GCHQ planning UK-wide DNS “firewall”

[1984hasarrived]

Now this scares me.  The future of the interwebs is going to be interesting to say the least.

Probably there will be a small number of people who actually do anything about this, or take a stance.  Will the IT community offer an option?

I know it says opt-out, but the average PC user I meet can't even install a printer driver on his/her computer, let alone be aware enough what clicking OK actualy means on a screen, to allow this firewall to work.

UK surveillance agency GCHQ is exploring the use of a national ‘firewall’ in its fight against cybercrime, according to the organisation’s head of cybersecurity.

Alongside BT, Talk Talk and Virgin Media, GCHQ will work to filter out websites and email campaigns which are known to contain malicious content. The intelligence organisation believes that the best to way to set up such a blockade would be to build a national domain name system (DNS).

In a speech delivered at the Billington Cyber Security Summit in Washington DC, director general for cyber security at GCHQ, Ciaran Martin, said:
 ‘We’re exploring a flagship project on scaling up DNS filtering: what better way of providing automated defences at scale than by the major private providers effectively blocking their customers from coming into contact with known malware and bad addresses?’

The DNS plans, which will be private sector led, are said to be in the early stages, with no official announcement expected soon. Martin’s speech suggested that the filtering would be on an opt-out basis, to allow users to disable the settings – addressing inevitable concerns over privacy.

Martin also added that GCHQ has recently implemented a trial of the DMARC protocol to help prevent malicious emails purporting to be from government officials and spoofing the .gov.uk domain. As an example, he explained
that since DMARC’s trial rollout in government, a cybercrime operation which had been sending 58,000 malicious emails per day from [email protected] has been stopped.

BLT

[guohua]

A Fire-Wall That Enormous is Just Plain Restrictive To The Spread Of Information and Knowledge and Free Thinkers.
Am I Right?

[guohua]

Do you think this is part of the Obama allowing the U S to relinquish control of the internet?

The Obama administration is getting behind a plan that would have the U.S. government relinquish its last bit of control over the Internet – a move Republican lawmakers are fighting tooth-and-nail.
The transfer was set in motion two years ago when a Commerce Department agency said it would cede oversight over an obscure, but powerful, Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). 
The agency, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration,announced Thursday that the game plan they got back from ICANN – which would hand over the reins to a “multi-stakeholder” group, and not a single government – is now in line with what they want.
“The Internet’s multistakeholder community has risen to the challenge we gave them to develop a transition proposal that would ensure the Internet’s domain name system will continue to operate as seamlessly as it currently does,” NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a statement. AFP first reported on the decision. 
ICANN manages some of the most important elements of the Internet, including the domain name system and IP addressing. Domains include those tiny suffixes at the end of Internet addresses, like .com and .org; Internet Protocol addresses are the numerical sequences assigned to devices in a network.
Foreign governments had complained about the U.S. oversight, maintained through contracts with ICANN. 
Yet the Obama administration has faced stiff resistance to a hand-off for months from vocal critics on Capitol Hill and in the tech community. One concern is that, in the void left by America's transfer of oversight, other nations that don't share the United States' commitment to free speech and expression could make a grab at Internet influence.

 Source

[Daitengu]

Heh .... it be bypassed by bored chinese an russian kids in internet cafes shortly after be launched ....