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Nation-Wide Internet Censorship Proposed For Australia
sparky1240 writes "While Americans are currently fighting the net-neutrality wars, spare a thought for the poor Australians — The Australian government wants to implement a nation-wide 'filtering' scheme to keep everyone safe from the nasties on the internet, with no way of opting out: 'Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material. ... According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million."
Your local government knows best.
This bill was brought to you by your local censors.
I want answers, damnit! I'm Aussie, and not used to fighting these sort of things - Americans, what's the best way forward to make my voice heard?!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Is this some new scheme to confuse use by putting commas in the wrong place?
www.iwf.org.uk
Whilst to be fair as far as I understand it does a good job in that it focuses entirely on child porn and hasn't as I'm aware stepped out of this remit I am a little concerned that it came into play without anyone ever really noticing or anyone ever really being told.
Can we be sure this organisation does only do what it says it does? Can we be sure it doesn't ever abuse it's powers? Would we ever know if it did?
It is not run by the government and is an independent organisation, so not having a connection to the government increases my confidence in it a million fold at least however.
And let me guess, the Australian guys in the government that want this, are the sames that scream "dictatorship!!" any time Venezuela, Cuba, or China is mentioned. Hypocrisy
Seems a waste of money since different parents have different ideas of what is appropriate for their children.
I think it would be better to spend 125 million instead on teaching parents how to domesticate/train their children properly.
Not saying they should all train their kids to be exactly the same , but if you look at the training programs for dogs, even if you're training a dog to do different things, the concepts and methods are pretty much the same, even if the desired results and objectives might be different.
And too many parents are clueless on the basic concepts.
Maybe they should force parents to pass a basic parenting test before they are allowed to have children. If they have children without a license then they get fined.
Jeez, I thought we had it bad in South Africa with our ex-minister of health (Doctor Beetroot - so named because of her stupid approach to combating HIV/Aids).
:-)))))
Not only do we beat the ozzies in rugby, but now they have another reason to feel oppressed
They proved this was possible, and now th rest of the world's governments are going to give it a try. It doesn't have to work 100% of the time, just 90% of the time for 90% of content. The main problem will be when they start blocking content that they just don't like, rather than stuff which is 100% illegal.
I have a solution but you're not going to like it. (Something I say far too forten to my boss)
That's not how you write "100,000", by the way.
So it has a 10% error rate? Isn't that pretty huge?
And please, since I arrive early in the discussion, can we avoid posts like "meh, just use opendns", because that's missing the point completely. It's like telling a brit concerned about the proliferation of CCTVs to just wear a mask on the street.
Fuck you Conroy! Who is paying you?
Apparently from all this 'filtering' news I have heard recently, governments/corporations have discovered that the internet and it's corresponding freedoms is something to 'save the children from', be feared and controlled ASAP. Stop electing these people, people.
I'm actually surprised that it is that low.
What I particularly object to (in addition to the whole concept) is the capricious nature of many blocks. BoingBoing has been blocked by a number of blocklist companies, not because of anything rude or illegal, but because they had articles about filtering companies
At the end of the day, you have a human organisation making decisions, and even in the best of worlds that will be open to abuse.
As a brit, I welcome our Aussie friends to the panopticon of fear.
Paul Leader
Finally my lazy fellow Australians will get off their bums and implement SSL on their websites, like I already have.
Please CmdrTaco, can you set slashdot up so it actually responds to an https request with something that is encrypted? Sites such as wikipedia, wikileaks and technocrat already do it, why not slashdot?
What dos it exactly mean?
Is it: It blocks 100000 websites per every 1m (10% of the internet?)
or: It simply blocks 100k (what does 1m mean then?)
or: It blocks 100k of the 1m and this 1m is all you can get in australia anyway
or: It blocks 100k attempts to access a blacklisted site per 1m of such attempts (that would be very inefficient wouldnt it)
or: It blocks 100k illegal/harmful websites of 1m known. But if they know 10 times more why include only 10%
Help me Im lost
I don't object to an XXX domain. Parents can block it, and people who want it can find it.
I'm for mandatory tags on adult webpages. Again parents can block it, people who want it can find it.
I don't mind so much black lists. At least real people maintaining them can correct mistakes. And a black list is good advertising for those who want that sort of thing.
But mandatory government blocking program, that's just asking for trouble. At least with opt-in problems you can get away with "just don't use it".
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Before it's too late VOTE OUT ALL the elected members of the government of your country who support such draconian big brother mythologies.
All countries, such as Austrailia, based upon English Common Law may have many defences and rights given a long time ago that can't be overridden by the fiats and power hungry wims of those who are deluded into thinking that they can take such dragonian steps to control society.
The power elite are now the terrorists (yet again) against the masses. Not only that in many countries they are implementing the New World Order of Socialism for the Rich and capitalism for the not rich. Nationalization of the debts of banks and corporate follies while allowing them to keep their profits.
Could the bail out be a scheme to keep the wars going with mercenaries instead of with national militaries? Pull out the troups and double the private contractors and presto no chango - the war machine grinds up more people from around the world.
Enough is Enough. When will you and the rest of the people realize that those in power are not doing any of us any favors by imposing these draconian systems of control? Likely after it's too late.
Vote out your leaders if you can. Say NO to their Big Brother Systems! Dismantle them.
...to prevent people from opt-ing out on their own? Router based IP filtering?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"We have buttiduously canvbutted the industry, buttessed what is available and buttembled the finest selection of PFI contractors for this buttignment. The filters will buttociatively clbuttify all communications and filter then, I can butture you, rebuttemble them with surpbutting exacbreastude in any quanbreasty. Consbreastuents can be rebuttured that a mulbreastude of industry compebreastors will butture quality and keep our clbuttrooms safe. EDS Capita Goatse will not embarbutt us."
The plans have attracted wide criticism. "It will only give supersbreastious rebutturance to medireview thinkers. Automated systems won't solve human problems like loveual harbuttment. Mbuttacring the written word into a Picbutto painting is not the anbreastank missile of Internet safety."
Unions also butterted that such close buttessment of staff in the workplace would hamper efficiency and could verge on workplace harbuttment. "Watermeloning cranberries."
The government was unfazed. "Butterting free speech is one thing, but a triparbreaste committee considers that that does not justify mere pbuttive breastillation at the expense of others."
The first filtering offices will be set up in Arsenal, Penistone and Scunthorpe.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
What's people's real world experience of Freenet? Does it work and is it usable? Is it truly secure from government intervention and monitoring? If this proposal goes ahead it will be the thing that prompts me to install Freenet and badger all my friends into joining too.
Went to read the linked article, but is no longer there. Hoax? or has it been Censored?
**evil music begins**
I would not be in favour of this at all.
The system we have in our home is simple, the computer is in the kitchen where everyone else is. To my mind that is the only sensible way to keep your children safe on the Internet. If they come across something that is unsuitable then we talk about it. That means they know what's dangerous and how to deal with it, and we know what they're getting involved in.
Blocking access is just wrapping your kids in cotton wool - and when you can't do that any more, they suddenly become very vulnerable.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Unfortunately Australia went from one control freak to another at the last election. This one actually worried me a little more even though I voted for him. John Howard was so concerned with control and self image that it ended up being a pretty lame government. Most complaints about him were for underhanded politics, dirty election tactics, racism and neglect. He never looked far enough beyond himselfthe impact on him to do much damage.
Whereas Kevin Rudd has the potential to actively destroy things by being idealistic. He's got that Mao streak in him, where he believes so strongly in his ideals that he can justify taking liberty for them. And he does it in such a no fuss, detached, almost autistic way. As I said I voted for him to remove Johnny, but he has always scared me a lot more.
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Why is censorship of illegal material bad? If the material is illegal, why shouldn't it be censored?
Can anyone make this argument? Because if the material is illegal in the first place, meaning you would normally get in trouble for accessing it, period, then a preemptive measure shouldn't harm you, logically.
Cast aside the argument that it will make the Internet sluggish, because that argument will be nullified if technology and such improve enormously. Also cast aside the argument that it will be expensive to do, because what if we make it incredibly efficient?
Also cast aside the false positives occurring, because what if they get it so refined that a false positive is a one in a million occurance. In such a way that the system works exactly as proposed, with no drawbacks (concerning false positives, network lag, etc.) whatsoever.
I'm not defending censorship. I want someone to make a good argument.
...proxy...
They're the Internets greatest loophole and they can run circles around ISPs.
While i was a Rep for Time Warner cable i helped countless Chinese-Americans defeat china's overzealous Great Fire Wall.
Censorship is a tool of the moronic and the Internet has already transcended its limitations.
As long a encryption exist so will free speech, so please all you Government Officials of the world that THINK we the people need to be protected from the Evils of the Internet; Fuck off.. Because there's no way your or ANY one for that matter can protect me. Only I the random mass of the Internet can Protect my Self from the Rigors of an Unforgiving environment containing the foulest and most rancid underpinnings of Humanity.
Scary Shit happens here and if you can't accecpt it or don't know better on how to ignore it then please don't even both to force me into your Limited and Finite view upon the Greatest, Worst, and Most Encompassing Invention that Humans have yet to even completely envision its limitations
How much bandwidth can you get over Ham radio channels?
Text chat should be do-able and plain text email.
I could go and look it up and someone somewhere is probably already doing it.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Thank God I live in good old England where this surely won't happen.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
If this thing works as advertised, and no way is found around it, then I might be forced to lead a healthier lifestyle, and perhaps even become a more productive member of society!
Nooooo!
Sarcastometer: 50% (this really could make life rather dull and boring)
At least we'll have something worth exporting. I'm sure lots of other countries will be only too happy to buy our blacklists which we have meticulously researched.
except... we'll probably just be importing them from somewhere else...
The more I read about these things, of how internet access is being limited, the more I think there should be a general encryption protocol that could be applied to data traveling on the internet. Sort of like SSL, but without the certificate authorities (webs of trust instead, perhaps? Or some magic P2P technology).
The point of such a protocol would be to make opaque all traffic going on so that it's impossible to say what it's getting (and perhaps with proxies, where it's going or where it's coming from). Then censorship would fail.
This needs to be done, because stories like these show that governments won't practice self restraint when trying to rein in the internet or tame its wilderness.
fear based behaviors as the illuminati is challenged. we're against child porn etc..., but the rest of it is totally driven by fear of losing control of the population(s). even robbIE does it now, attempting to satiate his insatiable advertisers, resulting in fictional representations on a variety of 'stuff that (really) matters'.
greed, fear & ego are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children, not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_us/tent_cities;_ylt=A0wNcyS6yNJIZBoBSxKs0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html#cnnSTCText
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/10/07/atwood.debt/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308;_ylt=A0wNcxTPdJhILAYAVQms0NUE
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/voting.problems/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/ts_nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=A0wNcwhhcb5It3EBoy2s0NUE
(talk about cowardlly race fixing/bad theater/fiction?) http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/19/news/economy/sec_short_selling/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=ApTbxRfLnscxaGGuCocWlwq7YWsA/SIG=11qicue6l/**http%3A//biz.yahoo.com/ap/081006/meltdown_kashkari.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04sat1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(the teaching of hate as a way of 'life' synonymous with failed dictatorships) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/newspapers_islam_dvd;_ylt=A0wNcwWdfudITHkACAus0NUE
(some yoga & yogurt makes killing/getting killed less stressful) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_re_us/warrior_mind;_ylt=A0wNcw9iXutIPkMBwzGs0NUE
(the old bait & switch...you're share of the resulting 'product' is a fairytail nightmare?)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money;_ylt=A0wNcwJGwvFIZAQAE6ms0NUE
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail
Britain has had two suddenoutbreaksofcommonsense recently. Remember the -- incorrectly reported on Slashdot -- 42 days detention? The House of Lords bitch-slapped the government down over it. Worst defeat in the Lords in living memory, according to that BBC article.
The Lords also got the government to back down over secret inquests. Which are just as evil, if not moreso, than the 42 days detention (the idea is certainly straight out of Kafka's The Trial).
People whinge about the Lords being unelected, but from where I'm sitting the score is: Meritocracy 2 - Democracy 0. I believe the Lords would also smack-down something as stupid as this Australian Internet filtering too, on cost and futility grounds alone.
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
I did some research earlier in the year and decided that the filtering would either be ineffective due to humans attempting to maintain blacklists, or would result in a ridiculous amount of false positives (as quoted in the summary). And no opt-out? Yipes. I certainly hope this is the hand-picked blacklist that was the original proposition... but I really don't think they'll get anywhere with it. After all, it's alt.binaries you really have to worry about. On a more serious note, Rudd was in China jabbering Mandarin at a mysterious group of people a few months ago. Now we know who they were - Golden Shield sysadmins. Flee to the parts of Europe that aren't Sweden, the UK, Russia or Germany! Flee now!
Honestly. I lost count of the number of times I saw the word "children" in TFA. How many thinly veiled schemes will it take before we quit falling for the "but think of the children" argument?
This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.
No more pantomimes in Australia - well, not "Dick Whittington" anyway.
Paid Q&A/Research
...is to distract the public in order to curtail the free internet.
Think about it. *The* most important thing of a living system is its neural circuitry. If you can control that, then you can implement garbage in, garbage out, helping you achieve what you want. The most far reaching development of our times is the free internet. It is a societal neural circuitry that can bypass the former GIGO manipulation. It is the most dangerous development by far to the powers that be, and so it must be eliminated.
Time to move to china I think........
Once they have the system in place, it allows the slippery slope toward total control. Right now they want to censor 'x'. What if the next politician to come along wants to censor 'x' and 'y'. No big deal, right? Next comes 'z' and soon you're in mainland China and no one remembers how it got this way.
I cannot comprehend why my government would want to impose such draconian measures upon the population. I can only assume they perceive some kind of return on investment. Perhaps this ROI is votes from conservative right voters who would typically vote for the Liberal Party - an investment for the next election.
As an Internet Systems Administrator, I can see that there will most certainly be significant repercussions in performance and quality of Internet data. The realisation of open and adult concepts and discussions on public forums we have come to enjoy will fail. I'm not talking about pornography either. Any false positive as a result of mandatory content filtering is unacceptable. Bloggers and online journalists will be forced to curtail language, emotion and subject matter. The new journalism model that is allowing the voice of everyday people to be heard over the roar of commercial media will be dimmed.
Keeping children safe from predators has always been the responsibility of parents, not the state. I encourage all Australian slashdotters to write/ring/email your local federal member, cc-ing the Federal Minister for Communications and the Prime Minister. Remind them of the boundaries of acceptable government.
By signing this petition. Just a direct link to the one on nocleanfeed.com http://petitions.takingitglobal.org/oznetcensorship
Stop Aussie internet censorship! Sign the petition.
in their first few months in office, they have established 25 committees packed with their union buddies, created new taxes and set in motion their own nanny state.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Freenet is a distributed data store. Of course it is slower than connection-oriented networks like Tor or I2P, but the availability of its content depends solely on its popularity, not on a given server being online. In other words, it's not censorable even if an author gets arrested, raided or worse.
It goes without saying that the more people contribute storage, bandwidth and content, the better Freenet will get.
what are they gonna do if you just proxy jump their stupid filter/proxy? The computer world is full of smart people and we will beat any bullshit wall you put in our way. We are smarter than you are Mr Rudd. you will never censor us and you will never beat piracy.
Freenet is a distributed data store. Of course it is slower than connection-oriented networks like Tor or I2P, but the availability of its content depends solely on its popularity, not on a given server being online. In other words, it's not censorable even if an author gets arrested, raided or worse.
It goes without saying that the more people contribute storage, bandwidth and content, the better Freenet will get.
(reposting in the right thread)
"users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material" Does this mean illegal material is appropriate for children?
This has been the worst week for privacy in a long time. I can't imagine it getting any worse, honestly.
10,0000 Web pages from one million? Should that be 10,000 or 100,000?
It works quite well for small and medium size files and very well for "Freesites" - websites in Freenet.
There are anonymous discussion boards (called FMS), anonymous email ("Freemail"), blogs ("flogs"), anoynmous SVN, etc.
This bill was brought to you by your local censors.
So Aussies can look forward to a rabid reaming by prurient hypocrites, and the undoubted pleasure of being billed for it, too. The details of the public reaming will also be off-limits, of course (for the public good: can't have people witnessing such lurid acts).
Due to the shotgun nature of blocking filters, there will be many pages wrongfully blocked. Based on the blocking policies enforced at some workplaces, entire domains may be blocked on account of just a single objectionable page in a single user's subdomain. Whole domains may also be blocked wrongly, through ambivalent ignorance or a mere typo.
Whole communities might find themselves wrongfully off-limits, as happened a few years ago, when the alt.binaries.pictures.astronomy usenet group was blacklisted by a large US ISP. The ISP did not block all alt.binaries.pictures groups, but chose to lump the astrophotography group in with the porn groups. That's what misinterpretation of phrases such as "heavenly body", "images from last night", "multiple exposure", "open truss", "polar mount", "white dwarf", "full moon" and the like can cause. I doubt if anyone involved in the decision to block the group actually looked at the images being posted there - I never saw an inappropriate image in several years of regularly reading that group.
Presumably, all anonymizing services will promptly find themselves on the blacklist, lest anyone use them to bypass the filters and look at unapproved pages. Expect also, that anyone acting as a freenet node will be dealt with appropriately (ISP cutoff, or legal action).
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
When we all have no rights
when we all have no money
when we all have no place ot live
when we all have nothing left BUT A STICK
you know what happens then.
Beatup a musician or actor today.
Make them understand that this shit is THERE fault
they make these people have power.
HATE them curse them throw a rock or spit.
They are evil people all of them unless htey contribute to fighting against this evil.
YOU are with us or against us no more middle ground, draw up the army people the tsunami is coming.
Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material.
source
They'll be hard pressed to find any house or school that is free of pornography. So Australian kids have nothing to fear. Nobody's taking their porn away.
Isn't this basically what the Great Firewall of China is?
If it's not being sold, there's no market incentive to create and only risk possible. If it's being sold, then you have both the purchaser and the site accepting money to bring in.
Neither requires that you block access to the material to persue the proper legal course and get the crime (abuse of real children) sorted out.
In fact, banning the ability to see it means it will be sent by spambot or trojans hiding on innocents computers and you will be unable to persue the REAL criminal: the person abusing the child.
You can also miss finding people who ARE interested in this sort of thing and get them some help before they move from "looking" to "doing" and thereby PREVENTING crime.
So censoring the information in this case cannot help and can only be neutral or damaging to the REAL problem of kiddie porn: the abuse of children.
You can't just cast aside false positives, though. It's as if you're asking what's wrong with murder on the presupposition that nobody is ever hurt.
This particular method of censorship also reverses the burdens of proof. Rather than the government going to court to prove that a defendant has something illegal or that a site should be blocked, it appears that the government has carte blanche proscribe access to sites; presumably people will now need to sue to have their material unblocked, rather than the government suing them. This can be rather burdensome, particularly for people who are on the margins of society.
Autoraties know they can't block P2P systems , so they monitor them instead. Don't think P2P is a get out of jail free card, more like a get into jail with the book being thrown in after you.
I don't think it is an accident that these things are going forward in the English speaking countries where Murdoch has the most influence, US, UK, & Australia. So far as I can make out, Canada and NZ are sticking with freedom.
email: minister@dbcde.gov.au
phone: (03) 9650 1188
snail mail:
Senator Stephen Conroy
Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002
The EFA also has a form letter you can copy and send here if you need it.
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
I'm big enough to handle my own affairs and sane enough to give my baby girl a happy and balanced childhood filled with pony's, daffodils, geek, and a sense of place and purpose within society.
Would you swap out the first two for anything if your baby girl was actually a baby boy, and if so, why?
I would laugh in the face of Conroy if he tried to tell me that an uncensored internet is equivalent to looking at child pornography.
The man has no concept of what is more important for society. As an Australian, if the Government insists that they know what it is best for people to see and hear, I'd be thinking twice about returning home permanently.
The next question is what line the filters tread?
Since Conroy goes down the emotive child pornography path, maybe he'll explain to me where the line is here and give a 5 page essay on why...
Naked cherub statue?
Naked cherub in oil painting?
Photo of naked child in cherub headgear?
Photo of naked child not dressed as cherub?
first the guns now the press... long live down under..
you could ask :)
Am I correct when I understood it as the liberal party of Australia proposed something like this? If so, what the fuck is wrong with the rest of the world?! A true liberal party NEVER EVER supports censorship, is the Australian liberal just as "liberal" as the American ones? In other words, not at all? -Swedish Socialliberal wondering here.
If you could do it without additional cost to infrastructure, without degradation to network service, without ANY false positives (one in a million is not good enough), without unforeseen side effects due to the fact that HTTP is not designed for interception, and without ambiguity thanks to the fact that legality is sometimes context sensitive, then it boils down to a philosophical argument as to whether it's best for government to actively prohibit illegal activity or detect and punish violations. I am slightly inclined to think that "freedom" includes "freedom to break the law and suffer the consequences", so I believe that censorship should be voluntary. That way you can decide for yourself whether you want "safety" or "freedom". Why deny people that choice?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
I'll bet TPB is one of the first on the list.
You realize this opens the door for a whole new world of small scale cyber bombers flooding legit sites with the perfect keywords that make the filter crawler bots add the site to the banlist. An example would be similar to a YouTube video. Every once in awhile, you'll find someone with a grudge who uses proxies to spam a video as inappropriate until it gets removed or flagged as such. I'm sure the Australian's wont have to pay for this fancy filtering feature either...
Almost impossible to own any type of firearm in Australia after they took them from law abiding citizens a few years back......
On the (slightly) positive side, although my ISP (Virgin Media) apparently uses it, I've never seen any evidence of its presence. Also, I've never heard of anyone having problems or false positives (which obviously doesn't mean this doesn't occur).
Note that you wouldn't actually know if you had reached a page that was blocked under the system. From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3797563.stm :
if you are a BT broadband customer and you follow a link to a website that is suspected of hosting images of child sexual abuse - what is often sloppily called "child porn" - then you will get a "page not found" error.
(Compared with places like Saudi Arabia, which inform you why the page isn't available, and even allow you submit a form if you think it's been incorrectly blocked.)
Note that although theoretically this only covers "illegal content" like child pr0n, from January the Government will start criminalising possession of some adult material, vastly increasing the range of sites which could fall under such blocking.
Also it was the IWF (who run Cleanfeed) who recently reported someone for prosecution for writing a fictional story (although as it happens, the story in question still seems to be available and doesn't seem to be blocked - instead they're going after the author, who may face up to five years in prison).
Sich heil am neues Fuehrer...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It is Australia. They live down under. The whole 3rd rock is on top of them.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
A blacklist (and the reasoning for that list) is secret.
BIG DIFFERENCE.
So people have touched upon censorship, but in the big picture, is this a future trend? China's current implementation of the Great Firewall and now this? This may have a larger impact than most people think and I'm not big on fear mongering. Reduction of the access and free exchange of information breaks down the fundamental usefulness of the internet and if greater organizations (I say organizations because even if a country doesn't do it, but ISP monopolies worldwide do, the results are similar) continue down this path the internet will devolve into something resembling television: a passive experience with controlled and filtered inputs and outputs.
Last tin-foil hat thought: The reason I'm concerned about this is that I've been confident that these attempts to censor or filter the internet in the past were futile because, like water confronting a rock in its path, the information will flow around the damage. But if things go the way of "1984", the general public just won't know of any better if they are brought up in a filtered environment and what they're missing. I'm straining my memory, but I believe in Orwell's book, they removed terms to describe dissent or hatefulness so that people would be unable to express their dissatisfaction. AOL users thought that their world WAS, in fact, the internet until they changed ISPs.
Alright I'm digressing. If I lived in Australia, I would fight tooth and nail against this. To redirect the "Think of the Children" play, even if they are not subject to illegal or lewd material early on, it's still out there. A more reasonable action would be educating in school safe surfing of the web, how to determine reliable and unreliable sources and proper teaching of ethics in a more subjective and technologically advanced world. My last example is this: Would you rather have teach someone walking down the street why its important not to break into someone's house or line the doors and windows with spikes and barbwire? Think of the children!!!!
/rant over. I'm getting some coffee.
Looks like Australia is still a giant prison colony, eh?
No wonder all you Aussies call each other "mates". It's short for "inmates".
All you Aussies need to grow a pair, and rise up and fight your oppressive regime, or else you might as well continue to be sheep and invite the New Zealanders over to shear you too.
Ever notice how the word colony contains "colon"?
Strangely the discussion is more civilised here than at Ars Technica, hopefully this revelation will be the beginning of the end of the net filtering idea.
When I first heard of it, it sounded like a valid way to make it easier for people with children to filter their internet, and there was an opt-out option (I really disliked the idea of opt-out rather than opt-in though).
Now it sounds like it will turn us into a second great firewall of China, so I think the further this goes the more consternation will increase.
And think of the children you hurt when you don't.
10,000 out of 1,000,000 = 1 out of 100
Of course if you're too lazy for that, and don't hate America too much, you can even run it through a calculator for a percent.
10,000 out of 1,000,000 = 1%
Granted after 9/11 everything changed and 1% isn't as sensational, but if we wanted misleading math and sensational journalism we would turn to mainstream sources.
I have to work for these idiots, too. I feel sorry for the average Australian citizen, for having to put up not only with crappy service that's even more overpriced than here in the States, but now they're having a gun held to their heads forcing them to have their hands held like they're ALL little children. It's complete and utter bullshit.
We've previously discussed the issue with Fallout 3. It was a real eye opener to learn they didn't have a +18 game rating. But after learning that I can't say I'm surprised something like this came up. This all seems like a throwback to the mid 90's to me. As an American I clearly remember the big sigh of relief I received when the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act was shut down. I also dug up an old article pointing to the ruling and it mention's as far back as June of '96 that Australian's were still under this type of threat. http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR960613.html
Poor Aussies,I guess it's time to take up arms and revolt against your oppressive government to gain back God given liberty lost. Whoops, I guess you let Big Brother take your guns a while back. I guess you can throw rocks at them.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
...simply because, as we all know, it's completely infeasible. The Internet is simply too large to have a hope of maintaining an even vaguely accurate list of 'bad' sites. You would have to employ literally an army of public servants to surf around and maintain it. And anyone with even the slightest bit of technical knowledge can get around it in a flash (encryption, Tor, proxy, obtain from non-filtered mediums such as IRC/P2P, etc).
I strongly suspect what will happen is that the Rudd Govt. will ooo and ahh about it for a while so it appears that they haven't neglected their election promise re net filtering. But soon as they see how completely useless any proposed filtering scheme will be, it will quietly fade away into obscurity. Particuarly as they have bigger fish to fry right now (economic collapse and all).
Our politicians do have some very stupid ideas, but I'd bet pretty good money this will never actually get off the ground (in its current form at least) in Australia. Most of the public, and every single person in the ISP/telecomms industry is against it (for good reason - it costs money to implement, will slow down net access due to the need to run every request through the IP blacklist, and it shifts responsibility for content from users, to ISPs).
So it's scary in theory, but I'm not worried ... it won't get past the planning stage.
And this is different from the Great Firewall of Chine how?
Not that being similar to the GFC makes it any more acceptable of course.
Text chat and plain text emails were doable back in the early 1990's. I did it on the 70cm band back then. It works just fine.
And, these days, they have much better equipment so you can obtain higher speeds.
Granted, it's not going to be what you'd want to download the lates Linux distro, but it's more than adequate for email and text chat.
HOWEVER, you have to interface with the "wire" some time. Unless you're going to use HF (low bandwidth for reasons of physics), you're going to have limited range. Any amateur radio operator in Australia will still end up interfacing with Australian routers unless they set up a link to New Zealand or some other country. NZ's just the logical choice due to proximity.
I am an amateur radio operator, but I'm not in Australia or NZ.
Funny as shit, watching all the .eu trash and .au trash as they talk shit about the United States.
Remember, you're less a democracy than we are. Wanna shit in my yard, better clean your own up first.
I'm sure we will have the same thing, I just felt the need to point out the obvious... Gets tiring watching the posts here from non us citizens talking about how they would never, nor would their country.
Guess you better move now, aussieboyeeee.
--Toll_Free
While at first glance it seems evil and bad, the devil is really in the details.
What comes to mind is the adage "who watches the watchers". So if the public has some input and control over what exactly is censored and it isn't totally dependent upon whatever political party is in power at the time then it might not be so bad.
Most of our regular media, TV, Radio, Paper, etc... are all regulated and censored to a degree. Each government has a slightly different way of doing it, but they all do.
So as long as they don't go overboard with it, it might not be too bad, hell it might even help protect you from some of the baddies out there.
Having said all that, I am glad mine is not censored! (or so I think anyway!)
It does contain references to sodomy, nudity, and prostitution
Ignoring everything else for a second. That kind of money would allow you to hire more than 3000 people working full-time at a yearly salary of 20.000 Euro (that's more than I make), or 52 people full-time for most of their working life (60 years) at the same salary.
I couldn't quickly locate any budgets and only found a press release by Hon Stephen Conroy stating that:
And another factoid (not related to this specific plan perse) from the Electronic Frontiers Australia that:
Perfect is the enemy of done.
Every major ISP in Canada logs all web site access, using software developed for the Totonto Police Service and the RCMP by Microsoft. It is freely available to anyone who wants to use it, and used around the world:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/apr05/04-07CETS.mspx
A friend of mine works at a major ISP, and claims that "tens of thousands" of IP addresses (out of maybe a quarter million) are captured for accessing "child pornography" web sites.
So far, prosecutors and police have limited the use to go after producers of child porn, who are the ones really victimizing children, and not the viewers, but rest assured everyone is monitored across Canada.
It probably is illegal under Canadian law, but nobody is looking at it too closely. I don't know if it will be abused in the future - Canada is ranked as one of the least corrupt nations in the world. But given time, I wouldn't be surprised.
The following things have been introduced under Labour Government which have probably shaped modern Australia and contributed more to it's current prosperity:
Whitlam (in less than 3 years)
established formal diplomatic relations with China
abolished Uni fees
cut tariffs by 25% and abolished the Tariff Board
introduced a supporting benefit for single-parent families;
abolished the death penalty for federal crimes.
reduced the voting age to 18 years;
abolished the last vestiges of the White Australia Policy;
introduced language programs for non-English speaking Australians;
mandated equal opportunities for women in Federal Government employment;
appointed women to judicial and administrative positions;
abolished conscription;
set up the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee;
amalgamated the five separate defence departments;
instituted direct federal grants to local governments
established Legal Aid,
increased funding for the arts
Tried to introduce universal free health care (medicare)
Hawke-Keating
economic rationalism (Deregulation,
Privatisation, a free market economy, privatisation)
Floating of the dollar
enterprise bargaining
introduction of Superannuation
reductions in trade tariffs
passed the Native Title Act
a plan to suppress free speech on the Internet. it's nothing you haven't been experiencing for years.
After all, there's been no real freedom of expression through printed or visual media since the 60s. Why should the Internet be any exception?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
.....for even a few moderately large (and perfectly legal) businesses to experience a massive drop in sales because their customers suddenly can't connect to them anymore (because they have been mistakenly blocked), let the lawsuits fly, and the whole scheme will be dropped or drastically modified. Even if there is a provision for individual sites to be manually approved, the inconvenience of the need to appeal the block, and the loss of even a few days sales in the process, cries out for compensation.
Misguided ideas like this one can never be headed off prematurely -- usually the implementers have to learn the hard way.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Maybe this censorship is just like the apple that I tried to take to Australia. (it wasn't allowed for fear of diseases etc) Now they ecosystem will never get `hardened`. Same for the people. And what about people that cause a lot of hits for censored sites? They must be terrorists?
Why aren't we doing this in Britain? Our government is going even further than this and we are just sitting back and letting it happen. So, is there a petition that exists that we can send to the government, or do I have to create one? Thanks.
Welcome to Finland! We already have secret filter lists that saves us from all the kiddie porn in the internet.
Hey, wait! It doesn't! It just blocks DNS queries to kiddie porn websites. I'm sure no-one will never ever figure out how to set up DNS server of their own or use P2P networks...
Funny thing about this law is that it is written so that it can only concern foreign websites containing illegal child porn material but actually it is used to block gayporn websites and domestic websites criticizing the law. And because filter lists are kept secret we really don't know what else is blocked. About those two we at least have some evidence. Well, they also managed to block japanese music shop in the process ;)
Oh. And did I mention that they are trying to broaden this filterings stuff to concern copyrighted (other than kiddie porn) material also?
So let me tell you again! Welcome to Finland - where Orwell lives and is well!
You don't know what you don't know.
You think there might be a way to get your voice heard. That's cute.
Seriously though, if you raise your voice you'll be accused of defending terrorists and child predators. At least that's how it works up here. Have you tried pitchforks?
Well, you're hijacking things for a start, you're using "if's" and then telling me I can't use certain arguments.
Ok - What "if" the things you can't see aren't illegal, only damaging to people in power? What if the truth is blocked (under the guise of stopping "radicalism")? What if the blocking filters accidentally include something you need to access right now? VERY few people will try and get something unblocked..."oh, bugger, there's something wrong with the site honey..."
You'll never know.
And imagine "if" you believe that something (that you don't know exists because it's been blocked!) shouldn't be blocked and the powers-that-be believe otherwise? You, sir, will be a marked man at that point.
And who makes the decision that something is innapropriate for me? That means that someone *is* looking at , well, why should that person be allowed to view it and not me? Are they not being harmed just like it would supposedly harm you and me? Yes, old argument - but have you ever known a censor? I met some once and My god they are the most backward troglodytic born-agains you could ever meet. Even the young ones in their 20's scare me to death with their morals. (They all seemed like they were on serapax or something)
There's also the problem of "creeping legislation" - which we are all beginning to experience around the world - today we make item(a) illegal, but not item(b) as it would cause a voter backlash. But in 5 years when everyone is comfortable, item(b) is made illegal and nobody notices and so on until we finally have items(a-z) blocked.
Hey, maybe they'll ban my facebook page cause I have photos of people smoking MARIJUANA!!!! Ohhh, ain't that gonna start pissing people off when they can't access their own photos and web-sites anymore! How do you get them back? Will you get them back? Or will they be kept for "evidence"???
There is no argument for censorship that makes any kind of sense. It's all an emotive issue of "I don't like this so nobody else should have access".
Mind you, you'll still be allowed to watch pictures of decapitations or old Arnie ripping off arms. War and death in general will still be accessible. I hate that shit, but I would never have it banned so that you can't see it.
I could go on and on, but it's kind of pointless, as they have everyone distracted by all this missing money (that never existed anyway, but that's another rant). Perfect cover to bring in all sorts of stuff.
As I write this , I realise that you may never see these words, as they may in fact be censored.
Is no one familiar with the phrase "prior restraint" any more? It's a junior-high civics concept, for fuck's sake. I'm not speaking to the parent poster, I'm bemoaning the need for the parent's long explanation.
The single most important aspect of any _just_ society, from a law-enforcement perspective, is that it not practice any form of prior restraint . . . the police detect and apprehend those who harm others - the courts assess whether harm has been done, how much, and to whom - the penal system prevents someone known to have done harm from doing more . . .
Actions, such as censorship, which render someone or everyone _unable_ to harm others, or themselves, in some way, are NOT NOT NOT proper for any human association - and least of all for an association, such as a government, that has a full or partial force-monopoly.
Such restraints undermine not only liberty, but morality - if realized, they turn the entire subject population first into criminals, then into children, then into slaves.
So, how much do you want to bet that website like 4chan, 7chan, 99chan, 420chan, anonib, etc. etc. are all blocked as 'illegal' websites?
Maybe I'm just too much of a language geek, but I would definitely have given you a +1 Informative if I had any points right now.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Athy, athier, athiest.
ATTEMPTS ON OUR LIVES FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST NORTHWEST AIRLINES AND MCCAIN ONLINE AFTER VICIOUS ATTACK UPON US. McCain is backed by Northwest Air as a primary sponsor-We did not know this until just this moment-It is clear now why my mother and I's online protest on WWW.AARONJAMESSTORY.COM was removed (removed from Archive.org also!), and why there are ongoing attempts upon our lives at this time and threats from FBI: Our story: McCain Northwest Air Campaign Ties Exposed In Airline Profiling Attack Murder Attempts Ongoing PLEASE SPREAD!! ***>>http://McCainATTACKS.BLOGSPOT.COMhttp://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Presidential candidate John McCain I have now discovered, is deeply connected to the persecution ongoing against my mother and I in the wake of the Jan 18/06 Minneapolis Northwest Airlines profiling attack upon my mother and I (EVIDENCE BELOW), via his close association with Northwest Airlines, the official airline of his political campaign and the fact that his lawyers have Northwest Airlines as one of their top two primary clients!!- a detail which I have just this second uncovered, the most profound aspect, bar none of our ordeal. Our website: http://mccainattacks.blogspot.com/ Northwest Airlines Profiling attack, Northwest Air a McCain campaign affiliate and sponsor and amongst the top 2 clients of the McCain legal counsel. (proof and links below), now ongoing kidnapping attempts in Canada via Canadian police acting on behalf of U.S. to silence our online voice http://aaronjamesstory-importantlinks.blogspot.com/ THE EVIDENCE OF MCCAIN NORTHWEST AIRLINES TIES: ***--->>>Northwest Airlines is primary supporter of McCain re airlines CEO Douglass Steeland is very pro McCain and primary airlines supporter of his campaign complete with magazine photos and coverage in Daily Traveler magazine http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php ARTICLE McCain Supporting Northwest Airlines: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/northwest-airlines-supporting.php "1) If you've taken a flight on Northwest Airlines in August you may have noticed the full cover of their in-flight magazine, World Traveler, greets you with the trio of Norm Coleman, John McCain, and Tim Pawlenty with the headline "The Republican's Are Coming!" The full-length photo identifies "Presidential candidate John McCain is flanked by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty." Meanwhile Barack Obama gets a less than two inch inset headshot photo which fails to mention that he is a senator, also a Presidential candidate, oh, yeah, and that his name is Barack Obama. 2) Then there's the message from NWA President & CEO Doug Streland which reminds us that his airline is the official airline of the Republican convention. ...
3) Inside the magazine, the splashy feature article on the Republican convention includes the cover photo of the three men again along with brief descriptions of them, including "fun facts."
***McCain's lawyers amongst the 133 lobbyists working for McCain
have Northwest Airlines as their primary clients!!!http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006
Firm / Employer Campaign Role
Lawyers for McCain Select List of Clients
Northwest Airlines Union Telephone
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Source
JohnMcCain.com
Corporate interests are at play here, and McCain's racially bigoted campaign strategy (Palan labeling Obama a consorter with terrorists and their supporters shouting "lynch him, kill him etc) is consistent with the profiling mandate of Northwest Airlines and their 6000 CD release to the FBI developing the profiling system (CAPS-Computer assisted profiling system) targeting U.S. civilians.
Treading on McCainâ(TM)s Corporate
What if the authorities also stand at the street corner shouting STFUN00B!
Holy lack of paragraphing, Batman!
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8