FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

OT: BBFC? VCHIP-UK?

------- Forwarded message follows ------- To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk Subject: OT: BBFC? VCHIP-UK? Date sent: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:31:20 +0100 From: Alec Muffett <alecm@coyote.uk.sun.com> Send reply to: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk

Half-heard on the "Today" program on R4 this morning: an item saying that the Home Secretary was "getting tough" on "adult" video material and video nasties, and (who knows what else, that sort of stuff...)

So far, so titillating, and so normal from Today's James Naughtie.

A spokesman from the BBFC (British Board of Film Censorship) was trotted on to say that some government-proposed appeals committee would be better-off making it's decisions appeals against BBFC ratings, on the basis of whether certain finite "restrictions" had been exceeded, without recourse to arguments of "artistic merit", etc.

Again, the sort of stuff you would expect a quango to want, turning an oversight committee into a rubber-stamping organisation.

However, I woke up and actually started listening when Naughtie seemed to be reading from a Government proposal document, something along the lines of Jack Straw proposing/seeking mechanisms for enforcement of censorship *in the home*, presumably along the lines of the great American V-Chip debacle.

Can anyone cite sources for this story and/or government proposal, please?

Admittedly the only thing I watch on TV nowadays is the 10pm News, MTV2, Simon Singh on Channel4, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer - yes, I *am* a geek - but I object on principle to the notion of the Government enforcing content restrictions at the consumer end of things.

This ability (were it applied to broadcast TV) would give too much scope for abuse of privilege; it would be a horror if "Dispatches", or "Panorama", or "World in Action" wanted to trash (eg) Labour Party Policy, and the audience were restricted by giving the data an "XXX" rating or somesuch.

Given the continuing failure of "region coding" to enforce artificial market restrictions upon DVDs[1], the notion of a similar/parallel mechanism being used to enforce censorship of pre-recorded media in the home, seems doomed.

In between this sort of nonsense (if it proves real) and the Council of Europe draft treaty on Cybercrime[2] - a document that recommends destroying the foundations of the computer security profession, whilst simultaneously undermining the evolutionary pressures which are driving computer vendors towards provision of decent computer security[3] - between these two, I personally am feeling very worried regarding the future of both technology, and freedom, in Europe.

- Alec Muffett Sr Staff Engineer/ Sr Security Architect Sun Microsystems

[1] ...circumvention of which would probably become illegal under the Council of Europe draft treaty on Cybercrime; have any solicitors out there got a 'chipped" DVD and would like to comment?

[2] http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/projets/cybercrime.htm

[3] ...of course, it could be argued that Governments don't *want* vendors to provide their citizenry with secure computer systems.

-- [opinions and statements cited herein are personal and may not be factual] alec muffett - random numbers: 40915 93 - alec.muffett @ uk.sun.com

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