BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day

Cleanfeed busy

By Chris Williams

The Register, UK: 7 April 2009
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/bt_cp_figures/

Between 35,000 and 40,000 attempts to access child pornography sites
via BT Retail's broadband network are blocked every day, it was
revealed today.

Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
URLs on it at any one time.

BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.

Both BT Retail and the large ISPs use a system that returns a 404
error whenever a blocked URL is entered. No record of the attempt to
access a child pornography site is made or reported to authorities.

A spokesman for BT said: "The number has stayed roughly the same [in
recent years] even though use of the internet has increased."

BT's system has been in place since 2004. The government said in 2006
that it wanted all ISPs to implement the IWF's blocklist by the end of
2007, but small ISPs holding about five per cent of the market have
not. They argue blocking does not address the real problem, as those
determined to access child pornography can easily circumvent such
systems.

Yesterday European home affairs ministers met to discuss proposals
that would grant national governments the power to force ISPs to
implement child pornography blocklists.

*BT Retail has approximately a quarter of the market.

On Apr 8, 9:28 am, Cub Reporter  wrote:
> BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>
> Cleanfeed busy
>
> By Chris Williams
>
> The Register, UK: 7 April 2009http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/bt_cp_figures/
>
> Between 35,000 and 40,000 attempts to access child pornography sites
> via BT Retail's broadband network are blocked every day, it was
> revealed today.
>
> Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
> there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
> Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
> published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
> URLs on it at any one time.
>
> BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
> spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
> hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
> sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.
>
> Both BT Retail and the large ISPs use a system that returns a 404
> error whenever a blocked URL is entered. No record of the attempt to
> access a child pornography site is made or reported to authorities.
>
> A spokesman for BT said: "The number has stayed roughly the same [in
> recent years] even though use of the internet has increased."
>
> BT's system has been in place since 2004. The government said in 2006
> that it wanted all ISPs to implement the IWF's blocklist by the end of
> 2007, but small ISPs holding about five per cent of the market have
> not. They argue blocking does not address the real problem, as those
> determined to access child pornography can easily circumvent such
> systems.
>
> Yesterday European home affairs ministers met to discuss proposals
> that would grant national governments the power to force ISPs to
> implement child pornography blocklists.
>
> *BT Retail has approximately a quarter of the market.

What CP sites? Photobucket?

WM
www.critest.com

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
wrote:

>BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>
>Cleanfeed busy
>
>By Chris Williams
>
>The Register, UK: 7 April 2009
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/bt_cp_figures/
>
>Between 35,000 and 40,000 attempts to access child pornography sites
>via BT Retail's broadband network are blocked every day, it was
>revealed today.
>
>Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
>there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
>Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
>published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
>URLs on it at any one time.
>
>BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
>spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
>hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
>sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.
>

But it would be very surprising if even 1 in 1000 of those "blocked
accesses" actually refer to any deliberate attempt by a human being to
access those sites.
-- 
Alex Heney, Global Villager
I don't eat snails... I prefer FAST food!
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

In message , Alex Heney 
 writes
>On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
>wrote:
>
>>BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>>
>>Cleanfeed busy
>>
>>By Chris Williams
>>
>>The Register, UK: 7 April 2009
>>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/bt_cp_figures/
>>
>>Between 35,000 and 40,000 attempts to access child pornography sites
>>via BT Retail's broadband network are blocked every day, it was
>>revealed today.
>>
>>Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
>>there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
>>Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
>>published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
>>URLs on it at any one time.
>>
>>BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
>>spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
>>hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
>>sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.
>>
>
>But it would be very surprising if even 1 in 1000 of those "blocked
>accesses" actually refer to any deliberate attempt by a human being to
>access those sites.

This seems like the sort of plucked out of the air stat, much like the 
record/film industry favourite "every download is lost sale".
-- 
Sean Black

Sean Black wrote:
> In message , Alex Heney 
>  writes
>> On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>>>
>>> Cleanfeed busy
>>>
>>> By Chris Williams
>>>
>>> The Register, UK: 7 April 2009
>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/bt_cp_figures/
>>>
>>> Between 35,000 and 40,000 attempts to access child pornography sites
>>> via BT Retail's broadband network are blocked every day, it was
>>> revealed today.
>>>
>>> Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
>>> there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
>>> Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
>>> published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
>>> URLs on it at any one time.
>>>
>>> BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
>>> spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
>>> hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
>>> sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.
>>>
>>
>> But it would be very surprising if even 1 in 1000 of those "blocked
>> accesses" actually refer to any deliberate attempt by a human being to
>> access those sites.
> 
> This seems like the sort of plucked out of the air stat, much like the 
> record/film industry favourite "every download is lost sale".

and the BT figures will include people who tried to access a certain 
Wiki page in December...

-- 
Robbie

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
wrote:

>BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day


How many of those attempts are yours?

Judith Smith brought next idea :
> On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
> wrote:
>
>> BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>
>
> How many of those attempts are yours?

I have at least two attempts blocked last month trying to access

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer

I am included on those figures. But I am no longer using a British
ISP directly as they log everything, much rather use an offshore VPN 
that does not block Wikipedia and keeps no logs.

-- 
Privacylover: http://www.privacylover.com

On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:41:08 +0100, Alex Heney 
wrote:

>>Extrapolated to the entire UK broadband market*, the figures mean
>>there are more than 58 million attempts to access sites on the
>>Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) blocklist annually. The list is not
>>published, but the IWF says there are typically between 800 and 1,200
>>URLs on it at any one time.
>>
>>BT released the figures today in response to a _Register_ inquiry. A
>>spokesman said botnets and use of UK proxies from overseas made it
>>hard to judge how many of the attempts to access child pornography
>>sites are made by a real person, whether deliberately or by accident.
>>
>
>But it would be very surprising if even 1 in 1000 of those "blocked
>accesses" actually refer to any deliberate attempt by a human being to
>access those sites.

And I would be surprised if even a small percentage of the blocked
sites actually contained child pornography.

Hopefully most people will by now have seen the "virgin killers" album
cover, which I strongly suspect is typical of the type of image
blocked by the IWF and labelled "child abuse image"

-- 
Cynic

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:50:11 +0100, Judith Smith
 wrote:

>On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:28:34 +0100, Cub Reporter 
>wrote:
>
>>BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day
>
>
>How many of those attempts are yours?

Had any 404 errors lately?

-- 
Cub Reporter