The fact that the Internet allows operators to decide for themselves what to block mean, in my opinion, that there is no reason for governments to ever mandate the blocking of anything. Full stop. 



That includes even the worst illegal content; you fight that by arresting the perps and taking down the illegal content, not by building roadblocks and filters into the public shared infrastructure. 





> -----Original Message-----

> From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf

> Of Shane Kerr

> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 5:05 AM

> To: [log in to unmask]

> Subject: Re: RPZ & content control

> 

> Alejandro,

> 

> At 2017-04-11 13:28:42 -0400

> Alejandro Acosta <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 

> > El 11/4/17 a las 12:05 p.m., Niels ten Oever escribió:

> > >

> > > Great you're following this. I think the design of a system can have

> > > some properties that makes is harder or easier to infringe on

> > > rights. To make the analogy to spam: when I receive spam in my

> > > spamfolder, I can still read it. Spam that is blocked, I cannot read.

> > >

> > > With RPZ I think there is a risk that content get's blocked because

> > > people don't like it, not because it's malware. And it does so

> > > without the consent of the user, or even without informing them.

> > >

> > > Why could the system not be designed similar to the warnings with

> > > TLS in the browser so there would be a red screen: THE LINK YOU'RE

> > > FOLLOWING IS PROBABLY MALWARE (only continue if you verified the

> source) ?

> >

> > This would be an Utopia & it does not work for those horrible

> > goverments that block unwated websites.

> 

> Note that this is not necessarily true. When I visited Dubai blocked sites gave

> a clear message:

> 

> http://cdn1.yourenotfromaroundhere.com/blog/wp-

> content/uploads/2012/04/website-blocked-in-uae.jpg

> 

> I actually approve of such an approach. Almost every government blocks

> something due to humans being humans and politics being politics.

> 

> Of course other countries like China have a deliberately vague system

> designed to maximize chilling effects. (Google's approach before they kicked

> themselves out of China was to explicitly identify censorship, and so probably

> not much appreciated by the government.) In that case you are right they

> would disable any features in a censorship system to make it clear what is

> going on.

> 

> Note also that countries like France have a secret blacklist that is used today

> and poorly maintained and implemented by ISPs. This is not through any well

> though-out policy of oppression, but mostly due to confusion and lack of

> attention. An RPZ-like system would improve the situation there.

> 

> Finally a system like RPZ could perhaps allow users to opt out of unwanted

> filtering in a straightforward manner. So a British housewife could get her

> porn by changing to her ISP's unfiltered DNS servers without having to have

> an embarrassing call to her provider or exposing everyone in her household

> to unfiltered access, like the current system there (as I understand it).

> 

> Cheers,

> 

> --

> Shane