We've all heard of "The Great Firewall of China", and similar in other countries, and most of us in the western world take it for granted that this kind of thing doesn't affect us. However this appears to be changing. For several years now I've known about a system called "Cleanfeed", designed to satisfy those Daily Mail readers that have bought into the pedophile hysteria, that blocks illegal content (specifically child pornography). Now while, in principal, I child pornography is the single type of illegal content I don't have a problem with being blocked, I do have a practicle problem with it - any system designed to block it could easily be extended to other things (easier to get a child porn filter through parliament than an anti extremist one, in turn easier than an anti David Cameron one). Another specific problem I have with Cleanfeed is that ISPs are not generally open and honest about it - many choose to use a 404 error pages instead of an honest block - how do you know what's being blocked and what's genuinely down (if you're not a geek).

A more eloquent explanation of several of my problems is provided by Wikipedia (emphasis added by self):

The new Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker has set a deadline of the end of 2007 for all ISPs to implement a “cleanfeed”-style network level content blocking platform.^[3][4] Currently, the only websites ISPs are expected to block access to are sites the Internet Watch Foundation has identified as containing images of child pornography.^[2] However such a platform is capable of blocking access to any website added to the list (at least, to the extent that the implementation is effective), making it a simple matter to change this policy in future. The Home Office has previously indicated that it has considered requiring ISPs to block access to articles on the web deemed to be “glorifying terrorism”, within the meaning of the new Terrorism Act 2006, saying "However, our legislation as drafted provides the flexibility to accommodate a change in Government policy should the need ever arise."^[3] The measures have been criticised for being inadequate as they only block accidental viewing and does not prevent content delivered through encrypted systems, file sharing, email and other systems.^[5] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom

Any way, what brings me to post about this now is this: I have come I across the first example I have seen of this filter being overzealous – the blocking of a Wikipedia article - http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_ISPs_restrict_access_to_Wikipedia_amid_child_pornography_allegations (note that by visiting that news link you are, potentially, opening yourself up to child porn allegations).

So it looks as if we, in the UK, will soon be behind “Hadrian’s Firewall”. Goodbye now, I must go and watch for black helicopters while drinking my “Victory Gin”.