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Comment by samarudge | Hacker News Reader

It's not the ISP, it's the router doing the blocking. The ISP is still just being an ISP. This is, from a technical standpoint, no different to configuring a proxy/filtering server yourself. Going off what the articles have said, the ISP themselves are not doing any filtering or monitoring it's all happening on the router.

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It is turned on by default on a router that the ISP is capable of upgrading (which is scary enough) and that the ISP forcefully upgrade without notifying the customers.

If the title was - French ISP upgrade routers to block porn it would have been an uproar. It is the same.

So the ISP is not being just and ISP it is assuming the role of a gatekeeper with a device on which they have root access.

Is it that rare for it to be possible for ISPs to update their provided routers? My ISP (O2) has the ability to forcefully update firmware at any time.

It is fairly common for routers to be backdoored like this. Best get your own... or disable it if you feel like it (the O2 one has a telnet interface with available password that can control stuff not on the web interface).

No to update the firmware you have to explicitly reboot the box (router).

This just made me realize that for the majority of people that use their ISP's router, there is effectively an easy backdoor (with a firmware update) into their private LAN. What would stop a government agency (w/ or w/o a subpoena) from requesting the ISP provide access to your local network w/o your permission, accessing resources you otherwise thought were secure? Or really, any malicious entity that can figure out how-to forge the certificate required to do this.

A distinction without a difference if it isn't configurable by the user.

It is configurable but opt-out.

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