Wikinews has learned that six of the United Kingdom's main Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have implemented monitoring and filtering mechanisms that are causing major problems for UK contributors of the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation sites. The filters appear to stem from accusations that Wikimedia sites are hosting what some would call child pornography.
More here including an interesting rant in the thread from Cory Doctorow.* I think we're going to see this sort of infrastructure in the United States very soon, so this is worth paying attention to. * During this rant he states that the mantra of "no security through obscurity" is "axiomatic to every field of information security." In fact, its an oversimplified idea that is constantly misunderstood and misapplied. Peter Swire gave the topic a very good treatment here. I don't bring this up because I want to undermine Doctorow's point about the need for an open process around these internet filters. I agree with him. I just bristle at the use of words like "axiomatic" to refer to policy preferences. Its a way of shouting down nuance. |