Virgin Killer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Virgin Killer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems that the album cover (which features a naked "child") has been blocked by the IWF (or Internet Watch Foundation).

The IWF maintains black-lists of URLs which relate to child pornography, terrorism and other "unsuitable" material for the general populace.

If the material is hosted in the UK, the IWF will warn the ISP or hosting company and then report them to the Police, if it's outside the UK, it goes on the blacklist.

ISPs have implemented a system that was based on what was BT's Cleenfeed. When a URL is posted by the IWF, the ISP's system will initially check the IP of EVERY http request and pass see if it matches the site referrenced in the offending URL. If so the request is passed to a transparent proxy where URL checking is performed. If the URL matches the ISP then blocks the content (and the error returned differs from ISP to ISP, Virgin seem to respond with a 404 Content not found, while Demon respond with a 403 saying administrivally blocked).

Wikipedia noticed the block when suddenly a lot of requests from the UK started coming from a few transparent proxies located on various ISP networks (as the initial check is IP based, every Wikipedia request would go through the proxy).

Now Virgin Killer has become one of the most searched requests on Wikipedia !!! Of course the album art is available on several other sites which haven't yet been blocked.