Tuesday 16 June 2009

Chinese-Style Firewall, here we come!

The BBC are all over this story about "Digital Britain".

Essentially, it suggests that:

Every Briton with a fixed-line phone will pay a "small levy" of 50p per month to pay for faster net access.

The national fund created by the levy will be used to ensure most Britons get access to future net technologies.


Good old NuLabor, trying their fucking damnedest to enforce socialism across the technology spectrum as well as every other area of our lives. Why the fuck should I pay tax so some fucking mouth-breathing morlock in Betws-Y-Coed can watch BBC Cymru programs on BBC iPlayer at a decent speed? If I was unfortunate enough to live in Betws-Y-Coed I wouldn't expect someone living in civilisation to pay for me to have decent broadband - it's my own fault for living in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere.

However, it doesn't take a genius to see where this is all going...

The report also includes a pledge to curb unlawful file sharing by giving regulator Ofcom new powers to identify persistent pirates.


Bang. There it is. How will Ofcom "identify" persistent pirates? By having direct access to ISP logs of traffic. What's the easiest way of doing that? Have all ISP traffic go through hardware that either Ofcom installs, or has access to.

What comes next?

Chinese-style firewall.

I fucking guarantee it.

Most ISPs already voluntarily sign up to the IWF's blacklist, preventing access to these pages with a HTTP 404 or similar error. Nobody knows what's on the list, although there are theories of how to get it with brute-force scanning on WikiLeaks. IWF are completely unaccountable to anyone. It's not much of a step to force ISPs to follow the list rather than just persuade them, by insisting on government-owned hardware in ISPs.

4 comments:

May return soon..fuckety fuck. said...

ive seen this story on a lot of blogs today, and everyone can see it has nothing to do with technology..just how dumb do nulabore think we are?

Old Holborn said...

I have a copy of the list if you interested

Bristol Dave said...

Where the fuck did you get that from then OH :-D

Spill, I'll happily publish it.

Or is it one of the ones (from other countries) that's doing the rounds on WikiLeaks?

banned said...

My old Mum still relies on her BT landline but has no interest in the internet, conversly I have no landline but already have plenty fast broadband.

What fuckwit thought that scheme/scam up then ?