'Blacklist' and 'whitelist' terms banned by UK cyber security agency for being racist

[CyberTech]

Content source

https://www.techspot.com/news/85080-uk-cyber-security-agency-stop-using-racist-blacklist.html

They will be replaced by 'allow list' and 'deny list'

Most people understand what ‘whitelist’ and ‘blacklist’ mean, but are they outdated, racist words? That’s the opinion of the UK government’s cyber security agency, which is getting rid of the terms and replacing them with ‘allow list’ and ‘deny list.’

The National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), a branch of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said it was implementing the change to help “stamp out racism in cyber security.”

Blacklist is a term often used in tech, and other industries, to describe a list containing banned, disallowed, or undesirable elements such as passwords, spam emails, websites, applications, etc. Whereas whitelist is the opposite, containing everything that is allowed.

 

[Stopspying]

As NCSC are part of this countrys security service and thuslinked with the civil service and government, I suspect that all of those sectors will not change their list names immeadiately. They are sectors reknown for being 'conservative', with change being slow. I'm sure that if it becomes common to adopt the 'allow' and 'deny' tags that tech will be there well before the UK bureaucracies.

 

[Gangelo]

Ridiculous..
Next thing will be astronomers to change the term 'Black Hole' to 'Dark Colored Hole' to fight racism..

 

[enaph]

Political correctness is a sociological equivalent of cancer.

 

[plat]

So "Blackhat" ain't cool. It's not correct. Whitehat. No.

DenyHat and AllowHat. Now that's more like it.

 

[Antus67]

You got to be kidding...…..BlackList/Whitelist is not a racist terminology This wordage has been used as long as I can remember .

 

[ravi prakash saini]

It's not white's list or black's list.How it sounds racist

 

[LDogg]

Political correctness gone wrong....I'll change my name to CornDogg, because L offends Lemons...

~LDogg

 

[mlnevese]

Is the TV series also changing name?

 

[Brahman]

I propose "positive list" and "negative list"

 

[WhiteMouse]

Easy solution: American list and African-American list.

 

[Viking]

Is the TV series also changing name?

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Burrito]

Easy solution: American list and African-American list.

Ah hah.

The name "WhiteMouse" must be banned.

It's obviously racist....

 

[misterman2100]

This is quote is pure and utter bollocks: “If you’re thinking about getting in touch saying this is political correctness gone mad, don’t bother.”