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Dismal Failure of Internet Filters In Australia
An anonymous reader writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), the department responsible for implementing the insane Internet regulatory framework put in place by the current government, is about to drop a number of Internet Filtering packages due to their ineffectiveness. The full article is available here. There is also news that the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston (whom The Register has labeled the Worlds Biggest Luddite :) ) is awaiting a review of the law with possible changes to follow. Be afraid Australia, be very afraid!"
The head of the Internet Industry Association, Peter Coroneos, said mandatory filtering had been ruled out because "...We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents."
Seems too obvious. Parents responsible for their kids. Anyone in the US government listening?
No doubt the review of the "Internet Decency" laws will include a clause that you may not be naked whilst your computer is connected to the Internet. It'd be on par with their past efforts.
In fact, dont expect them to work more than about 1/2 the time, in that way you might be pleasantly suprised.
I base this claim on the observation that no one has been able to block spam to a severe degree. It would seem that most of the filtering for both spam and the netnanny type filtering would work on the same princibles.( except for that skin tone filtering, but thats just pure evil, though cool).
When I can block 90% of the spam in my mailbox then I will become concerened for the ausies.
On a serious note: I will become concerned for everyone the day that a governing entity becomes satisfied with its censorship practices.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I jumped ship on a temporary basis and it's articles like this that make me glad I'm in Switzerland and not oz.
.... she still can't get ASDL. No cable either. Not even cable TV. Cable duopoly that has limited reach in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which has stalled to a crawl?
... News LTD won't get all the $$$, so forget it. You are a disgrace Alston, Howard the Coward and the whole damn Liberal party. Wankers.
Pros:
- Great wads of legal cash at obscenely low tax rates
- No Alston, Howard the Coward and team.
- 1.5 hours flight to Amsterdam
- Good quality, high potency nearly-legal mull
- No Eddie McGuire
- Unlimited-download (but speed capped) ASDL
Cons:
- Howard the Coward doing his best to ruin Australia's reputation
- No MCG, PoW, Espy, ABC cricket broadcasts
- 7 Franks (~$Au 7.5) for a can of VB.
It's pornography and gaming (gambling and games) that have driven the use of the Web and the uptake of broadband. Email, USENET, ftp and even various chat protocols have been side attractions.
Alston is single-handedly driving away any hope of Australia being a content provider (and earning $$$) instead of being a content consumer (and watching the $$$ flow overseas).
Get a clue Alston, being a consumer of technology does not earn you any real $$$, not does it drive innovation. Anyone can be a consumer. Time has not only stood still under your stewardship, but gone backwards.
My fiance couldn't get any broadband in a middle sized city (for Australia), Ballarat. This was 3 years ago. She recently moved back there for our son's schooling and guess what
Here's a policy you can use for free: Local cable cooperatives with content providers paying for access. Oh
OK, I wandered off-topic for a while. But this guy wouldn't have a clue about the internet if it walked up to him, whacked him on the head with a clue-by-four, presented a business card and said: "Hi, I'm a clue". (Clue number 2: Free (as in speach) internet, increased parental supervision to stop nasty porn sites for youngsters) Of course, making people do hard work, actually raising their own kids, will never win votes.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
We monitor what our child does, in fact the computer is in our living room so we know what she is doing. At the same time, all it takes is a trivial error to expose her to pornographic material. For example, type whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov. This bit me the other day. She wanted to buy something for her "American Girl" doll. So we sat down at the computer. Unfortunately, I typed americangirls.com instead of americangirl.com.
Frankly I don't care if people have access to pornography. More power to them. BUT I do wish there was some simple way to separate pornography from everything else. E.g., a XXX domain. That way anyone who wants it can get it. At the same time, I just install a simple filter and I don't have to worry about trivial errors like I had with americangirl.
Frankly, I don't believe this is too much to ask. For example, I go to the book store and they put the porno mags on the top shelf, where my child is unlikely to make a trivial error and pick one up. In essence, that is all I'm asking of the internet.