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Censoring Australian Censors' Blacklist
steveroehrs writes: "'Your access to the Web is being censored by the Government -- but it refuses to reveal exactly what it is we are not allowed to see.' Despite the attempts of Electronic Frontiers Australia in obtaining a copy of the Australian Internet black-list, the Australian government is still refusing to release the list to the public. This is in stark contrast to the situation for film classification, where the list is freely available. Article here "
The irony, the irony.
Not that this is actually happening, but this is typical of what you can expect.
I suppose that someone could do a distributed computing mapping of the australian black list space, and compare it with as database of the real DNS list from outside of AU.
This almost sounds like a version of the land of OZ where the wicked witch never died.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
there's always places where things are worse. :-O
Seems to me they feel it's a good way to control people. If the citizens never knew it existed, how are they going to complain on it being censored.
I mean really- if the people are allowed a glimpse at what they're missing, they'll just scream "GIVE IT TO US!!" And that's precisely what the government doesn't want.
Also, if they reveal the list, everyone will start second-guessing their judgements. Anyone can tell you that any slight lack of confidence on behalf of the people is very bad for people in the government. With some people out there, give them a slight reason, and you'll see pipe bombs coming through your front window.
If only there were a way for the government to publish the list without getting themselves deeper in the alligator pit, they would likely do it. But until then, I fear they're SOL.
I may not like our government, but I am thankful for what I have here in the US...
.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
...is that those who make them secret often won't even divulge what it is they've made secret. This is a major problem in a democratic society. In the US we are still dealing with decades of Cold-War-era documents that are difficult to get at. The Freedom of Information Act provides some help, but if you don't know a secret exists, how can you file a request to have it released to you? Also, the gov. is increasingly putting people on trial with secret evidence, that even the defendant and/or their attorney cannot see. This is the sort of thing this country was founded in reaction against.
I sympathize with our Aussie friends on this. At least the USA doesn't have this sort of regime on the Internet (yet).
Speaking of government secrets: ever wonder what the true story is about Bush and the "pretzel?"
New Zealand broke story on Echelon, and Australia doesn't even know, YET!
My guess is if you were to look at all possible news, and see what got filtered out.
Seriously, if all we want is information, I'm sure you can find it, albeit a little late. I listen to BBC, CBC myself, I'm from US, I figure the Canuks and Brits(--I mean in friendly k?) don't care what US companies get stepped on by their reporting. Often I'll hear a story break long before the spin doctors have had a chance to do major sir-jury.(sp!)
Streaming audio was curtailed here for a while, was the best thing in the world! I looked to the great white north for broadcasts, lovin' it! What I saw at first as a problem just highlighted the differences.
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
Apart from the fact that Australians obviously aren't Free to decide what they would like to view on the Great Network, what measures can a government take?
I mean, if somebody in Australia wanted to, that person could use a proxy somewhere else in the world, where the "forbidden" content is available. Or does the Australian "government" have some really creepy way of filtering stuff out? (Can't think of how that could be possible, without secretly installing rogue software on everybody's computers which would filter content per machine)
Something like that could be attributed to evidence of filtering being a moot point. That the person who would like to view "forbidden" content could do so regardless of the "safeguards" put in by the Australian "government".
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Note to all governements: You are doing nothing to protect my morals by restricting my internet viewing... my morals were gone long before I'd ever heard about the internet.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
I find it amusing how you indulge yourself in displaying signs of your own amateurishness in operating well, your operating system. You, yourself admit the use of binary packages (a sure sign of administrative negligence in such a trivial package to install! I'm not flaming down the use of binaries, but at this level? You're ability is LAUGHABLE now!). RedHat and AOL? If this happens, I will commit hiri kiri after burning all copies of my RedHat CDs.
April 21-27-- Slashdot Blackout: Do your duty.
The irony here is just ridiculous.
Too bad we just can't blacklist the censors. (/joke)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
That one of the sites they're censoring is google.com before some clever Aussie hax0r discovers it's cache feature.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Alston and company are incompetent twits. They are atypical of an endangered species of Australian politician and/or upper corporate manager - overweight, not too bright and utterly ineffectual.
Let them strut around Canberra spouting drivel about anti-censorship views suggesting the holder is in league with "drug pushers and paedophiles." I have not noticed a single difference to my internet access in the 2.5 odd years that Alston has been around.
So I might be apathic, but I also have faith that dinosaurs like this are on the way out.
:wq
I actually plan to compile everything from source instead of using any distro (which I know is, counterintuitively, much easier than using RPM, at least when something goes wrong I know how to fix it), but I need a fucking OS to do it on first. That's actually what I've been trying to do. And I'm not about to install groff from source since it's currently in /usr/bin with all the other RPM-managed shit.
:)
I'm also just EXTREMELY PISSED at RH and was just blowing off some steam.
Oh, and: Haven't you been reading Slashdot? AOL is looking to buy RedHat.
Think of what's on the list. :)
If I went to the US government and said give a list of the latest warez and porn sites, they'd toss me out on my ear!
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Censoring Australian Censors' Blacklist
Ummm... You shot who in the what now?
Over here, 9/10 movies you go to see at the cinema have a nice big yellow screen before the start of the show with a big "This film has yet to be classified" messaged on it :)
I am thinking that if they can't even keep up with the small number of movies that are released every month, how the *fuck* are they going to keep up with censoring the internet? :)
Thats forgetting for a second that they actually manage to get content blocked in the first place :)
smash(this isn't censorship - its a joke :)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Im a Aussie [Sydney based] who has had the chance to live and work in many difference places around Europe and the US. [Seems to be an Australian cultural thing to get drunk in strange places]
/. like this alot of people who dont understand the country get on their high horses and yell "Australia = facists", "If they had guns they could defend their rights", etc etc.
Our government does some stupid things. Attempting to censor the net is one. When Australia gets mentioned on
When it comes down to it, our government is no more stupid than the next guys. We're still free down here [wish there was more free beer!], and I honestly believe Australia is one of the best places to live in the world.
The man who passed the rule will no longer hold the balance of power in 2 years in the Senate elections, and we can move forward and change policy. This is what a democracy allows us to do.
As a matter of interest for some of you US based people -- Australia has no freedom of speech legislation. This is a myth. The only freedom of speech that is mentioned in the constitution and our laws is that of Political free speech.
Does that make us a a facist state? No. Would we react well to this changing? No.
We may never know.. ;)
-- Dan
This is interesting because it seems to be another take on freedom of information regarding what our governments do on our behalf. The EFA has a document that details the FOI requests released or denied.
In a similar vein, the US government won't even release information about how its own citizens are being profiled.
That familiar question from ancient Rome comes to mind:
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchmen?
When will the conservatives in Australia learn that just because you might want your kids seeing something, doesn't mean you have the right to stop everyone in the country from seeing it? Let parents make their own decisions about censorship, instead of having the government decide what to censor and force it on everyone.
It's obvious that the reason they are keeping the blacklist secret is because they are afraid of public scrutiny and backlash against it. No doubt, like virtually all censorware, they have censored many sites that clearly oughtn't be censored. Australia is not as bad as China, but is certainly working in the same direction.
Censorship accomplishes nothing, and does so at a very high cost: your freedom. Regardless, the government can't stop you from viewing what you want on the net, and there are countless ways to circumvent any censorship. The average computer literate 10 year old could probably bypass australia's censorshp.
-Tuxinatorium
Repeal the DMCA!
This is as relevant to the article as it gets. They say all politics are local. What better way to understand this than to examine a parallel case in this little world? Most people would glaze their eyes hearing about Australian Internet Censorship policies. We see that censorship can occur on all levels.
My guess is that the government is too embarrassed to show how pitifully few sites have been taken down for the money expended
You need to remember that Alston et all are only really interested in pandering to the popular press, and not in actually making any real changes.
As far as I can make out, I still have unrestricted access to everything I have ever had
i saw this because:
I have NOT been forced to install blocking software
My ISP is not running blocking software (nor any others to my knowledge
If the ABA has taken down a site, I'm sure it's just popped up again overseas
It's probably just more boring pr0n anyway ..
ho , hum , back to work...
"it refuses to reveal exactly what it is we are not allowed to see." wouldn't this defeat the purpose of censoring something?
...to actually find out for yourself. One guy down under, on guy in America, and start your counters at 0.0.0.0 and start pinging port 80 until you get to 255.255.255.255. After you are done, compare notes, and viola, there is your blacklist. In fact once this is done once, other groups could do this in other countries usuing the same "roadmap" of all the viable sites. I'm sure you could get a distributed.net project going that could get this done in a couple of days...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
We like to believe that the early United States government was "by the people, for the people." Was it really, or is this another myth, another example of rewriting history?
I am not a scholar of history. I am not an expert on the world's governments. Are there any examples of a government that truly remained responsive to its citizenry over the long term? If so, what made them successful? What are we doing wrong?
We've run out of habitable continents. I think it may be time to start looking seriously at colonizing space. It may be the only way to get a representative government, at least for a little while.
The intent of Alstons bill is to shutdown sites WITHIN Australia or by Australians that publish content which is deemed inappropriate as per australia's publishing laws. This is not always a bad thing..
They do not filter incoming content, They just shut down those sites within the countries borders that, in effect are breaking the law (Kiddy porn etc..)..
How effective that is, well, thats another debate.
But at least this way there is some accountablilty for what these people put on the net.
There has (to date) been no policlitical/anti govt. sites closed down that I am aware of.
Burma?
... is worried that displaying the URLs will show how ineffective it has been on this?
:)
The censorship laws were a joke when first proposed - a joke that could damage Australian content providers, but which could have little or no impact on Australian's access to illegal materials. At the recent ACIS 2001 conference, a paper was give (full text available as pdf) arguing that the whole thing was pointless as far as pornographic sites were concerned, as they were all offshore already (due, in part, to expansive hosting on Australian servers) and therefore outside of Australia's juristiction.
I can only think of two good reasons for not releasing this material - they fear that examination of the material will show that many of the sites should not have been blacklisted (as per peacefire's work), or that they fear it will show how ineffective the legislation is.
Sure, it's not censorship 'as such' since users can read at -1, but it makes posts far less obvious and there's also the 'chilling' effect of massive karma loss.
Speaking of karma loss.. I'm really half-inclined to post this anonymously but what the hell, karma is easily regained :-)
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
You don't date much, do you?
And is also very confusing.
What is a blacklist anyway? Is it a list written on black paper with white ink? Instead of the traditional white paper and black ink.
Please help me out of this bind.
Thank you
Is google blocked/censored down under? If not, then a good chunk of the blocked content should still be readily available.
Instead of using, say:
http://www.foo.com
prefix it with a string to access google's cache:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.foo.com
I'll be the first to admit it is far from perfect (robots.txt, not up-to-the-second, lose access to on-line interactive sites (e.g. e-bay, etc.)), nor is it easy for the casual user. Still, an enterprising user could readily get past some of the censoring. Further, a simple ssh to a host in a different, non-blocked host in a different country would afford access as well.
As for determining WHAT has been blocked, I would think a simple pair of scans across all IP addresses, once attempting access in Australia, and another from, say, USA; then just compare notes and voila! That would seem to be a heck of lot quicker than the months they've been at it trying to go through formal channels.
Whats the use of censorship if when you release the Black List every single site that is black listed gets double the traffic. It makes sense not to release the Black List for if they did it would neglect the whole purpose of the censorship. The Sites Black Listed would get a lot of attention that they don't deserve. This is especially the case for links to illegal sites such as child porn. Although I don't support this type of censorship I do support the decision not to release the Black List.
Maybe there's a business opportunity in providing "banned" content to people in Australia and other countries like Communist China and Iran which similarly attempt to censor the 'net. (Australia should be sooo proud to oppress its citizens just like the army satraps of Red China and the radical clerics of Iran, by the way.)
Charge a nominal amount, say AU $5 or so per month, and run an offshore proxy server. Compare search-engine TLD addresses reachable from outside against those reachable from within the customers' country, and mirror all the blocked domains. Give customers PGP (and tell them how to set it up) to protect the emailed proxy address from the censors. Keep a few spare domain names and proxy addresses to jump to whenever the censors catch on, and email customers with the new proxy address in response to inquiries ("Where'd you go?) in order to avoid conspicuous mass mailings. It might work, I think.
I realize there are other anonomizers and proxy-relay operations out there, but has anyone tried a secure subscription model proxy service to bypass oppressive censorship?
Just to clarify, there is nothing in Australia stopping me from accessing any internet site. The blacklist is added to censorware which is sanction by the Government (coincidentally, the censorware companies were big proponents of this rather useless law). The censorware is supposed to be used by everybody and I think by law should provided by ISPs - but no-one is at all interested in enforcing this.
So this story doesn't affect me, or any other internet user in Australia, any more that the broadcasting act does.
If ISPs can't access a government-compiled list of what-is-banned, then to absolutely comply with the law they have to manually (ie. with a human) proxy every request from their customers, determine whether those requests will return <jellobiafra>HARMFUL MATTER</jellobiafra>, or expose themselves to possible prosecution.
It's a bit like keeping a secret list of banned foods, then busting a grocer for ordering in a special type of mushroom for a customer.
Much noise was made at the time against the leglisation because it's stoopid. I remember reading about six months ago (sorry, no link) that, despite all the fuss, only half a dozen complaints against ISPs had actually been received by the Aust. Broadcasting Authority. No prosecutions ever eventuated.
Although it's a Very Bad Thing, since nobody's (so far) gotten in trouble because of this legislation, the real danger of ignoring this might be that you teach politicians they can be ignorant and stupid all the time and get away with it.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Its not quite as easy as scanning the entire IP range. That leaves out all the vhosts out there. If you're blocking by domain names/URL's, and an IP hosts multiple domains, the IP is fine, its the specific request for this resource on this host that is blocked, not this host.
Yay me!
Again, this is old, and modifications in the Australian law render it no longer applicable. I eventually came to the conclusion that the "Australian" blacklist bit never got implemented (at least in what I could examine). So it seems that the bans works, operationally, by the Australian government just sending the sites to various censorware companies. The blacklisted sites are then just mixed into the general huge censorware blacklist itself.
Amusing footnote: A little before everything broke loose in What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org), I actually tried to enlist Michael Sims' support in my first idea for a technical attack on the Austrialian blacklist. This was because at the time he was well-positioned (as a "journalist", and also with other contacts) to take certain legal risks which I found extremely worrisome. No help whatsoever, in any form. Luckily, it seems not to have mattered.
However, when the government actually looked at implementing the legislation, they realised that all they could practically do was require ISPs to *offer* commercial filtering software, and for those commercial filtering providers to filter stuff that the classification board deemed offensive. It's not like the Great Firewall of China, people.
In practice, everyone's happy. The government is seen to be doing stuff (thus keeping the wowsers happy), the Bloggs family installs the filtering package on their PC, young Joeseph Bloggs gets around the filtering package, and the rest of us keep downloading porn and bomb recipes totally unencumbered by any filtering software at all :)
I agree that an unenforced bad law is still a bad thing, but it's a hell of a lot nicer than an enforced bad law.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
My guess is that the government is too embarrassed to show how pitifully few sites have been taken down for the money expended
Refer to this EFA report : Government Net Censorship Reports - Facts or Fallacies? 7th September 2000
The censorship regime is highly costly in view of its ineffectiveness in protecting children using the global Internet. The explanatory memorandum to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 states the total ongoing cost to the Commonwealth of the regime was estimated at AUD$1.9 million per annum.
Graham remarked "If the ABA has only received 201 complaints in six months as the government report states, and the government's cost estimate of $1.9 million was correct, it's costing taxpayers around $4,700 per complaint. Only 93 of those complaints resulted in a finding of prohibited content, a small fraction of the billions of pages on the Internet, and less than 20 concerned pages hosted in Australia."
Fantastic value for money there , AUD$100,000 per page....
You need to remember that Alston et all are only really interested in pandering to the popular press, and not in actually making any real changes.
Also, now that the balance of power has changed in the senate (ie Senator Harradine has gone) , the Libs will now be pandering to the Democrats, so we may see an end to these silly, unenforceable censorship laws
As far as I can make out, I still have unrestricted access to everything I have ever had
I say this because:
I have NOT been forced to install blocking software
My ISP is not running blocking software (nor any others to my knowledge
If the ABA has taken down a site, I'm sure it's just popped up again overseas
It's probably just more boring pr0n anyway ..
ho , hum , back to work...
Darren Kruse CCNP CCDP
WAN/LAN Networking Consultant
mailto://darren_kruse@hotmail.com
www.geocities.com/darren_kruse
I am only too aware of how extremely dodgy our censorship laws are here. In reply to the theme that publishing the list would make people demand what's banned, think again.
1) The government publishes a list containing URLS for child pornography, bomb making, and anti-copyright law propaganda.
2a) Someone asks for the child pornography sites to be unblocked. Police jump on them. Quite rightly.
2b) Someone uses the anti-copyright law website in a campaign for freedom of speech. Quite rightly.
The problem is a complete lack of checks and balances on the governments ability to censor what we watch. In addition, the censorship process in Australia is very dodgy indeed.
So many of our censorship laws were enacted so that the Government could buy off Senator Brian Harradine who held the balance of power in the Senate. Brian Harradine, a Tasmanian senator, has extremely conservative views - vastly different to the mainstream views in australia.
Studies have shown, time and again, that the australian population does not agree with the TV and movie censorship ratings given out. The official classification almost always condones more violence and less sex.
mick
I liked Chopper. Also, I love the Mad Max series. So their censorship ain't as bad as Jack Valenti and the MPAA.
the crime is the uploading and the maintainence of the "illegal" content, not the location of the server...
other than that, I agree with you comment - these laws have next to zero impact, but they DO cost signifcant dollars !
True. The paper I was focusing on was interested in the effect on bandwidth if existing content moved offshore, and found that the content was already on overseas servers. I don't think the report looked at Australians owning content hosted offshore, and this would be open to court action, but I don't know what percentage of people own content offshore, as opposed to making money from referrals. I woud be curious to know what power the police would have over the hosts, though, as a take-down order might not work no-matter who owns the content.
Dumb law, though. Although I can't see any chance of it being removed no matter who is in power in the foreseeable future.
Everyone thats actually in Australia knows that the government in power right now will never actually follow up on frivolous policy promises (their opinion) they use to win elections. See, its a "NON-CORE" promise, if I may quote John Howard. Of course, we were never given a list of what actually were "CORE" promises, either. So we're actually used to being left in the dark, internet censorship & GTA3 being the least of our worries.
The caucasian conservatives that are making policy here should remember, their decendants were once boat people too.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
Rat Race M 15+ (SEXUAL REFERENCES, ADULT THEMES) Date of Classification 9 August 2001
OCEAN'S ELEVEN Film (35 mm) Classification M 15+ (LOW LEVEL COARSE LANGUAGE) Duration 116 minute(s) Date of Classification 27 November 2001
Both of which were found on the OFLC's ratings database
I have some free time and a new TV... where can I get the list of banned porno films?
No comment at this time
Americans should also realise that the overall political spectrum in Australia is considerably to the left of the US.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This here is a key example of why "democracy" doesn't work. The United States is NOT a democracy, its a republic. Any country that attempts to base its laws on "democracy" will ALWAYS end up socialized.
The main problem with democracy is that it allows a crazy majority to infringe on the rights of a sane minority -- as has been happening in the U.S. in growing amounts since 1913. In the beginning, the democratic system says "lets help those who can't fend for themselves." When government gives a handout to 2 or 3, those closest in financial ability to the 2 or 3 will ask, and eventually it will be 4 or 5. Go long enough, and even the rich want a hand out.
A democracy is a BAD IDEA. Australia has now made illegal something that infringes on NO ONE's rights -- basically another law that criminalizes NON-VIOLENT activity. Why bother?
Make people not responsible for their actions, and they'll be less responsible. As time goes on, they'll look to big government as the daddy-state that it is -- to pay for their health care, their retirements, their children's educations, their unemployment, etc.
Oh, wait. We're already there...
Ok, I'm about sick of this. THERE IS NO INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN AUSTRALIA. Ok? Got it?. The Only "Censorship" is from the Federal Police shutting down websites that contain illegal content (i.e. child porn, bomb making 101, ... ). The same thing is done is the U.S.
There are no restricted sites, no great-big-firewall, no proxy server we are forced to go through... the only filtering done is at the client end- ISPs have to sell software like NetNanny at a reduced price to customers. We do not have to buy it if we don't want it.
Now can you Americans _please_ stop with this bullshit... Australia is not fascist, we are not oppressed, we are in fact one of the most free nations on earth, and to be told otherwise by people from a country that comes up with things like the DMCA, the US Patriotic act, and holds hundreds of innocent civilians WITHOUT TRIAL just because they are of arab descent.... well, who's the oppresive government again?
About 20 years ago, a constitutional referendum to introduce a bill of rights was put up (by the other major party, the Australian Labor Party) and soundly defeated in a referendum.
There are reasonable (in my view, not sufficiently convincing, but credible) arguments to suggest that extensive bills of rights are unnecessary and that regular laws passed by a democratically elected parliament (whose functioning *is* constitutionally protected) are a better safeguard of human rights. Amongst others, it is argued that elected politicians are likely to interpret human rights more in keeping with the electorate's views better than unelected judges, and as views on human rights evolve laws can adapt better than constitutions can.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
They won't release the list because there's nothing in it.
Can anyone point to any situation where our (Aus.) Internet censorship laws have actually been enforced ? People charged? ISPs sued for
breaches?
I know of none.
'sapientia potestas est'
great. more 'internet censorship' bull that we australians have had to go thru before. if they arent banning classic games like GTA3, they are dictating that we cant display 'adult' material for other adults on the web, because 'minors' can have access to it. its a standard govt ploy to appeal to the voters thru scare tactics ... "the net is full of evil pornographers and blah blah blah that your children need to be protected from and WE are the people to do it".
:)
for some reason it seems to work well tho (see the basis for the current australian govts recent election win; keeping out illegal immigrants) so im sure it will be a big hit with parents so lacking in parenting skills that instead of thinking that maybe they might possibly need to be the person required to guide their childs internet surfing, they can just sit back and let the govt turn into criminals anyone who wants to display anything the current govt doesnt agree with.
and who can possibly claim to properly be able to regulate what is 'suitable' and what is not? surely not some out-of-touch politicians. it all comes down to a point of view thing. i am tired of being told what to do and what to look at and what i can buy based on rules that are applicable only to 'minors' (i am 24). is there some way of getting a transfer to another planet for people who dont need to be told what to think and what they can look at and what they can do? not that it matters, im sure the site for that particular travel agency is blacklisted as well
'This site is intended for people over 18, but only because kids shoot each other if they hear the word "fuck"' (seanbaby.com)
(btw, to all you other aussies out there who missed out on GTA3, order it from a UK games site, mine only took 7 days to get here, and it all up cost about the same as it would have to get it from here. but im sure you all knew that anyway)
Do you have any statistics or links to back up your troll^H^H^H^H^Hstatement about violent crime?
And for the nth time there IS NO FILTERING...so you're right, it needs no explanation, as there's nothing to explain.
BTW, I am not saying America sucks, just that Australia doesn't suck as much as some people that like to get carried away with government conspiracy theories, and who would really like to be able to proudly exclaim to the world that they are an "Oppressed Mass" would like to think
Advanced users are users too!
Thomas Colereux is a founding member of the Subversive Intellectual Society. A citizen of France
Speaks for it self.
c I disagree I think America Sucks. Bunch of world control freaks. Which is Ironic when half the population knows about as much about the world as a grade 3 student. The thing that ROCKS about America is freedom. but I think Australia would be a great place to live, even with censorship.
Our government's policy of mandatory imprisonment for unauthorised refugees in subhuman conditions for indeterminate lengths of time seems pretty fascist to me...
How do you know that they are not censoring criticism of this and other government policies?
How is this new to the world scene? France shamelessly committed some abominations of Internet freedom when some things on eBay pissed them off. I think that eBay caved into their demands, however. That was all too weird. I hope that never happens in the U.S. of A. If it does, I'm getting the hell out.
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Because i'm reading it right now! I may a critical or skeptical person at times, but i draw the line as conspiracy mongering. Bring me truth and then show me the evidence.
2 words
"Ignorant American"
Well, bomb making information is legal in the United States.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The responses I have seen fall mainly into these groups:
I think we can ignore number 5. As for the others;
2. There is no filter. As several people have pointed out, this legislation is to provide for the prosecution of ISPs for hosting a site which is mentioned on the blacklist. There is no consultation. And, as the list is itself censored, there is no appeal.
1. It also means that the public who is funding these actions, and are directly affected by them are forbidden from finding out a] what is being done in their name, and b] how effective it has been in eliminating the societal bane of being able to look at nekkid ladies.
3. Kudos to these people. Sometimes, you can be paranoid and they're out to get you.
4. Yes they have. Raymond Hoser's site may not be the prettiest, but deserves to be looked at for what he is trying to say. (just try to ignore the ugly banners and flashing GIFs.)
Refer also to my reply to point 2. When we don't know what has been gone after, how the hell can we turn around and say "but they haven't gone after any political sites!" What is the evidence for this? More to the point where is the evidence? In that file, and the most likely explanations for its censorship are either a] reflexive beaurocratic obstructionist B.S. or b] the protection and hiding of potentially sensitive or incriminating evidence.
As I said before, Sometimes you are paranoid, sometimes they really are out to get you. How are we supposed to tell which is true when the official government line is "keep doing what you have been doing. If it is illegal, we (might) tell you."
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
I believe these words have a glimmer of truth in them. Unfortunately, in the western world I see the signs of an increasing desire to collect and conceal information from the public.
If no one knows what they are not supose to see than anyone can see something that can land them in jail. It sounds like an easy way to get someone that they have no concrete evidence on (kind of like the American secrete government evidence).
The Howard government has a track record of stifling debate and avoiding scrutiny in parliament. If they can get away with treating the instruments of democracy like a joke, why wouldn't they choose to use the system of Internet censorship they've instigated (ineffectual as it may be) to filter sites they found to be contrary to their interests?
Please read Upton Sinclaire's The Jungle for an excellent account of what life was like before the government stepped in to pass such laws. Specifically, pay attention to how companies will treat desperate workers like shit because there is no alternative for them to go to. Either work in this dangerous job for little pay and long hours, or your family can starve.
Secondly, if our employer's weren't FORCED by the government to pay for unemployment (and in some cases workman's comp), you could take out your own policy, picking what you felt you needed, rather than getting forced into your company's plan.
Yes, I'm sure the unemployment plan that I'd pay for would be much less expensive than the government program. Uh huh. Sure. If you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
...that a nation that started out as a penal colony would have some of the most conservative censorship laws?
I think an anonymizer acct in the US should circumvent anything the gov't could throw together.
Haha, spot on! I think no country in the world has public servants as lazy as the Aussies!
Yay!
It's interesting to me that much of the spam from porn sites in my inbox comes from .au machines...according to SpamCop.
Sometimes I get the feeling that we aren't an ally of the US, we're just an insecure "yes" nation (as in "'yes' man") being taken for a ride.
One has to wonder how many innocent people are taken from their homes, or all their property confiscated, or even worse: executed.
How's this for a start?
Someday we may see people trying to escape the US as those did in the day of the communist eastern bloc countries...
The exodus has already begun.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I believe that no government in the world should censor information available on the Internet. The Internet should be a way to exchange information freely, even if that information is illegal to obtain through other means. In fact, the governments of the world should encourage people to obtain illegal information over the Internet, and should pass laws making such illegal information legal if obtained through the Internet. Also, if the information is really illegal, like more illegal than most other illegal information, the government should give both the sender and receiver a hefty reward of, say, one year's worth of wages, tax free.
In other words, ban Internet censorship!
By the way, I was being somewhat sarcastic above. Oh well.
The editors used to mod comments to -2 to make them completely hidden. It's been awhile since that's happened, but it was a practice. You could still see the -2 comments if you manually edited the url and set the threshold low enough. The also delete comments that cause problems, like page widening comments, javascript holes and such.
I don't have a problem with the editors doing this, I have a problem with them being dishonest about it.
Either this is a community oriented site or it's Rob's personal wankfest, but it can't be both. The powers that be need to either be upfront about their editorial policies or clean up their act.
--Shoeboy
Amen d00d, linux really sucks. AOL
and linux will be a perfect fit.
Crap for Crap
This is way too right wing for /. and is going to end up at -2000, but it needs to be aired:
I am not familiar with the details of the Oz handling of refugees, and no doubt they could do with cleaning up their act a bit, but the basic principle of imprisonment and repatriation is sound. Why?
Because if you make it too easy, you attract a ton of economic migrants which become a drain on your economy and social services, and it becomes unfair to your own citizens.
In the UK right now, an illegal immigrant who is a false asylum seeker and is in no danger at home has a far higher standard of living and far better government benefits than a UK citizen who has paid taxes all their life and is now retired and dependent on the paltry state old age pension. It's immoral.
The rules were written for a small handful of people being persecuted by regimes like Pol Pot, and are being exploited by hordes of people who can't be bothered to work for a living.
These people are supposedly fleeing for their lives from places like *Turkey* (UK travel agents sell package cruise holidays to Turkey for f***'s sake ) and yet somehow manage to travel across 7 or 8 countries and end up "seeking asylum" in the UK. Why? Because the UK is a soft touch.
It's far from an ideal way to filter, but for someone who *is* a genuine asylum seeker, 3 months in an internment camp where they are safe will seem like a holiday, and it's the best way possible of advertising to the rest that they ought to just stay at home.
The volume of these immigrants entering the UK is second only to the number of Mexicans entering the USA across the land border - the big difference is that illegal Mexicans come here to *work* not to sponge off Uncle Sam, because Uncle Sam doesn't do handouts; hence why they are tolerated and in most cases openly welcomed. My house in Austin TX was built largely by Mexican illegals - it's a good house.
Just ask any UK citizen which system they think is better, Australia's or their own.
The problem with an unenforced bad law is that it can be applied selectively (e.g. "we think this person is doing something wrong (or we don't like), but don't have proof ... oh, wait a minute, we can get him for this other thing"). There's then no comeback, becuase after all, the law was being broken. However, the bad law gets to stay on the books because there isn't a public outcry.
Also, it's surely not good for the integrity of the whole system of laws to have some that aren't "meant". Much better to have a clear set of laws and a justice system where the laws are enforced, and lawbreaking dealt with fairly (OK, there's a lot of things in this sentence that don't happen).
The best way to get rid of a really bad law is to rigorously enforce it.
That's like saying "It's not an apple, it's a fruit"
A republic can *certianly* be a democracy.
No king? no prince? no emperor? You got a president? Yes? okay, you are a republic.
Remember what they first said when they were seeking power:
"Government should be run like a business", which is a textbook definition of fascism, sell the useless for buttons and soap. They don't really believe that themselves - or they wouldn't have sold most of a telecommunications business that was making enormous profits.
They are however a government that make me cringe every time I read something about them in an international news source. They demoted someone to minister of defence as a PUNISHMENT for embarrassing the government and they sent the navy to Afganistan and the army to sea. Their IT policies can at least serve as light relief on slashdot.
Any residents of the US reading this should know that the september 11 disaster was used to stir up hysteria and racism here and get this government re-elected. Australia has commited some help to the US in Afganistan, but grudgingly, and far less than we have commited to keep refugees offshore. Grand annoucements were made, but the reality was different. We are not particularly good allies to anyone at the moment.
I smurf that
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
Like all the other Australians who have posted I can safely say that there is no net censorship going on. What we have is another clasic case of political point scoring. Australia really needs a law to invalidate unenforceable laws. We seen to collect a lot of them, and even if everyone breaks them they are never removed. My opinion is that the government likes these laws because if they ever need an excuse to lock you up its not going to be hard to find one.
Even if they tried to enforce some censoring it would easily be defeated by SSL proxies, google caches, filesharing apps, freenet etc.
Oh, please. If you are really that concerned about it you should be marching up and down the streets campaigning for the increased taxes required to send them home again "humanely" or to support more people in the country that have no immediate way of supporting themselves.
Would you offer these ILLEGAL immigrants food and shelter in your own house, indefinitely? Would you put your money where your mouth is?
I think even paying for their accomodation in Australia is a waste of taxpayer's money. There are immigration laws that are there for a purpose and if conditions are better in Australia than they are where these immigrants live then they should apply for a visa like everyone else. I have precisely zero sympathy for anyone that turns up uninvited to a party and is surprised or upset to be turned away or ignored.
I'm seriously interested in your solutions to this "problem" you present. After all, if you are only going to bitch about it then you are only part of the problem yourself.
As for how I know they aren't censoring criticism, do you have any knowledge of how technically infeasible what you state is?
Last I looked there was plenty of criticism for the government in the form of the opposition. Never heard of them being censored. Watch out - those imaginary black helicopters may be around too...
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
In this case the implementation sucks badly. The refugees are held in privatised "for profit" detention centres. Conditions are deteriorating all of the time for economic reasons.
Many refugees have been held for times in excess of two years. To a large degree that is due to appeals, but it is still a very bad situation.
The most recent turn of events is to persuade countries in the local area to take the refugees instead - this is known as the "Pacific Solution".
One journalist pointed out that if the refugees re-located to pacific islands had been given enough cash to qualify for the business migration scheme, then it would have cost only a small fraction of the pre-election stunt that occurred.
True, and it appears that in almost all cases people the people in the camps will stick it out for the hope of the future - and they don't have anything good to go back to. What most people don't realise is that this is not about the worthy or the unworthy - the government and apparently the majority of the population don't want any of them. The first thing the government did here as soon as the Taliban fell was to try to send all of the Afgans back.
A lot of people would consider every refugee here unworthy, since they had to be rich or have a lot of contacts to get here in the first place.
Refugees from Europe made this country what it is now, and probably made the changes that kept Australia from going the way of Argentina (another country that had nothing but primary industry in the 1940's).
Here the majority don't want immigrants BECAUSE they might work and take good anglo-saxon jobs. The reality is different to the fears, but you can't hold over a hundred years of history up to people with a wall of invincible ignorance.
Why they're keeping the black-list secret seems pretty obvious to me. As soon as that list becomes known, well-meaning non-Australians will immediately start to mirror those sites, and those mirrors will be visible to Australians until the government is able to find the mirror and update their blacklist.
While censorship in and of itself is reprehensible, at least they're not going about it in a half-assed manner.
Dima's web site had details on some of the reasons that these detainees are being held. Many of them refuse to provide any ID and fit descriptions of people wanted in different parts of the world. Many of these people claim to be from one country but speak with an accent of another. Also consider that there are a few very violent people in thouse camps. What do you do with someone in the camps who can't go home because he took advantage of his position durring the civil wars and his home town people will lynch him if they get their hands on them. Do you give him a visa and say don't kill/rape/plunder anyone else? Australia already has a bit of a reputation of giving war criminals an easy life.
Austrlia is holding some people for more than 5 years but their visa's have been rejected and they would prefer to stay in jail here than got back to places like Iraq.
From what I can tell, the rule is "if you cause trouble, you go to the end of the queue". Many people in thouse camps are processed quickly so I'm sure you don't know the full story.
The more I hear about pointless censorship in Australia, the more I'm convinced that the hole in the ozone layer down at the south pole has expanded to affect southern australia. All that extra UV has begun to cause rampant mental illness among the politicians in that country. Why only politicians? Well I'm not sure of that yet but I don't think that matters much since its clear they're going mad.
The solution? Boot them out of office. If you can't do it at the ballot box, do it with the business end of a rifle. Oh, wait, they've already taken everyone's guns away down there and succeeded in convincing the population it was a good idea. Come to think of it, I wonder just how censor happy they would be if the citizens there were armed? One way or another the Australians really need to clean house down there since its hardly the government's job to tell anyone what they can look at.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Stories like this should alarm people who believe in government by the consent of the governed.
Granted, Australia seems much more conservative than the US when it comes to freedom of information (and other things too). However, those of us in the States shouldn't let stories like this slide off our back.
In the US it is much more difficult for the government to censor free speech, but just as in this article, our own government has grown very interested in not telling its citizens what it is up to.
In particular, the Executive Branch of the United States has been less than forthcoming on numerous occassions regarding its own activities: President Cheney won't tell us who he & others talked to while they were drafting their energy policy, they won't identify people picked up in the post-911 dragnet (nor will they tell us the standard list of questions arab looking people were asked as part of that), various federal records have been destroyed and removed from availability [as noted in earlier Slashdot story], and in general the government has exuded a contempt of those outside the administration trying to figure out what it's up to. Of course this is on top of the government's long standing infatuation with secrets -- the most recent pattern is just an escalation of the existing mindset towards secrets.
Really people, this story has a moral for those outside of Australia: it's an example of the idiocy that can take hold when people don't demand oversight of their own government!
What's being censored? Well, unless you can look at the list, you simply have to trust that the bureaucrats are doing just what they're supposed to, and that they need to be doing it. This is inherently undemocratic.
Secrets give government the opportunity to mismanage without falling under the prying eyes of the people -- you and me -- whose job it is to see to the proper maintenance of government, and whom might be upset at the revelation of any such mismanagement.
This sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated in any democratic country.
That said, there are problems with the efficiency of processing (as there are with almost all other areas in the public service). It is necessary to keep people isolated for at least a month or two for quarantine reasons, but much more than that is unnecessary.
I'll allow your basic principle for the sake of argument, although I dont agree, mostly because it has been used as an excuse to treat the asylum seekers in an inhuman manner.
The problems with our current system are many
- the asylum seekers are kept locked up for great lengths of times; two or three years
- most (around 90%) are found to be genuine refugees and accepted as permanant residents
- its expensive, about A$50,000 a year per person and we miss out on the economic benifits we could have had from them if they had been out in the community earlier
- the majority of our illegal immigrants arrive by plane and are US & UK tourists overstaying holiday visa's, so when we target boat-people we are missing the real problem, or maybe we are just being rasist
- some of the asylum seekers have been severly traumatised, and have risked a long sea voyage on unseaworthy boats, piracy, rape, murder etc to get to Australia, locking them up for another few years, means we deny them the chance to build a new life and repair some of the damage
- there have been local studies that have shown that after a short 2-3 year period, refugees tend to be a positive for our economy.
- we need the population, I'd like to know that if I needed it I'll get an old age pension, like I'm happy to pay for, for others, through my taxes.
Peter
How many sites are there?
To get the list of banned sites, you could simply get a list of all the domains in the world. Then a little split-up of the file(nothing fancy just a text editor). Try and wget each site and log what happens.
With just a 100 people doing this, how long would it really take to get the list?
Hmmm, for 1000000000 sites, it would take over 100 days. (1 site per second, 100 users).
-- Make software not war
My guess is that the government is too embarrassed to show how pitifully few sites have been taken down for the money expended
Yeah, I don't think there is much doubt the whole exercise would not get past the scrutiny of the bean counters if it was all out in the open. At least with films, you have an identifiable product, but you have to wonder whether the vast majority of the relatively few sites they have managed to blacklist might upon scrutiny be shown to have neither aspirations nor likelihood of attracting significant traffic.
However our government's modus operandi seems to have become to use a bottomless slush fund for anything that might scare a few electors into voting for them next time around. And in this the legislature is in league with other arms of law enforcement predicated on growth/empire building which want to make sure that everybody has broken a few laws so they can be incarcerated at their convenience.
Mind you the chilling effect of that legislation coupled with the equally illogical ban on hosting Internet gambling sites in Australia certainly adds to the traffic cartel's disincentive to Australia developing a viable hosting industry/lobby.
When are all the apologists going to recognise that curious (and most likely bored) teens are the main users of porn that features other teens?
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Your use of the misnomer "illegal immigrant" makes it pretty clear that you've swallowed the rhetoric that our Immigration minister spouts at every opportunity. He knows that demonising these people in this way strikes a chord with the large numbers of Australians who need someone to blame for their misery. As far as he is concerned, it's better that unhappy Australians blame their problems on a bunch of faceless, voiceless, suffering people who they don't understand, than on his government. Who do you think is most responsible for your problems?
These people are not illegal immigrants, they are asylum seekers. They are fleeing their own country because they fear for their lives. Is this a situation that you have ever had to face? How do you think you would deal with it?
Australia is a voluntary signatory to the UN's 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Because of this, Australia is obliged under international law to offer support to those fitting the (very specific) definition of a refugee.
If you still don't accept this, how do you suggest that these asylum seekers obtain "legal" entry into Australia? We don't have any diplomatic presence in Iraq or Afghanistan. The queue that they are supposedly jumping does not exist.
I certainly think that my taxes are better spent helping these people than on a pointless attempt to censor the Internet.
I'm happy to discuss this topic with you further, if you like, but off-site. It's getting way off topic.
Back on topic...
Yes, I realise it would be technically difficult to implement a national filter to effectively censor the web content available to Australians, and that there would always be ways arounds it. But surely that doesn't mean that a partially-effective solution could be implemented. Australia only has a finite number of ISPs, and a handful service the majority of the market.
You may not be aware that by law, Australian telecommunications companies are required to provide government agencies with the ability to intercept communications. I have worked for a large Australian telephone company, and I know that various law enforcement agencies use this provision on a very regular basis.
Given that:
- the government has the legal ability to force carriers to intercept communications; and
- I know they regularly use this ability to intercept telephone calls
I'm not willing to discount the possibility that they're not doing this to some extent with Internet content. I'm not insisting that they are doing this, I'm just not as certain as you that they're not. The fact that they're not willing to be transparent with their blacklist certainly doesn't make me feel any better.why yes:
Compare Missori to Victoria. They are both about the same size and have about the same population.
Now we can find that in 1996 there were 433 murders in Missouri and 67 in Victoria for a ratio of about 6.5 to 1 favoring Australia. How ever theft is just about the other way around (so many categorys) and Victroia has a few more bashings than Missouri has assults. Rapes in Missouri tend to be in the 1500s but 323 for Victoria in 2000. So depending on what crime your going to be a victim of, you may want to consider relocating.
The rest of Australia has rates much like Victoria and Missouri has typical crime rate for the midwest which tends to be lower than the east coast.
there are more controversial things that could have been said... or am I showing my age?
The age of consent was 21, someone (early 20s) was going out with 18yo. 18yo caught him with *other* 18yo and complained to cops. Cops thought, hey, we want this guy for selling drugs but we've got no proof, let's get him on this charge instead. So he's in jail for 4 months waiting for his trial. 18yo relents (feeling sorry for bloke) and refuses to give evidence, so the guy gets off. Of course, now the age is 16, so this wouldn't happen, but it shows your point.
Look what that's done to people's life expectancy since it was imported from the ideas of US right-wingers (who think they don't have to live with the consequences personally).
Dima's [dima.gov.au] web site had details on some of the reasons that these detainees are being held. Many of them refuse to provide any ID and fit descriptions of people wanted in different parts of the world.
This dosn't really make the task of identifying genuine asylum seekers any easier. Since someone leaving their country because they fear for their safety is unlikelt to do so as a tourist. With bogus criminal charges being a very obvious method an opressive state can employ...
be fair, they had lots of religious nutters sent there also!
The fact that this is +4 insightful is probably the straw that broke the camels back for me and /.
These people are supposedly fleeing for their lives from places like *Turkey* (UK travel agents sell package cruise holidays to Turkey for f***'s sake )
Is there any logic here? UK Travel agents will ship you anywhere for cash. China! Random african countries! Russia! Israel! You think none of these places abuse human rights enough for anyone to be fleeing their life? Please. As for turkey read this
Just ask any UK citizen which system they think is better, Australia's or their own.
The UK's. And I'm not the only one, even if we are a minority.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
Know what you don't know. Well there goes that idea!
Um, FortKnox has posted 900 comments in 17 months, or roughly two comments every single day of the year.
With some unfortunate (and usually minor and defense related) exceptions, this type of activity has been unconstitutional in the United States since 1776.
What are the Aussies doing to change this sad state of affairs?
Good luck down under!
JB
And guess what, my fiancee is a first year law student, and while she does know more than me in some areas, she is amazed at my comprhension of the DMCA and copyright law. All of which I learned by reading articles, comments, rants, and raves from information found right here on Slashdot. Michael is the one that needs to quit bashing the people who make Slashdot such a visited site on the internet and start finding ways to get us to spend money to make him and his cohorts rich. Unfortunately, I won't give money out to businesses that ridicule their users and try to wield absolute power for the good of the 'masses'. *cough* Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, etc. *cough*.
Maybe you should go look up the definition of Godwin's Law now. I do not think it means what you think it means.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What part of "no text" don't you understand??? :)
The last moderation, which took it to 5, was "funny". The other preceeding moderations were not for "funny". Of course, it has been down moderated since then. Now, as to why:
Australia, where there are aussies, sometimes pronounced "auzzies", is sometimes called the land of OZ by Australians.
You then have this line:
This almost sounds like a version of the land of OZ where the wicked witch never died.
which must have tickled someone funny bone. A bit of dry humor which requires a certain amount of familiarity with the venacular given above.
So there were several moderations done, including one for humor, and several by humorless folks who thought that the +5 meant that everyone had said it was funny. Which is a bug in the moderation system
[shrug]
and now you know.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You swallow and spout the anti-government line so well. Of course you forget that until the status of these people is determined they are, in fact, illegial aliens and not refugees and deserve no special treatment.
Back on topic:
The telecommunications act does not require any ability to block communications to be present. If you actually read the document you linked to, you'd see that "interception" is merely defined as listening/recording and nothing more. This is quite easy to do if you could be bothered making sense of the gigabytes per second running through the ISPs networks.
I'm quite sure the government can sniff traffic and may even do so. This does not consitute blocking the traffic however.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
And where will you go, you ill-informed twit? Oh, and it *is* already happening in your glorious USA.
First law-abiding Australians were banned from owning firearms (only criminals are allowed I guess...), now the government knows better what things your should and should not see (don't want to confuse the minions on what is reality...).
:-(
Wow, nice democracy you've got down there... Now go back to work, worker bees!
How long does it take you to count to 4 billion? You would have to ping 25,000 addresses EVERY SECOND to do this in "a couple of days." Are you joking, or do you really have no conception of math?
I assume, then, that you will be the first to publish all your credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. on the 'net for all to see?
From The Age Under the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill, the public will be able to lodge complaints about offensive material with the Australian Broadcasting Authority, which will have the power to direct Internet service providers to remove it or face hefty criminal penalties.
As quoted from Australian Personal Computer The government has a rather interesting interpretation of 'success' when it comes to Internet censorship. When the first (decidedly rubbery) figures on the Internet censorship scheme were released a mere nine months after it started, officials decreed that a system which had only managed to identify and shut down 62 'offending' sites was an outstanding success. When APC did a quick check using a search engine, we found roughly 7 million potentially offensive sites. Drop in the ocean anyone?
What's worse about this is the laws were passed to gain the support of two independant senators so that the government could press ahead with the second sale of Telstra. (Telstra is the federally owned telco company, of which the government has sold 49% of). 62 sites, most of which hosted porn without AVS controls, or bomb-making instructions, isn't something to get up-in-arms (excuse the pun) about.
LMAO: 02/01/21: Look at the head lines today, my sad little friend. It would seem the tables have turned!
April 21-27-- Slashdot Blackout: Do your duty.
The big difference is the alternatives you have for getting access to the banned material. If the blue-nosed thugs ban a movie, and you know they've banned it and want to see it, you *might* be able to buy a copy by mail from Amazon.com that arrives in a brown paper wrapper, you politically incorrect pervert, but you won't be able to go to a theater in Oz and see it, so they've still protected the morals of otherwise-innocent Ozzies.
By contrast, if they list the banned web pages, you can just nip over to anonymizer.com or The Wayback Machine or Google or some other cache or anti-censorship relay site and view it anyway, plus they've publicized a whole bunch of sites you otherwise wouldn't have thought to look at. That's especially important for political censorship (drawing attention to "Aus.Gov't did *this latest* stupid thing" as opposed to burying it), but also important for basic prudish censorship, because there are all sorts of nasty kinky immoral things that average upstanding moral Australians simply wouldn't have thought of if the Government hadn't told them "Here's the stuff we don't want you looking at! Especially *this stuff*".
More seriously, though, somebody else made the comment that the censorship is actually very minimal, and it's a facade that's designed to tell a few noisy right-wingers "yes, we've done what you want, so you can be happy and stop bugging us", and if you actually made the list public it would be obvious want a small fraction of the stuff *some* people might want banned is actually on there - so if the anti-censorship people don't complain loudly about it, you'll actually get a lot less censorship because we can leave it quietly buried in some bureaucratic back room keeping a couple of blue-noses off the streets hunting for pr0n on the internet instead of bothering politicians. It's not the ideal social position for a free and open society, but pragmatically it's possibly better for everybody, and maybe we can task some of the censors to go fight that Other Deadly Sin, Greed, by adding spammers's sites to the blacklists.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
But filtering speech by Australians, and deciding which speech is "appropriate", is still an outrage in a free society - it's basically saying "if you say things we don't like, we'll send you a Threatening Letter, and if you ignore that we'll send a bunch of armed policemen to beat you up and haul you away to jail", no matter how polite a face they try to put on it. Sturgeon's Law does usually apply to censored publications as well as uncensored ones - 90% of the stuff they shut down is crap, and almost nobody will miss it, but shutting it down is still wrong.
As far as "accountability" goes, refusing to publish the list of banned material is deliberate evasion of accountability.
If they do an effective job of censorship, you *won't* become aware of political sites being shut down, but that won't be because they aren't shutting them down. I doubt they'll be that successful, but they'll still reduce access to material they dislike, and reduce the public's awareness of what they're censoring. The Internet has its own methods for providing accountability, which are that speech is cheap enough that if you disapprove of some web site, you can put up your own web site disagreeing with that other site, or insulting it, or disproving it, or just telling people that it's bad stuff they shouldn't read. The remedy for bad speech isn't policemen, it's more speech, and the Internet makes more speech cheap and easy.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Oh, there are definitely mushrooms that the US gov't would bust your grocer for ordering for you :-) But they're pretty much listed, though the entry for "and anything else that turns out to be too much fun" is a bit vague... My local grocery store recently had a "Buy 1, Get 1 Free, Maximum 2 Free" sale on Sudafed - but when I got the the cash register with my four packages, they said they couldn't sell me more than three of them, because four packages exceeds the "people could make Speed with this stuff" limit.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The scary thing is that Alston is NOT an Idiot.
Having seen him debate in parliament I am
convinced he is an exceptionaly intelligent
man without any concern for the people
he is supposed to govern beyond thinking
of them as cattle who can vote.
In short, a model politician.
Of course.
Rice B. Suck
0123-4567-8901-2345, Exp 13-99
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Bwahaaaaahaaaaaahaaahaaaahaahahahahahahahahahaha ha hahahah!
The moral: Those who make the rules must **N**E**V**E**R** follow them.
......oooooooooooooooh well
I'm only suggesting that i fear their incompetence much more than i fear their clumsy deceits. I agree they should release the lists, but if it keeps them happy to make secret a list which they themselves have all but admitted does nothing, so be it.
The populations of most 'Western' countries, including all of North-West Europe and, IIRC, Australia, are either shrinking, or will do very soon. Indeed, Germany's population has been shrinking at a rate of about 0.3% for the past decade, after immigration is taken in to account. Combined with the aging of the population, the tax burden upon the workers of the elderly and infirm (pensions, etc.) is going to rise at a very high rate. Thus there is, and will contine to be, an increase in the demand for workers. Economic migrants can and do fill this gap well, and often work harder than those around them, determined to be sucessful in their new country of origin - 2nd generation immigrants make up a (proportionally) large number of the students at university in the UK, for example. This gives rise to a high level of xenophobia in the (ignorant) people who feel that 'their' jobs (which they would not have taken anyway) are being 'stolen' from them. Thus, if anything, those that complain should be exiled from their country, as they do less for their country than immigrants would for their intended new home. Economic immigration, far from being the scourge of modern government, is a great way of increasing the overall quality of life, and increasing GDP/capita, etc.
All this is, of course, completely off-topic - the Australian government is breaking international law by not allowing potential refugees into their country (and, incidentally, violating the human rights[1] of those claiming asylum, in their treatment of them), whether Australia is the 'first port of call' or not.
Just ask any UK citizen which system they think is better, Australia's or their own.
Well, as a UK citizen, I would say that my country's system is superior, both morally and economically as well as legally, but that it is still not particularly 'good'. Australia has an average population density of about 2 people per square kilometre; the UK has an average of about 260, and the Netherlands has an average of approximately 370. Who would you think has the greatest ability to 'absorb' immigrants? Who would you think had the best immigration system?
[1] - Human rights, such as the right to life, are unwaivable under any circumstances (yes, this means that the US, along with Iraq, Iran, China and Korea, etc., breaks international law by executing people for their civilian crimes[2][3]).
[2] - Yes, I am aware that other 'Western' countries violate these laws, such as the UK (trespassing on the royal docks, defacing the image of the current Monarch, and other acts of High Treason are potentially punnishable by death), and do submit that it is somewhat
[3] - The term 'civilian crimes' means any crime that has not (individually) been decided by an international, impartial court to be an act of war.
James F.