Restricting All but the Predators

Good intentions that fall woefully short: That's the quickest summation of a proposed U.K. law intended to get pedophiles offline.

The British government wants domestic ISPs to voluntarily introduce content filtering software to stop people from viewing child pornography by the end of 2007. Net and personal security experts, however, say that software only stops accidental viewing of such sites; and that the approach doesn't prevent content delivery over encrypted connections, email, instant messaging, or seemingly innocent P2P sites.

This turn has led some to question exactly who the government is trying to protect, and whether the millions that it will cost ISPs to install this software might be better spent elsewhere...

Get the whole story at Dark Reading.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung. Special to Dark Reading