Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 11:54, 10 December 2008

On 5 December 2008, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation blacklisted the article Virgin Killer and a related image, considering them to be potentially illegal in the United Kingdom. Several large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that cooperate with the IWF subsequently blocked them from being viewed, affecting an estimated 95% of residential Internet users in the UK. Due to the way the block was enacted (via transparent proxies), users from the affected ISPs shared a small number of IP addresses. This meant that a user vandalising Misplaced Pages could not be distinguished from all the other people on the same ISP. Unfortunately, the result of this was that all unregistered users from the affected ISPs were temporarily blocked from editing Misplaced Pages. Update: A decision to reverse the image blacklist was released by the IWF on 9 December 2008 at 18:30 UTC, but the blocking is still effective on most Internet Service Providers. "IWF statement regarding Misplaced Pages webpage". Retrieved 2008-12-09T19:30Z. the IWF Board has today (9 December 2008) considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

Latest news (last updated 2008-12-09 15:52 UTC) BT, Orange, Websense and possibly 3 are now blocking the affected content. T-mobile users appear to be redirected to the IWF homepage. Jimbo Wales, Misplaced Pages founder, has told Channel 4 News he is considering a court challenge The IWF mentioned to the Guardian they were reviewing the situation and would announce a decision by noon today. As of 3pm the Guardian reports they were still reconsidering. They reversed their decision at 18:30. Please add {{resolved}} under your ISP's heading in this section if the block has been lifted for you.

Before posting ...is your message more appropriate for the talk page?

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Archives

Archive 1

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Current issues

This is a summary, not a discussion, of the problems that Wikipedians have with this censorship action and especially the method of its implementation. It is not an official list that has been approved by the Wikimedia Foundation, but a summary of discussion on this page and its talk page, created by several editors. We urge all parties to discuss these points and try to solve those that can be resolved locally.

Ethical

• ISP issue: Users of several ISPs are receiving fake 404 or 403 error messages when visiting the article Virgin Killer, with wording such as "Not Found. The requested URL en.wikipedia.org was not found on this server". It is necessary for tolerated censorship that people are made aware of when they are being censored, and the reasons why this is occurring.
• IWF issue: Albums bearing the image are currently on sale in the UK and have been for many years. The image is readily available on the internet for everyone. This clearly did not factor into the decision of the IWF. They say they act only on the individual reports they receive. This case shows how shortsighted such an approach can be.
• IWF issue: The IWF blocked the text of the article that includes the image. This is an encyclopedia text that discusses amongst other things, the controversy surrounding this image, which is meant to put the image into context, in an academic way, and to educate its readers.
• IWF issue: The image is not certain to be illegal. In the IWFs own words the image was judged to be "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18, but hosted outside the UK". The album has been for sale in many countries with this cover for over 30 years. No one has ever been prosecuted over the image as far as is known. The FBI investigated a report of this album cover in spring 2008 and decided to take no action. The Wikimedia Foundation has not been requested by the FBI or any other law enforcement agency to remove the image and has certainly not been charged over it. The ultimate arbiter of whether an image is illegal is a court of law, in particular a jury, and not a self-selecting group, however well-intentioned their motives.
• IWF issue: The IWF blocked access to a page on one of the world's most-visited websites without informing its owners. We understand that their policy is not to contact any of the hosts they block, but commonsense should have told them that blocking such a website might have unforeseen consequences. In particular, they failed to understand that whereas a block of the article itself may well amount to restraint on the guaranteed freedom to receive and impart information, the image itself is uploaded from a different URL which could have been separately blocked by the ISPs with whom they are in partnership; in this way, they demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how websites work, which is chilling in the extreme for a supposed Internet Watchdog.
• IWF issue: It is well documented that actions such as the IWF's frequently have the opposite effect to that intended, something known as the Streisand effect. The visitor statistics of the Virgin Killer article show that even with the block in effect, the page received 200 times as much traffic as usual in one day. In fact, curiosity has generated almost half a million more visitors than the page would normally receive. Googling for 'wikipedia', 'Internet Watch foundation' or 'IWF' now, under their 'news results' section (3rd result down), has a link (complete with inline-picture) to a news article about this event, complete with the 'potentially illegal' image, whilst the BBC news article links to the Scorpions' website (again, complete with 'potentially illegal' picture), thus maximising peoples' likelihood of being 'accidentally exposed to potentially illegal content', entirely the opposite of the IWF's goals, and as could have been predicted if the IWF had a modicum of understanding of the social aspects of the internet (and as wouldn't have resulted from a take-down notice).
• IWF issue: Does filtering represent an appropriate use of resources to combat child sexual abuse? The creation of images of child sexual abuse is recognized worldwide as a serious crime, and the best course of action is to prosecute producers, hosters and publishers of illegal material. Filtering by IWF may be merely sweeping the problem under the carpet. It neither stops actual child abuse, nor does it prevent criminals from copying images to another site with minimal effort. The money spent on filtering infrastructure may be better spent on real law enforcement and international coordination.
• IWF issue: Online filtering creates a situation based on presumption of guilt. In the past, removal of illegal online content was handled by takedown notices such as the DMCA. Takedown notices gave the host of the content under challenge a choice of whether to comply with or to ignore the notice. If the host believed the notice to be in error, he could ignore it. When this occurred, the plaintiff had to escalate the case to a court and prove that the content was illegal. This kept the system in balance, because incorrect or abusive takedown notices would incur no costs for the host. Online filtering, however, creates a dangerous precedent of presumption of guilt, since it introduces a duty to prove content legality (innocence) instead of the duty to prove illegality (guilt). This removes proper checks and balances from the system, and violates the legal principle of presumption of innocence, stated in law as Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit (the burden of proof rests on who asserts, not on who denies). This is another reason why it has been suggested by some editors the Internet Watch Foundation block on Virgin Killer is in itself potentially illegal under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
• Scorpions issue: Most Misplaced Pages editors think that the image, to put it mildly, is not really making their individual "Top 10 of tasteful images".
• Misplaced Pages community: Though Misplaced Pages policy is that we do not censor unless something is illegal in the US, either as a breach of copyright, defamatory, or illegal in itself, the community exercises collective editorial control on grounds of relevance to the purpose of its articles. Some editors feel that this image has no place here, while others believe the discussion in the article justifies and explains the presence of the image itself. Though the image has been discussed at length ( ) even before the UK censoring, so far there is no consensus among the community to remove the image.
• Misplaced Pages community: Questions have been raised as to why Misplaced Pages is putting so much effort into this censorship case, compared to Chinese, Iranian and Syrian censorship cases. The reason is that our influence in the UK is much greater. If we cannot deal with these kinds of problems in the UK, then we will definitely not succeed in China. This case also establishes an important precedent, because unlike Chinese, Iranian or Syrian internet filtering, UK internet filtering can serve as an example for other democratic countries. The EU and Australia have plans for mandatory internet filtering. The outcome of this case can influence how internet filtering is implemented in other countries.
• Misplaced Pages community: Misplaced Pages is able to work around blocked pages by directing users to the secure (https) server. Are technical countermeasures against censorship morally appropriate?
• Misplaced Pages community: If the blocking is indeed found to be inappropriate, does liability for damages come into play? The blocking imposed by the IWF caused disruption of Misplaced Pages operations. The damages include, but are not limited to: work of administrators and engineers to diagnose the network problem caused by connection hijacking, work to implement workaround for registration, etc. If a large online retailer like Amazon was subject to blocking, damages would be much higher. Are ISPs and/or the IWF liable for damages caused by inappropriate blocking?

Technical

• ISP issue: Several ISPs seemed to be unprepared for the amount of traffic that Misplaced Pages generates. Their filters act slowly and sometimes simply error out on the load. This is an avoidable effect of routing through a single transparent proxy and is arguably a breach of the ISPs terms and conditions to provide connectivity.
• ISP issue: Several ISPs are using proxies that route all Wikimedia traffic through a single IP address. This makes it much more difficult for Misplaced Pages to administer the website, because thousands of users are all sharing the same identifier. Because of this and a small number of vandals amongst the thousands, these IP addresses are blocked from editing anonymously; this harms both the project itself and UK users' experience of it. The net effect is to negate one major principle of the Misplaced Pages project, that anyone can contribute to the "sum total of human knowledge".
• ISP issue: At least some of the proxying ISPs (TalkTalk, Virgin Media/Tesco, Be/O2/Telefonica) do not add X-Forwarded-For headers to their HTTP requests. This effectively anonymizes all the remaining requests to Misplaced Pages, making it more difficult to handle any other case of illegal activity from an anonymous contributor behind the proxy.
• ISP issue: At least one of the proxying ISPs, Virgin Media, ran an entire suite of over 200 interception proxy HTTP servers for approximately seven years, all of which added X-Forwarded-For headers to their HTTP requests and gave Misplaced Pages no problem for much of that time. See Virgin Media#Proxy servers and the articles listed immediately below. This technical know-how has either been lost by this ISP, or was not communicated from the group that used to manage the old proxy servers to the group that managed the new proxy servers.
  • Robin Walker (2006-04-23). "Web Proxy issues". Cable Modem Troubleshooting Tips. Retrieved 2008-12-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  • Ben Cheetham (2008-10-19). "Virgin Media (ntl:) Proxy Server List". Retrieved 2008-12-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
• IWF issue: The IWFs decision has been carried out very ineffectively. Two URLs—the article and the description page of the image—were blocked. This unnecessarily censored the text of the article and the image's description page while leaving the image itself easily accessible by varying the URL slightly or using a direct link to Wikimedia's image server, upload.wikimedia.org. The IWFs actions have thus greatly inconvenienced thousands of contributors who have never even heard of Virgin Killer, while doing nothing to prevent anyone wishing to view the image for whatever reason from doing so. A more appropriate course of action, from a purely technical point of view, would have been to block the image file itself and the directory in which generated thumbnails reside, rather than two pages that happen to contain it, thus actually blocking the image whilst causing no collateral censorship. Had the IWF contacted the Wikimedia Foundation before acting, this could have been explained to them.
• ISP issue: Users of several ISPs are being served fake 404 or 403 errors when attempting to visit the article. This is technically incorrect, and unhelpful.
• ISP issue: Use of a simple sweep-ping script as described by Guardian here in 2005 allows to discover all IP addresses in the CleanFeed list. Thus, the blacklist can be misused as an "index" of illegal pornography.
• Wikimedia issue: Because there are many types of proxies in the world, and because X-Forwarded-For headers are forgeable, Wikimedia only allows X-Forwarded-For of proxies that it 'trusts'. To detect this and add this to our list takes time. See the details of the techniques used for X-Forwarded-For proxies here.
• Wikimedia issue: Wikimedia provides secure, encrypted access to Misplaced Pages via https. This secure access reliably bypasses any ISP's filtering and logging facilities. Should Misplaced Pages inform users of this possibility? Should pages have links to switch to secure mode? Does the secure server have enough capacity? Is it possible that the IWF, unable to filter individual pages when users connect via https, will demand blocking of secure access to Misplaced Pages altogether?

IP addresses of the proxies

Template:UK ISPs' Transparent Proxies

Notes

• Where possible Wikimedia has added these providers to their whitelist of trusted proxies. Customers of these ISPs will no longer appear as a single IP address soon after 14:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC). That means that they will be able to edit anonymously under their own IP address. They will not be able to view the IWF blocked pages and they might still experience slowdowns on Misplaced Pages due to insufficient capacity of some of the filter systems of their ISP. The ISPs that do not provide X-Forwarded-For HTTP headers are however still trapped behind a single IP. We urge TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Tesco, Telefonica O2, Be Unlimited and BT Internet to add these headers to their proxy systems to alleviate the problems from these blocks. When ISPs have added these headers, they can request to be added to the same list of "trusted" proxies.
• As of 23:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC), Virgin Killer Controversy is also blocked (via Eclipse Internet); as is Virgin_Killer_dummyURL and other variants of http://en.wikipedia.org/Virgin_Killer* The moved article at Virgin Killer controversy, is also blocked. But now try Internet Watch Foundation and Misplaced Pages.
• Tesco.net users are affected because their service is run by Virgin Media (previously NTL)
• Sky Broadband users are also affected because their service is run by Easynet.
• Demon Internet business users are not affected.
• Any ISP appearing on this list could potentially be affected.
• The (English Misplaced Pages) Virgin Killer article was briefly censored on a Sonera proxy in Finland, after the ISP had implemented IWF's blacklist by mistake.
• Users of the UK JANET academic network do not appear to be affected.
• Most (but not all) computers in UK military bases do not appear to be affected.
• BT are blocking (it had been unconfirmed previously), as are Orange UK and T-mobile.

Official statements

Internet Watch Foundation

The full statement is available at http://iwf.org.uk/media/news.250.htm. It has been revised multiple times since its first posting. The IWF has an FAQ specific to their Child Sexual Abuse Content URL List. This states "We have an appeals process in place for anyone wishing to request for their website/URL to be removed from the list. We would only remove it if it was proved that it no longer potentially breached the Protection of Children Act.". The appeals process is described on the IWF website. According to the IWF's Sarah Robertson, she is not aware of the appeals procedure having ever previously been used.

At 18:30 UTC, the IWF issued a press release stating that they were removing the webpage from their list of blocked pages.

Wikimedia

Press release available at wmf:Press releases/Censorship of WP in the UK Dec 2008. See also wmf:Censorship of WP in the UK Dec 2008QA.

Virgin Media

Official statement (9 Dec)

Plusnet

Official statement (9 Dec)

Be Broadband

"Be Broadband's Social Media Press Office: Be's response to concerns over Misplaced Pages" linked from Be's News releases page:

Media coverage

Mainstream

• BBC News Online — Misplaced Pages child image censored (most popular article on site from 3am to 10am Monday morning), IWF backs down on Wiki censorship
• Guardian.co.uk — Misplaced Pages falls foul of British censors, Amazon US under threat as internet watchdog reconsiders Scorpions censorship, How the IWF blacklist stops you seeing the Scorpions' album cover, Internet ban on 'child porn' album sleeve, Internet Watch Foundation reconsiders Misplaced Pages censorship & British censor reverses Misplaced Pages ban
• Associated Press — Forbes, Yahoo! News, Charlotte Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, The State, Las Vegas Sun, Salon
• Channel 4 News — Misplaced Pages 'may challenge' IWF ban & Censors anger Misplaced Pages users & IWF lifts Misplaced Pages ban
• LiveNews — Misplaced Pages page banned by ISPs over child porn controversy
• Teletext — Misplaced Pages site banned
• Sydney Morning Herald - Misplaced Pages added to child pornography blacklist & Labor plan to censor internet in shreds
• Sky News — Misplaced Pages Ban Over Naked Girl Pic
• Daily Mail — Misplaced Pages rock band article blocked over 'child porn photo'
• Metro — 'Child porn' ban on band's 'Virgin' Misplaced Pages entry & related poll & U-turn on Misplaced Pages 'child porn' ban
• Daily Telegraph — Misplaced Pages page on rock band the Scorpions blocked over child pornography concerns, Misplaced Pages article blocked over child pornography concerns & Misplaced Pages founder considers legal action over ban on 'pornographic' album cover
• South Africa Times — Band’s Misplaced Pages entry banned
• NME — The Scorpions' Misplaced Pages page banned in UK
• The Independent - Misplaced Pages article blocked in UK over child photo & The Big Question: What does censoring Misplaced Pages tell us about the way the internet is policed? & IWF: What are you looking at? (2002 article)
• Digital Spy - Scorpions' UK Misplaced Pages page banned, British ISP's restrict access to Misplaced Pages amist allegations of child pornography (comment thread)
• Washington Post – Misplaced Pages Censorship Sparks Free Speech Debate (Content produced in cooperation with PC World and written under a PC World byline)
• The Herald (Glasgow) – Album cover shows how morality evolves
• The Dominion Post – Misplaced Pages added to child porn blacklist
• The Times - Misplaced Pages victory in Scorpions censorship row

Blogs

• BBC News dot.life — Misplaced Pages is censored & Misplaced Pages - IWF backs down
• The Guardian Technology Blog — Misplaced Pages page censored in the UK for 'child pornography', Misplaced Pages censor mess 'a no-win' & IWF backs down over Misplaced Pages censorship
• ZDnet community blogs — UK ISPs switch on mass Misplaced Pages censorship (syndicated to CNET and Yahoo! Tech)
• Metro: The Ridiculant — Net nannies break Misplaced Pages in album cover kerfuffle & No such thing as bad publicity... & Interview with the Internet Watch Foundation's Sarah Robertson: we'd have blocked Amazon too
• DaniWeb (Davey Winder) — Naked child causes chaos on Misplaced Pages
• Channel 4 News — Censors anger Misplaced Pages users & Misplaced Pages: the bloggers reaction
• Anorak — The Top 20 Children On Album Covers, A Misplaced Pages Special
• Examiner.com – UK Misplaced Pages censorship shows need for filter circumvention
• Minneapolis City Pages Misplaced Pages entry for "Virgin Killer" by Scorpions banned in UK
• Wired Threat Level — Misplaced Pages Blocks UK Editors Amid Censorship Flap
• Silicon Valley – A chill wind makes for a slipperier slope
• Huffington Post — Blind Faith: The Slippery Slope To Internet Censorship

BBC Radio 4: News bulletins

• There was a 60-second radio news piece on BBC Radio 4 from approximately 1am onwards, by BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. Transcript by User:Pretzels.

Fair use violation removed

BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

• The full interview between David Gerard, Misplaced Pages representative, and Sarah Robertson, IWF spokesperson, finally happened at 08:54, Monday December 8th 2008. An MP3 is available at http://www.bathrobecabal.org/bbcinterview.mp3, and David Gerard has followed up the appearance with a blog post. You can still stream from BBC Today's site using Flash. An independent transcript by User:Vanderdecken follows.

Fair use violation removed

BBC World Service: World Update

• David Gerard also appeared on Monday 8th December's edition of BBC World Service World Update (47:26–52:08). He was interviewed by Dan Damon. The entire interview by Dan Damon is available online until 2008-12-09 10am UTC in WMA and RA formats. An independent transcript by User:Pretzels follows.

Fair use violation removed

BBC Radio 5 Live: Midday News Programme

• Sarah Robertson, IWF Director of Communications was interviewed on the Midday News programme, BBC Radio 5 Live, at 12:40, Monday December 8 2008. An independent transcript by User:Whimsical Oracle follows.

Fair use violation removed

Channel 4 News

• An item appeared on Channel 4 News at approx 7:40pm on 8th December 2008, featuring an interview with the chief executive of the IWF, Peter Robbins, and soundbites from the Open Rights Group and David Gerard, a spokesman for Wikimedia. To watch, see Channel 4 News, Part 4, 4:00, or here. An independent transcript by User:Pretzels follows.

Fair use violation removed

News searches

• Google News — Google News search

Tech/internet news

• ZDnet — UK ISPs flip censorship switch on Misplaced Pages & Wind up the Internet Watch Foundation
• The Register — Brit ISPs censor Misplaced Pages over 'child porn' album cover & UK e-tailers scurry to scrap dodgy Heavy Metal covers & Scorpions tale leaves IWF exposed
• BoingBoing — Britain's "Great Firewall" set to restrict access to Misplaced Pages
• DSLreports — Six UK ISPs Block Access To Misplaced Pages
• Open Rights Group — IWF censors Misplaced Pages, chaos ensues
• T3 — UK ISPs censor Misplaced Pages over 40-year-old album cover
• Webuser — Misplaced Pages block causes storm
• PC Pro — Brits blocked from Misplaced Pages over child porn photo & Misplaced Pages boss blasts IWF censorship
• PC World — Misplaced Pages Article Censored in UK for the First Time & Controversial Misplaced Pages Ban Lifted by U.K. Watchdog Group
• Computer Weekly — UK Misplaced Pages users unhappy over Scorpions page block & Misplaced Pages founder considers action against IWF over Scorpions image ban
• Computer World — Misplaced Pages article censored in U.K. for the first time
• IT Pro — ISPs censor Misplaced Pages over child porn pic
• Metafilter — Internet Sting
• InformationWeek — Misplaced Pages Censored In U.K. Over Nude Girl
• IT Examiner (India) — British ISPs block Misplaced Pages & Just who does the IWF think it is?
• Techworld (Australia) – Misplaced Pages article censored in UK for the first time
• APC – Internet filter stuff-up cuts off Misplaced Pages
• MyBroadband – Misplaced Pages entry banned
• LinuxInsider – British ISPs Block Misplaced Pages Page, Reigniting 30-Year-Old Child Porn Controversy
• HULIQ – Is the U.K.'s Filtering of Misplaced Pages Just the Beginning?
• NewsFactor Network – UK Agency Blocks Misplaced Pages Image, Editing of Site
• Digital Lifestyles – IWF: How Web Sites Become Banned In The UK
• IT Wire – Wikimedia welcomes IWF backdown in album cover controversy

Law News

• Out-law — Why the IWF was right to ban a Misplaced Pages page (Editorial comment); also syndicated by the Register
• LegalBrief — UK censors Misplaced Pages naked girl photograph
• Lawdit Solicitors – Censorship and Misplaced Pages (comments by Michael Coyle: "Solicitor Advocate who specialises in information technology law and intellectual property law")

Non-English

• In Czech:
  • Mladá fronta DNES — Cenzura udeřila na Wikipedii kvůli nahému děvčátku od kapely Scorpions
  • Lidové noviny — Británie v. Misplaced Pages
• In Dutch:
  • Gazet van Antwerpen — Misplaced Pages site van The Scorpions van internet gehaald
  • nu.nl — Britten blokkeren Misplaced Pages om kinderporno
  • ZDNet.be — Britse webproviders censureren Misplaced Pages
  • Webwereld — Britse providers blokkeren Misplaced Pages-pagina
  • De Telegraaf — Britse Misplaced Pages-pagina's geblokkeerd
• In Finnish:
  • Helsingin Sanomat — Wikipedian artikkeli Scorpions-bändistä sensuroitiin "lapsipornona" Britanniassa
• In French:
  • Clubic.com — Wikipédia partiellement censuré au Royaume-Uni
  • Ecrans — Misplaced Pages, victime collatérale du filtrage d’Internet
  • Le Point — GB : une page Wikipédia bloquée pour une pochette de disque controversée
  • Tribune de Genève — Des fournisseurs d’accès internet britanniques bloquent une page Misplaced Pages (Swiss)
• In German:
  • Basler Zeitung — Misplaced Pages unter Kinderpornografie-Verdacht (Swiss)
  • Focus — Kinderpornografie: Britische Provider filtern Misplaced Pages wegen Scorpions-Cover
  • Gulli — ISPs filtern Misplaced Pages wegen Kinderporno-Verdacht
  • Heise Online — Wikimedia verurteilt Artikel-Sperrungen in Großbritannien
  • Heise Online — Britische Provider sperren Misplaced Pages-Artikel
  • ORF — Kritik an Misplaced Pages-Zensur in Großbritannien (Austrian)
  • Rolling Stone — Nach den USA jetzt UK: Scorpions- Album macht Misplaced Pages Probleme
  • Spiegel online — Verdacht auf Kinderpornografie: Englische Misplaced Pages-Seite blockiert
  • Der Standard — Britische Provider filtern Misplaced Pages: Vorwurf der Kinderpornografie (Austrian)
  • Stern — Anstößiges Plattencover : Deutsche Rockband legt Misplaced Pages lahm
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung — Britische Misplaced Pages wegen Scorpions-Cover gesperrt
  • Tagesanzeiger — John Lennons Penis und andere Zumutungen (Swiss)
  • Tagesschau — Misplaced Pages-Artikel über Scorpions blockiert
  • die tageszeitung — Verdacht auf Kinderpornografie: Misplaced Pages-Sperre wegen Skandalbild
  • Die Welt — Plattencover: Scorpions lösen Porno-Skandal bei Misplaced Pages aus
• In Hebrew:
  • Ynet — ויקיפדיה מסוננת בבריטניה בגלל תמונת קטינה
• In Hungarian:
  • Index.hu — Korlátozták a Misplaced Pages elérését a britek
• In Italian:
  • Corriere della Sera — Misplaced Pages censurata per la copertina degli Scorpions
  • Punto Informatico — Misplaced Pages: quel nudo non si tocca
• In Spanish:
  • Barrapunto — El Reino Unido limita el acceso a la Misplaced Pages con un firewall como el chino
  • El País — Las operadoras británicas censuran un desnudo infantil en Misplaced Pages
• In Swedish:
  • Svenska Dagbladet — Naken flicka föremål för hätsk internetdebatt (where Swedish Police says it has decided not to blacklist this page)

Blogs

• The Nock Blog — Great Firewall of Britain (has technical overview of proxy involvement)
• Kelly Martin Wikimedia vs. Internet Watch Foundation
• Danny Wool Stung by a Scorpion
• Seth Finkelstein Reflections on Misplaced Pages vs CleanFeed, Censorship and British ISP's
• spEak You’re bRanes - The Iceberg on the Road to my Brain

Blog Searches

• Google Blog Search — Blog posts about the situation
• Technorati — Blog posts about the situation
• Twitter — Tweets about the situation

Social news

• Digg — UK ISPs censoring Misplaced Pages (frontpaged at 1:30am 2008-12-08 UTC, currently at #3 in Top 10 in All Topics)
• Reddit — UK ISPs filtering access to Misplaced Pages
• Slashdot — UK ISPs Are Censoring Misplaced Pages
• Wikinews — British ISPs restrict access to Misplaced Pages amid child pornography allegations & Wikimedia, IWF respond to block of Misplaced Pages over child pornography allegations & IWF reverses censorship of Misplaced Pages

Block message

Users attempting to edit anonymously from the affected ISPs will see a specifically designed block template. Administrators who block IP addresses believed to be impacted by this filtering are asked to use {{User:Lucasbfr/UKBlock}} rather than default block notice and to enable account creation (and block only anonymous access). Do not hardblock these addresses. If you are blocked, you will see a message like this:

User:Lucasbfr/UKBlock

In order to make it simpler for everyone (some the blocks reasons and durations did not match), I have changed the block settings of all these IPs after a quick brain check:

• Settings: anon only, ACC enabled (not that it will do much good), talk page edit enabled
• Duration: until 0:00 8 December (Tuesday), the situation being unlikely to change before that indef (which is NOT infinite)
• Reason: {{User:Lucasbfr/UKBlock}}:

-- lucasbfr 20:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't still be block from editing due to them being proxies? — Dispenser 20:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Only open proxies are blocked in such a manner, Dispenser. -Jéské Couriano 20:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

We have some precedent from flawed AOL proxy software. — Dispenser 01:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• I noticed my IP was the shared 62.30.* one as well, surprising, as my normal IP didn't show. AC --Sunstar NW XP (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

My normal IP showed up in the Leuksman header PHP file, but surprisingly when I was editing my own wiki, it showed my regular IP. I assume this is due to my MediaWiki being version 1.13, and yours being the latest SVN build. Over at my wiki, go to Special:Mytalk and see what your IP is: it may not be the 62.30.* one that you get editing here, unless I'm wrong. AC --Sunstar NW XP (talk) 23:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to disappoint, but this is a deliberate filtering from your ISP :) There's not much we can do beside complain. -- lucasbfr 23:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Affected ISPs

The boxes detail the information that is currently known to Misplaced Pages administrators. It is not guaranteed to be correct. People should urge ISPs that proxy and do not provide XFF headers, to add them.

3 UK (3G mobile phone network)

Censoring, NAT'ed connection, no XFF header, X-BlueCoat-Via

As of now, however the proxy is the same as used for uncensored content, the original IP is used for the request and an X-BlueCoat-Via header is added. When accessing the restricted page a page with the title "Site Blocked" is shown with the text "Sorry, we were unable to retrieve this web site for you." 86.9.126.174 (talk) 00:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC) Still the same this morning. 86.9.126.174 (talk) 09:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Be

Censoring, Handful of IPs proxying, no XFF, 404 error

• (Midlands) I use Be, also censored here. Midlandstoday (talk) 13:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Retford also censored, using Be as well. --tgheretford (talk) 13:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Update as of 00:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC): Virgin Killer Controversy is now also censored with a 404 error, on Be. --tgheretford (talk) 00:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Not censored here, as of 23:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC). Interestingly I haven't noticed any censoring until today (when I got the 'you're not logged in' alert from WP) Philpem (talk) 23:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• Instead of removing the block or fixing the proxies without XFF, they are adding more proxies. Hello from --89.167.221.2 (talk) 15:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

BT

86.143.144.193 (talk) 09:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Censoring, Single IP proxying, no XFF, 404 error

• East Anglia may be affected, but BT transmissions out of this area are not. I route through the ATE at Ely, near Cambridge, and service from this area is fine. Our data service is at Long Road, Cambridge. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Bradford here. Proxied through 194.72.9.25 by BT.
• (Northern England) BT blocked the page here. Shows a fake 404 error page. Jinxed - talk 16:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Using BT (via Firefox on Ubuntu), a friend in London received confirmed to me over the phone that she received a 404 error when trying to view the Virgin Killer article. She was able to see other Misplaced Pages pages, but attempts to access edit pages resulted in the block message being displayed. She was able to view the Virgin Killer article in full (with images) via Google's cache. zazpot (talk) 23:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• (South West) Now censored for me via my admin account and using BT Broadband. It wasn't blocked yesterday. Pedro :  Chat  21:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• In Edinburgh using BT - affected. Get error message when trying to access page.Eleventh Doctor (talk) 16:35, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• Still being censored on BT's corporate networks - 404 error page for article and image. ~~ 20:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• Still censored on the Clyde Coast (nr. Glasgow). Laseandre (talk) 21:41, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

10 December

• As of 9am, image and page unblocked for corporate customers. ~~ 08:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
• And for residential customers. 86.143.144.193 (talk) 09:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Demon

Censoring, Single IP proxying, XFF headers, Misplaced Pages approved XFF, error message reflects IWF censoring
Now free!

• (South East) Demon user, only the Virgin Killer image and image page are blocked, the page and the thumbnail of the cover are not. Searching for a Number 10 Petition on this now, if not I will create one and link it here. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 13:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Now shows this certificate error for me. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 20:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Eclipse

Censoring, Single IP proxying, XFF headers, Misplaced Pages approved XFF, "404 error" (but 403 return code), wildcard blocking

• Eclipse Internet is being affected around the Bedfordshire area too. I manage to get to the page using proxies, but I get a very bland 404 error page. - 22:09 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• (Northern England) I'm not sure who my ISP is(!), but it might be Kingston/Eclipse (213.249.193.2) (I believe my proxy's in Hull); the VK page and image are 404ed.—Dah31 (talk) 06:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• (South West) "Error 404" block from Eclipse. Fig (talk) 11:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Mobile3

Censoring, NAT'ed connection, XFF unknown, 403 error

• Sheffield: Mobile3.net: "Sorry, we were unable to retrieve this web site for you." TheresaWilson (talk) 10:55, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

O2

Censoring, Single IP proxy, no XFF headers, 404 error

• (London) With O2, while logged in and searching for the page, it returns a 404 error. However, when searching Google for a cached version, both the image and article text appear. londonsista 06:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• (NW England) With 02 - 404 error. doktorb _words 18:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• (East Anglia) Logged in and logged out I can see both the article and image. Iain99 22:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Orange

Censoring, 404 error

• (South West) Blank page with "Object not found" from Orange Free. Fig (talk) 14:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Using Orange from West London, as of Monday afternoon the article and the image are mostly down (bare text message "Object not found" on a white page), but sometimes up. Presumably this depends on routing, and may change from click to click. Anon editing seems to work, registering as an individual IP address - but perhaps that too may be intermittent? Jheald (talk) 16:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

PlusNet

Censoring, Single IP proxy, XFF headers, Misplaced Pages approved XFF, dropped connection

• (Northern England) PlusNet here - as of 16:45GMT I can make anonymous edits again. The fullsize image (or rather the page it's on) is still being blocked with a reset packet though 212.159.23.75 (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sky

Censoring, Single IP proxy, XFF headers, Misplaced Pages approved XFF, 404 error

• Southside of Glasgow here (Giffnock), I can view the article page with the thumbnail but when I click onto the image page I get a 404. I'm on Sky Broadband Cabe6403 02:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

TalkTalk

Censoring, Single IP proxy, no XFF headers, 404 error

• Also Glasgow, Talk Talk, 404 error for the VK page and within the IP address for which anon editing banned.

T-mobile

Censoring, error message reflects IWF censoring

• I've just spoken to a friend using a 3G data connection from T-mobile in south-west London; navigating to the Virgin Killer page redirects him to the IWF homepage - iwf.org.uk. This is crazy. Pretzels 02:21, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Tesco

Censoring, Single IP proxy, no XFF headers, dropped connection

• I and a Tesco Net user from Banbury. Telifonica losses are in Oxford now.--62.30.249.131 (talk) 19:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• (South West) "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" on wireless Tesco broadbanrd (Virgin Media). Jolly Ω Janner 17:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, my old Banbury Tecos/NTL I.P. is back!--86.29.240.97 (talk) 10:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

UK Online

No longer censoring

• UKOnline, Manchester. The image description page at Image:Virgin Killer.jpg is blocked, and returns a 404 error. The actual article, however, returns with the image intact and in place. Attempting to insert the image into my sandbox worked just fine. So, all in all, utterly inept attempt to block content. Mayalld (talk) 07:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Virgin

No longer censoring

• Several different responses have been observed:
  1. "White page" Immediate closing of connect, without even returning HTTP headers
  2. "URL" Just the URL is returned (http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg
  3. A generated message, including a <textarea> widget containing the URL.
• The Virgin Killer page is just blank on Virgin Media (Cable) in Bristol, and the image doesn't load. This censorship is absolutely appalling, and even more so as Virgin has a cable monopoly. Stuk (talk) 16:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Using Virginmedia in the East Midlands; likwise censored. Salmanazar (talk) 18:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• South Side of Glasgow (Clarkston), using Virgin Media. Not even a 404 or 403 error. Just blank page. Annonymous editing not allowed either.
• Still censored here, on Virgin Media in Birmingham. -- gtdp (T)(C) 10:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• VirginMedia's ex Cable and Wireless blocked "Error 320 (net::ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE): Unknown error."-- Barliner  talk  13:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• I (a Virgin Media user) am now getting 502 error. "The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request GET http://en.wikipedia.org/Virgin_Killer." Anonymous101 (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Works now in Nottingham Modest Genius 20:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• I can confirm it now works, even the virgin killer article is no longer censored.--77.99.150.12 (talk) 21:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• Thank you VM for a quick response in removing the block. 77.96.24.141 (talk) 22:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Vodaphone (GPRS)

Censoring, NAT'ed connection, XFF unknown, error message reflects IWF censoring

• Vodaphone is censoring. Following webpage is returned instead: "BLOCKED ACCESS. The site you have attempted to access is identified by the Internet Watch Foundation as a site containing potentially illegal content. Access has been blocked", which is located at . No obvious proxying (IP was 212.183.134.64). At least there's honesty and good technical implementation, although the text is blocked. Ian¹³/t 15:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• GPRS access to page now fully restored. SE England. -Gazzmundo (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Websense

Censoring, unknown errortype

• Now blocked on Websense, but no blockpage, just a blank one. Pretzels 11:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• Update: URL returned is my college's IP address, followed by /cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=3423487564. The file returned is actually a 2x1 blank GIF file. Pretzels 16:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• My school is showing a 'Category Filtered: Sex' standard websense error message. -Gazzmundo (talk) 11:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

NTL

Censoring, Single IP proxy, no XFF headers, dropped connection

My Adderbury number is still on a single IP and was briefly blocked erlier--86.29.243.170 (talk) 10:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Not blocked

Tiscali

I use Tiscali and it has not been affected through out. Fangfufu (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

AOL (UK)

AOL (UK), provided by Carphone Warehouse, has not been affected as well. Location is London. Fangfufu (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

JANET

• Can I just point out that I'm able to view the page through Keele University's internet link, which is provided by JANET, a UK government-funded ISP for educational facilities in the UK - obviously neither JANET nor the University, which usually has a somewhat restrictive internet access policy, finds the image a problem... Colds7ream (talk) 20:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• I can edit from Edinburgh Uni 129.215.149.98 (talk) 12:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
• University of Bristol unaffected. 137.222.10.58 (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Same from the University of Sheffield this afternoon. ~~ 23:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• University of Huddersfield didn't seem to be affected at all, either on the 8th or today. Once again, this is apparently a JANET-provided connection. Philpem (talk) 23:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

UK Military

• Coventry and Wolverhampton are both censored, although military PCs don't appear to be. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 19:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Opal

• No Opal censorship in Bristol at present. 92.20.114.132 (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Other reports

• It's hell in London after Telifonica, Be and O2 all got sucked in to 1 I.P.! London has suffered heavly, but victims are also in Manchester and Oxford.--62.30.249.131 (talk) 19:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Same as Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk · contribs) - Coventry censored. D.M.N. (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Telifonica losses are in Manchester to.
• Preston, Lancs, here. I'm a long-time editor, but one click onto the page and WHAM, 02 have me censored! However, the page is still available on answers.com, obviously....doktorb _words 22:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Glasgow here, just wanting to say I'm also affected, not a London thing then. 62.30.249.131 (talk) 22:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• We are unfortunately aware of this mess, rest assured that we are struggling for what is best for the encyclopedia here :s -- lucasbfr 22:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
• Warning notice up in Paisley @20:07 2008/12/06 62.30.249.131 (talk) 20:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Also affected in Edinburgh. Terraxos (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Cambridge and Peterborough are afected to.--62.30.249.131 (talk) 19:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)--Peter john Lloyd 3rd (talk) 12:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

International

U.S.

• I just want to note that I cannot view the VK article from the US school I'm working at ... the BESS filter they use has apparently added it to its block list as well. Daniel Case (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sweden

• Ericsson corporate firewall blocks the page yielding the message (notice the IWF-Restricted part):

Access denied to "en.wikipedia.org" according to:
- Ericsson Code of Business and Ethics and Conduct and
- Monitoring the usage of systems and services
This page is categorized as: "IWF-Restricted;Reference"

Secure page is not blocked.

Switzerland

The press message of NetClean reseller (DE) (FR) informs that two unnamed Swiss ISPs initiated filtering based on IWF blacklists.

Removing the Virgin Killer image

Should it be there? rootology (C)(T) 18:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Absolutely it should be there. I find the cognitive dissonance required to say "Someone has asked us to censor wikipedia, this goes beyond NOTCENSORED" baffling. We don't change content because people get upset by it. Somehow we seem to think that because this is the UK and not China, Sudan or Iran, this is ok. It isn't. We build an encylopedia. Nothing else. Protonk (talk) 18:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  • So the risk of a number of editors, including minors, being put on the UK Sex Offenders Register is worth taking, however small, for the sake of retaining a non-free image? GTD 18:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Exactly. Just like the risk of editors in china being thrown in jail for logging into[REDACTED] articles isn't worth changing the 'pedia. Protonk (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

We are supposed to be:

• a 💕
• a resource accessible by everyone

We are not supposed to be:

• a host for illegal content

This image, being also non-free, leads to the failure of all three of these things -- Gurch (talk) 19:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The image is not illegal - or at least, no credible source has asserted that it is. DuncanHill (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not illegal under US or Florida law. It fits the NFCC and has been the subject of critical commentary and controversy. It belongs here. More to the point, the last DRV on it showed the community feels it belongs here. Protonk (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should start filtering out articles critising Turkishness too, and block those counter-revolutionary upstarts from disrupting our harmonious society? - hahnchen 19:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• If I had that album in my music collection, would I be breaking the law? Presumably not. So I don't see that having the ability to access it on Misplaced Pages is any different. Yes, it's obviously an objectionable image, but it's not being used in a sexual context, it's being used to illustrate an actual album. Having said that, and having closed the IfD, since it's a fair-use image it is clearly disposable. But where do we go after that? There was a large discussion recently (which I can't find) about a user-uploaded photo of a group of nude cyclists which included a child. Would that need to be deleted as well? Black Kite 19:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If they're worried about naked children, why not chase the child porn websites? Why go after Misplaced Pages? Because we're so big. They want to show that they have some authority. Let's not give in to the bullies - keep the image and continue with our lives. They'll get bored eventually. Just use the same principle as WP:DFTT Dendodge Talk 19:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't give them too much credit for forethought. They probably just found an image with a naked girl on it and hit "filter". Protonk (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly right. Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to bureaucracy. There is no power-mad conspiracy here, nobody is in control. There's a bunch of people whose job it is to investigate alledged child abuse images, one of them investigated this one and marked it as probably illegal. That's all. The massive ramifications are a result of a chain of rules, bureaucracy and inflexible systems, with no-one accepting accountability. The IWF has an appeals process, but they don't make it very clear on their website. British Wikipedians who find this situation inconvenient need to collectively hire a solicitor (British minor lawyer) to contact the IWF, find out what that appeals process is and begin that appeals process. Andrew Oakley (talk) 11:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

They do chase child porn websites. They have gone after[REDACTED] because they recived a report and decided the image was a problem.Geni 19:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Then why not chase Amazon or Ebay for selling child porn (in the form of that album)? Because we get more Google hits. They just want to mindlessly exercise their power and don't care who or what they affect. Dendodge Talk 19:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

They may not have been informed of either case. Remeber they haven't admited to the flagging and are unlikely to do so so power tripping is not a likely motive.Geni 19:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"May not have been informed" isn't very likely. They see it here, it's an album cover, they think "what websites sell albums?", they block Amazon, eBay et al. But they choose not to follow that train of thought. It's pretty unlikely that in all the billions of readers of Misplaced Pages, only 1 has found offence at this image, and not until now - if it's that bad, surely it would have been blocked earlier? (No need to respond, I won't be visiting this page again - I'll focus on the 'pedia). Dendodge Talk 19:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Liberty as a human rights organisation may be an alternative to a solicitor. Also I see that Amazon.co.uk does not have the nude image, although Amazon.com does.-- Barliner  talk  13:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Absolutely should stay. Personally, i find the movie The_Blue_Lagoon_(1980_film), more offensive material than this picture on an album cover. So I have no reason whatsoever to object to this albumcover on Misplaced Pages in that specific article. The image is legal in the US, Germany, and many other European countries. And I find it worrying that ISP censorship has come so far in the UK. If it ever gets this bad in the Netherlands, i'm gonna emigrate. And I wholeheartedly agree with User:Protonk. 'naked girl' -> 'enter' --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Right, the image is actually on amazon.com. Why doesn't IWF go after amazon.com ? Xtremeways (talk) 22:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

File a complaint with them, and they will. Whatever explanations are out there, the least compelling one is that the IWF chose[REDACTED] specifically. Protonk (talk) 22:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The image was removed by amazon.com, but still displayed on The Scorpions official website Xtremeways (talk) 20:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Does this mean that amazon.com has been censored? Are they more compliant than Misplaced Pages? Artgoyle (talk) 09:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

• The issue of non-free images is irrelevant. The en.wiki has decided to allow the use of non-free images under certain conditions and even the editors who believe in a very strict interpretation of WP:NFCC will agree that this image fits all the necessary criteria for inclusion. Bottom line is that this is the UKIWF's mistake, not ours and it's not at all clear that this is the only image they object to. At some point, we need to stick to our guns. I know I won't get much support for the idea but I think the right thing to do is to just block the few British IPs remaining and refer any complaints to UKIWF. It's a ridiculous position on their part. Right now, this is a problem that we're trying to solve on the administrator's noticeboard but it would be easier to just alert British media because the UKIWF's position is untenable. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 19:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• The Misplaced Pages should not bend over to prudish conservative activist groups over this and more than it should for Islamic fundamentalists who continuously demand the removal if images at the Muhammad article. We're here to provide a comprehensive, online encyclopedia open to all, not to make people feel happy and safe from things they don't like. Tarc (talk) 20:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh please, do have a sense of proportion. This is most likely one almighty cock-up; let's not go assuming one reason over another. Assume incompetence, not conspiracy. The IWF is not a conservative activist group, it is ludicrous to assume otherwise. Steve 20:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
    • If it sounds like a duck... Tarc (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• • • It is nice to quote WP:NOTCENSORED, but we don't have a choice at the moment. Either that image gets censored, or the Wikimedia does. Muhammed and other articles DO NOT have any relevance - they haven't prompted the wrath of the IWF. \ / (⁂) 21:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed, but if Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, or any other nation blocked WMF access over Mohammed, would you support removing those religious images then? rootology (C)(T) 21:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• We are blocked in china for refusing to edit articles to the desires of the government there. Should we change that? I don't understand "it is only ok to not censor[REDACTED] unless there is some sort of consequence to that stance". This came up in the Peter Tobin issue. People seemed ok with saying[REDACTED] didn't censor content until the police came and asked us to censor content. Then that came undone. Protonk (talk) 21:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yes we do have a choice; tell them to go pound sand. The moment this project caves to special interest groups, then it is lost, IMO. Tarc (talk) 21:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• No, the Muhammad images just prompted the anger of tens of thousands of Muslims around the world. Though they at least had the courtesy to contact us regarding their complaints. Mr.Z-man 21:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• Recall that there's no evidence that the image is the sole reason of the blacklisting. We're not going to let IWF sift through Misplaced Pages and tell us what they want to change. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• According to their site, they have no intention of telling us anything. Mr.Z-man 22:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages is not the propaganda arm of any government. That's why we can come here to read a factual account of what happened at Tianenman Square. Nor is it the PR firm for conservative or liberal activists, which is why we can come here and read accurate information about both the National Rifle Association and PETA in the same sitting. The image is notable, well known, has not been declared illegal under any jurisdiction, its display is covered under fair use and, as far as I know, the article in which it is displayed is factually accurate and does not in any other way violate policy or law. People use this site to expand their knowledge, not to witness how various governments decide what their citizens can read. The image should stay. Rooker75 (talk) 19:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• It is definitely possible to access the image from the UK right now, if you do it the right way. Franamax (talk) 22:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yes it should stay. All that matters regarding legality is the law where the Misplaced Pages is hosted. Whether or not editors in other countries are at risk is no more relevant for this article than for any country - should we remove all sexual images, because they might be illegal in countries like Iran? Things will be far broader from January when the UK criminalises possession of "extreme" adult porn, are we going to remove any images that might fall under that too? Should we remove images of Muhammad because they might be illegal in Sudan? Were Misplaced Pages articles changed in response to the blocking of Misplaced Pages in mainland China?

(Also note that this image has not been shown to be child porn in the UK - that would require a court case - the problem is the IWF censors material it thinks may "potentially" be child porn.)

I say this as someone who lives in the UK, and is affected by the block. Don't change the way Misplaced Pages just because my country makes a mess of something.

As for being non-free, it seems to satisfy fair use, and that's a separate issue anyway. Mdwh (talk) 02:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• I support keeping it as well. Controversy over that album cover dates to its release and is a part of its story. In all other cases where there is a case of a controversial album cover that was replaced in at least some of the world (Yesterday and Today, Ritual de lo Habitual and Electric Ladyland are the first that come to mind, but there are others, of course), we have included pictures of the album cover because they clearly meet FUC #8. I see no reason to make an exception here because some nitwitted Brit censor thinks it might be child porn (although it is certainly a shocking image, and one that no band would be allowed to use, much less create, for an album cover today). Daniel Case (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

But if we have to remove it for whatever reason, we should replace it with this. Daniel Case (talk) 19:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

for clarity

Guidelines for UK prosecutors are set out here; there is a five-level classification, of which Level 1 (the minimum) is "Level one - Images of erotic posing, with no sexual activity". The problem is that prevailing law prohibits "indecent images of children", with no definition being offered for what is "indecent" - this is somewhat correct, as it leaves individual cases up to a jury. However, it does leave simple nudity open to interpretation of indecency. A jury in Bristol may well come to a different conclusion from a jury in Manchester, and that is the problem; those who police these images do so on a "least common denominator" basis. There are numerous cases here of seizure of simple nudity on that basis, which later come to nothing, but leave behind a climate of fear. I suggest that is not a climate we should support. To coin a phrase, "if it saves one child then we have created a police state for the sake of one child". --Rodhullandemu 22:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

420chan.org was offlined by it's datacentre and a major carrier (level3) because of this image being posted on one of it's boards about a year ago. Their admins tried to use the fact it was here on[REDACTED] as a defense and that still didn't fly and level3 considers them a child porn distribution ring all because of this one image. To them, it's child porn, period. ~~Anonymous

420chan was offlined by its host for a great many reasons, not least of which being the fact that it served as a central point for organizing Denial of Service attacks, phishing, spam, harrassment, defacing of a number of websites, and writing scripts to fill other forums with CP in an attempt to have them shut down. That image may have been part of the reason, but it certainly was not the only one. -

The image should stay. As others have remarked, it clearly meets the criteria for inclusion. If we remove it because a not-even-government entity demands its removal, what happens when (for example) Iran demands removal of all pictures of women not in their traditional garb, and all mention of anything sexual? What happens when Zimbabwe demands the removal of everything criticizing their administration?

• ok heres a simple thing. if this image gets removed, u might as well remove the page[REDACTED] is not censored and start censoring everything as it will be announcement to the world that[REDACTED] can now be bullied into censoring anything. the image as controversial as it may be was record label that came out long time ago and article for that record should have that image. its encyclopedic not pornographic. this issue now has nothing to do with whether the image in inappropriate rather it is about wiki's image as encyclopedia. if a country feels the image shouldnt be there then they should block that image and no one can stop them from doing so. china already doest it!! and there are enough people that believe its wrong. it will be a very slippery slope that[REDACTED] will go down on if this image gets deleted. so i support for stay. Ashishg55 (talk) 08:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The image is encyclopedic and pornographic at the same time, don't get me wrong here, I still want it to stay. I don't want Misplaced Pages to get censored in any way. Artgoyle (talk) 09:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

o i didnt mean to say its not pornographic. i meant its purpose is encyclopedic and not pornographic. in no way is it promoting child pornography... it was record label so its displayed for that record. i see nothing wrong with that (not that i disagree that picture is fairly disturbing) Ashishg55 (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Resolve the dabate by bluring the image or obscuring the sexual regions of her boddy.--86.29.240.97 (talk) 10:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Image removal attempt

The image was removed earlier, by an editor claiming that he was removing a deleted image. I'm assuming good faith here. The editor may have assumed that as he couldn't see it, it had been deleted. I've restored the image to the article, and would suggest that an edit notice on the article may be appropriate. Mayalld (talk) 09:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Activism

Contact the IWF

If you feel the IWF has potentially been abetting the infringement of your right to express yourself (via Misplaced Pages) or your right to view online materials not known to be illegal, and would like to make a complaint to the IWF about the matter, contact details may be found on . This equally applies if you yourself have not been affected by the censorship prompted by the IWF's decision to blacklist Misplaced Pages content, but would like to express your concern on behalf of others, or as a matter of principle.

zazpot (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If you support the IWF action you can also express yourself on said page. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Contact your MEP

As the IWF receives funding from the European Community, it may help to contact members of the European Parliament. --JensMueller (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Contact your ISP

If you are a Virgin Media customer, and you feel that having your internet connection censored without your agreement is worthy of a complaint, please call Virgin Media's technical support helpline to ask for the block to be removed. If you have a Virgin Media (UK) telephone, you can call for free on 151; otherwise call 0845 454 1111. zazpot (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I did call Virgin Media's tech. support line, at approx. 2030hrs GMT on 08 December 2008, and was surprised to discover that the technical staff at the office I reached had not been made aware of the censorship decision.

The first person I spoke to denied that Virgin Media blocks anything, and he suggested the problem may have been due to anti-malware software on my PC, or due to problems with Misplaced Pages's servers. He refused to accept that the mainstream news articles about the issue - even the BBC one - were credible. He said that if VM was doing anything to block Misplaced Pages, the VM tech. support team of which he was a part would have been notified; so since it had not been notified, it was not possible that VM was responsible for the problem. I asked if I could speak to his supervisor, and he agreed.

The supervisor (Title: Manager, Technical Support; Name: Suman) was very helpful and courteous. He confirmed that the tech. support team haven't been told about a block imposed by VM on any Misplaced Pages pages. He tried accessing the Virgin Killer page but couldn't (his connection is routed via VM's network), even though he and his colleagues were able to access other Misplaced Pages pages. He agreed to investigate this, and said he would have somebody call me with news within a day or two. He agreed that if VM was indeed imposing censorship, his team should have been briefed about it, and that if the VM network was blocking Misplaced Pages pages, it was a major problem.

zazpot (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi zazpot. If you read the previous discussion about Virgin Media you'd see that they have no power over this web filtering, it's outsourced to the Internet Watch Foundation. Hence, the call centre staff were correct - Virgin Media itself are not imposing any blocks. It is all handled by the IWF. You may want to ask them to consider unsubscribing from an organisation which seems to block content so carelessly. Pretzels 21:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Pretzels, I did read it, but I disagree that they have no power over the web filtering. While it's true that IWF is responsible for the blacklist, VM has some control over how they respond to that blacklist. They can also lobby: for more reasonable standards to be applied in the creation and maintenance of the blacklist; to overturn legal requirements that they respond to such a blacklist; for a publicly-accountable body to be in charge of the blacklist; etc.

Changing ISP would be costly for me, both in time and money. I'd rather use my energies towards convincing VM to be more grown-up about these issues, and to raise awareness of the issues, than towards switching ISPs. zazpot (talk) 22:02, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't suggest leaving Virgin Media, but cool. You might be interested in #Access_to_the_CleanFeed_list. Pretzels 23:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Facebook groups

Seems like groups are being created about this on Facebook now as well... I'm surprised a little that none of the big media companies have yet picked this up... D.M.N. (talk) 16:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Be careful of what you wish for. As has been said elsewhere, a Daily Mail reader in, for example, Tunbridge Wells may have different views on an article containing the words "Misplaced Pages, child, pornography" than the plethora of free speech advocates we have here GTD 16:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

And now we have this: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Internet Watch Foundation. D.M.N. (talk) 16:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Speedy closed. Davewild (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Alerting ORG and WMUK lists

I've emailed the Open Rights Group and wikimediauk-l lists about this, to gather data on precisely what is and isn't happening. The ORG list hasn't got an archive, but of course wikimediauk-l does - David Gerard (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Petition

A petition has been set up about Misplaced Pages censorship in the UK here. Techman224 01:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

For users from the United Kingdom - Get a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website!

Pledgebank

Various UK internet users are pledging to change ISPs in protest of the censorship. Gwinva (talk) 01:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews opinions page

Join the fun, document your findings on the talk page. --Brian McNeil / 20:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes because a sensionalist wikinews article is what we really really need right now alonge with a hole in the head.Geni 21:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Sensationalist?? I had to use https://secure to add this comment. The UK is quickly dropping down the list of free countries - last month an opposition MP was arrested for making public inconvenient government blunders, and now this. The country should be renamed to The United People's Republic of Britain. 86.9.126.174 (talk) 23:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That would involve getting rid of the monarchy.Geni 00:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The opposition MP was arrested for inducing a civil servant to illegally reveal state secrets Nil Einne (talk) 06:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

He was arrested for allegedly inducing a civil servant to reveal what were alleged to be state secrets. DuncanHill (talk) 14:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To be pedantic, surely he would have been arrested "...on the suspicion of..."? GTD 14:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes that would be better - pedants are always welcome :) DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it should be, "He was allegedly arrested for allegedly inducing an civil servant to allegedly reveal what were alleged to be state secrets." I mean, where you there? Do you really know he was arrested? Maybe it's all just a government plot to make you think there's a government plot! —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 18:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Most popular article

Because of this - VK is now being labelled at Misplaced Pages:Popular pages#Articles as the most popular page within the last hour. I can't see the page, but at a guess, a lot of vandalism is being aimed towards it. D.M.N. (talk) 17:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Censorship backfire, there's a name for it, begins with S. Can't remember it though. Message from XENU 17:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Streisand effect. Davewild (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah that's it! Thanks Message from XENU 17:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This image is so difficult to find, censoring Misplaced Pages and annoying thousands of editors really makes sense :( I hope Misplaced Pages stands and fights against a move which has absolutely no legal basis in the EU. Lerichard (talk) 17:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand the above links have been forwarded to the IWF with a request that they block Google. --Rodhullandemu 17:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Including the Lego one? Carcharoth (talk) 18:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

As usual, censorship backfires. Check out these pageview numbers on Virgin Killer. J.delanoy_adds 02:17, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

ohhh, snap. I knew it jumped twofold from normal traffic, but i didn't expect it to eat that to, what, sixty-fold. hbdragon88 (talk) 03:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Try about 250-fold, from about 500-600/day before Saturday to over 1,000 on Saturday to over 126,000 on Sunday. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm somewhere there is either a Scorpions manager who is very happy or very worried.Geni 06:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

And it appears that Scorpions (band) has eclipsed Virgin Killer as the hourly top article. Protonk (talk) 06:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Virgin Kiler back in front - nearly 25,000 hits per hour. D.M.N. (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Coverage of this whole issue is the most read story on BBC News online worldwide at the moment. londonsista 07:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

This is also true for 7 solid hours earlier this morning. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 12:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Technical details of transparent proxy

The diagnosis discussion "Major UK ISPs reduced to using 2 IP addresses" has been moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators' noticeboard/2008 IWF action/Archive 1 by Protonk (talk). Please retain this note as links still exist to the old location.

On Be Unlimited/O2/Telefonica, all HTTP traffic to the European Wikimedia Squid frontend rr.knams.wikimedia.org is routed through the transparent proxy. Traffic to other Wikimedia Squid frontends or Wikimedia sites hosted on their own servers is not rerouted or filtered, even if it's directed to the English Misplaced Pages. Have other ISPs done the transparent proxy for one IP only, too? --Ticram (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Wanted to ask, do they set the “X-Forwarded-For” header? Niczar ⏎ 18:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently they found out over at Bugzilla that they don't. Which is the problem. Calvin 1998  18:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

We can't tell, since the headers people have been pasting on Bugzilla are from leuksman.com, which is not hosted on that IP. Would it be possible to set a similar php on http://test.wikipedia.org or something, to see the headers that actually have come through the transparent proxy? --Ticram (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think they looked at the server logs directly. Apparently not all versions of Misplaced Pages are blocked, test.wikipedia might be unblocked :/ -- lucasbfr 19:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

They may have, though it doesn't say on bugzilla. For me test.wikipedia.org is not blocked but goes through the proxy: affected users can test http://test.wikipedia.org/Special:Mytalk and see one of the IPs listed at the top of this page. http://wikimediafoundation.org/Special:Mytalk however shows people's real IP. I think that's because test.wikipedia.org resolves to rr.knams.wikimedia.org (the Amsterdam cluster), while wikimediafoundation.org resolves to rr.pmtpa.wikimedia.org (the Tampa cluster). --Ticram (talk) 19:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd expect they're using DNS assisted URL filtering, as in, a "suspicious domains" list is provided to the ISP, and requests for resources on those domains are redirected to the "transparent proxies". In normal operation, the client connects to the ISPs DNS to get the IP of the destination machine. Then the client connects to that IP address:

If the domain is in the "suspicious" list, the request is redirected over to the proxy which masquerades as the actual web site (which is why SSL may work, but regular HTTP doesn't), provided the specific URL isn't the problem URL.

If the URL is in fact the problem URL, then the call to the actual web server doesn't happen - and the client gets the generated warning message.

This means that the ISP needn't maintain a list of all the URLs that are "bad", just a list of domains that may have "bad" content. It also means that the whole domain needn't be blocked if "bad" content has been found on it. However, it does mean that the web server sees only a small set of IPs. Mr. Bene (talk) 05:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• that diagnosis would fit the situation being described pretty well. Protonk (talk) 06:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  • This was amazingly helpful. Thumbs up to Mr. Bene.--Tznkai (talk) 07:35, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Found a more informed explanation, directly from an implementing ISP, referenced at The Nock Blog. There is no dependency on DNS - the "suspicious" list provided to ISPs is of IP addresses only, and the ISPs routers handle re-routing traffic to the proxy. The three conditions are effectively the same. Mr. Bene (talk) 08:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Bene, good effort, however it is however incorrect! The self-appointed IWF provide their list of naughty URLs (which are low-quality, badly formatted, and might include things like PHP_SESSION_IDs making them ineffectual). To avoid blocking content on shared hosting systems, specific /32 routes are inserted by the ISPs into their networks to move traffic to suspect IPs to a transparent proxy. The transparent proxy then looks at the host: www.example.com and GET /some/where ... headers and either regenerates the request, or returns a 403/fake 404/warning: blocked message. Think of the IP redirect as a fast hash, and the naughty list as the fine-grained filter. —Sladen (talk) 08:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look like there's a set of IWF maintained proxies, or that "your request is passed to the IWF proxies", but indeed that the ISPs are running proxies of their own, with a list of URLs and possibly IWF provided software. The configuration seems to differ however, since people have reported different 404 messages, ISP statements of the situation, outright closed connections or inconsistent blocking of the two pages. So people who experience performance issues should blame their ISP's implementation of the filtering, where the added load of all Wikimedia sites is probably considerable. --Ticram (talk) 09:02, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

BBC: "I've also spoken to one of the ISPs which is blocking the Misplaced Pages page. A spokesman made it clear that the process was automatic - the ISP just takes the list and implements its own blocking procedures."

See also and Cleanfeed (content blocking system) (that article definitely needs some work, though). Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Re:Cleanfeed and the IWF - according to this article it is possible (for people who know an awful lot more about computing than most of us) to find out what is on the IWF list. DuncanHill (talk) 10:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

DuncanHill, the Guardian article mangles the meaning of the results of Richard Clayton's research (7.6.2, p. 140 of ). One can determine the IP addresses of hosts that are on the IWF 'suspect list', but those hosts may host multiple entirely separate websites. Thankfully, there appears to be no way to determine what those sites may be, nor the paths to offending material within those sites.

Access to the CleanFeed list

I went googling a bit and a I found this item on how PlusNet implements the IWF filtering . I guess some of you will find it interesting (ie they don't have an easy access to the full list, and don't plan to tamper it even if they disagree). -- lucasbfr 13:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, there is this stunt where ISPs think they can evade legal liability if they contractually obligate themselves to not know what is on the list and to not make exceptions. I hope some court eventually rules on it and tells them that the court is not amused by such stunts. All the more reason to complain to your ISP. You break their "we can't be at fault because we don't know about it" by telling them about blocks which have impacted you. --Gmaxwell (talk) 16:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Swamp IWF with Freedom of Information Act 2000 requests. As they seem to see themselves fit to decide what is or isn't suitable for discerning adults to see, they are effectively fulfilling a public function. The Department of Constitutional Affairs has guidance on this somewhere that states that bodies which aren't strictly public authorities but do fulfil a public function are subject to it. The worst that happens is that they get bogged down in correspondence. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 17:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The IWF is not a public body listed in Schedule 1 of the FoI act, neither as originally listed in the act nor the current version on the DCA website, and therefore is not covered by it. This is because it is effectively a charity funded by the ISPs, not a public body funded by the government. Modest Genius 20:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Technical presentation about CleanFeed

A technical, in-depth presentation about CleanFeed functioning and countries implementing it is available here. Slideshare permits downloads of the presentation as PDFs.

Eclipse

For the article, Eclipse Internet return these http response headers:

Server: squid/2.6.STABLE15
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:19:52 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 304
Expires: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:19:52 GMT
X-Squid-Error: ERR_ACCESS_DENIED 0
X-Cache: MISS from wensleydale.karoo.lan
Via: 1.0 wensleydale.karoo.lan:3128 (squid/2.6.STABLE15)
Connection: close
403 Forbidden

and a page containing the text:

HTTP Error 404
404 Not Found
The Web server cannot find the file or script you asked for.
Please check the URL to ensure that the path is correct.
Please contact the server's administrator if this problem persist

Note the disparity between these two.

Easynet on Site Credits

I noticed this morning that Easynet, one of the ISPs blocking our content, is listed on Site Credits on the IWF website. Does this mean that their internet connection is supplied by Easynet and hence, actual IWF office staff can no longer access the Virgin Killer page? Pretzels 02:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Long-term solutions

• On an industry level, encourage ISPs and network managers who run proxies which are not intended as anonymizers to provide X-Forwarded-For, and have the Misplaced Pages software use it automatically if it's not already that way. This should only be done for verified proxies, otherwise it provides an easy way to forge someone else's IP address.
• Create an automated user-registration page that is in a different domain, say, a subdomain of wikimedia.org. The server would also need to be on a separate IP block, otherwise it might be subjected to the same proxying as the main site.

This way, the next time some government does something like this just to wikipedia.org, its users can still create accounts. Also, if a government or corporate firewall manager pro-actively put in X-Forwarded-For, their users won't be affected like the English ISP customers are this weekend. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's already an account creation tool at stable.toolserver.org (see WP:ACC), but it's set to block all requests from blocked IPs. Might want to hack that a bit. Stifle (talk) 14:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we should set up an SSL account request page explicitly for this. If a user tries to register normally, send them to that page where the request can be validated. I'd volunteer to work on approving accounts if we do indeed set this up. Also, I say faster SSL[REDACTED] access, or a[REDACTED] mirror that is uncensored. This move by the Internet Watch Foundation is completely uncalled for. _{David (contribs)} 15:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

We already do the first one, see m:XFF Project. Mr.Z-man 18:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Then a banned user could add a X-Forwarded-For header to his requests and thus circumvent the ban. Again: The problem is not on wikipedia's site but on the ISPs, they must not "force-proxy" their users, EOD. --62.214.202.155 (talk) 20:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The ISPs are forging the client IP addresses for no reason. There is absolutely no reason a proxy needs to advertise it's OWN IP address as the client IP address if not desired. There is the Via: header that they can add in this case. See RFC 2616. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

This might be a side-effect of their brain-dead transparent proxying; this problem doesn't appear in a small-scale transparent proxy, in a LAN for example, but in this case they might have a problem. Niczar ⏎ 08:00, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It is absolutely a MUST that ISPs present information to the user explaining that the URL is CENSORED, instead of them just dropping the connection. The first rule of "desired censoring", is that people are always made aware of the fact that they are being censored. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• It is a must in the united states, as far as I know. IF the IWF is replacing the virgin killers page with a forged[REDACTED] 404 page, that is a no-no. Were this a US organization, some complaints could be brought against them depending on the technical means they used. But that's the pickle. They can't demand we take the image down and we can't demand they not forge page information. But that is only dependent on a determination that they actually are forging page information instead of dropping the connection. Can someone upload a screenshot of the 404 page for either the image or the article? Protonk (talk) 01:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is the message Demon Internet users recieve, as linked to by the Wikinews article. However it would appear Demon are one of the more honest providers and other companies simply serve a blank page, or one so small the browser displays its own default 404. Pretzels 01:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I get:

results from dah31's server in Hull (via 213.249.193.2)

$ telnet en.wikipedia.org http Trying 91.198.174.2... Connected to rr.knams.wikimedia.org. Escape character is '^]'. GET http://en.wikipedia.org/Virgin_Killer HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.0 403 Forbidden Server: squid/2.6.STABLE15 Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:13:04 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 304 Expires: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:13:04 GMT X-Squid-Error: ERR_ACCESS_DENIED 0 X-Cache: MISS from wensleydale.karoo.lan Via: 1.0 wensleydale.karoo.lan:3128 (squid/2.6.STABLE15) Proxy-Connection: close <html><title>Error 404</title> <body> <h1>HTTP Error 404</h1> <b>404 Not Found</b><br><br> The Web server cannot find the file or script you asked for. Please check the URL to ensure that the path is correct.<br><br> Please contact the server's administrator if this problem persists.<br> </BODY></HTML> Connection closed by foreign host.

. Note that the error code is actually 403 Forbidden.—Dah31 (talk) 07:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Normally I get a fake 404 error when trying to access the page with a browser. When I however try Dah31's method, the page delivers fine! The browser must be sending some additional headers that make the proxy react. --Ticram (talk) 09:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, this was the case for all but the demon editors. At the very least for the first 2 days of this mess. But on the long term issue. It is absolutely key we gather information on which ISPs are "good" and which are "bad". Which ISPs add the XFF headers, which use Via: headers for proxying, and which fail to present proper "description pages". This way we will be able the NAME the worst of the ISPs and have the slightest bit of hope that they will FIX it. As long as they are not named, these technical issues are not likely going to be fixed. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

That's fair. I'm not sure what kind of pressure we can bring against ISPs that dont' forge ip information, but you are correct that we should figure out who does this and who remains a compliant proxy. Protonk (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

So far it appears that none of the ISPs subscribing to the IWF list and using proxies is sending XFF headers. Mr.Z-man 02:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have asked Tim if he can help us name the ISPs that do not provide the XFF headers (some do have them says Tim), he is apparently looking at it right now ! Where would we be without our developers. The advantage of ISPs with XFF headers that are on our list are: "users editing Misplaced Pages from behind the proxy will appear to be editing from their client IP, not from the proxy IP. Misplaced Pages administrators will be able to block clients individually; the whole proxy will never be blocked due to the actions of a single vandal." --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I already listed this at the top in the summary, but i'll note it here as well. Tim Starling ran a scan on the logs, and only the 89.* and the 62.* IP addresses do not provide XFF headers. So we can think about making requests for the other IP addresses to be added to our "trusted" list of proxies, so that those editors can go back to a more "normal" editing routine. Of course, doing that would limit the visibility of the other problems, but this should not keep us from helping as many UK users as we can. http://meta.wikimedia.org/XFF_project --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Instant, brief blocks

If the reduction to just a few IP address for most UK Misplaced Pages traffic stays, with no easy way to distinguish between good and bad IP users, can I suggest something that should reduce vandalism sprees?

This is something I suggested some time ago (I think it was early this year), probably on VP (Technical). It got shot down at the time, but I still think it's workable, and could be a partial solution to vandalism concerns in this situation.

My suggestion: Established users (not just admins) should be permitted to impose instant, short blocks on IP users currently engaging in obvious vandalism. I'm thinking that a block of no more than ten minutes would be about right.

Advantages:

1. Greatly reduces need for admin involvement.
2. It would greatly disrupt IP users engaged in a vandalism campaign. (Think of it: if you were a vandal, then having to wait up to ten minutes between each piece of vandalism would be very dispiriting.)

Disadvantages:

1. Benign IP users could still find themselves blocked if they're unlucky enough to be editing just after a vandal got blocked.
2. Some less-able established users might misuse the tool by blocking well-meaning IPs that make bad edits.

Possible features:

1. The privilege to block could be withdrawn in cases of misuse or abuse by the blocking user.
2. Only to be used against IP addresses.
3. Made clear to the blocking user that it should only be used for obvious vandalism.
4. Only against currently vandalising users (e.g., the last edit was vandalism, and was in the previous five minutes).

--85.158.139.99 (talk) 12:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that'll happen any time soon. Stifle (talk) 14:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the actual numbers of edits from the UK, but it's surely hundreds or even thousands per minute. Times that by 10 and you get an awful lot of collatoral damage. Modest Genius 16:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Wrong place for this discussion I'm not sure where the right place is but this isn't it. I could see a permission vandalblock being created for "established" editors, similar to rollbacker, that would grant 10-minute blocks on editors, with usage limits, like 5 a day or something, to prevent abuse. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 16:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Injunction against IWF?

I don't know where to post this, but wouldn't it be an idea for Wikimedia to take out an injunction about its' inclusion on the IWF list? I know Wikimedia has lawyers, and I think IWF is acting illegally in this matter, and since they require ISP's to take their whole list or nothing you can't argue that it's the ISP's fault. An injunction in the UK is fairly easy to obtain if your interests are being violated. 206.165.101.124 (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's a cause of action here. Stifle (talk) 14:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Causing damage to Misplaced Pages by preventing the effective blocking of vandals? DuncanHill (talk) 14:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it cause that accessing and editing Misplaced Pages is being disrupted for millions of people because of this IWF action? The IWF seems to be accountable to nobody but themselves, and presumably the courts, they don't appear to be willing to apply common sense in the matter. An injunction will force them to remove Misplaced Pages from the blacklist, (and as a positive side-effect the legality image in question will be determined by a judge, hopefully setting a precedent and forcing IWF to use common sense in the future). 206.165.101.124 (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It would probably more effective if either Scorpions (band) or a UK citizen or ISP affected by the block filed suit, seeking a judicial declaration that the image either does or does not fall under the law. If it doesn't, then this case is closed. If it does, then a whole new political can of worms opens up as Amazon and other web sites will face similar blocking, record stores will have to pull the album or deface the cover, and private individuals who possess the album will face prosecution. The resulting political firestorm should be interesting to watch.

As a Virgin user affected I'd volunteer if I could find a lawyer who would take the case pro bono. 206.165.101.124 (talk) 15:00, 8 December 2008 (UTC) Logging in in case someone wants to contact me about this :) TH (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Another option is for ISPs to band together and tell the IWF to either be more precise and accurate or the ISPs, as a group, will form a cooperative to take over the duties now done by the IWF. Or better yet, have the ISPs just tell the IWF "you're fired." It is supposedly voluntary, after all. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

how about reporting the 'charitable' IWF for violation of it's charitable status? I'm sure unbridled censorship must count againstit (http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk) Jw2034 (talk) 15:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably not good for anyone associated with Misplaced Pages to make comments regarding any organisation's charitable status! GTD 15:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It might also be possible to seek a judicial review if the IWF is considered to be "otherwise exercising a public function", and its decision was outrageously unreasonable. Both of these however might be uphill points to prove.

Update: Given that IWF have official EU funding and a "memorandum of understanding" with the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police, and effectively make decisions for an officially-sanctioned cartel representing over 90% of UK internet connections, that would seem to speak to the first point. The Met also participate directly in the appeals procedure. Courts have also apparently in recent years taken a less shy position on the second point, since the Human Rights Act 1998. Jheald (talk) 17:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

According to p.13 of a March 2008 legal paper (in PDF) entitled "Intermediaries, Invisibility and the Rule of Law" by TJ McIntyre, Lecturer in Law, University College Dublin (investigating the legality of UK Internet censorship including the legal recourse for owners of website's on the IWF's blocklist), the IWF itself `espite its nominally private status...has accepted that it is “a public body” for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights and has undertaken to be governed subject to the Human Rights Act 1998' in minutes of the IWF board meeting held on 25 April 2001. The paper goes on to say that `lthough it is not clear whether this concession would be binding if a judicial review were brought, it might provide the basis for such an action notwithstanding the lack of “any visible means of legal support” for the IWF.'

BTW, I for one would, despite IWF's unblocking Misplaced Pages, support WMF in seeking a judicial review as a test case and setting up a special legal fund to do so.

Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _{talk contrib}

Personally, I think it would be no bad thing for the IWF's position to be tested in court. I don't like the idea of a self-selected country-wide internet censor without any independent external appeal mechanism or judicial oversight. But if a case were to be considered, IMO it should be taken on only if it can be successfully financed from a single-purpose ring-fenced appeal for specific funds (including the costs of the IWF's lawyers if we lose). I don't think it would be an appropriate use of WP general funds otherwise. Jheald (talk) 15:32, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have written an email to the EFF to ask if they are interested in helping with this and also volunteered to take part in any legal action. I don't know how strong the EFF are in the UK though, I think most of their lawyers are US-based, and would probably not be able to help. Does anyone know of other organizations that might be interested in taking this up? TH (talk) 15:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Liberty? Modest Genius 16:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The Open Rights Group is also following this issue quite carefully. (Disclaimer: I am a member of ORG's Advisory Council.) — OwenBlacker (Talk)

A successful legal challenge is not out of the question. The main grounds would be that not a single person in the UK is likely to be prevented from seeing the image as a result of this block. Here are the Google image search results for Virgin Killer, which are enough to keep the Internet Watch Foundation in nannying banning orders for a very long time. The other grounds for appeal are that the album has been on sale since 1976 without any legal problems in a number of countries, and there is little point in the UK creating a separate ban which does not apply in other countries (see Spycatcher). No guarantees that this would work in court, but it is worth a try. --♦IanMacM♦ 16:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I think testing the IWF in court would be a very bad thing. I cannot believe the IWF would block a Misplaced Pages page and not expect an enormous shitstorm to brew up, thus one may presume that for publicity/PR/legal purposes they have deliberately gone after a major site on a bit of a 'fishing expedition' to test the response. Taking them to court would risk legitimising what is a very small-time organisation that has never gone after a Google, Amazon or Microsoft (despite the supposed 'offensive image' being all over Google images and Amazon) in a big way and could give them the push to go up to that higher level of interference and censorship (just look at the situation in Australia atm to see how far it can go). The best thing to do if you live in the UK is to contact your MP (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/) highlighting the problem of an unelected, unaccountable censorship body (and the press along the same lines), until the IWF becomes an embarrasment to the Government who ultimately holds it's leash. Jw2034 (talk) 17:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

"I cannot believe the IWF would block a Misplaced Pages page and not expect an enormous shitstorm to brew up..." To this I give you Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I think they simply issued this as a plain old block and didn't stop to consider what site it was they were blocking and what kind of response would come about. Tabercil (talk) 17:39, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I looked at Liberty's website, they don't provide an email address but only a web submission form. I hate those, so I didn't contact them, but if anyone else (including Open Rights Group or whoever) are organizing some legal action and need affected volunteers I wouldn't mind being contacted. Although I couldn't care less about the image in question, I see censorship (especially by an apparently self-regulated entity without any accountability) as an evil that must be fought, it is the tool of regimes that I would not like the UK compared to. TH (talk) 19:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, here is Open Rights Group's article on this event. --Bowlhover (talk) 05:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I think an injunction would not only fail but embarrass wikipedia, especially as inability to edit the site is the responsibility of[REDACTED] not anyone else. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It's due to Misplaced Pages's blocking of British IP addresses, yes, but not blocking the addresses would result in an unacceptable amount of vandalism. In my opinion, the IWF block greatly harms the project by (1) forcing it to block out British contributors or (2) forcing it to accept malicious edits. --Bowlhover (talk) 05:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

IWF's blacklisting is only indirectly related to the IP problems. The main issue is the proxy servers, run by the ISPs, not the IWF, are not sending XFF headers as they should be. The proxy servers are being used because of the IWF blacklist, but censorship isn't the only reason an ISP would use proxy servers. We used to have similar problems with AOL before they started sending XFF headers. Mr.Z-man 05:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, a home user would lack the standing to make a complaint against the IWF. A home user's dispute would be with their ISP, the only party in a position to challenge IWF in this case is Wikimedia. If this has affected the ability of users to donate, there's the small matter of economic interference. You also have the advantage that English libel laws carry a reverse burden of proof - they have made a damaging statement to ISPs about Misplaced Pages content, and they would then have to prove the image was in fact illegal (their public statement says it is "potentially illegal", but their actions defeat this qualification) and that it was in the public interest to make the allegation. Libel trials are notoriously lengthy and ugly, and therefore people on the receiving end tend to back down PDQ. A sternly-worded letter from WMUK counsel (assuming it has one) should do the trick, as I imagine IWF has little desire to be dragged through the mud. 217.33.218.200 (talk) 10:53, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The Channel 4 website is now reporting Jimmy Wales as saying Misplaced Pages may challenge the ban in court. Jheald (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

ifd

Misplaced Pages:Images and media for deletion/2008 December 9#Image:Virgin Killer.jpg. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I see it has been speedily closed. The debate will have to happen reasonably soon as we havent properly debated this in months but given what has happened right now it is premature. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

See also

• Virgin Killer
• Internet Watch Foundation and Misplaced Pages
• Internet Watch Foundation
• WP:NOTCENSORED
• Internet service provider

References

1. Child Sexual Abuse Content URL List FAQ
2. "IWF statement regarding Misplaced Pages webpage". Retrieved 2008-12-09.
3. Most popular article on entire BBC News site from 3am to 10am Dec 8 2008
4. A montage of screenshots of BBC News Online's most popular story statistics, showing the story being the most popular on the entire site over 7 hours of the morning of December 8th.

External links

• Internet Watch Foundation
• Open Rights Group