Are Children Are Safe
Following the publication of the report of the independent enquiry into the effects of pornography on children the government had legislated to stem the online scourge. All new internet customers now had to opt-in to receive adult material. Failure to tick the box stating that the account holder was happy to access such content meant that the Internet Service Provider’s filters would prevent the customer or anyone else using their connection from encountering pornography.
“I’m so glad that we don’t have to worry about Ian looking at filthy images. They degrade women turning us into sex objects. Its no wonder that so many boys think that they are entitled to have any girl they please when they can do so, at least virtually with a click of the mouse. Well they could until this new legislation stopped all that. It’s a victory for the sisterhood” Louise said with a smile. “You did remember not to tick the box didn’t you darling?”
“Yes Lou” Mike said holding back the urge to ask his girlfriend whether she thought that he was stupid, of course he had remembered not to tick the box. As a new man he was just as committed as Louise to stopping the objectification of women
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Ian loved his new laptop. It was a top of the range Toshiba. He could do his homework on it but that was a minor plus. The icing on the cake was the amazing graphics display which was great for gaming. The people in the game really came to life, they seemed almost real as they flickered and danced across the screen.
Ian padded on bare feet to his bedroom door. Opening it a crack he listened. The sound of muffled voices reached him. His mum and dad must be in the living room. Returning to the computer Ian typed into the address bar a domain ending with dot.ru. Having entered he clicked on the log in screen and input a Hotmail address along with his password. It wasn’t his usual email, at least not the one which his parents new about. It was used solely for the purposes of accessing this site.
Once logged in Ian went to the site’s search box and began his research. Soon the screen was full of couples cavorting in every conceivable place and position.
“Dinners ready” his mum shouted.
“Just a minute” Ian shouted back. He closed the site and switched to a top of the range history deletion programme.
“It will get cold” his mum yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
The programme had done its work. Ian switched off the computer, opened his bedroom door and took the stairs two at a time.
“You look flushed darling” his mum said.
“Really, it must be the central heating mum. Its so hot in my bedroom”.
“Just turn down the radiator, your not helpless”! Louise said with an exasperated look in the direction of Mike which said “children, who would have them”!
“Yeah, yeah” Ian said taking a seat at the dining table. He just hoped that his parents didn’t notice the payment to the anonymous proxy service when the credit card statement arrived.
(Author’s note: proxy services allow the user to browse anonymously so a person based in the UK can browse while using an IP address on the other side of the world. The proxy acts as a cloak so what the user’s Internet Service Provider sees is a mundane website with an address such as proxify.literature rather than the content the user is accessing while cloaked by the encrypcion provided by the proxy server).
