Mindgeek. Its a great website to look at. Vague as anything in what they do beyond data stuff. In reality they are the owners of pornhub and many of the other large porn sites.

If people don’t want people on their network to have access to a random list of sites why not install some parental control software or whatever? Why is this a government thing?

Why is this a government thing?

Because the redtops or the daily hate made a thing of it I suspect. That and many parents cant be arsed doing their job.
In some ways I am slightly in favour of it. We need a more IT literate population and this sort of thing will help boost it amongst schoolkids.

Can we ask that Grayling is put in charge of the scheme?

We need a more IT literate population and this sort of thing will help boost it amongst schoolkids.

Ha! Brilliant subversive logic!

Indeed and where will the teenagers get their kicks then?

Are you suggesting that this law will make it so hard to beat?

Amusing thread juxtaposition on the front page just now.

the return of hedgeporn? grumble being blocked from april 1st
Exercise / workout videos

Just link it to anyone who has a driving licence, as drivers are all w⚓️S anyway
Get a vpn? Knowing my luck I’d choose a Saudi Arabian one

etc etc

Didn’t they try that one already? 🤦‍♂️

Yeah. It’s ludicrous for two reasons.

1) It’s no exaggeration to say that blocking encrypted traffic would open up catastrophically massive security risks. Fancy doing your online banking over HTTP? Internet shopping?

2) Attempting to ban secure encryption instead would be impossible as the knowledge and technology is in the public domain. If you could somehow remove all the existing tech (and good luck with that), it’d be ten minutes’ work for a competent coder to just rewrite it. It’d be like attempting to ban French.

Oh, this made me laugh. From that Sky article:

“Although the porn regulations had been delayed as the government sought to work out some kinks,”

The only way newspapers used to keep going is because people bought a copy so they could hide their Jazz mag in when walking away from the newsagent! 🙂

The fall in newspaper sales since the rise of the internet is no coincidence!

the return of hedgeporn?

…which would itself expose the children to the sorts of utter FILTH that this well-intentioned and not at all ill-thought-out initiative is supposed to block from them.
It’s almost as if it’s got nothing to do with children and more about a weirdly prudish government on some kind of moral crusade trying to insert itself ever further into the lives of its mindless drones, sorry, voters.