I do not agree with this policy. If they have served thier time and are released by the gov't and justice system, this means they are not a risk to society then why should they be banned from the internet, just like there should be no list for sex offenders.

If they are so worried about these people reoffending, the gov't and justice system has not done it's job then it is simple leave them locked up.

I have always believed and the gov't documents agree that a pedophile will reoffend if given enough time. If this is the case then why are they let back out to screw up another childs' life.

And we are employing these braniacs to run the country god help us all.

Lets hope the nonses don't work out you can have more than one email ( I won't tell them if you don''t) after all of course they are going to want to stay within the law when they are grooming their next victim.

She is put in the public eye and given a load of rubbish to spout but she appears to believe that what she has been told to say is factually correct.

I can't believe that the opposition parties haven't ridculed her yet.

Ignoring the obvious get a new email address at gmail etc. Whats to stop a sex offender also registering my address as one of their addresses and getting me blocked from social networking sites?

Or are they going to implement a email and click back to authenticate the address?

Hang on ... being blocked by SN sites .....that could be useful ... can someone register every single email address please, and get these waste of space/time/energy/bandwidth off the net in one fell swoop.

Why are people like this idiot in always charge of these things? I really do despair when I see yet another thick muppet trying to preach unworkable, technical answers to complex, social problems, and somehow imagining that they've now solved it. Of course anyone who points this out must support the evil in question.

Yup, right there at the top... "Jacqui Smith"

Nothing has so hilariously and potently shown the complete non-understanding these utter morons have about computers and the online world.

They probably think that "address" means house address, and that you have no choice about using your genuine info when signing onto these tiresome websites.

Doesn't look good for our crusade against Phorm, or does it?

I am not a violent person but everytime that idiot "Wacky" Jacqui opens her gob i just want to punch her in it. She clearly has no clue about anything at all. Everytime she comments on anything ID related her level of knowledge is so low as to be embarrasing and now it appears she is not even aware of the existence of free email accounts, or the fact that people can have more than one.

Her advisors must be some of the stupidest people alive to allow her to stand up and say what she does. Whoever voted for her needs to go and have a word with themselves.

Just a cheap trick to pander to the more simple minded voters.

Another day another stoopid idea for reining in internet use.

What's with ignorant morons legislating stuff eh?

I completely agree with your comments. You'd make an awful politician, your arguments make too much sense.

Way to go... Not only is this unworkable but it actually encourages other kinds of crime. A paedophile intent on 'grooming' kids online (still very rare compared to family abuse, etc. but an easy hot-button topic for clueless politicians) now has an incentive to attempt to steal another person's identity, or at least control their email address. Even without this, the sheer fact that any person can have any number of email addresses signed up with incomplete or inaccurate personal information makes this yet another waste of time.

It would be nice if the money wasted could be spent on educating children and their parents about online dangers and how to avoid and cope with them. It's a shame that realistic, intelligent, workable solutions are overlooked in favour of idiotic "let's look like we're doing something" schemes.

most peadophiles are busy abusing their own(or a relatives/friends) kids or kids in their care.

Don't see why they'd be interested in social networks anyway.

The irony of your comment is that they don't run the country. The European Union runs the country, these people we vote for just fiddle around the edges, micromanaging the few areas of policy they have left. Schools, hospitals, defence, some parts of criminal law and a few bits of environmental policy. That's about all they have now. Ever wondered why they're so obsessed with the NHS? Why they can't stop coming up with new "initiatives" that are so narrow in scope and so invasive into every day life? They're trying to justify their existence to themselves, as much as anyone, and do so by meddling and micromanaging the few things they actually have any power over.

And the rest is the fault of the union...

The irony of it is, if we left the union we'd still be stuck with this lot and they'd have all that much more power over us. Makes an independence-minded fellow like myself very confused...

Ignoring the obvious, but doesn't getting caught taking a piss in a public place run the risk of getting you put on the sex-offenders list too? So a bout of lager-induced incontinence could mean you can't brag about a weekend piss-up on facebook anymore?

"Joke Alert" icon because everything this woman does is designed to give us a giggle.

The question is "Is she ignoring her advisors who are telling her the proposal is ridiculous" or are her advisors on this as ignorant as she obviously is.

And which which answer is more worrying

I don't know. Whilst this law is probably unworkable for the criminal elements, I tend to agree with the principle of making life as awkward as possible for genuine paedophiles. This is one more bit of ammunition for the police to lock these people up if they cross the line; of course they can register an anonymous address, but with this new law they might just be encouraged not to due to the risks outweighing the benefits.

One of the problems with the existing system is that paedophiles are very difficult to lock away. Not because they don't get caught, but because they're becoming increasingly adept at exploiting loopholes and getting away with a slapped wrist. If they have committed a crime for which the police want to prosecute, but they can't convict on the available evidence (or if the punishment is so small as to be risible) they can use this law to get a jail sentence anyway. Probably by raiding said paedo's computer and uncovering all the sneaky emails he/she has been sending from an unregistered address.

And yes I agree this is a slippery slope - making pretty much everything illegal so we're all criminals and they can lock us up at will.

This is why the people in charge need to be competent AND ethical, to balance justice and freedom.

Unfortunately I'm not convinced they're either (JACQUI) competent *or* (SMITH) ethical.

So presumably the guy that was caught 'fiddling' with his bike won't be alowed to sign up for any bicycle related web sites?

Where do these people come from? (the politicians I mean, bike shaggers are fine by me)

Well yes, the whole idea is stupid to think that a determined child abuser is going to be stopped from joining a social network by this regulation.

But what it will do is make it an offence for people on the sex offenders register to NOT disclose all their email addresses. So if it is found out that they have created a new Gmail account - guilt is presumed and they can be banged up for an extra five years. Regardless of whether or not any grooming or abuse has taken place - the failure to disclose is the crime.

I wonder if the Goverment plans on using the CRB people to operate this email address blacklist? If so, I guess you can look at a 6 month waiting list before you can join Facebook successfully.

I gather that there are already "false positives" on the sexual offenders register: teenagers caught behind the proverbial bikesheds.

And there was an event at the local library last night, filled with provocatively-dressed jailbait and their parents.

While the law protects "children" who are old enough to marry, it's very easy to see what people really think about whether teenagers should be sex objects.

that if you type 'Google' into Google, then it crashes the internet? We wouldn't want her to fall into that trap and receive world wide hostility now would we?

Paris because even she knows more about 'hard drives' than the government.

After all, paedophilia being illegal stopped them from doing that didn't it?

Ah, I see the flaw now...

They know perfectly well that this is completely unworkable and won't make a jot of difference. They're not doing this to protect children, they're doing it so that the papers will run the headline "Government to ban paedophiles from the internet" and most of the clueless people who read it will think they're working hard to make the country a safer place.

'Of course anyone who points this out must support the evil in question.'

Nail on head.....

The reason that this wretched government continue to get away with continually proposing draconian, expensive and unworkable legislation is that they know full well that any dissent will result in the equally moronic tabloids howling about supporting terrorists/paedophiles/drug gangs/hoodies or whoever else the current nominated threat to decent society happens to be. Thus the feeble responses from the craven opposition parties, newspapers etc.

The only possible solace that any of us might have in terms of our civil liberties is that none of this crap will ever work.

But whats truly depressing is also the fact that none of this crap will ever work. It will not prevent terrorism or child abuse. And thus the smug idiots not only chip away our basic rights but also fail to fulfil their own responsiblities. Which is even more shameful......

I run my own mail server (because I can) so can create as many email addresses as I like. My mail server (XMail) has a command line interface to create email addresses. I can code a script to create email addresses a@, aa@, ab@, aba@, etc.

Should I be fingered by the smutty arm of the law and required to keep them updated with all my email addresses just how many do you think their system will be able to cope with before it falls over (or the police officer gets bored of spending day after day with you saying "x4gs267ghsd6sf643efgh@", "x4gs267ghsd6sf643efgi@" while he writes them down on a piece of paper that he hands to you to sign then to someone else to type in to a computer)?

Ill conceaved and poorly thought through...again.

You need my email address for the register officer? Certainly.

Jacqui.Smith@homeoffice.gov.uk

Yup, flawless plan - and who wants to be the first to tell the government about owning your own domain and using a catchall account to register with emails such as facebook@example.com, myspace@example.com, etc etc ad infinitum.

Unlimited opportunity to get anonymous email addresses, so it's unworkable to expect to have a list of all addresses... and quite a few people use domains with catch-all forwarding to be able to use unlimited numbers of unique addresses to easily block particular sources if they turn out to spam - you could hardly realistically expect someone to register every single address they use in situations like that. You could tie up the system just listing ever more addresses. Perhaps register a domain with catch-all forwarding and write a little script to generate lots of possible addresses you could use for them to register... or better still register a number of domains and make it harder to spot they're all from a few domains until they've typed in thousands of addresses and overloaded their systems.

As someone else stated, it sounds like it would also make it very easy to get someone else blocked by supplying someone else's address.

And finally, wouldn't it make more sense to introduce a legal requirement that any machine the offender uses must have a certain piece of software installed and running, and that they could be prosecuted for not following that rule? The software could route traffic via a 'pedo-proxy' so traffic is easily blocked, and could also perform other monitoring or filtering functions. That may be easily circumvented, but at least it's comparatively workable in terms of sites filtering the traffic.

If a paedophile is prepared to risk some heavy jail time (and a stairwell nonce bashing that could leave them quadrospazed) by reoffending, is our illustrious Home Secretary seriously trying to tell us that the threat of a slap on the wrists for not registering a virtually untraceable email address will stop them?

Obviously demanding that all email address are registered will clearly not work.

This is another one where the government will find Phorm useful. Phorm spys on all your traffic. Paedos seem to be subject to laws which the rest of us are not subject to. Simply tell Phorm who the paedos are and they can report on the all the email addresses used.

Because it's paedos people won't object, they will DEMAND that this is implemented. It's then available to track suspected terrorists and organised crime.

I believe that because Phorm will be useful paedo tracking technolgy, they will be allowed to coninue with their evil plans. Once Phorm get good at targeting adverts at known paedophiles it should be a simple matter to spot undetected paedos, terrorists, etc. This would be a massive saving for the government who prefer to get companies and individuals to do their policing for free rather than do it themselves.

How can this idea make sence to anyone is beyond me, i mean FFS if these people are prepaired to force/con a child into sleeping with them then opening another free email and NOT telling the police is hardly gonna keep them awake at night. For a crime as bad as this it should be life in jail or death, or perhaps just death

I don't understand why you are worried/offended/annoyed by the likes of Wacky Jacqui's total lack of understanding of the subject despite the fact she is (god help us) Home Secretary. Even when this manipulative government seeks the advice of experts they have no problem ignoring it if the advice contradicts their narrow-minded, prejudiced & simplistic view of the world.

Given the latest do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-ism possibly she shold be re-named Wacky Backy Jacqui.

I think my coat's over here....

....to get these people to register which ISP they are with. The Govt gets all ISPs to agree on a standard way of registering these people on their systems. The ISP then gives them a fixed IP Address and registers that with the Govt agencies and all this is then registered against their physical address.

If they change ISPs, the old ISP can port across what they are to the new ISP who can use the physical address details to register their new virtual ones.

Before you start I know it's not fool proof but at least it mitigates some of the mind-numbingly stupid suggestions uk.gov seems to be able to come up with.

couldn't they just monitor all traffic to .va addresses? :)

Of course, the Goverment could provide a state sponsored email system, and force everybody to use that for all email....

....no wait. You would have to prevent use of out-of-nation email servers. OK, lets block SMTP and have a block list for foreign webmail servers. The ISPs can do this for us without cost if we mandate it by legislation...

...hang on, we then need to block tunneled and anonymised connections. OK also block anything that is encrypted....

...but that will block SSL. Never mind, Phorm will work so much better if SSL is not used. And once the Interwebnet tubes unencrypted, we can filter content from abroad, we won't have to worry about terrorists picking up bomb plans from foreign subversive sites.

Hell, lets just ban the Interwebnet. But wait, arn't we trying to push down costs by using the it for tax and other goverment systems....

...and so on.

Anybody for a Police State?

Whilst it probably won't stop people on the sex offenders register from using another email address, it will still have some benefits.

If the police, whilst investigating a suspected case of grooming, find out that a suspect is on the register and using a different address than the one given then they can do him for that in addition to whatever else they find.

It's much simpler to prove - 1) On sex offenders register, 2) didn't provide email details -> up to 5 years

It's probably more than they'd get for the original offences anyway

Because she's going to have to build a lot of new prisons to accommodate that 30,000.

Amazingly some pedophiles are aware their tendencies are wrong, and have been known to beg the police to lock them up. Now they will be able to get their way.

I agree with you too. The problem is that paedophilia is a mental condition, not an chooseable option. Where some people like red heads/skinny women/hairy men/whatever, paedophiles like either the physical form of a child or the thrill of breaking the law in that way.

Locking Oscar Wilde up didn't make him any less gay. Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent.

When they start trying to help/treat/cure paedophiles so they can get over their desires instead of pointlessly locking them up, then maybe we can make progress to curb the problem.

Maybe a little less tabloid righteous indignation attitude to the problem would lead more to seek help before they act on their impulses. Prevention surely being better than locking them up after ruining some poor kid's life.

Getting rid of the sex offenders register would seem like a good idea too. They're on it for a fixed term (which is ridiculous as they'll still fancy kids in 10 years without help) and it just seems to cause isolation and a sense of being put upon which some seem to use as reason enough to carry on.

Why not just register every email address?

> I can't believe that the opposition parties haven't ridculed her yet.

Why? If they criticise the idiot allegedly in charge of the Home Office, it'll get spun back at them as "nasty Tories/Libs/whatever are helping paedophiles". Or soft on crime. Or won't protect our kids. Or all of the above.

Surely it would be more workable to just ban them from registering any other email addresses, and issue them a mandatory @sexoffender.gov.uk address? Such sites could then just ban sign ups from such a domain. :)

more than I believe that there's anyone in gov.uk capable of comprehending just how utterly unworkable this is.

Of course, it's just a headline grabber.

Like almost all gov.uk policy, it's the ones that DON'T make the front few pages of the Sun/Star/Mirror that REALLY bite!

PAYG internet-enabled phones?

Well at least the bike sex man will no longer be able to "peddle" indecent "saddle" based imagery of him "riding" dirty on facebook anymore. The government have tuely grabbed the "handlebars" and put the "brakes" on this viscous "cycle" of posting photographs of bicycle related p0rn0graFy to the nations 14 year olds.

If you run your own mail server, then the simple thing to do is just to block *@yourmailserver.com. Granted you've got the ability to have /other/ people getting email addresses from your domain, but at the same time the mailhost is then known to be associated with ye fingeréd offender, and the HO/police want to be keeping an eye on it again.

Proceed with this nonsense at flank speed...

what are they thinking...there is obviously no perfect solution but come on..i can think of alot of things better than what they are proposing.

What about the right to privacy? This proposal is to hand over all email addresses of certain people to organisations that don't have a good track record of keeping information secure.

But then again the government doesn't care about such matters. Just like the way they will willingly hand over the details of anyone who has a vehicle to anyone who asks. So what if you were parked on private property when the owner didn't want you there - last time I checked trespass wasn't a crime.

"Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent"

i know a few gay people that would not take kindly to that kind of thinking

didnt the yanks try the same thing but give up on it pretty quickly when A) the site admins refused to have aything to do with it and b) it was pretty much unenforcable...

"We are working together with police, industry and charities to create a hostile environment for sex offenders on the internet, and are determined to make it as hard for predators to strike online as in the real world."

So you want to make it absolutely easy peasy then?

There are so many things wrong with this idea that 1000 posters wouldn't be able to cover them all.

Some people just naturally put women's lib back 10 years whenever they open their mouth.

Paris, cos its only her IQ that is childlike.

Rather than proving a peado tried to chat up a young girl when he was having that talk with jenny11-06-01 in the my little pony chatroom at her desk at scotland yard, the gov now only need prove he signed up with an unregistered email.

Of course, this is like jailing them for not ticking the 'are you a filthy shrub rocketeer' box but still, it reduces the burden of proof.

You go on, jaqui. I don't mind where but just go.

Why not redesign the internet to allow what Jacqui Smith and the UK.gov really want.

Of course we will be allowing her to create a monster where everyone will be given one user ID and the powers that be will have access everything. People who have nothing to fear will have their details intermingle with people that do.

The consequences are frightening.

Nothing is simple. Forget I said anything.

I will post anonymously and get my coat.

Bye...

Not sure what planet you're on mate but I sure hope you never get into politics.

There is no such thing as rehabilitation for these people, they are purely sick individuals who if I had my way would all be packed off to an island somewhere far away from civilisation or better still killed off so they had no chance of polluting the gene pool.

As regards thus stupid ruling you could drive an artic through it purely on the basis that e-mail addresses are ten a penny.

because in the not-too-distant future, we will all be provided with an email address by uk.gov - it will be printed in your ID card so you don't forget it.

ISPs will provide you with a static IP address (if your not on the internet exclusion register) and email will be served and filtered for you - web mail and other inappropriate content will not be available.

Web pages and email content will be scanned to a) keep us all safe from terrorists and b) provide you (and eveyone on your contact lists) with a more relevant browsing experience.

'fraid not, even the simple-minded voters can see the flaw in this one: the sun-readers at the Sky News website were pointing out the problem in their own inimicable way from quite early this morning.

Obviously never heard of webmail like yahoo. google et al.

My suggestion is that these miscreants should be opted into Phorm's ad profiling 'service' and they won't be able to groom our at risk children due to all their time being taken up by reading the adverts. Besides, as all the ads will be targetted, their interests will be satisfeid thus making eevryone safe.

Paris... cos she knows how to keep a low profile.

One 'flaw' is that few have yet noticed the thin end of a wedge. In order to enforce this law it will turn out to require that all use of the internet has to be monitored, and that all users will have to be open to being profiled.

Another flaw was described a while ago by an American charity that provides counselling to paedophiles. (The FBI was thought to be stalking their website, or somesuch, and this rather stalled their.efforts.) If it seems the anonymity of contact is compromised then fewer potential paedophiles ask for help; and more will thus go on to commit abuse.

The help group had been set up by parents whose children had been abused. They had realised that a 'prevention is better than cure' approach can prevent at least some offences.

I don't know if there are similar groups in the UK, but it would be sad to see genuine and compassionate efforts to address problems before they have serious consequences eroded by vote-grabbing policies spurred on by vindictive calls for retribution from the mob.

"Is Wacky Jacqui handy with a trowel?" Read this too fast and initial saw towel. Rapid sequence of images flooded my brain resulting in a keyboard that needs some serious vomit reduction therapy.

Small flaw in the plan.

As per a previous commenter, The Register as I understand it is diluted because it contains not just hardcore pervs, but also a Nottingham man who was convicted of "groping" a co-worker in a pub after work and some doggers.

So these people should also be banned from FaceSpace and BoPeep too?

Absolute plonkers, Rodney.

..and Cancer too then. Hmm wonder who has been celebrating Cannabis keeping its class C rating then?

Pretending to have the upper-hand and pandering to the clueless.

Of course, online criminals of any kind aren't liable to tell you that upfront.

The purpose of this bill is therefore not prevention, but criminalisation, of online activities. Since they won't be accepted with correct info, and can be jailed if caught using fake info, effectively all use of soc/net sites is therefore barred without any of that messy jurisdiction or freedom of speech nonsense getting involved.

Bloody children spoil every thing good and fun..

They spoil driving fast in town, they spoil Alton towers(queues), they spoil TV by not allowing channel 5 to show porn before the watershed, they spoil my holidays with their screaming on the plane.(I can hear them form business class)

SO CHILDREN.. KEEP YOUR CHOCOLATE COVERED MITTS OFF OUR INTERNET!

Serously if parents dont wan't there kiddys seeing nasty things online keep them off it.. You wouldn't let them play in traffic you you!!!

Saw her on morning TV justifying it by saying that no system is perfect. Well fair point; but there are limits.

The analogy that immediately sprang to my mind is one whereby one wants to take water from the nearby stream to the house. A bucket with a hole in it, isn't perfect, but there is a reasonable chance you will only lose a little water on the way back. But folk would have the right to think I was some clown, bankrupt of ideas, if I tried to use a garden riddle, and used the same justification.

It's always the same. No sensible suggestions, but one has to be seen to be doing something. So what is inflicted on everyone is yet more useless nonsense. I mean, who does it fool ? Really ?

May I point something out...

Gmail doesn't recognise the . in an email address and strips it out so you can register Iamanemailaddress@gmail.com then sign up with

I.Amanemailaddress@gmail.com and it will probably work, protection circumvented and no laws broken.

And what about a shared home broadband email, may not belong to the offender but why not use it to sign up.

Got an ISP based email address for the odd forum that insists on ISP emails, otherwise I use several email addresses - some are for online games with the avatar name being the email, others for IM and the like.

Nothing wrong with keeping kids safe, but do not want the net dumbed down to the equivalent of the teletubbies...

First one politician proves they don’t ever leave their house/limo by walking around their neighbourhood in a stab-proof vest. Now we have this one proving they have never used the internet.

All this and they want to give themselves a nice fat pay rise to make up for the fact they can’t hire half their family any more. Great stuff…

...Chris Morris.

So few of you have spotted the fiendish cunning in this one. Anybody that thinks it's not extremely smart is showing how dense they are. Yes, of course someone can register with an anonymous email - but get caught, and it's a simple, certain 5 year stretch - a lot easier to prove than most charges, and I can't believe they won't be monitoring the ISPs of those concerned. My respect for Ms Smith's intelligence is dramatically enhanced - it's very clever indeed. My respect for the Reg and so many of the readers has taken a sever blow in that they've failed to spot this, though.

Hey Wacky Jacqui why don't you do something about terrorists?

Why don't you get all Muslims to register their e-mail addresses then you can get YouTube to block them and they won't be able to share their martyrdom videos.

While you're at it, get all the spammers and phishers and 419ers to register.

Go the whole hog. Just ban the Internet.

Mine's the one with luddite on the back in illuminated letters.

Bearing in mind not everyone on the sex offenders list should really be there (the 14 year old boy that kissed a girl shock horror or someone who took a drunken wee in a doorway) what's to stop someone registering an email address and dobbing this person in and sending them off for another 5 years, much easier than framing them for kiddy fiddling!

"Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent"

Surely as most paedophiles are attracted to children of the opposite sex, heterosexuality is the closest equivalent?

Anyway, this isn't about paedophiles, it's about people registered on the Sex Offenders Register - which in theory could arise from relatively minor offences (having a pee in a public place, teenagers on either side of the age of consent having sex, etc).

I'm glad el Reg carried this story to point out the blindingly bloody obvious flaw in Wacqui's goddamn stupid and utterly futile statement.

I thought I'd come up with some more headline grabbing but frikkin stupid policies which anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see is totally unworkable, useless and demonstrates total ignorance.

1. Make all drugs illegal... no more paracetemol, no more prescription drugs, no more alcohol (oh, the Yanks got there first with that last one)

2. A total ban on egg sandwiches. They stink, right?

3. Anyone passing on a contagious disease is to be imprisoned in NHS hospitals. No excuses - if you've got the common cold, you gotta walk out into the wilderness, Scott of the Antarctic stylee.

4. Anyone using a ten pound note that's got traces of cocaine on it is presumed to be a dealer in class As.

>> I tend to agree with the principle of making life as awkward as possible for genuine paedophiles.

Yes, I agree. I think the governement should make badges for sexual offenders to wear (perhaps a fylfot symbol), and make standard issue pokie sticks for everyone else. If you see someone wearing a pedo badge, you may poke at will. Or better yet, they could have an elctro-shock device implanted, that could be triggered by random passers-by.

And of course, all sexual offenders should be required to use a dodgy copy of Windows ME, so that even if they manage to get online, they problably won't have time to load a social networking site, let alone chat anyone up.

>>One of the problems with the existing system is that paedophiles are very difficult to lock away. Not because they don't get caught, but because they're becoming increasingly adept at exploiting loopholes and getting away with a slapped wrist. If they have committed a crime for which the police want to prosecute, but they can't convict on the available evidence (or if the punishment is so small as to be risible) they can use this law to get a jail sentence anyway.

Damn habeus corpus! Mere suspicion should be enough! Those poor police, if they can't produce actual evidence, they have to come up with some trumped up bogus crap like "failure to register an email address" to lock people up!

It would be so much easier for the state to provide all sexual affenders with approved physical addresses. For convenience, it could be the address of a state facility, such as a prison. And they should be shot on sight if they try to exploit some "loop hole" like trying to tunneling out, registering a false email address, or attempting to visit any social networking sight, including Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google, and of course el Reg!

It would be funny if everyone created new gmail/yahoo/hotmail/whatever accounts like

JacquiSmith12345@ and submitted those addresses as their "permanent" address.

Oh what a lovely world it would be if there was still such a thing as "serving your time". The fact is that in Britain we are all criminals. Otherwise there would be no need for us to be tagged, fingerprinted, IDed, tracked, and our access to mind-altering drugs and anything capable of being used as a weapon strictly controlled. Those of us who've actually been convicted of a crime, well, that's like double guilt or something. The closest thing to 'serving your time' is death.

isn't having luddite in illuminated letters (LuddLite anyone?), a bit of a contradiction?

"I can't believe that the opposition parties haven't ridculed her yet."

They're just as stupid.

1. Good ol' plain down-home stupid that knows it's stupid.

2. Stupid that doesn't know it's stupid.

Today's pop qvizz:

What is the name of a female government minister who falls into category 2? (Hint: her initials are J and S.) Be sure to explain your reasoning.

Somebody tell me, do these idiots *ever* use the intertubes on their own? If so, how can they be so blindingly unaware of the holes in this scheme? Or is use of the intertubes considered an elitist intellectual practice not permitted to the higher echelons of the leaders of the proletariat? "You! You over there! You've used email! No ministry for you!"

Taking a cue from other comments, the icon of the day is our sad-looking little penguin, 'cause sadness is the only viable emotion in the face of such cluelessness.

For the best twist of the day. From Wacky Jacqui to the bloody EU buggers in one comment post. Can we get an award for personal crusades of this quality?

Its like asking a shoplifter to pay at the till ! What great ideas are going to come out of this government next ?

Chocolate fireguards, Lead balloons, square wheels etc ?

Why not Just give them a PC preloaded with Vista - that will stop those kiddie fiddlers in their tracks ! Are you sure you want to do this ?, are you definitely sure ?, absolutely sure?, no doubt ? Don't want to change your mind ?...........................................................etc until the earth finally crashes into the sun !

...or it would be if the retarded bint wasn't serious. I don't know which is a better idea, letting her carry on making herself and the rest of the government look like idiots on the basis that it'll help get shot of the régime, or sewing her gob shut to stop her embarrassing us all by association...

If our esteemed moderator (moderatrix?) will forgive me posting a second comment...

Isn't it time to turn the whole thing about children and the net on its head and stipulate that no part of the net is safe for children unless specifically so classified? And then bar under-18s from all but the kiddies' sections. (Somehow this reminds me of the Howdy Doody show from ancient US television.)

After all, the net was built by adults for adults and only limited portions are intentionally aimed at youngsters. Why are youngsters given free run of an adult institution?

No, I'm not so foolish as to think that kids wouldn't know to fake their ages if they wanted to get into the adult areas.

Sounds like an ideal market for all those underage boys and girls that try can buy of the traffickers, well at least they won't grow up to be terrorists.

Windows ME? You cruel sick bastard, ye!

As one person noted, we should keep people in jail longer for sex offenses. But if we hanged men who committed rape, they would be more likely to murder their victims, so we don't do so, although they are fully deserving of such a penalty. Also, I'm pretty sure that it is already illegal for registered sex offenders to join social networking sites; this is just an attempt to make it a bit harder for them; apparently, the Internet is so needful these days that banning them from it outright was not seen as an option.

__________________

QUOTE:

"Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent"

i know a few gay people that would not take kindly to that kind of thinking

_________________

I am the Paedofinder General, and by the powers vested in me by a bloke in the pub who knew for definite, I find your sort GUILTY of paedophilia....

Love that programme.

""Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent"

i know a few gay people that would not take kindly to that kind of thinking"

At the risk of derailing this thread (although it's El Reg and derailed by default), why would that be? Would those gay people say that, unlike paedophilia, being gay is a choice and that Oscar Wilde just wasn't imprisoned long enough to be made less gay?

So, who gets this list? Anyone who runs a forum (a form of social networking)? If so, I can see some issues with the poor paedophiles getting a lot of spam and having to change email addresses frequently.... Couldn't the government just provide a free @paedophile.gov.uk email for each paedophile with free spam filter...

God, what a stupid woman she is (the fact that she's also a pig-ugly lardball doesn't add to her appeal).

When I heard this announcement on Radio 4 this morning my immediate reaction was "Jesus, hard though it is to believe, these risible self-important pus-bubbles really don't have any idea at all about how the internet or email work."

Smith and her slack-jawed pinstriped poncily-coiffed advisors evidently think an email address is somehow akin to a physical address; a sort of online bricks'n'mortar edifice of which there can only be one per citizen (or, perhaps, an additional webmail for the wealthy as an equivalent of a 'second home').

Even were our civil servants and politicians not as moronic as they appear to be, how do they square today's simplistic proposal with the 'cunning' of the peadophiles? In report after report, they tell us that persistent child sex offenders are clever, technically adept, and highly skilled in maintaining anonymity. Joined up government?

Someone (above) suggests tracking sex offenders by IP address. What about anonymiser services, multiple proxies, Tor, wireless hotspots, internet cafes, public libraries, machines in friends' and relatives' homes... well, you get my drift.

This is headline-fodder, a sop to the stupid, nothing more. As in so much else, the government's knee-jerk reaction to spluttering outrage in the Daily Mail is: "Something must be done: this is something: therefore we must do it"

As a father myself, I loathe peadophiles as much as anyone. But the current level of hysteria, hysterical exaggeration, and ludicrous counter-measures is ridiculous and serves no-one.

@glyn

Did you *really* write: "Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent." If you believe that in terms of moral equivalence, then FOAD you ignorant bigot (and I speak as a heterosexual): if, however, you are making a sympathetic point that gay people have in the past faced a similar level of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry as child sex offenders do now, then you are merely being hyperbolic and irelevant.

i agree with most of you it is absurd that the gov should be trying to collect email address like this, ref: free emails and such. as has already been pointed out isn't going to stop paedophiles and the like (also including family abuse sexual and violent) and releasing them from jail when they know they will re-offend is stupid. my personal view is that anyone who 'grooms' 'abuses' 'rapes' etc etc should be castrated.

humour: could send them all to Thailand

1. Demand paedophiles register their e-mail addresses.

2. Oh look, they can sign up to free e-mail services using fake details.

3. Require a validated online identity to sign up to e-mail and other services.

4. Government will validate said online identities which will be linked to ID register.

The above is obviously ludicrous but I couldn't help but spin it through my head. :op

of getting accounts removed from Facebook. Pity they are based in USA and will not pander to a request from HM Gov to remove people. same with MySpace.

Normal Gov policy. Never thought through. And how will the legal people know that an email is registered to a paedo? It is not as if you have to give the correct name and address when creating them? And the emails do not have to reside on the PC that is being used? (who registered "Iamapaedophile@hotmail.com" before me then).

Paris because she does understand the dangers of the internet.

It would be simpler -- and probably have a better chance of working -- just to ban anyone under 18 from using the Internet.

There are enough real-life places where kids quite rightly aren't allowed .....

The other side of this is that it now means they can slam 'em up for 5 years for having an unpublished email address. Course they have to prove they have the address that's not registered but still, Mr policeman looks on a kiddie fiddlers PC finds non registered addresses and off he goes.

The poilice have enough difficulty finding crims as it is, trying to chase down un published emails is impossible but by having a law in place like this does mean that they have another route to send those likely to reoffend down for another 5 years.

P.S. Yes she is dumb, think of the teachers, somewhere an otherwise good teacher is hanging from his light fitting thinking he failed

.....stop messing about treating paedo's with kid gloves. Tattoo 'paedo' on their forehead and have done with it. Then if society wants to kick the defacation material out of them so be it. I have no sympathy with paedo's whatsoever.

Not Paris because I don't think even she deserves to be associated with paedo's.

The problem with the more serious paedophiles is that there is no such thing as "rehabilitation" for them. I'm not parroting pctechxp's Daily Mail style ranting.

See, we're not talking about teenage couples, where "rehabilitation" constitutes waiting a year or two. The sick men and women who cause harm to infants truly believe that what they have done is, at the least, somehow not unacceptable: they suffer no empathy. Chemical or physical castration won't help, because it's a mental illness with no cure: only controls. It's a crime like no other, because they prey on the defenceless and manipulable.

Indeed, these people should be locked away for life, without mercy. But that "locking away" could be a conceptual action: monitoring their movements, preventing access to children, very regular supervision, that kind of thing. Registering emails isn't going to help. What will help is disallowing these people access to the Internet.

"isn't having luddite in illuminated letters (LuddLite anyone?), a bit of a contradiction?"

Ah! I was thinking illiminated as in manuscript, Lindisfarne Bible, etc etc. Nice gothic hand crafted lettering with ornate decoration.

Oh well, I just have to stick to the coat made out of a hand-woven tapestry.

By default, social networking sites are set to strict privacy settings. If you're over (say) 16, you can relax these settings, if you want to.

Job done? No. But it could actually help.

The only thing I hate more than pedophiles is idiots who dont know what they are talking about pushing through laws that wont work. Based on their vague idea of how stuff works rather than that of an expert who does know. We should have a website that allows the public to vote on how good or bad any government proposed legislation is. (Kinda like the register is doing right now!)

Also as a gay guy I would like to say pedophiles are disgusting. They should be put in jail for much longer periods than they are getting and castrated. The people who are suggesting that gay people and pedophiles are even remotely alike are a step beyond complete morons. By that logic I can safely say that being heterosexual is the closest thing to being a serial rapist.

Isn't this wonderfully effective idea similiar to the record industry's demands that ISPs should should terminate people's connections for downloading MP3's ? - let's remove their ability to conduct lawful business as well as unlawful business.

Blair when he became PM freely admitted he didn't know anything about computing, no does anyone else - by the look of things - in the Labour party. The sooner we get them out the better.

Email addresses are 10 a penny?! You're being ripped off! :P

Register www.Paedophil.es! You'll make a fortune selling it to the UK government for this!

Clueless, hopeless and genuinely very sad.

How are they ever going to get a handle on ANY internet-related issues if they understand less about it than the average 10 year old? Which clearly is the case.

Oh I know! Shove another oh, say, few hundred million into our preferred suppliers' mouths, they'll sort the internet for us!

2 words: joe job. Now what is the email address for Wacky Jacqui again... :-D It only takes one registered offender with an axe to grind for the entire parliament to be fingered as paedos. Bloody brilliant of her.

There seems to be a complete lack of technical compitence within government regarding technical law, computer projects and press announcements.

PLEASE get some decent advisors!!!

I don't know what the problem is. Just make it so that when you sign up for an email address there's a check box: I'm a paedophile Y/N.

So Jacqui, about that research assistant's job. What did you say the expense account was worth?

Texas plans to disclose were sex offenders work

Some people spotted that Paedos will be forced to use differnt addresses hence easy to convict and imprison for 5 years.

Other people spotted that the addresses will be great targets for perv spam.

If you run a social networking site that children might use then the police will send you the sex offenders addresses. So are they going to require you get a licence to run a social networking site? Expect that as the next announcement.

I'd like to see what they would do with 40 million email addresses.

Does it count as mail bombing when you’re just sending in one confirmation mail per account for verification purposes?

Then the have processed that lot you could chalk up another 40 million...

Then should I register the addresses that could be spoofed?

Are we sure this woman has a single functional brain cell left ?

Now , we have providers supplying one shot email addresses by the boat load , open wi-fi wireless networks all over the place and easily concealed low cost purse book size Eeepc's proliferating , although supplies are much reduced currently since LG , whose Korean battery factory was recently destroyed by fire was the largest battery supplier to ASUS for installation in portable computer batteries (circa 40% was one estimate) !

This is like the saga of the blind and stupid leading the masses to the Norwegian Cliffs where most lemmings blindly following the leader take the final dive to oblivion into the sea below !

Perhaps , since both the leaders of the UK and the US Government have rejected outright the newly elected boy leader from Oz's idea over clamping down on illicit drugs growing in Afghanistan recently , that wowsers within the UK government have a great brand of Ganja to smoke whilst in their respective Cabinet offices , now arriving daily and fresh in air express diplomatic courier bags , may explain many of their brain dead ideas ! At this rate come next election the slaughter at the Polls will be horrendous and many former existing members will be running cap in hand to so called mates for a new job and change of venue lifestyle they think they are entitled to whilst being rebuffed as those with the money kiss up to their replacements !

NUTS ! , nice descriptive title for this combined wanker and wowser though !

Someone had the seeds of a great idea earlier. Stop phorming on the rest of us, just phorm the phreaks! Then you can send them targeted advertising, get them to click and *CLINK*, round come the coppers with their cuffs. This is really a much better idea. Jacqs doesn't seem to be seeing her problems. See the flaw (singular)? Jokes.

1. I have about eight email addresses and I don't use anything techie like a catch-all. That's just my personal adds, not work adds. How many boxes on the forms? Can you use extra pages?

2. Duh, you don't have to register your own name. I mean, people wanting to do this evil stuff wouldn't register in their own names, would they?!!! I mean, when I go check out my 13-year-old daughter's MySpam 'friends' and I find a 48-year-old greying, balding, slightly overweight bloke with an old-man name I'm going to go 'Eh?' and look into it.

3. Pretty much all of this crime is committed by people who know and have access to kids in real life - parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, stepparents, neighbours, teachers....why on earth would they have to 'make cool' themselves on Bebo when single mothers are working two jobs and leaving their kid with the so-called 'government accredited' childcare provider whose husband doesn't need an email address? Government needs to look at its own policies of accrediting people and their own work and benefits policy - the core - rather than this window-dressing nonsense for The Daily Mail.

4. Err, how do we define a 'social networking' site? Is it just the big three (or however many there are today)? What about general message boards and other online communities? Blogs? They're probably more risky in terms of this kind of thing than a Facebook is...

And so on and so on. You'd think the slightly less aged breed of politician would be a bit savvier when it came to tech stuff. Bring some of those fusty Law Lords into politics, it couldn't be any worse, could it? Or better still, how about ensuring that those large 'research' budgets aren't spent on MPs' 16-year-old kids' 'salaries' and actually buy some technical expertise. Come to think of it, why didn't they hire some proper 16yos? They'd have knocked this one out of the running before Jacqui had even had the opportunity to go 'Err, I think [not][never]...'

Another angle for those outraged by the likening of paedophilia and homosexuality... Both are sexual preferences that are or have been outlawed and socially unacceptable. End of likeness.

Straight guy, admitting a touch of homophobia. (Gay? No problem, but touch my privates and I'll break your arm.)

- 10 minute email... and laugh my head of.

- Yeah, lets drive the pedo's and perv's deeper into hiding, that'll work. As it has ever done before.

- Yet another proof that homo politico needs extermination.

- A least it is not just my government that's fubar.

- Must be april fool's...

A fair point, but I fear flawed... Doesn't the term "Sun reader" imply an ability to read? - a skill which might qualify the voter as unusually sophisticated in the asbo era.

To those who are offended by Glyn RE: "Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent":

I think what he is getting at is the similar [sexuality vs legality] which gays have enjoyed at times - the situation a hundred years ago (or there abouts) for example. Seen as persecution now, but no doubt equally righteous at the time. I very much doubt that he meant to imply that homosexuality is comparable to paedophilia in any broader context!

I do worry that all the rules and spying the gov does to make us 'safe' from child molesters and terrorists do bugger all to prevent anyone with half a mind toward actual criminal activity from taking some basic steps which easily circumvent these measures. Instead the actual effect is to allow government control over the law-abiding majority that much easier, as it sets a precedent. Need my email address to help protect the country? Here it is sir. I've nothing to fear.

Why do I think the govt makes noises about wanting to control terrorists and perverts, when in fact they really want to control the net?

It has fucking hilarious entertainment value watching these clowns making legislation. When I heard this story this morning on the Today programme I almost wet myself.

It isn't a problem: these morons will simply legislate themselves out out of existence and vanish with a poof up their own arses in a puff of logic.

Phhhwwwwarrrr, Phhhwwwwarrrr, Phhhwwwwarrrr!

It's painfully sad to watch.

I agree — someone MUST be setting her up for a fall.

Thats the problem, these days the government should be run by 10 year olds as they know more about computers than anyone else. The new generations have been brought up with/by new technology whereas people who work in or for the government are always a generation behind...

can't we just kill the worst offenders.

With their bravo kiddie fiddler comments,

Many people who have been tared with the Paedophile brush have never touched a child. Many of them have no real inkling to do so in real life. And yet even here on the reg people feel that it's right to hound people to the ends of the earth for being a bit f-----d up. Actually it's ironic that people get more time for having child porn then for actually abusing children. Funny ----ing world.

An hour on 4chan can get you labelled a paedophile in the eyes of the law, oo for the thumbnails.

And worse is on the cards with the Government wanting to classify drawings as on par with actual child pornography. So you can be classed as a paedophile for having drawings. Why not just go the whole hog and include literature too. May aswell.

So, as we follow our never ending peadophile insanity more and more peculiar, slightly off the wall folk with dodgy fetishes end up being hounded to the ends of the earth whilst children are molested by their parents. Woman are raped by teenagers. And our streets pile with rubbish.

Think about it for a while. The west is just f---ed and completely incapable of seeing the real threats(lack of decent social care, teaching, parenting, activities) so we just act out are fears on easy to strike targets.

May aswell start locking up people that play violent games and like slice and dice movies, because they're obviously inclined to violence.

Lock up folk that like violent porn coz they're obvioulsy gonna abuse woman.

Should lock up drivers because they're probably gonna have a crash.

Lock up alcoholics because they're gonna beat someone up sooner or later.

When I were a kid it was simple.

You don't talk to strangers, you don't go off with people you don't know, you don't take gifts from strangers, you never meet people you havn't met before on your own and never without telling your parents.

Those are pretty simple rules - and if you can't follow them then welcome to the end of the line because you're to dumb to make it into adulthood. Or your parents are so rubbish they didn't prepare you right in which case you're just plain unlucky. Either way, you're done for. No loss to society.

So how about instead of retarded laws and initiatives against paedophiles we start looking at ways to really keep kids safe. More afterschool activities, more clubs, more sports, more basic education - instead of citizenship let us teach common sense. A better more educated social services. More responsibility placed on parents. Fewer "rights" for children.

It's a hell of alot easier to teach kids to be safe then remove every potential bad element from society, and it'll save alot of innocent people being destroyed by propaganda.

Meh doesn't matter - the whole of the west is stuffed.

"So few of you have spotted the fiendish cunning in this one. Anybody that thinks it's not extremely smart is showing how dense they are. Yes, of course someone can register with an anonymous email - but get caught, and it's a simple, certain 5 year stretch - a lot easier to prove than most charges, and I can't believe they won't be monitoring the ISPs of those concerned. My respect for Ms Smith's intelligence is dramatically enhanced - it's very clever indeed. My respect for the Reg and so many of the readers has taken a sever blow in that they've failed to spot this, though."

It seems that you may have overlooked something in your haste to sing the praises of the obviously braindead Ms Smith:

Tor, Jap, SSL, PAYG mobile phones (already mentioned), public libraries, Internet cafes, hotspots, the neighbours' wifi routers, subscription free 0845 dialup access, etc, etc...

RE: "another point some are missig":

Well said AC, all excellent points. You are obviously one of them. Burn him, he's a witch.

They can't even make their current practices/legislation work properly. I remember the possibility of this happening being talked about a couple of years ago - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7326736.stm.

So, while they have everyone (even Sun readers!) concentrating hard on this bit of nonsense that they and everyone else knows is unworkable, what are they really doing?

note to self:

Leave this country as soon as i can afford it.... our government makes more and more stupid decisions on a daily basis, we gonna be in the gutta soon :(

Quick, pete-o-phial@live.com is currently available. !

@fox

Thanks, at least someone understood that I meant they were connected by the way they're both ways of thinking/mental viewpoints that have been treated as crimes when the person in question has no choice over what they think. Where homosexuality is fine between consenting adults (depending on your personal point of view of course) and the law now recognises this, paedophilia is always wrong, even to most paedophiles who know they shouldn't be doing it but can't help how they think.

@Sceptical Bastard

"Did you *really* write: "Not saying that being gay is the same as being a paedophile, but it's the closest equivalent." If you believe that in terms of moral equivalence, then FOAD you ignorant bigot (and I speak as a heterosexual): if, however, you are making a sympathetic point that gay people have in the past faced a similar level of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry as child sex offenders do now, then you are merely being hyperbolic and irelevant."

I don't think it's irrelevant to think that we need to help these people, not criminalise them. Frankly I think personal insults "(the fact that she's also a pig-ugly lardball doesn't add to her appeal)" are more irrelevant as relative beauty has no bearing on the someone's intelligence or ability to do a job.

It's nice that you couldn't make your mind up what I was saying but disagreed regardless

Clearly paedophiles do not abide by the laws of the land. Many of the contributors to this thread have criticised Ms Smith's advisors but what is the answer?

It is all very amusing to poke fun at the inadequacy or stupidity of the government’s efforts, but that doesn't help to prevent some adult raping or sexually abusing a baby or older child.

I find myself agreeing with Mr Popaduopolos, we cannot put the words paedophile and law abiding in the same sentence.

Surely and normal human will agree that paedophillia is a disgusting and illegal way of life.

The point being that Ms Smith is throwing ideas at the great British public on what she sees as a 'hot potato' and an item that will inflame us into agreeing with her.

Jamie made comment that he/she does not agree with the policy and that the easy solution would be to leave them in prison, not so easy i am afraid.

The police, the courts etc are tied to tariffs when sentencing all criminals, lots of burglars re offend when they come out of prison, the same is said for car thieves, rapists even murderers.

We cant leave them in prison eternally, the prisons are full already so where do we put all these offenders ?

Mr Popaduopolos and I agree that poking fun at, or even pointing the finger of gult at the governments efforts can be amusing, but what is the answer.

Rightly or wrongly Ms Smith is attempting to put some sort of control measure on this type of offender, personally i think tracking devices would assist and possibly stop offenders carrying out these offences.

Any decent persons (me included) would want more stringent and painful measures inflicted on these people, but in this day an age of the niclely niclely approach , something has to be done, answers on a postcard please !

I'm disappointed that there is no answer provided by the Register's so-called experts in all things IT.

Five days of hot air and bollocks in critisism of Jacqui Smith and her advisors. Once the ball was in your court you, collectively, had the chance to display your prowess.

A week later, not a murmur, bugger all, well done! (Cue distant church bell, whistling wind and tumble weed.)

Fade to black.

FIN.