Slashdot Mirror
Australia's Censored URL List Remains Hidden
kinsalis writes: "There is an article about the Electronic Frontiers Australia's failed attempt to have access to a list of sites which where deemed worth of censorship under Australian Internet censorship law. While it stands to reason that most of the sites would be child pornography, what is to stop someone slipping in any old url if no one can check the list?"
here in the US we have the first amendment which enables us to not be censored in any way on the internet... oh wait...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
How do we know? I'm sure that there's things being blocked that aren't just child pr0n. Maybe I've tried to look at one... how would I know? Internet sites are quite often just unreachable, never an explanation. Could be down, could be censored...
As a grown man I'm really not happy with this at all.... I wish the government of australia weren't so ignorant, and so up-for-sale-to-the-loudest-whinger.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Honestly, it has not affected us at all.
Basically the Government here does whatever it needs to keep itself elected.
In this case, in order to please the targetted demographics, typical families, it proposed to censor the Internet from "nasty" things.
Now, the thing is, noone has noticed a difference. No one talks about the censorship, no one even thinks about it. Because it doesn't seem to affect us.
Now the truth is, children are unprotected as ever on the Net, but the Government/parents/schools don't know that. They just trust that the millions of extra dollars they feed the ABA are working, just like we 'trust' the Government with the rest of our tax dollars...
The truth is it is clearly a waste of money attempting an impossible task, but hey, they don't know that. So the Government is happy, the parents and families are happy, the only people who are pissed off are the civil liberties people, and they're always pissed off anyway.
I of course still want this censorship removed as [a] I know it is a waste of money, and [b] The Government is not my parent, it is not responsible for deciding the material I am or am not allowed to view (I am under 18).
What if a "blacklisted" site is cached on Google?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
A country has a right to prohibit the import or availity of certainf thibgs, publcations, movies, pictures, magazines etc
That's a *very* slippery slope, my friend. Let's make molestation and exploitation illegal, but speech should always be free. No exceptions. Period.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
Are IP's blocked? Are DNS lookups merely prohibited?
Some people's slashdot memory is obviously rather short, since I'm sure the Australian law has been posted about before. Specifically, basically the same story as this, New South Wales law on end users, Censorship law passed, Even older article on the same thing.
Ok, that's just 4 of them.
There are two types of internet censorship, the more recent "ISPs must block bad stuff out there", and the "ISPs must not host bad stuff".
For the not host bad stuff, it works by issuing legal LARTs against anyone hosting anything the censors don't like.
I presume this is the list that we're discussing here, since the list of "ISPS must block bad stuff out there" would be almost impossible to hide unless every ISP must run a closed source/black box URL checker.
I don't think there's much point in having a list of sites that have been taken down anyway, of course there's nothing there, and the URL may or may not actually say something useful by itself (just knowing that http://users.bigpond.com/~foobar/ was blocked isn't going to tell you a whole lot about the subversive pictures of a naked Brian Harradine that were posted there).
On the other hand, a list of the _reasons_ that sites were issued with takedown notices (similar to a public court record) would be good. Unlikely though.
Here in Canada quite a commotion has erupted over the firing of an editor of the Ottawa Citizen for having written an editorial calling for the resignation of our Prime Minister.
In question are the close ties the owner of the media chain has with the Prime Minister due to the fact that it was his very government that allowed the media chain to persue a number of controversial acquisitions that had been previously disallowed by canadian law.
What is clear here, is that politicians will meddle with the media and what they report when given the chance to do so. What is to stop, in this case, an australian Prime Minister from blocking a website whose constant criticism of his policies has aggravated him? Since the list cannot be checked the answer is probably nothing.
This government sponsored censorship raises a serious issue of precedent. The precedent of the governement having the power to block access to information, otherwise publically accessible to the citizen, for unverifiable purposes and results. It is the governement giving itself the right to restrict what a citizen could normally view without restriction in any other country-- without appeal or public review.
In my view, there is a careful balance of power that is being toyed with, both in Australia and in Canada, that needs to be stopped. I hope the Australian courts see the danger here and reverse the decision and I hope justice prevails in the case of this editor who has been wrongfully fired-- in fact it is my wish now that this media group be broken up.
See Citizen story here and here
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Start a site, post a list of sites you see as "down", and your location. Have it so that people can comment "Yep, got in at 0700 hours, GMT, location....ISP...Etc." or "Nope, appears to be dead"
Reverse-engineer the list censorship list and make it public.
-Sara
>Do you want to punish me for what my government does?
Not really.
However, I wonder how quickly your government would reconsider its decision when half the internet goes offline.
Or, repharased, I wonder how quickly most all Australians would be pounding the streets outside their minister's offices to get this bill repealed when their internet becomes a shell of what it once was.
Unfortunately, I think something like this will never go away for you unless you all stand up and tell your government no.
In North America and Europe not enough of us shouted no at increasing copyright restrictions, and look where our silence has led us. Don't let 'em run you over like they're doing to us!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
OK you can block all these countries from accessing your server. And I will block all Amercian users from accessing info on my server.
I don't agree with the US policies on censorship (and yes the US does have them the same way OZ does). I know that alot of libraries are forced to block certain content in the US.
So when the US fixes their broken laws I will restore access. Laws like the DCMA, the coypright extension act, the death penalty, the failure to sign up to a alot on international treaties and the list goes on and on.
Acutally I find your post fairly insulting, the US is not perfect, doesn't have perfect laws and to claim that our laws are broken is just arrogance. You are trying to make democratic nation follow US laws. At least attempt to fix the problems in your country before telling other countries what laws they are and aren't allowed to have.
In other words BUTT OUT.
If you mod this as a flame you didn't read my post.
There is a very odd duality that exists here. It's the governemnt do this, don't do this. That is impossible...
In this story it talks about the government regulating what sites you can view on the net. Obvious censorship, baddd....
But, in other stories you (general users, mods) preach and praise the good of man. Using the government as a welfare distribution scheme to help the needy and take from those bad bad people.
You hate Microsoft although probably 60% of the readers here use an MS product at some point in the day.
So... You want the government to not mess with the internet but, you want them interfere with Microsoft. You want them to let software be free but, still have good software..
I agree, censorship is bad.
I agree, the government should be not interfere with the internet.
But, if you want this to happen. Don't expect them to do anything for you. I'm fine with that. I can fend for myself and produce without the help of the governement...
Make a choice..
You question government ergo you hate your country
I also question your good judgment, but that doesn't necessarily imply I hate you.....
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.