Online safety bill.

[~*ghetto_star*~]

Originally Posted by supersmoothy

I think he's in Louisiana.

Yeah, it's Louisiana.

[anonjohn]

UK Government's guide - grand goals with little detail here gov.uk/guidance/a-guide-to-the-online-safety-bill
A more useful summary on Wikipedia is here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Bill

Many of the goals of this proposed legislation are admirable, but many are sinister or just daft once you understand a little more about the technology.

1. Breaking end-to-end encryption
The Conservative Govt says it won't be enforced, but that power will still be in the proposed Act.
All internet commerce and secure communication rely on there being no back doors to encryption - otherwise payments could not be secure and money easily stolen. If secret back doors were built or the government or some other agency kept "back door keys", they would become a Crown Jewels level target for criminals, the governments of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. That's before you get to corrupt/bribeable/blackmailable employees. What could possibly go wrong? Imagine that the keys and vault combinations of all the banks in town being held at the local police station - all the golden eggs would be in one basket.

For the above reasons, I don't think this will actually happen.

2. Age verification for online pornography
This was tried before under the Digital Economy Act 2017, but never implemented. A trusted third party (initially a porn company!) would have administered access, after age and real ID verification by eg credit card. A record with real credit card numbers and names showing which porn sites you visited and when. Another gold mine for blackmail, outing etc. by the criminals and state-level miscreants listed above.

For the above reasons, I don't think this will actually be implemented.

Finger-wagging socially conservative politicians make rousing speeches and promises. And then their technical advisors tell them that sady there is no easy technological way of protecting children from pornography.

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic - trusting in practicality over populist ideology.

Did you vote for these jokers for this or some other reason? Even if you only wanted to Get Brexit Done, Stop Corbyn, Make America Great Again ... - we should take responsibility for the stuff we voted for, even though we disagreed with that bit of the manifesto. Abstaining from voting makes it easier for the idiots to be elected.

[supersmoothy]

The bill just passed by the Lords. As soon as the king signs it, it will become law.

For the moment, the rodent site, ****hub, xvid, SB and, of course, OCC are still accessible. I don't know whether they have any plans in place to start asking for ID upload as soon as the king signs or what they intend to do.

[burger1701]

Originally Posted by supersmoothy

The bill just passed by the Lords. As soon as the king signs it, it will become law.

For the moment, the rodent site, ****hub, xvid, SB and, of course, OCC are still accessible. I don't know whether they have any plans in place to start asking for ID upload as soon as the king signs or what they intend to do.

It might not happen immediately. But it'll happen. It'll have to if they want to operate in the UK. As I understand the act, sites must seek out material that is illegal in the UK. If that is the case, then most of the forums I use may choose to stop operating here than go to the trouble.
I can certainly see that my Internet usage will be decreasing sharply.

[supersmoothy]

Originally Posted by burger1701

As I understand the act, sites must seek out material that is illegal in the UK.

This includes all and any upskirt or downblouse pics, as well as unaware pics. That's about half of this forum.

[burger1701]

Originally Posted by supersmoothy

This includes all and any upskirt or downblouse pics, as well as unaware pics. That's about half of this forum.

My point exactly.

[Fango]

Why would a site with servers in the USA be responsible for removing content deemed illegal in the UK? If the UK government doesn't want a certain site visible in the UK, isn't it incumbent upon them to block it from being viewed in the UK? How could the UK government fine an American website, or remove an American website's content? Or am I misunderstanding what's going on here?

Fango

[sandatom]

I would suspect that, like any company which breaks a law not in their country of origin, they may be pursued through international courts.

Much easier to deny service to the country where your content may violate the rules.

Be interesting to see how this plays out. Companies like Signal have stated they will withdraw from the UK market rather than compromise their secure messaging system.

[burger1701]

Originally Posted by Fango

Why would a site with servers in the USA be responsible for removing content deemed illegal in the UK? If the UK government doesn't want a certain site visible in the UK, isn't it incumbent upon them to block it from being viewed in the UK? How could the UK government fine an American website, or remove an American website's content? Or am I misunderstanding what's going on here?

Fango

I think you are correct. They can't fine foreign based companies. What I think will happen is what you said. The government will require sites like OCC to remove stuff which is illegal in the UK.
Even if the sites decides to so (not that likely) they will still be required to employ strict age verification for UK users. If they refuse these requirements they will be blocked.
So basically most sites like OCC will probably decide its too much trouble and block themselves from the UK.
I don't think ending full end to end encryption will happen because you can't target just the wrong doers.
The bill only talks about social media platforms as far as I can tell. But if the aim is to prevent all those porn hungry kids getting their fix they'll.have to target all sites as most social media seem to remove porn material themselves.


https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/b...-to-become-law

[supersmoothy]

Originally Posted by Fango

Why would a site with servers in the USA be responsible for removing content deemed illegal in the UK? If the UK government doesn't want a certain site visible in the UK, isn't it incumbent upon them to block it from being viewed in the UK? How could the UK government fine an American website, or remove an American website's content? Or am I misunderstanding what's going on here?

Fango

Exactly. As Burger also wrote, the UK government can demand that sites accessible in the UK follow their rules. If a site based in the UK does not comply, it can first get hit by a massive fine, and then seized and closed. However, if a site is based elsewhere, obviously they only have to obey local laws, not UK ones, which also means that they won't be able to be fined or seized and closed by UK agencies. Of course, the UK government can still block access to these sites, simply making them unreachable from here.

So I think that in the end it will depend on how much money non-UK sites make in the UK market. If this money is worth the trouble of filtering accesses and doing whatever the new bill requires, then they will comply. Otherwise, they will just accept being made inaccessible from the UK. Of course, UK-based sites will be screwed, because for them it will be either comply, and spend much more money, or close. So my guess is that any site whose servers are in the UK or owned/run by a Brit, or more simply not owned by one of the porn giant megacorporations, will just choose to close.