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How your Child will beat the UK Porn Block
38 Plays16 hours ago
How your Child will beat the UK Porn Block
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Transcript
Introduction to Dopamine Slot Machine Podcast
00:00:00
Andrew Wilmot
Good morning, good day, good evening.
Video Games and Child Monetization
00:00:03
Andrew Wilmot
Whenever you are, welcome to the Dopamine Slot Machine, the podcast that discusses what you need to know about the video games your children are playing. How are they designed to get your kids hooked?
00:00:11
Andrew Wilmot
How do they make money from your children? And what can you do to make sure that your child's relationship with video games is a positive one?
From Video Games to Pornography
00:00:18
Andrew Wilmot
My name is Andrew. I'm a dad of two and a lifelong gamer. And perhaps I need to change that intro because again, we've moved away from video games.
00:00:25
Andrew Wilmot
Today, we're talking porn. Specifically, we're talking about the attempt by the UK government to introduce age restrictions on mature content. I'm giving some ways that ah your children will probably find to break it.
UK's Porn Block and Bypassing Methods
00:00:38
Andrew Wilmot
So I've got a very special guest today, a sometime colleague, sometime project partner. We ah studied together at university and a longtime friend, Jack. So Jack is an expert software tester.
00:00:51
Andrew Wilmot
As I said, I would know. I've worked with him. And I set him to task to find a few ways to break the new UK porn block. So before we dive into the ways that your child or their peers might be breaking this block, first, Reid, do you want to us a little bit about yourself?
00:01:06
Jack
Yes, hello. I'm Jack, as a as my friend said. Yes, we've been we've worked together, we've done some side projects together, and we went to university together.
00:01:18
Jack
And yeah, I'm a software tester by trade. So I spend my time ruining developers' fun.
00:01:27
Jack
Things I spend weeks on programming, and I just come along and ruin it all. So when this when you sent me this task, it was actually... I hesitate to say fun because of the the subject, but it was ah interesting to see how it all
Children's Exposure to Porn and Violence
00:01:41
Jack
works. And it seems to be that some sites, I won't name them, have just done it as a token lip service to find the bare minimum. So it was easier than I expected to so get around it.
00:01:55
Andrew Wilmot
I sure hope your partner was understanding of you looking up porn on the computer the middle of the day
00:02:01
Jack
It's just research. It's for work.
00:02:04
Andrew Wilmot
Andrew asked me too. ah but i'm I'm sure it wouldn't be the weirdest thing you've had to blame on me to her.
00:02:12
Jack
and No, that's for that's for another podcast episode, I think.
00:02:16
Andrew Wilmot
So before we dive into, before i let Jack dive into the ways that your child could break the porn ban, First, I wanted to talk a little bit about why action on pornography is needed. So, to be clear, completely agree with the point of view that we need to do something.
00:02:32
Andrew Wilmot
But what we need to do needs to be effective. So, porn exposure is happening younger than ever. It's more hardcore. 10% of 9-year-olds have encountered pornography.
00:02:43
Andrew Wilmot
By 11, it's 27%. We have teachers reporting pupils seeking advice on how to strangle safely. We have... skyrocketing rates on chart of child-on-child sexual assault and harmful sexual behaviour.
00:02:58
Andrew Wilmot
We're seeing pornography addiction in young children, pornography obsession. Like, this is... It's at crisis point.
00:03:07
Jack
parable
00:03:09
Andrew Wilmot
And so much of it can be linked back to the increase in porn consumption and the lower and lower age at which children are being exposed to porn.
00:03:19
Andrew Wilmot
Like, you know, thats but but without meaning to go to get to give too much information, I think things have very much changed since we were kids.
00:03:29
Jack
Yes, it's a
00:03:32
Jack
I mean, you know I don't mind being too, too, too candid here, but, uh, I found mine in the woods and it seems be a lot of people weirdly had the same experience. I didn't realize this was, uh, a thing until, until recently, but, uh, maybe nature's healing. I, I don't know.
00:03:49
Jack
uh,
00:03:49
Andrew Wilmot
it's it's not It's not finding a magazine in the woods anymore is the thing. It's your child being sent violent pornography whilst they're alone in their room, out of out of your sight, out of your supervision.
00:04:03
Andrew Wilmot
It's group chats. it ah ah it's It's including nudes and AI-generated nudes of their peers being shared about school
00:04:14
Jack
Yes, it's vile that this technology has reached a stage which it was, let's be honest, it was always going to reach this. And I think we have to get through this stage. But it's it's horrible that children have access to this. You know, the internet is supposed to be this wonderful tool and information device that gives you access to the wealth of human knowledge and and culture.
Bypassing Content Restrictions Techniques
00:04:37
Jack
And the the dark side appears to be yeah winning.
00:04:43
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah. But and enough of enough of that. let's talk about Let's talk about how we can break it. From a technologist's point of view, I love these types of conversations. Putting aside the fact that what what we're breaking here is a set of safeguards designed to protect children. If we can just forget that for a second and just embrace the joy of finding ways around software. So, ah know, completely over to you, Reid.
00:05:10
Jack
Yes. So as I said, this is my ah ah my job to find my way around software and and then break it. And then there's probably three three core ways to build, and to get around the system.
00:05:21
Jack
One is being the simplest one and probably one of the darkest ones. It's stealing your ID. So your child could simply go into your wallet, grab your identification, scan it on their phone and...
00:05:37
Jack
ah ah away they go and there's no way for you to know it or or understand that this has been done or find out this has been done rather and there's another way where they do this weird ai face checker where it gets you to look from right to left and i suppose you could go up to anyone on the street and say you're recording some sort of tick tock or instagram video and work it in in some sort of dark way.
00:06:03
Jack
So there's there's that way, which I suppose applies a bit of social engineering, which is probably past some kids.
00:06:07
Andrew Wilmot
do do do Do all websites have that as a check, though? So ah you you mentioned earlier that there's some websites which are sort of paying lip service. What's the sort of bare minimum that you've seen?
00:06:18
Jack
So the the bare minimum would be a very large website that's sometimes called the front page of the internet. that Their one is was laughably easy. so The ID stealing, as I mentioned, there's a VPN, which you can use.
00:06:34
Jack
There are a number of free VPNs.
00:06:35
Andrew Wilmot
So... Our audience might not know what a VPN is. So let's let's start really right at the top.
00:06:42
Jack
Yeah, of course. So a VPN is a virtual private network. So when you connect to the Wi-Fi, normally it's on your home network and you are assigned a IP address that's Assigned you to a geographic geographic geographical location, there's kind of, you know, more more deep side and technical into it, but that's the kind of high level of it. Assigned you to a geographic location.
00:07:05
Jack
With a VPN, you can pretend to come from anywhere in the world. As long as there's a server in that country, you can pretend to come from it. so You know, you've got America, Canada, Australia, those kind of countries you can pretend to come from.
00:07:23
Jack
And using those, you can pretend you're from there where the block doesn't exist. You can browse to your heart's content. And
00:07:30
Jack
So the reason why people would legitimately use VPNs is for work more accurately. Nah, I'll start again. The reason why people would use VPNs is is for work. So any remote office worker will very likely connect to a virtual private network. This is done for security concerns. It stops people from accessing or seeing what you're doing, really. It's it's a so security feature that most organizations will have.
00:07:56
Jack
And also, if you want to just have a bit of internet privacy, which is ah ah legitimate reason, if you if you want to be private on the internet, that's That's completely reasonable to have. So that's why some people would use that.
00:08:07
Jack
it also allows you to get around this it block. Yeah.
00:08:11
Andrew Wilmot
So if I if I were trying to circumvent the block, how easy would it be for me to use a VPN to set that up? know, how how how much knowledge would it take? And how long would it take?
00:08:24
Jack
It would take you as you'd only be limited limited by your internet speed. If I'm really honest, you would go on your ah your phone, which is where people typically interact with the internet nowadays and download an app from the app store and it'd be installed and away you go. There are are um paid versions, but so there are also ah ah numerous free versions which you can use.
00:08:47
Andrew Wilmot
So they don't even have to like enter card details.
00:08:51
Jack
Nope, they don't even have to sign up or create a account. They can download it and ah ah away they go. There are security concerns around private, privately sorry, free VPNs. But
00:09:02
Andrew Wilmot
I dare say the average teenager is going to be particularly concerned about that.
00:09:06
Jack
yes, especially if they're trying to view what we're discussing today, they're not going to be thinking clearly.
00:09:15
Andrew Wilmot
There was... There was another way that ah you you shared to me, and I don't want to spoil this because on the surface, it was really funny. And it was actually what inspired me to ask you to come and do this episode.
00:09:24
Jack
Yes.
00:09:28
Jack
yes so Yeah, so the final way is when it came to getting access, i set myself the task of learning what...
00:09:29
Andrew Wilmot
So what's what's what's the final way?
00:09:38
Jack
system accept? It was clear that it needs a valid looking ID because that's exactly what the system is looking for. It's looking for a valid UK identity, passport, driving license or whatever.
00:09:52
Jack
One quick Google search of a UK driving license on image search provides a large number of Mach 1s that are directly provided by the DVLA. So I first tried a flat image, which is just a JPEG of the driving license.
00:10:08
Jack
That failed, which I kind of expected and was happy that failed. And then I thought, well, it needs to be pretended it's been taken on a desk or someone's holding it.
00:10:19
Jack
So I tried one of the images that had fingers holding it. The system accepted this immediately.
00:10:24
Andrew Wilmot
and
00:10:25
Jack
So it's clear that
00:10:26
Andrew Wilmot
So you you just asked ChatGPT generate me a photo of somebody holding a UK driving license.
00:10:33
Jack
No, no, no, I will get into that. No, this was just a Google search of UK driving license.
00:10:38
Andrew Wilmot
Also not even generating it, just a random photo that you just uploaded.
00:10:41
Jack
No, it's one of the, like, it's within the top 10 results of a UK driving license and has a man holding it and and a woman. You can just use any of those and they'll work fine.
00:10:56
Jack
But it does lead to what you were saying about ChatGPT. So then I thought, well, I wondered if I can use AI to generate a form of identification that accept because it was AI checking AI, right?
00:11:09
Andrew Wilmot
Mm-hmm.
00:11:10
Jack
So I asked it to generate me a completely fake and mock ID. Hit my first hurdle there, actually. The AI told me it can't do that because it's not ah not legal. And I said,
00:11:24
Jack
do it anyway and it did. So they tried but it worked away and when I was telling it to generate the ID I said can you use Shrek for the inspiration for this?
00:11:36
Jack
Shrek is character from a film which I assume most listeners are aware of. ah Away the system went. The AI generated a completely mock and very clearly fake ID But it happily accepted it. It didn't even hesitate.
00:11:53
Jack
so
00:11:54
Andrew Wilmot
so So if Shrek wants to go watch some pornography, he doesn't even have to get an actual ID to do so.
00:12:01
Jack
No. And it was, it shows that these companies are just providing the bare minimum lip service that they're doing what's required. um If you've actually implemented a proper system, what I've, what I tested should have immediately been rejected and failed, but they've not.
00:12:20
Jack
So to me, it sounds like they, well, they don't care.
00:12:25
Andrew Wilmot
No, no, they don't. they They make money off the children using this content.
00:12:30
Jack
Yes, which is which is horrifying.
00:12:31
Andrew Wilmot
that's the That's the short of it.
00:12:34
Jack
And it kind of highlights the pointlessness of this block that's been brought in. I you know i completely agree for the reasons behind it. And you know we need to address, well, not giving children access to smartphones, right, which is the whole point of this podcast.
00:12:51
Andrew Wilmot
So what could the UK government do just on the trying to pursue that blocking content route and putting aside the various completely legitimate
Ineffectiveness of the UK's Porn Block
00:13:02
Andrew Wilmot
arguments that I personally do sympathize with, but taking an at all cost hypothetical standpoint, what could the UK government do to actually be able to block porn to children?
00:13:15
Jack
Gosh, that that's that that's the question.
00:13:17
Andrew Wilmot
Can they?
00:13:18
Jack
I would say no, because the internet is a utility and it's so freely available to to everyone, as as it should. We need information to be free, we need speech to be free, and it's something that's very important.
00:13:31
Jack
And I think cutting access off to that would would hurt us as as a nation. If you were to bring in a... a properly digital system, I have absolutely no idea.
00:13:43
Jack
Maybe links your government gateway, your national insurance number, but then that just, you know, no one's going to agree to that it feels really weird, right?
00:13:51
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah.
00:13:55
Andrew Wilmot
Like going through passport control because you want to access. and And to be clear, it's not just pornography. where it's It's adult content to general. I've heard reports that mental health support forums have been blocked.
00:14:05
Jack
Yes.
00:14:06
Jack
So that was when
00:14:06
Andrew Wilmot
And without getting into whether it's appropriate for children to access that sort of content, is it appropriate to have to hand over your private details to be able to access that content?
00:14:17
Jack
No, absolutely not. When you're accessing mental health support, it's it should be accessible for everyone, right? Anyone can have anxiety, anyone can be depressed and the forums that exist around that you know They're obviously not perfect, nowhere on the internet really is, but it can help you sympathise with people and connect and not feel quite so alone.
00:14:39
Jack
And if I have to hand over that, when people are in a clearly, genuinely vulnerable position, they're not just horny. I think that's i think that has the opposite effect of what we're trying to achieve here.
00:14:51
Jack
People need that access.
00:14:54
Andrew Wilmot
so So, to summarise, this pawn block is completely ineffective, uses du a huge amount of political capital, Companies are doing the bare minimum to get by and it's it's just not working. And if it's creating a sense of false security for parents who think that this might actually help make the internet a safer place for children.
00:15:16
Jack
Yeah, I think that's that's the nail on the head there. It's it's ineffective. It's a waste of time. And i think politically it's is' burned some some good faith because it's... Other successive governments or previous governments rather have been talking about creating this kind of block and it's anyone who works in technology knows it's impossible. If you would were to redesign the internet from the ground up and...
00:15:44
Jack
create this sort of system then yes but you can't
00:15:46
Andrew Wilmot
like we were talking We were talking about the potential of this block when we were still at university.
00:15:51
Jack
yeah i remember it yeah i remember talking about it ah with with you and saying that this is this is ridiculous because when we were studying uh you know computer science it's yeah
00:15:52
Andrew Wilmot
That's how long it's taken to come to fruition.
00:16:02
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah, it was never going to work. and And even with close to a decade of technological advancement, it's still not
Reducing Harmful Content Exposure
00:16:08
Andrew Wilmot
worked.
00:16:09
Jack
And I think what this ban is going to have to do, it's just going to push people towards more computer computer knowledge, more computer literacy, right? They're just going to learn how get around it. i
00:16:21
Jack
you know, yeah, well, I remember in in high school, you know it's probably where this testing lark started.
00:16:21
Andrew Wilmot
There we go.
00:16:21
Andrew Wilmot
There's at least one upside.
00:16:26
Jack
You know, we had, what was it, RM block, whatever it is back then. um I learned how to get around that. I learned how to access the school proxy so I could connect my laptop to the...
00:16:38
Jack
the school Wi-Fi, and I learned my teacher's password, which was a admittedly post-it noted to his laptop, which from an InfoSec standpoint from nowadays would just... I'd lose my job if I did that.
00:16:49
Andrew Wilmot
yeah
00:16:51
Jack
But yeah, you if i can find roundway ray random ah but yeah if I can find my way around the systems when I was a teenager, when technology was not as easy to use as it is nowadays, yeah, a teenager today is not going to even...
00:17:07
Jack
hesitate getting around or be bothered by at all.
00:17:10
Andrew Wilmot
There you go Peter Kyle. your Your attempts to make the internet a safer place for children have utterly failed, but at least you've helped improve the digital literacy. at least At least you've done something positive.
00:17:22
Jack
Yes.
00:17:22
Andrew Wilmot
So it raises the question, what can we as parents do to actually block access to pornography?
00:17:29
Andrew Wilmot
The most obvious thing, and I say this over and over, is just don't give them a smartphone. A family computer works brilliantly. A computer in in a shared supervised space.
00:17:36
Jack
It's what I had. Mm-hmm.
00:17:40
Andrew Wilmot
Because the moment you give them a smartphone, they're unsupervised, they're using it in bed, they're using it in the bath. There is nothing that they can do on a smartphone that they can't do on a family computer.
00:17:51
Andrew Wilmot
Even if you did nothing else and let them access all the same materials and all the same programs and give them free reign on social media, if they had to do it in a living room or otherwise shared familial space, then the harm potential drops massively.
00:18:08
Andrew Wilmot
Otherwise, there's device-level parental control apps like Custodio. There's router-level parental controlling and site blocking. So I personally have an Aero router, which has fairly good blocking. but But really, we need to denormalize smartphones for kids, and we need smartphone-free schools.
00:18:24
Andrew Wilmot
So even if you
Impact of Smartphones on Social Interactions
00:18:26
Andrew Wilmot
are a smartphone-free family, A third of young people first encounter porn shared over social networks. 28% are with a friend. 20% are shown pornography on someone else's device.
00:18:39
Andrew Wilmot
If your child's school is not smartphone-free, and I mean truly smartphone-free, I don't mean out of sight, out of mind. I mean confiscate at the start and put in the various platforms.
00:18:51
Andrew Wilmot
yonder pouches or similar, then at some point during your child's time at school, they will be shown pornography. It happened what but whilst I was at school.
00:19:02
Andrew Wilmot
you know Again, this is this is i left school, what, 13 years ago?
00:19:09
Jack
no Don't like that.
00:19:10
Andrew Wilmot
ah presume it was similar for you as well, Jack, probably saw pornography at school at some point.
00:19:13
Jack
Yeah. It was, i let i left, sorry, left school 13, yeah, about that, not 13 years ago. Not that young.
00:19:23
Jack
Yeah, I, yeah, kids kids shared things on the rubbish, whatever phones we had back then. Yeah, it's been around forever.
00:19:33
Andrew Wilmot
Yeah. So we we just, we need to, we we need kids as a cohort. We need children to stop having smartphones. We need smartphones out of schools. We need smartphones out of youth clubs.
00:19:46
Andrew Wilmot
And we need smartphones out of our children's bedrooms. On that note, thank you so much for joining me, Jack. ah ah I hope you've had a good time. This is, this is your first, is this your first time you've appeared on a podcast?
00:19:57
Jack
It is, yes. I really enjoyed it. it was It's fun. i'm I'm a big supporter of your ah your podcast and your drive. i I hate smartphones and I also love smartphones because they're fantastic digital devices that give me access to the wealth of human knowledge.
00:20:15
Jack
But there is a dark side to it as there is with all technology.
00:20:20
Andrew Wilmot
I feel like our generation in particular, that sort of age band where we were already at school when smartphones sort of exploded and came everywhere. I feel like we get, ah maybe it's just my bias and my circle, but I feel like we're quite anti-smartphone in general, having experienced that before and after.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:20:41
Jack
Yes, I would agree. We we we really experienced, I think, the best the best way to grow up. It came in as it was just starting to get popular. And now it's become i'm terrible. i remember after Nights Out,
00:20:57
Jack
you would just upload an entire album of 30 photos onto Facebook and everyone would be like, yeah, that was great. Now it always has to be this horribly digitally created perfect night out where everyone looks happy, fantastic and fun all the time and is never sad or upset.
00:21:13
Andrew Wilmot
I mean, personally, all of my nights out have always been picture grace and elegance. picture of grace and elegant
00:21:21
Jack
spent a lot of nights out with you, I can confirm that.
00:21:24
Andrew Wilmot
Hmm. Anyway, that's all we've got time for today. And don't forget that if you've got to any questions for us, or if you or your children have been impacted by the issues we've discussed today, that you can get in touch with us on our website, thedopamineslockmachine.co.uk, or find us on the Dopamine Slot Machine Discussion Corner Facebook group.
00:21:40
Andrew Wilmot
All links can be found in our artist profile, and we'd love to hear from you. That's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for joining us. Please do join us in our next episode because I've got another extra special guest lined up. This has been the Dopamine Slot Machine.
00:21:53
Andrew Wilmot
Thank you and see you soon.