4 ms·

She may be dumber than a brick but of all Internet communities I would expect HN to sympathize with the point she's making. Are we seriously entertaining the no

She may be dumber than a brick but of all Internet communities I would expect HN to sympathize with the point she's making. Are we seriously entertaining the notion that googling for a piece of software then downloading it from some unknown source and installing on your computer with privileges to inspect network traffic is proper user experience just because we don't like the idea of an Internet filter?

guard-of-terra 14y ago
Yes. Because if you don't have a filter you can download one, but if you have a filter built into your internet connection, you can't undownload it. You can't choose the competing solution. How is that a good thing? How would it help the bottom line in the long run?
- vidarh 14y ago
  > you can't undownload it. You can, however, call your ISP and tell them to turn it off, just like you would have told them to turn it on to start with when signing up to the service (you'd be given the choice whether to have a filtered connection or not when signing up). The linked report also includes quotes that points out that there are substantial limitations in this type of filtering that means people might still want to choose other options - e.g. it's a single setting for the entire household, so if that is not appropriate for you, you still need to download separate filters, whether you ask for your connections to be filtered or unfiltered by default.
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    [citation needed] I have an impression that once government will mandate the filter it will be more or less mandatory. For the sake of children. And your ISP will not bother much with configuring it for you because it is no longer a selling point.
ANTSANTS 14y ago
That's not a problem for a government agency to solve, that's a problem for an OS vendor to solve with proper sandboxing and a clean permissions system. Are you seriously arguing that it is acceptable to allow your government to censor and (even more) trivially monitor your internet connection for, well, any possible reason, let alone one in support of a policy that wouldn't be particularly effective even in the best case scenario at achieving its goal?
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  > Are you seriously arguing that it is acceptable to allow your government to censor and (even more) trivially monitor your internet connection for, well, any possible reason, let alone one in support of a policy that wouldn't be particularly effective even in the best case scenario at achieving its goal? No, they aren't, and nowhere in their comment do they do this. This is a clear false dichotomy argument on your part.
mibbitier 14y ago
Everyone knows how to call up their ISP and ask for filtering to be turned on or off. First step after buying a mobile phone is to call them up and get them to remove the stupid filtering.
netcan 14y ago
" I can send an email, I can click onto Windows but the minute you talk about downloading software, my brain goes bzzzz" I don't know much about the wider context. But, from reading the quotes, the point she is apparently trying to negate by playing dumb is that there are plenty of free, easy & available ways of filtering your own internet without government mandated censorship. Her point is "People are too stupid to do this for themselves. We should just filter the internet for them." I'm not sympathetic to that point. People can do it themselves (find and download software). They can ask the people who sold them their computer to do it. They can ask the people who sell them their internet to do it. They can walk into any computer shop and pay for help doing it. They can ask any remotely computer savvy friend to do it for them. I wouldn't object to a government run helpline, in-school setup. Anything voluntary. Preferably sane. Preferably effective. Preferably not at ridiculous cost. But, I'll take voluntary.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

Yes. Because if you don't have a filter you can download one, but if you have a filter built into your internet connection, you can't undownload it. You can't choose the competing solution. How is that a good thing? How would it help the bottom line in the long run?

vidarh 14y ago
> you can't undownload it. You can, however, call your ISP and tell them to turn it off, just like you would have told them to turn it on to start with when signing up to the service (you'd be given the choice whether to have a filtered connection or not when signing up). The linked report also includes quotes that points out that there are substantial limitations in this type of filtering that means people might still want to choose other options - e.g. it's a single setting for the entire household, so if that is not appropriate for you, you still need to download separate filters, whether you ask for your connections to be filtered or unfiltered by default.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  [citation needed] I have an impression that once government will mandate the filter it will be more or less mandatory. For the sake of children. And your ISP will not bother much with configuring it for you because it is no longer a selling point.

ANTSANTS 14y ago

That's not a problem for a government agency to solve, that's a problem for an OS vendor to solve with proper sandboxing and a clean permissions system. Are you seriously arguing that it is acceptable to allow your government to censor and (even more) trivially monitor your internet connection for, well, any possible reason, let alone one in support of a policy that wouldn't be particularly effective even in the best case scenario at achieving its goal?

ZoFreX 14y ago
> Are you seriously arguing that it is acceptable to allow your government to censor and (even more) trivially monitor your internet connection for, well, any possible reason, let alone one in support of a policy that wouldn't be particularly effective even in the best case scenario at achieving its goal? No, they aren't, and nowhere in their comment do they do this. This is a clear false dichotomy argument on your part.

mibbitier 14y ago

Everyone knows how to call up their ISP and ask for filtering to be turned on or off. First step after buying a mobile phone is to call them up and get them to remove the stupid filtering.

netcan 14y ago

" I can send an email, I can click onto Windows but the minute you talk about downloading software, my brain goes bzzzz" I don't know much about the wider context. But, from reading the quotes, the point she is apparently trying to negate by playing dumb is that there are plenty of free, easy & available ways of filtering your own internet without government mandated censorship. Her point is "People are too stupid to do this for themselves. We should just filter the internet for them." I'm not sympathetic to that point. People can do it themselves (find and download software). They can ask the people who sold them their computer to do it. They can ask the people who sell them their internet to do it. They can walk into any computer shop and pay for help doing it. They can ask any remotely computer savvy friend to do it for them. I wouldn't object to a government run helpline, in-school setup. Anything voluntary. Preferably sane. Preferably effective. Preferably not at ridiculous cost. But, I'll take voluntary.