It's technically only opt-out for new customers. And even for them I believe they are specifically asked "Would you like us to use our home safe system to block dangerous material for children blah blah blah". So it's really only a matter of saying "no thanks". I don't think they trick you into using it, or set you up without informing you that you have the right to turn it off.
Edit: I could be wrong but this was how it worked when I last signed up about 12 months ago. The law hadn't come into effect I don't think but my ISP was already offering filtering.
I visited a friend's house for NYE and he let me have his WiFi details, the parental filter option kicked in immediately even though he'd already chosen to not opt-in. Every new device that was added (and there were a few, as we arrived as a party staying for a long weekend) had to go through the same opt-out process.
Therefore, and with only this limited exposure to the system, I would guess that the preference is stored by MAC address per BT customer.
Unless my knowledge of network hardware is way off, MAC addresses are only relevant on a LAN - the ISP should know the router's MAC address, but not anything behind the router.
If the routers are cooperating with the censorship, they could be stored that way, but that seems like a lot of routers to patch (unless this feature was there from the start?)
If you visit the page for "Parental Controls" then right at the top is the picture of the Home Hub router and the "No software to setup"... because it's your connection that has the filter rather than local software:
From appearances this looks like a per-customer opt-opt, and then if opted-out (unfiltered ... well, still Cleanfeed) then it goes down to a per-device opt-out.
Most major UK isp's provide their own routers. While for most of them you should be able to use your own router, most people don't. Sky at least provides a router that is Sky branded and running Sky specific software - I would not be surprised if it does automatic software updates.
Most ISPs use configurations which expose connected devices and their identifying information to the ISP. There was a good thread on it yesterday but I don't have it saved.
The major ISPs in the US, in my experience have always allowed either opting for a straight modem instead of one with router/switch/firewall, or at least let the customer set bridge mode so it's passthru.
If this is ever not the case, it ought to be a big story and controversy, because the subscriber then could not get the connection entirely under his own control (and two firewalls and/or double NAT can cause problems).
That was the main thread in the discussion yesterday -- you're renting access to the provider's network and the endpoint connection hardware is a part of that. Even if you buy your own modem, the configuration is controlled by the ISP through the setup and the router (again, even if it's yours) will also be configured to allow some backdoor information for the ISP. I may be misremembering a bit of that.
Cameron's filter is opt our for new customers, but opt in for existing customers.
It's not government censorship if the government isn't providing a list of banned sites. And the filter is optional - selling adult magazines in modesty sleeves isn't censorship.
>It's not government censorship if the government isn't providing a list of banned sites.
First, it's still censorship.
Second, the government can start supply a list of banned sites at any time.
Third, the way telcos/ISPs work with governments (and how they have to work with them, in order to get certain contracts, favors, bandwidth etc) it's very easy for government agencies to supply lists (not only of "adult content" but also of "extremist content", whatever that is), under the table. Who will let you know that the sites ISP x blocks were given to them by government agencies?
>And the filter is optional - selling adult magazines in modesty sleeves isn't censorship.
Well, the very role of "modesty sleeves" IS censorship. It might be to censor those covers from childrens eyes, and we might agree with that, but it still is censorship.
>I genuinely don't understand how some companies voluntarily providing filters to their customers, that those customers can chose to use or not to use, can possibly be censorship.
1) That the companies provide it "voluntarily" doesn't matter at all.
For one, the government asked them to do it (and they want to have good relations with the government, it's good for business).
Second, the government threatened them that if it's not satisfied with their "voluntary" progress, it will make it into law.
Third, even if a single company, totally voluntarily, filters content, it's still censorship. Censorship is not just about totally blocking access to content: it's also about intimidating people that want to see certain content, which is what the need to go on record and opt-in does.
And that's just for the head of a household. Do you think their spouses or kids will have much say about if they want to opt-in or not themselves?
>It's fucking insulting to people living with real censorship.
Let's not pull the "there are people having it worse" defense. Shouldn't, say, blacks protest in the USA in the sixties because other blacks had it much tougher in South Africa?
What would actually be insulting to people living with real censorship (if they cared about us in the first place, which they don't much) is that we are ready to accept any form of censorship ourselves willingly.
I genuinely don't understand how some companies voluntarily providing filters to their customers, that those customers can chose to use or not to use, can possibly be censorship.
It's fucking insulting to people living with real censorship.
I've lived in countries with what seemed like real censorship to me.
I guess there were warehouses of people somewhere with black marker pens, it was interesting to see the way they took different approaches as individuals applying the rules. Adjacent Nirvana Nevermind albums stick in my mind; one with a perfect rectangle drawn over the naked baby, one with swimming trunks creatively drawn on.
There's nothing amusing about this, no creativity to find in the black. It stinks of blanket censorship on a very inhuman level to me. But maybe my idea of censorship still isn't real enough. How much further does it have to go before it's real, how close should we get to that?
This is the same argument that companies like to use when they shift blame onto a third-party contractor.
Back to my question though. Third party or not, how is this not censorship?
(Your example of modesty sleeves is a bad one: the filter doesn't apply only to "adult magazines" (porn sites, here) but to lots of other non-"adult" content too.)
> It's not government censorship if the government isn't providing a list of banned sites.
By that definition, the Chinese government isn't censoring internet access either - they leave compiling an actual list of banned sites to internet providers, which is why what's blocked varies depending on your provider.
Can you back this up? I've seen no evidence that it's opt-out; new users are presented with the choice before gaining Internet access, and existing users are presented with the choice at some point.
How does it stop being censorship just because there is no centralised list?