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Many years ago, I used to work for Vodafone - and had some responsibility for their filtering stuff. One of the main problems was that, at the time, it was all
by edent 5y ago
Many years ago, I used to work for Vodafone - and had some responsibility for their filtering stuff.
One of the main problems was that, at the time, it was all managed by Blue Coat. As they were a US company, many of the "violations" that they picked up just weren't considered problematic for a UK / EU audience.
Similarly, they would use blanked keyword blocking. So sex education resources would frequently get blocked. Although, again, that may have been by puritanical design.
Anything which looked like it might be used to bypass their filters (VPN, proxies, etc) were also blocked.
Ultimately, the customer isn't the user. It is the network who are terrified that Johnny's parent is going to go to the papers screaming about how the evil phone company corrupted their innocent child. That's all it is there for - to protect the network.
- ______-_-______ 5y agoI wonder what the disconnect is that causes people to blame Vodafone for content requested over their network, but not Royal Mail for the content that arrives in their mailbox, or Google/Chrome for the content of webpages, or Dunder Mifflin for content printed on paper. Has that ever actually happened, or is it just corporate risk aversion?
- pc86 5y agoWell there was that quabbity assuence issue with the two cartoon characters..
- joosters 5y agoOddly enough, vodafone filtering is less restrictive in other ways. For instance, they never blocked The Pirate Bay, but I just switched ISP from vodafone and my new ISP (Sky) blocks the site via some TLS tricks. It's odd because while adult content blocks are purely a per-ISP choice (they offer it as a service/choice to customers), I had thought that TPB was blocked because of court orders. So how come one ISP blocks it, and other doesn't?
- doublerabbit 5y agoIf you wish to throw conspiracy in to the mix, data logging for govermentental safe-keeping. Sounded like scifi in the 00's.
- manarth 5y ago> "I had thought that TPB was blocked because of court orders. > So how come one ISP blocks it, and other doesn't?" The court order[1] had 6 defined defendants: - BRITISH SKY BROADCASTING LIMITED - BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLC - EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE LIMITED - TALKTALK TELECOM GROUP PLC - TELEFÓNICA UK LIMITED - VIRGIN MEDIA LIMITED The court order only affected the listed ISPs (at that time, 94% share of the consumer ISP market). Other ISPs were under no obligation to do the same. [1] http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/268.html&query=pirate&method=Boolean http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/...
- posterboy 5y agoNo obligation? The DA could sue immediately in the public interest, or if not it could be the original plaintiff, and then the remaining ISPs would have the opportunity to defend their cause themselves.
- nybble41 5y ago> The DA could sue immediately in the public interest… It's not in the public interest to block TPB. The DA would be suing for the sake of private interests, against the public, and at the public's expense.
- ArchOversight 5y agoThere's no DA in the UK.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y agoNot criminal law. No DA. (You do get “plaintiff” right, so I’m mildly confused)
- protomyth 5y agoUltimately, the customer isn't the user. It is the network who are terrified that Johnny's parent is going to go to the papers screaming about how the evil phone company corrupted their innocent child. That's all it is there for - to protect the network. You're not kidding. The biggest fear is a parent complaining because a library or school filter fails. People really don't give a damn what a hard problem it is nor do they care that browsers are starting to add counter measures to skip over ISP filtering. Doesn't matter if you don't have control of the laptop, you are still to blame. At this point, I wonder what the next generation of filtering software is going to do.
- dylan604 5y agoI can see where filtering just takes the standard US insurance companies policy of deny, deny, deny.
- dmlorenzetti 5y agoSimilarly, they would use blanked keyword blocking. So sex education resources would frequently get blocked. I had a colleague whose surname, Sextro, was part of his email address. He occasionally had messages blocked by blanket filters like that.
- _joel 5y agoPraying for all the people who use the shortened form of Richard
- rajangdavis 5y agoRich?
- filoleg 5y agoI believe they were referecing a bit more relevant to the discussion short version of "Richard", which is "Dick".
- sedeki 5y agoInteresting, TIL.
- DiggyJohnson 5y agoBob is short for Robert, too by the way. I make a point to mention that my cat’s full name is Robert. I enjoy the reactions: person either looks at me like I’m a moron for thinking this is something worth spending the energy to say out loud, or they really enjoy it. I digress.
- sedeki 5y agoYeah, I did know that. However "Richard" and "Dick" are much more distant in some sense... I had no idea.
- j_san 5y ago> As they were a US company, many of the "violations" that they picked up just weren't considered problematic for a UK / EU audience. Just out of curiosity: could you provide some examples?
- LorenPechtel 5y agoWhile I can't provide examples a UK company isn't going to care about bare breasts.
- _fat_santa 5y agoIs this filtering an extra feature like parental controls or corporate filtering? Or was this just blanket filtering applied to all Vodafone customers?
- kalleboo 5y agoIn the UK the filtering is on by default. The customer can opt out of the filtering by contacting the ISP and requesting to opt out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kingdom#ISP_Default_network_blocking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
- mnd999 5y agoMy ISP asked my if I wanted filtering when I signed up. Amusingly if you say yes it suggests you find a different ISP.