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Until now, the internet has been a largely open space. The sheer size and complexity of the routing makes it hard for a strangle point to be placed other than at a specific ISP that feeds its own customer base. Some countries have managed to apply Draconian filtering and blocking simply by having one ISP.

Attempts to filter, break or block the internet generally fail. John Gilmore of EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) famously said that, "the Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it". And that's true in life too - prohibition didn't stamp out alcohol consumption, it merely moved it underground.

Unfortunately, it's difficult in today's politically correct times to have a discussion about censorship, and the ultimate futility of it, without being branded as a radical who believes the offensive material is irrelevant or not harmful. Or that you must have something to hide. But I point you to the House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 15 May 2006, where Vernon Coaker MP, under-secretary for police and security, said:

"UK ISPs continue to lead the world in tackling this issue and the majority are committed to taking all steps available to them to prevent users accessing illegal images of child abuse. This is evidenced, for example, by their commitment to and funding of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the reduction in the proportion of illegal sites reported to the IWF that are hosted in the UK from 18% in 1997 to 0.4%

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in 2005.

"Recently, it has become technically feasible for ISPs to block home users' access to websites irrespective of where in the world they are hosted. It is clear from the various meetings that Ministers have had with the ISPs, that the industry has the will to implement solutions to block these websites. Currently, all the 3G mobile network operators block their mobile customers from accessing these sites and the biggest ISPs (who between them provide over 90% of domestic broadband connections) are either currently blocking or have plans to by the end of 2006.

"We recognise the progress that has been made as a result of the industry's commitment and investment so far. However, 90% of connections is not enough and we are setting a target that by the end of 2007, all ISPs offering broadband internet connectivity to the UK general public put in place technical measures that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF... If it appears we are not going to meet our target through co-operation, we will review the options for stopping UK residents accessing websites on the IWF list."

That creaking noise you hear is a huge can of worms being opened. The IWF is a registered charity, funded by the EU and UK ISPs, mobile operators and so forth, which aims to remove illegal (and obviously highly offensive) content from servers. But note the wording - if there isn't 100% take-up by the ISPs of this system by the end of 2007, "we will review the options". That's government-speak for making it mandatory.

The blacklist IWF publishes isn't open to public scrutiny. Heaven only knows what happens if you fall onto the list by mistake. If such a list is to have any effectiveness, it needs to be openly published and available for comment and criticism. It's currently only available to IWF members, which involves paying a fee of £5,000 per annum. And what's to stop this list morphing into a general-purpose government-run filter, taking out content that's deemed "unacceptable"?