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Please sponsor my Movember efforts by clicking the image above.

Earlier this year a really good mate of mine came through prostate cancer. As y9ou can imagine there has been much celebration and thankfulness because of this. But there has also been some reflection and sobriety on the fact that in the UK alone, 10,000 men will not survive prostate cancer. Add to that the thousands who will sadly die from testicular cacner and you begin to see why something must be done.

In order to help raise much needed funds I am growing a moustache.

Yes, a moustache.

Movember is an annual event where thousands of men around the world come together to celebrate the hairy top lip and – more importantly – to raise funds for men’s health charities. It’s called Movember because it takes place during the month of November (see what they did there?).

This year I am taking part and I will be keep you updated on the progress of my fine nostril warmer as the month progresses. I am asking you lovely people to sponsor me. You can do this online at this link.

Many thanks to those who already have sponsored me and to in advance to those who will. I hope to culitvate a moustache worthy of your sponsorship.

Much of this is a reworking of an earlier blog post. I have rewritten it to address the proposed law change following the campaign I referred to earlier.

A parent will always be the best protection for a child on the Internet. Image CC:By-NC-SA OllieBray

The government is holding a consultation for a proposed new law which it says will protect children while using the internet. This proposal follows a campaign which I first came across in February 2012. It is called “SafetyNet” and is being run by Premier Christian Media and SaferMedia. The campaign and now the consultation is about requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to “[block] pornography and other content at network level whilst giving adults a choice to ‘opt-in’ to this content”.

The campaign website and FAQ document are full of statistics which – as with any statistic – cannot really be argued with. These range from the percentage of UK households with internet access to how many children regularly access explicit images on their home computer. There are also a bunch of sound bite quotes to join the dots between these facts and the aims of the campaign.

The consultation is fairly loaded and appears based upon the “facts” purported by the campaign. As far as I am concerned facts are facts. If a USA survey i(take a single school by the way) says “1 in 3 10 year olds have accessed pornography online”, I’m not going to argue. I’m not altogether sure why 73% of UK households having internet access adds to the problem but I don’t doubt the figure is correct. What concerns me are the conclusions drawn and the way they are presented in the consultation document.

Perhaps I should introduce why I feel I can write about this. I am a UK Christian parent (so therefore fit neatly in the target demographic for the campaign), my children are between 5 and 9 years old and thus are well within the group the proposed law seeks to “protect”. I am also someone who works with and understands the “network level” Internet this consultation talks about. I have been building hosting webservers and websites since the mid 1990s and I still do. So I am fairly and squarley intarget demographic for the campaign, consultation and the proposed law. I would add I am also one of the people who understands the technology involved and by the sound of it I understand it better than those running the campaign or making the proposal.

Why this won’t work

The campaign calls for ISPs to “block pornography” at “network level”, the consultation expands this into two options. Firstly a universal switch which enables or disables blocking (or “filtering” if you prefer) for the internet connection and secondly an array of questions which apparently will allow the parent to decide which types of content are permitted or not permitted through the same connection. The wording is phrased as if this filtering can be decided on a per user basis rather than a per connection basis but the type of filtering they are describing cannot be managed in that way. In brief the type of filtering they are proposing (regardless of which option is used) is unworkable and dangerous. I’ll focus on pornography here because that is the main thrust of the campaign but the same points can be applied to other content types. Here is why…

How do you define “pornography”?

You can’t (as the campaign does) try to get away with a dictionary definition because we are dealing with parents here who may well have their own idea of what is appropriate for their child to view. Limiting it to just ‘the explicit representation of sexual activity’ may not be enough. As an example if that were all that was being blocked I still would need to check what my 8 year old was stumbling across on Google images at which point the “protection” is not coming from the blocking but from me (as it does now). Additionally who decides what content fits into what categiry and what level of “risk” there is? One parent may consider it perfectly aceptable for their child to see say a scantily clad woman in a provactive pose, another may not and yet both would expect such a filtering service to met their needs. It can’t. There is no part of the proposal which mentions fine tuning or configuration of the filters by the parent and to be honest if it did have such a feature I could not see many taking advatange of it because it would be what a friend of mine refers to a “too much of a faff”.

How do the ISPs determine what gets blocked?

Certain websites will be obvious by their name/domain but is the government really so naive as to expect the site owners to be scrupulous in what they call their websites? Also what of images and content provided through otherwise innocent websites? Google images for example has a safesearch option. Set that to “off” and your child will get a bit of surprise. But as the images are hosted and served by Google, the ISP cannot block them. So using the vaunted “network level” blocking, the explicit images can still be viewed. Other sites will be similar. In the end the only way for an ISP to properly block explicit content is to do it on an image-by-image, video-by-video basis. To do that they’d have to either rely of peer reviews which are inherently slow to react or they’d need to employ people to check and grade the content. Now I’m not an employement law expert but I’m pretty sure that an ISP employing somebody to view possibly illegal, often offensive and probably explicit material every day would be opening themselves up to legal consequences they could do without. Aside from that, given the constantly changing nature of world wide web content, this is something I cannot see any ISP being able to do properly. How long would it take before a parent brings an action against an ISP because their child was exposed to some piece of content which slipped through the filter?

Filtering does not work.

Anyone who uses filtering or blocking software will tell you that things slip through. Don’t believe me: how about your eMail spam filters? How about your anti-virus software? If they are so good why are you still suspicious of links in eMails you weren’t expecting? If you are not suspicious, you should be. Let’s look at Google images again. Google are huge, they dwarf any ISP by comparison and yet they still don’t guarantee that safesearch will hide all explicit or offensive images, they have a “report offensive images” link on their search results. If Google can’t make any guarantees how can I be sure an ISP would block everything?

Network level blocking means blocking sites and images before they get to your house. Such things already exist. I use a free (and very good) service called OpenDNS which – among others things – allows me to have it block websites that either declare themselves as “adult” or have been reported as such by other users of the service. Such sites are blocked before they even get down my phoneline. So this is pretty much what is being proposed here. It doesn’t work. Well that’s not true, it does work just not 100%. Google images is not blocked and other sites which have mixed content are not always blocked. If my daughter searches for “girls bedroom posters” on Google images with safesearch on “moderate” (the default setting by the way) she gets images which are possibly not what she was after. Filters can of course be too aggressive such as the one I heard of recently which blocked access to the Essex Radio website (and presumably Sussex and Middlesex too). Lord knows what it makes of Scunthorpe.

The point again is that even with Google images safesearch on strict and OpenDNS I still have to monitor what my children surf. The main “protection” for my children comes from me not any blocking software or service.

It’s all or nothing

The consultation allows for the fact that adults can request the ISP blocking is switched off either entirely or by specifying types of content. This sounds fine as long as all the adults use one connection and all the children use another. But that’s not how the world is. Those 73% of UK households with Internet access probably have a single main connection for each household. Many of them almost defnitely have a mixed range of ages using the Internet. So if a parent wants the blocking switched off, the child gets it switched off too. ISP blocking at “network level” is by defnition all-or-nothing. Now you may argue that parents should not be watching such content if they have kids. But I’ll wager they do and if they have the blocking turned off, the children the proposed law seeks to protect are no longer protected.

I’m not here to tell other adults what to do and by the sound of it the proposal doesn’t want to either but if an adult wants it turned off (and I doubt this would be something the ISP would want to keep switching on and off on an hourly basis) then it’s off for the kids and again the “protection” that should be provided by the blocking will have to be provided by the parent (as it should be now).

The consultation makes reference to filtering services supplied by mobile operators. The problem with this is that mobile internet connections are supplied to a single device, home internet connections are supplied to a single point (a hub or router) and this distributes it to a range of devices within the home. If you turn off filtering on a mobile device you disable it for that single device. If you disable it (or part of it) for a home Internet connection you do so for all devices and all users. So while it is entirely practical for a child’s phone to have fiiltering but the parent’s one to not have it, this is not practical or possible on an average home Internet connection as proposed here.

It gives a false sense of security to parents

You’ll have gathered by now that this is my main point. The campaign raises concerns which all parents whose children have Internet access should consider. But the solution offered by the proposed law and consultation is poorly thought through. As you have seen above, ISP blocking will still require a parent to monitor what their kids are surfing. This is good and I wholeheartedly agree that a parent/guardian is the best protection for children online. As parents we should be interested in what they are doing whether online or not. But what worries me is that this ISP blocking idea would cause a lot of parents to stop paying attention (or pay less of it) to what their children are doing online. It would give a false sense of security. Lets revisit the anti-virus analogy. Anyone running a Microsoft Windows PC should run anti-virus software, that is a given. But just having it there does not mean you will be “safe” from malware, phishing or other nasties. Ask anyone who supports Windows PCs and they will tell you that you are only as good as your last update and also just because you have software which the manufacturer promises will protect you (no matter how much you pay for it) you still have to be vigilant. It’s the same with blocking or filtering. The model is flawed. It does the best it can under the circumstances but it’s flawed.

It’s been suggested to me that I am not actually the type of parent this is aimed at. It’s a complement to be considered so and I know there are parents out there who do not pay attention to what their children are doing online. The problem is that if that is the target market aren’t they exactly the ones who will presume this filtering alleviates them of any further concern to their child’s online activity? Doesn’t that – in the terms set out by the campaign and consultation – put their children at greater risk? I’m not convinced that inadequate, unpractical and unworkable filtering is a solution. I’m not convinced that filtering is anything other than an assistance and even then if it is not voluntary introduced by the parent it is less likely they will fully understand it or implement it properly.

Oppose it

In the end, as shown above, ISP blocking would still require a parent to monitor/participate/be involved in their child’s online activity. That means the blocking is next to useless. Even if you presume it will help or do some of the job for you, you still run the significant risk that your child will find an image, video or site that you’d rather they didn’t. Sadly pornography is part of our culture and so is the Internet. But the Internet does not work like a TV, radio of a shelf of magazines in the newsagents. It’s different and it needs to be handled differently. As a Christian parent you might expect me to support this campaign but I just can’t. I do believe that my children should not be exposed to certain types of material until such a time as they are ready to understand it but I do not believe this is the way to achieve that.

The SafetyNet campaign might have the safety and protection of children at its heart but its using the wrong tactics. We do not need scaremongering, knee-jerk reactions based on shaky “evidence” and headline-grabbing phrasing. The government may use rhetoric which says it is trying to protect our children but the consultation is loaded and ill-thought out. Such a law, if passed, would not protect children any more than an 18 certificate on a DVD does. Educate parents, get them to speak to their kids, help them. Don’t make laws which would have a worse effect if passed.

Filtering, blocking and other such technologies can help a parent, but in the end, technology cannot protect our children, only we can. Such laws do not prevent children getting access to the filtered content (whether deliberately or by stumbling across it).

What can we do

The Open Rights Group has provided ways to write to your MP on this matter. In addition if you are a parent or business involved in Internet Services you can take part in the government consultation. The closing date for the consultation is 6 September 2012.

Image Copyright (c) 2012 Ryan P Cartwright - released into Public Domain

Some of you will know I’m a bit of a freedom advocate – particularly when it comes to using the Internet/WWW. I’ve already explained why censorship and blocking are non-starters when it comes to the web and spoken out about Internet censorship. During the last governments reign I joined those campaigning against the monitoring of private Internet usage on a national scale. In short we won – the proposed bill to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to keep records of all their customers communications was dropped.

Well now the current government is looking to resurrect that bill as the Communications Data Bill (CDB). This bill would require ISPs to:

• keep a year’s worth of complete records of all the websites you have visited as well as when and how frequently you visit them
• keep a year’s worth of every eMail you send and receive
• keep a year’s worth of every phone call you make to or through them (e.g. through Internet telephony like Skype)
• keep a year’s worth of every letter and fax communication between you and them or sent through them (not sure why an ISP would have records of letters I have sent but this proves the bill is worded as a catch-all).

Of course the Home Secretary says this is for prevention of crime and advocates of the bill are already dropping the key terms “terrorist” and “paedophile” into conversations about this proposed act as often as they can.

But this bill is yet another poorly thought out that attempt to monitor what everybody is doing and thus keep an eye on all of us – innocent or not. “That’s fine” you think, “I’m not breaking any laws. If the government wants a record of my visits to http://www.cakewrecks.com that’s fine with me . This bill won’t affect me.” Except it will.

• ISPs queued up to decry the last bill saying how much overhead storing all this data would add to their business costs. Those costs will be passed onto the customers. That affects you.
• There are and should always be concerns over the security of this data. These records will contain every eMail you send, every visit to your bank’s website, your shopping habits, your credit card details used when you shopped. That is a very tempting target to a lot of people. That affects you.
• Mobile providers are also ISPs now so this new law covers them. All you rmobile phone calls and mobile web browsing kept on record. That affects you.
• The records will also contain details of anything you may have said or did – even in innocence – which could be deemed in breach of somebody’s copyright. That music file you sent to your friend so they could tell if they wanted to buy the album? That clip from Youtube you downloaded and used in a presentation without getting a licence? Imagine if a media firm suspected you of “stealing” their intellectual property. How far a leap is it to imagine that they would ask/demand the ISP hand over your browsing habits regardless of whether there is any proof? An innocent eMail becomes evidence in a private lawsuit. That affects you.
• The records could be used to filter out any dissent against the government and highlight those who disagree with government policy. They could use this to censor things they disagree with. This affects you.

Woah stop. Did I just say the government could use this data to highlight those who oppose it? Surely that kind of censorship wouldn’t happen in a democratic country like the UK?

Except it does.

Enter the neverseconds blog debacle

You’ve heard this one right?

• A 9 year old girl blogs about her school dinners, including photos and rates them for health and nutrition.
• The site proves successful gaining over 2 million visits and “celebrity endorsement”.
• The site also raises thousands of pounds for a charity that aims to feed children in poorer nations.
• The local authority (Argyll & Bute) hear about it and don’t like the fact that this blog occasionally paints a somewhat negative image of the schools meals.
• The local authority instruct the school to stop the girl from blogging or taking photos of her meals saying it puts their staff “at risk”(?).
• There’s a public outcry and show of support for the blog.
• The local authority issue a statement to say they are standing by their actions regardless.

Update: As I published this post the BBC were reporting that Argyll & Bute have climbed down and are no longer banning the neverseconds blog. But they did try to censor and only changed their mind when it went public.

Censorship (or attempted censorship anyway) here in the UK. Yeah I know it seems daft to jump from a local council in a tizzy about slating school meals (funny how nobody stopped Jamie Oliver – who funnily enough supported this blog) to a national goverment sifting through eMails to find incriminating data on someone they want out of the way. The problem is that Argyll & Bute’s actions show that politicians often act in an ill-informed way which is harmful to the people they are meant to serve. Yes there are a lot of politicians but honestly I have never heard of one who genuinely seems to understand the Internet and associated technologies. Once these records are being kept, broadband costs will rise and it will open the door for the next phase which will be to open this data up to other interested parties.

This is fine if you are happy with the government (or anyone they deem fit) sifting through your communications. But if you are ok with it, can I ask a question: do you use envelopes or do you send everything on a postcard? I’ll presume you use envelopes so then ask your self why? It’s not illegal stuff you are sending. It’s just a birthday card to you best friend. But you use an envelope because 1. you don’t want you friend to see it until their birthday and 2. it’s nobody else’s business what is in that envelope.

I appreciate there will be some purported legitimate reasons for wanting to monitor certain people for particular reasons but there’s a pretty decent chance that anyone who is using the Internet for criminal activity (and copyright infringement is not a crime) will already work around the bits where they leave a trace. You know those “hacking” groups like Anonymous and LolSec? Ever wonder why they rarely get caught? They’re good at hiding. ISP records would not catch them. In fact there’s a good chance they’ll hijack somebody else’s wireless and put the blame on an innocent person.

Write to your MP today

The CDB is not in the public interest, it is poorly conceived and bad for the country. It does affect each of us and if we sit and wait it will be too late for us to stop it. The openrights group have an excellent page which enables you to eMail your MP about this. It takes a few seconds to do and could make a big difference. If you live in the UK I urge you to do so as soon as possible. Let’s stop this before it begins.

Some welsh cakes I made - image (c) Ryan Cartwright CC:By-SA

Could something as small as a cake make a difference to your church?

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Gal 6:9-10 NIV

At the weekend just passed and in honour of St David’s day I baked some welshcakes for our church. Baking cakes for church is something my wife (mostly) and I (occasionally) started doing on a weekly basis during Lent 2011. It was part of an attempt to revive the coffee time that happens after the main church service on a Sunday and inspired by what became the Give up bad coffee for lent campaign. I posted a photo of the welshcakes and it seems this inspired others to make some to take to their church.

Growing up in church in the (ahem) 1970s I recall that homemade cakes were often a feature of the refreshments/social bit after the service. I’ve visited many different churches over the years and have noticed that in the past ten years the cakes have disappaeared. Usually replaced by a tin (or even paper plate) of biscuits which may or may not have some rubbery ones at the bottom. There’s nothing wrong with biscuits but I’d like to encourage you to think about making (or even buying) a cake to take to church. Why not do it for lent? I wonder if cakes were dropped in an attempt to move away from the twee image the church has acquired, images of a victoria sponge with green teapcups spring to mind. There’s nothing wrong with moving with the times – indeed the GUBC4L campaign is to encourage churches to do that by serving decent fresh coffee – but don’t overlook the power of a cake in generating some coversation and fellowship.

As an example I’ll mention that the refreshments time at our church was generally well attended by about half the people there. They’d stay for a drink and then drift home afterwards. Once we introduced fresh coffee and then cakes, more people stayed and stayed for longer, conversations continued and spread. Fellowship happened. I’ll be honest I did not expect that making fresh coffee and baking a cake would have this effect and it would be wrong of me to say it was all down to that. Much of the credit should go to the people at our church who start and have the converations and when we started baking the cakes it was mostly because we just thought people like some cake with their coffee – which it seems they do (who knew?). People are definitely the key here but sometimes we need a bit of a nudge to just tip the balance between dashing home and staying a few minutes longer for a chat. Fresh coffee and cakes are good at that bit.

Sometimes we need a bit of a nudge to just tip the balance between dashing home and staying a few minutes longer for a chat. Fresh coffee and cakes are good at that bit

So, as part of an encouragement to show some gospel hospitality – why not bake a cake this week. It doesn’t have to be a complex one. We’ve found that tray-bakes work really well. Most people don’t want a great slab of cake but a small square of iced sponge or a choclate brownie or a welshcake always seems to go down well with a cofee (or tea). Also another tip is that cakes that can be held in one hand without falling apart and not too sloppy are better. Be aware of allergies and things but if you do have people with something like a gluten intolerance making one they can eat too is just a question of googling for a recipe. Also while we like to try different cake recipies out, I’ve noticed that nobody complains if a tray bake turn up on a regular basis.

Finally- having done this for year – I can tell you that sometimes you just don’t feel like baking, this where the scripture above comes in and don’t forget that there will be others who can make a cake as well. You don’t have to go so far as a rota (if two people make cake there’s just more to eat!) but it’s a great way for people to contribute. Also people bring cakes in on or near their birthday, sometimes leftover cake is brought in. If you can’t bake then look in the cake aisle of your supermarket. A lot of them will do generic “celebration” tray-style cakes now which are cheap and serve this purpose very well.

A parent will always be the best protection for a child on the Internet. Image CC:By-NC-SA OllieBray

In the last few weeks a campaign has come across my screen a few times. It is called “SafetyNet” and is being run by Premier Christian Media and SaferMedia. The campaign aims to gather enough signatures to convince the government to leglislate so that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must “[block] pornography at network level whilst giving adults a choice to ‘opt-in’ to this content”.

The website and FAQ document are full of statistics which – as with any statistic – cannot really be argued with. These range from the percentage of UK households with internet access to how many children regularly access explicit images on their home computer. There are also a bunch of sound bite quotes to join the dots between these facts and the aims of the campaign.

As said, facts are facts. If a USA survey says “1 in 3 10 year olds have accessed pornography online”, I’m not going to argue. I’m not altogether sure why 73% of UK households having internet access adds to the problem this campaign is trying to resolve but I don’t doubt the figure is correct. What concerns me are the conclusions and the way they are trumpeted to convince people to sign the petition.

Perhaps I should introduce why I feel I can write about this. I am a UK Christian parent (so therefore fit neatly in the target demographic for this campaign), my children are between 5 and 9 years old and thus are well within the group this campaign seeks to “protect”. I am also someone who works with and understands the “network level” Internet this campaign talks about. I have been building hosting webservers and websites since the mid 1990s and I still do. So not only am I one of the people this campain targets I am also one of the ones who understands the technology involved – by the sound of it I understand it better than they do.

Why this won’t work

The title of this piece is provacative but I believe it is true. Forcing an ISP to “block pornography” at “network level” is unworkable, unsafe and dangerous. Here is why..

How do you define “pornography”?

You can’t (as the campaign does) try to get away with a dictionary definition because we are dealing with parents here who may well have their own idea of what is appropriate for their child to view. Limiting it to just ‘the explicit representation of sexual activity’ may not be enough. As an example if that were all that was being blocked I still would need to check what my 8 year old was stumbling across on Google images at which point the “protection” is not coming from the blocking but from me (as it does now).

How do the ISPs determine what gets blocked?

Certain websites will be obvious by their name/domain but is the campaign really so naive as to expect the site owners to be scrupulous in what they call their websites? Also what of images provided through otherwise innocent websites? Google images for example has a safesearch option. Set that to “off” and your child will get a bit of surprise. But as the images are hosted and served by Google, the ISP cannot block them. So using the vaunted “network level” blocking, the explicit images can still be viewed. Other sites will be similar. In the end the only way for an ISP to properly block explicit content is to do it on an image-by-image, video-by-video basis. To do that they’d have to employ a lot of people. Given the constantly changing nature of world wide web content, this is something I cannot see any ISP being able to do properly.

Blocking is never 100%

Anyone who uses filtering or blocking software will tell that things slip through. Don’t believe me: how about your eMail spam filters? How about your anti-virus software? If they are so good why are you still supicious of links in eMails you weren’t expecting? If you are not supicious, you should be. Let’s look at Google images again. Google are huge, they dwarf any ISP by comparison and yet they still don’t guarantee that safesearch will hide all explicit or offensive images, they have a “report offensive images” link on their search results. If Google can’t make any guarantees how can I be sure an ISP would block everything?

Network level blocking means blocking sites and images before they get to your house. Such things already exist. I use a free (and very good) service called OpenDNS which – among others things – allows me to have it block websites that either declare themselves as “adult” or have been reported as such by other users of the service. Such sites are blocked before they even get down my phoneline. So this is pretty much what the campaign is asking for. It doesn’t work. Well that’s not true, it does work just not 100%. Google images is not blocked and other sites which have mixed content are not always blocked.

The point again is that even with Google images safesearch on strict and OpenDNS I still have to monitor what my children surf. Again the “protection” for my children comes from me not any blocking.

It’s all or nothing

The campaign allows for the fact that adults can request the ISP blocking is switched off. This sounds fine as long as all the adults use one connection and all the children use another. But that’s not how the world is. Those 73% of UK households with Internet access probably have a single main connection for each household. Many of them almost defnitely have a mixed range of ages using the Internet. So if a parent wants the blocking switched off, the child gets it switched off too. ISP blocking at “network level” is by defnition all-or-nothing. Now you may argue that parents should not be watching such content if they have kids. But I’ll wager they do and if they have the blocking turned off, the children the campaign seeks to protect are no longer protected.

I’m not here to tell other adults what to do and by the sound of it the campaign doesn’t want to either but if an adult wants it turned off (and I doubt this would be something the ISP would want to keep switching on and off on an hourly basis) then it’s off for the kids and again the “protection” that should be provided by the blocking will have to be provided by the parent (as it is now).

It gives a false sense of security to parents

You’ll have gathered by now that this is my main point. The campaign raises concerns which all parents whose children have Internet access should consider. But the solution offered is poorly thought through. As you have seen above, ISP blocking will still require a parent to monitor what their kids are surfing. This is good and I wholeheartedly agree that a parent/guardian is the best protection for children online. As parents we should be interested in what they are doing whether online or not. But what worries me is that this ISP blocking idea would cause a lot of parents to stop paying attention (or pay less of it) to what their children are doing online. It would give a false sense of security. Lets revisit the anti-virus analogy. Anyone running a Microsoft Windows PC should run anti-virus software, that is a given. But just having it there does not mean you will be “safe” from malware, phishing or other nasties. Ask anyone who supports Windows PCs and they will tell you that you are only as good as your last update and also just because you have software which the manufacturer promises will protect you (no matter how much you pay for it) you still have to be vigilant. It’s the same with blocking or filtering. The model is flawed. It does the best it can under the circumstances but it’s flawed.

Don’t sign it

In the end all of the above shows that ISP blocking would still require a parent to monitor/participate/be involved in their child’s online activity. That means the blocking is next to useless. Even if you presume it will help or do some of the job for you, you still run the significant risk that your child will find an image, video or site that you’d rather they didn’t. Sadly pornography is part of our culture and so is the Internet. But the Internet does not work like a TV, radio of a shelf of magazines in the newsagents. It’s different and it needs to be handled differently.

The SafetyNet campaign might have the safety and protection of children at its heart but its using the wrong tactics. Those tactics will not help vulnerable children any more than an 18 certificate on a DVD will. Educate parents, get them to speak to their kids, help them. Don’t try to scare them into signing up for a law which a) won’t get passed and b) would be worse than good if it was.

Filtering, blocking and other such technologies can help a parent, but in the end, technology cannot protect our children, only we can.

Update – 12 March 2012 I’m not the only one who thinks this campaign is a bad idea. There are also some good points raised here: http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/237955.html

How’s the coffee at your church? Do people stick around because of it or in spite of it? Does it come with conversation or just a digestive?

Last year – along with some others – I launched a campaign called Give up bad coffee for lent (GUBC4L). Inspired by conversations about posters half-heartedly slapped on church walls, too-cheap-to-be-any-good washing up liquid and of course naff, tasteless (and usually inagreen teacup) instant coffee, the campaign aimed to put a little generosity back into our churches. This is the reason for the questions above. Don’t ignore them, they’re as valid as questions about what songs you sing, Bible version you use or style of preaching you deploy.

Following Lent the GUBC4L name seemed inappropriate so we renamed it to Entertaining Angels. Another term bandied about is Gospel hospitality.

Whatever it is called the idea here is that people coming into God’s house (for whatever reason) should be treated as if they were coming into our own.

Since this idea started we’ve heard stories of churches where people turn up just for the coffee afterwards, where the aroma of fresh coffee (and the lure of a home-baked cake) have sparked conversations and strengthened relationships. In our own church a couple of cafétieres/french presses were donated and we started baking cakes. The result is that the coffee time is popular enough that we have to turf people out as we’re locking up. Hospitality counts, it matters, it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) require an edict from the church leadership and it has the potential to revolutionise church life.

Get involved

If you want to join in then by all means comment here or alternatively show your support by adding the Entertaining Angels Twibbon on your facebook or twitter avatars. You can also use the twitter hashtags #EntertainAngels or #GUBC4L.

The Entertaining Angels (GUBC4L) twibbon.

I’ve seen and heard an awful lot of stuff about tomorrow’s referendum on voting and to be honest a lot of it is the same-old, same-old. The main Yes and No campaigns seem to be more concerned with scaring us about the opposition than promoting their own case. In addition I’ve yet to see anyone describe what might actually happen in each case.  So I’ve decided to have a go at it myself. I’m well aware that this might actually make things more confusing but I think you can handle it. You clever people.

First past the post (FPTP)

This is what we use now.  Here’s a nice diagram of what NoToAV supporters suggest happens with FPTP.

Simple idea:  count the votes and the one with the most wins. That sounds good but it’s not usually what happens. They’ve ignored things like tactical voting (voting against the candidate you don’t want) and the 30-40% of people who don’t vote at all. The end result is that the winner probably has the support of far fewer than half the people they represent (let alone a majority).  Here’s a revised diagram.

The irony here is that with FPTP many people already vote for their second choice (represented by the red and yellow votes above) as they don’t think their first one has a chance (or they are not standing). So when the NoToAV campaign claim AV will let the second choice candidate win, they’re ignoring the fact that the current system does that already.

Alternate Vote (AV)

This is the competition. YesToAV campaigners suggest something like this will happen if we switch.

Another simple idea. You rank the candidates in order of preference and the winner is the one who eventually ends up with at least 51% of support. Except that’s also neatly avoiding some of the realities like the 30-40% of non-voters and the people who only put down one preference. Here’s a diagram showing what would probably happen.

So you see the winner is the one with at least 51% of the remaining votes not all the votes and certainly not all the people they represent. That said there is a greater chance that more voters prefer the winning candidate than with FPTP.

What to do?

I’m not trying to convince you to vote one way or another – make your own mind up but don’t fall for the campaign lines. Read up on both systems and work out which is best for you butdon’t just fall for the campaign leaflets. They are after all very biased.

That said it is difficult to write a piece like this and not have your own preference come through. For the record I do prefer AV over FPTP ( given the option I’d rather STV or another PR was on offer ). My reason is – I think – simple: I live in a very safe seat and AV would give me the chance of showing my preferred candidate that they have my support and yet still allow my preference between the two front runners to make a difference. I can see some of the benefits for FPTP in an ideal world but in truth we don’t live in one of those. What concerns me most is the way that these campaigns have been pushed as if letting the “wrong” system win would mean automatically letting the candidate or party you don’t want in as well. Both sides are claimimg the extreminst groups would have more chance under the other system. This is not true by the way. There’s no evidence to suggest that extremist groups would have a better chance under either system. Most commentators say that changing to AV would not have made much difference to recent elections so why would I want to make a change if it made no difference? I believe that over time AV (or better yet STV) could make a difference. After the election candidates would better know what kind of support they have among the electorate and could campaign and work to increase that support. Rather than grow somewhat complacent each candidate would need to work to gain not only more first preference votes but increase their second preference ones too. In the end that sounds to me like prospective MPs would have to do something I rarely see or hear of: campaign on behalf of consttuents at times other than elections. It could also mean the candidate who is prepared to win the most support locally will win. This sounds better than the red, blue or yellow campaigning we have now.

Having said all of that I am concerned that this referendum coincides with local government elections and yet I have seen no local campaigning at all. It would appear that not one local candidate really wants my vote. Given that state of affairs I am beginning to see why so many people don’t even bother. So above all else this is a call to candidates in any election – don’t presume upon our votes – win them. Convince us. Not with scaremongering or bogey-men but with work and effort. You want me or my neighbours to vote for you, then show us what our vote is worth. Not with leaflets but with action and if you are going to send me leaflets or run billboard campaigns – make them a little more honest rather than marketing material. because if you don’t do those things then you will find an increase in the non-voters.

Update Although I said much of the AV stuff is same-old, same-old it’s nice to find that there are still some refreshing views out there. My friend Kneewax, for example, has a very interesting one with which I wholeheartedly agree.

We're keeping the logo image despite the name change

Almost 40 days ago I blogged about how some of us on Twitter had inadvertently started a movement. We called this Give up bad coffee for lent or GUBC4L. I later blogged further about the way different churches had taken up the “cause”.

For those who haven’t heard of this there is an important point to make: this is not just about coffee, this is about service. What we’re trying to generate is greater effort in the hospitality shown in our churches. You’ll find more information on the previous two tweets and the others I link to from there so I won’t repeat it all here.

The sharp-eyed among you will have spotted that Lent will soon end and that raises the question of what happens to the L in GUBC4L? Certainly none of those involved want this to stop just because of the Church calendar. Doing hospitality well and to the best of our ability and effort is scriptural.

So continue it will but with a new moniker. GUBC4L becomes Entertaining Angels. Yes it’s a reference to Hebrews 13:2 but let’s not think that the reason for serving people well is only because one of them might be an angel. It’s an important reason but remember we should serve people because they are worth it (just ask God who gave his only Son for them) and because we are representing God to everyone we serve in our Church and our lives. If God did not settle for “that’ll do”, neither should we.

So let the coffee, the cake, the decent posters and loving service continue for we might just be Entertaining Angels.

Get involved

GUBC4L had a twibbon and #GUBC4L hashtag to accompany it. These will become #EntertainingAngels as well. The twibbon service is down right now but I’ll sort that when it comes back. Update 23 April 2011 – the Twibbon service is back up now and I have chamged the name of the campaign to Entertaining Angels.

In the meantime you can join in simply by serving well. If you are on Twitter or Facebook you can add the twibbon to your avatar (profile pic) by following the twibbon link I’ll add later (when the service is back). If you are on Twitter and you do (or encounter) something as part of Entertaining Angels, celebrate it by adding the #EntertainingAngels hashtag to a tweet.

Document Freedom day - because freedom counts

A week or so back I announced the m108 project aimed at getting some freedom into Church resources. The Church needs to stop the trend of restricting what we permit God’s family to do with the stuff he has inspired us to make so we can worship, learn about and fellowship with Him.

Those who know me will know I care about freedom, be it free software or free culture. Today (31 March 2010) is Document Freedom day. Across the globe people who care about freedom will be marching, speaking and even eating cake with the aim of promoting free(dom) documents. In a nutshell, document freedom is about formats and standards. It’s no good giving freedom in use of a work if the file format prohibits that very freedom by forcing people to buy a particular piece of software.

This fits directly in with m108 if you ask me. Given that we are seeking to bring back sharing within the body of Christ (and I don’t mean “sharing” as a euphemism for evangelism here) it makes sense to me that the file format is important. Suppose I share with you a song I have written. I give you access to the lyrics, the recording and the music. Now suppose the lyrics are in (say) Microsoft Word format. Aren’t I forcing you to get a copy of Word to use it? Even if you use one of the great alternative programs that can read Word documents (like OpenOffice.org) ; what happens iif/when Microsoft change the format? Unless I convert it as we go, my lyrics may be left behind, orphaned in a world of upgrades. Similarly with the recording. MP3 is the ubiquitous format for such files – to the point where it’s fast becoming a label for any digital audio file regardless of the format (bit like biro or hoover). But MP3 is covered by patents and is owned by a corporation. Right now they are quite relaxed on how they let people use “their” format, insisting only on payment if you make a program that creates or plays MP3s. But what happens if they decide to increase their fee? What happens if they start to get a bit more greedy, then a bit more. We’ll be stuck, we’ll be held to ransom. There are open formats for media files, such as OGG, FLAC etc. and providing media in those will ensure longevity of the freedom we want to share.

I’m not going to insist that those contributing to m108 (or whatever it finally gets called) use only open document formats and standards – that’s why I’m posting this here and not on m108. For a start I’m not aware of an open format for music scores but then I know little of such things anyway. I do think it’s vital that open formats be encouraged within the project. If only to ensure the freedom and sharing we are trying to engender doesn’t get held to ransom by the corporate greed we are trying to avoid within the Church.

When the Church invented printing it didn’t hold onto its invention but shared it and the technology used within it. It changed the world forever. The Church may not be inventing this technology or the open standards within it but we should be equally ready to use it to change the world.