Sac_mec (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:29 am http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffa ... ss&feed=19

The above hyperlink (which I hope is active) directs you to the intention of the UK government to further clampdown on what UK internet users will be able to access. The original incident quoted as a reason for the change in the law was the murder of a young women in sexual circumstances prompted, allegedly by the murderer's vociferous appetite for violent sexual online imagery. Everyone condems such murder, naturally, but as various Civil libertarian groups, PC groups and campaigning groups such as Spanner are pointing out the new law could amount to it being illegal to "think" or to fantasise as an adult. Enter the age of the "thought police".

The story is at its earliest stages because if the Government wishes to act

it will need to wait for the next Parliament to sit in the Autumn. The most

worrying consequences surely are not the implementation of the wishes of

those seeking this law, but the possible "latitude" with which that law might be adopted; it could make it an offence to visit the EA because of certain violent stories and incidents. What are the views of other net users about this? (Edited due to typos)

There is no evidence of a direct link between viewing violent images and committing violent acts, but the British Psychological Society has backed the government's proposals, citing developing research suggesting that individuals who were predisposed to commit violent or other sexual offences might become more likely to do so when exposed to such material. Some BPS members disagreed From above link (

Sac_mec (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:29 am http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffa ... ss&feed=19

)

Where do you draw the line? After the movie, Natural Born Killers came out, there were some copy cat killings by a couple influenced by the movie. Should people with DVDs of that movie be arrested?

Some people can't separate fantasy from reality, but to avoid setting any of them off would require the ban of movies, Internet images, and literature. What about the horror slash flicks? Might not one of them cause some unstable person to commit murder? Don't these people realize what a can of worms they're opening with such legislation?

I just wanted to agree with everything said so far. Particularly the points raised by Sac and Slammr. (And sorry! I didn't mean to steal anyones thunder by posting a link to that other debate! Just wanted to point out you wern't alone in your concerns!) In a nutshell I feel exactly the same way as the points expressed.

Freedoms are valueable, and - once lost - are extremely hard to regain. The moral hurdle one has to overcome in order to be able to justify the abolition of a particular freedom, must be to prove - beyond any reasonable doubt - that it's continued existance puts the public in danger.

Even though I'm not into any pornography of this kind, my gut tells me the government fell woefully short of this moral hurdle, and has - instead - created a moral slope, down which we risk slipping.

Hehe, in all seriousness (I wish I were joking here!) - there is now talk of banning the early Tom and Jerry episodes from British TV, because there is fear that it contained smoking, and may encourage children to smoke when they grow up.

With our freedoms will go our history.

Where will it end? Maybe George Orwells "1984" was right about "thoughtcrime" :shakemitk

__________________

Given that the bill is now passed, and that our debate has changed somewhat, from "what if" to "what now"... anyone concerned with the government knowing what sites they are looking at (or if we find eunuch.org blocked from the UK!) proxies are - in most cases - a free and neat way of working around this.

The first step is to find a free, public proxy (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search). I often use this website. (http://www.publicproxyservers.com/page1.html)

**Make a note of an anonymous IP number and Port number**

Then, if using Firefox:

Click (the top menu) Tools->Options

Then clicking the Connection Settings button.

In the new dialogue click Manual proxy configuration, and enter the IP address and Port number, then click OK and then OK in the main options dialogue.

Or, if using Internet Explorer:

[clicking (the top menu) Tools->Internet Options

Then clicking the Connection tab.

Click the Lan Settings... tab at the bottom.

Check the box "Use a proxy server for your lan..."

Enter the IP address and Port number, then click OK and then OK in the main internet options dialogue.

The Fraj, Is it really true that this Bill has been enacted into law already??

Your suggestion is useful if ISPs suddenly block our access here. I believe that there is a Steganos program also that is often attached on PC magazines that will also do a similiar thing.

I do want to put on record that I don't ever read anything I'd call extreme

and I loathe violence. Stanley Kubriek withdrew 'Clockwork Orange' from UK cinema and TV showing in his life following a couple of violent copycat attacks, but I noticed the Video/DVD shop in Calais was selling it prominently in his life.

I would never read 'snuff stuff' ever, but that is my choice and would remain so no matter what the law. As a young man I saw 'Deliverance' when it was first released and I didn't like it at all but I went with a couple of pseudo intellectuals who thought it was brilliant.

I smile when I visit a French city and see all the huge posters of young handsome men in their tiny DIM underwear - here in Britain, the "thought police" have never let us see male sexual/sensual beauty on the streets. Also almost every advert break in France, Germany, (no doubt Benelux countries too) show male sensuality and female sensuality too. In Britain, the quota is next to zero. I know this is off the subject of new laws but it is indicative of

a no tolerance level to the human figure in daily life. No wonder people get so screwed up by British and I suspect US culture.

Are the religions the fundamental CAUSE of these extreme and nonsensical laws

or what is it ?? N3RF

Thanks guys I couldn't find any evidence the bill had passed (I assumed it had from the way it was being reported as "now being illegal"!). Sorry for getting ahead of myself!

The government has already announced that it will become illegal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berk ... 297600.stm), punishable by up to three years in jail. (The reasons for this ban are also included in that link n3rf! )

And the same message is re-iterated on our Home Office website (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/n ... ?version=1)

Under new laws announced by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker, it will be illegal to possess pornographic images depicting scenes of extreme sexual violence. This would include, for example, material featuring violence that appears to be life threatening. I suspect making it law is now just a formality of getting the right wording, and building enough cross-party support.

________________

On the technical frontline: I've not used Steganos (https://www.steganos.com/), so I can't really offer any sound advice about that particular program.

A rough guide

But one thing I can say is to check it's anonymity. Without using the tool, you can go to websites like this (http://ipchicken.com), or that (http://www.ipaddressworld.com/) or the other (http://whatismyipaddress.com/) which should tell you your IP address.

Then, enable your software (or run it, or whatever you have to do to enable the proxy!) and then re-click one of those websites. Anonymity on the internet is all relative, but if you have a fairly safe connection you should see the IP address change! If it doesn't, and it still reports you real IP instead, you can be sure government will have no trouble finding you either!

Proxy Way

I installed Proxyway (http://www.proxyway.com/) and had a brief dabble. I was dissapointed at the amount of configuration it needed. First you need to build a list of proxies which it then tests in sequence, then you need to configure it by selecting the 'preference' file for each individual browser, before it even does anything for the user!

That now said, I was very impressed with the speedy way of testing each proxy for it's anonymity level and speed. I am actually going to add it to my bag of tricks and simply use it to identify a good proxy to use, then copy the settings into my webbrowser manually (using the procedure outlined in the previous post!)

Another great way to surf anonymously (and freely!), is to use The Cloak (http://the-cloak.com/login.html) website. Though, I'm not keen on using them for this particular scenario, because (being a company!) it is highly likely they will turn over their logs, if requested by authorities.

I'd like to point out that under current circumstances it is extremely likely that you can expect a ban on and drive against "anonymous" webservices. --FLO--

n3rf (imported) wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:40 am Are the religions the fundamental CAUSE of these extreme and nonsensical laws?

or what is it ?? N3RF

N3rf, in answer to your question, yes and no. It is the job of any government to appear to act to protect all the public after a particularly nasty incident. Reaching for new laws seems the highest priority and would be greatly supported by the most read but most reactionary newspapers.

In respect of the widespread street and TV advertising of handsome men in the skimpiest slips, this is very acceptable in France and on much of 'Old Europe'.

The UK, having been through centuries of religious struggle and turmoil had settled on an old fashioned Protestant form of 'restraint' and forbidden the populus to get distracted or interested in street sexiness. I think that's the nearest I can get to an answer for you. Finally, The Fraj can I congratulate you on the return of your very nice avatar and signature too; it's good to see imho.

As well as aiming to surf anonymously, I would strongly advise anyone to delete all traces of their surfing history (history, cookies, temp files, etc) before switching off their machine. You can do this through the 'Tools - Internet Options' menu on IE but I use an add on toolbar (free) from www.550access.com. This runs on IE when downloaded from '550', a US ISP, and has a 'clean-up' icon (second from right) which can be configured using the 'options' button next to it. It's quick and easy to use and can also delete the list of documents and photos just accessed, etc. Take care, it can be configured to delete files you may wish to keep like 'Favorites'.

Also, I suggest using a file shredder to delete unwanted files (standard Windows deletion is totally insecure). CuteShield File Shredder is free software I use which overwrites data with random characters two or seven times; 'Erase' is another free package that overwrites 35 times! I use both but I can't recall where I got them from now but I am sure they, or other free ones, still exist. And there are packages you can buy, of course.

Ashampoo Privacy Protection is another useful tool that allows you to encrypt individual files and folders on your PC. I don't know if it is very secure (not against Govt Agencies no doubt if they seize your machine!) but does mean casual users of your PC can't gain access to encrypted data.

Internet privacy maybe largely a myth but the spat we had earlier this year when Microsoft and Yahoo handed over information about users to the US Justice Department without any hesitation made many of us outside the US realise that the Internet is largely a wholly American institution. The reasons behind a request for information may or may not be laudible but there was an

international realisation that the net gives the USA global jurisdiction/information

and we haven't signed up to that by choice. At least Google argued the case;but relented.

A Dutch owned computer publishing group,VNU, published in August in a number of their magazines an article about a new Internet search engine. The idea behind it is twofold. Firstly the Search engine uses all major search engines combined to get you comprehensive results, so they search Google and Yahoo and Alta vista and many other engines and compile and also score the Search Engine results. Their PCs are in the Netherlands and all searches using the engine are confidential. The firm wipe their hard drives, or whatever, daily and no information is stored and therefore it couldnot be requested for by anyone, not the Dutch Government and not the EU and most certainly not the US Justice Department. I can only write from memory the

style of text that was printed but it was very much as written above.

Whether or not confidentiality is possible when your own ISP has possibly the

facilities to monitor your every online mouse movement (who knows?)

at least the owners of this new Websearch Engine are motivated by

consumer privacy. Consequently, if you want to do a Search which includes

Google without going to Google then try out this Search Engine :

http://www.ixquick.com/

The right to a decent degree of privacy ought to be a goal and not seen as a

threat and it is in that context that I've placed this posting.

You know, when the first people came to America it was for religious freedoms. Then if anybody did not believe the way they did, it was the dunking pond.

We have come a long way sense then, now insted of it being the local comunity, its taking whole countrys.

I think the problem is - we are moral and we will decide what is good for you, after all we are (in this case) christians and we know better because WE have god on our side. To bad they dont read that bible they keep waving, having read it, one of the things it talkes about it tolarence, forgiveness, and the right to spell badley.

The real crime is what there doing to personal rights and lack of forgiveness.

Its time for a new government.

Now, was that last statement saying we should have a revolation? or was it saying we need to get rid of the people running the one we have and bring in a new group.

The way things are going I am going to be serving 10 to 20 for bad spelling.

Riverwind