Slashdot Mirror
Australian Government Censorship 'Worse Than Iran'
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Government's plan to Censor the Internet is producing problems for ISPs, with filters causing speeds to drop by up to 86% and falsely blocking 10% of safe sites. The Government Minister in charge of the censorship plan, Conservative Stephen Conroy, has been accused of bullying ISP employees critical of his plan: 'If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.'" Read on for more, including an interesting approach to demonstrating the inevitable collision of automated censorship with common sense.
The same reader continues: "Conroy's plan involves censoring at the ISP level to product 'Child-safe' Internet feeds. Initially he said that adults would be able to opt out. He since reversed that position, saying instead they can only go onto an 'Adult-safe' feed censoring 'illegal material', which another senator warned could include 'euthanasia material, politically related material, material about anorexia.' Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia said 'I'm not exaggerating when I say that this model involves more technical interference in the internet infrastructure [note: forum membership required] than what is attempted in Iran, one of the most repressive and regressive censorship regimes in the world.'"
Another anonymous reader suggests this answer to the proposed clone of China's great firewall: "Some of the tested systems use md5 hashes to find illegal content. As proof of concept, how long will it take Slashdot users to create an image with the md5 hash of 5ff742a58529efa02ba00ec8fa2e89bf? This md5 was picked because it is the hash of the current picture of the Prime Minister on his party's web site. A couple of points: The created image should be a jpg. It must be safe for work. It needs the correct MD5. It shouldn't break modern browsers. Its copyright should be free." Any takers?
Another anonymous reader suggests this answer to the proposed clone of China's great firewall: "Some of the tested systems use md5 hashes to find illegal content. As proof of concept, how long will it take Slashdot users to create an image with the md5 hash of 5ff742a58529efa02ba00ec8fa2e89bf? This md5 was picked because it is the hash of the current picture of the Prime Minister on his party's web site. A couple of points: The created image should be a jpg. It must be safe for work. It needs the correct MD5. It shouldn't break modern browsers. Its copyright should be free." Any takers?
If you guys have large oil reserves, HIDE THEM QUICKLY. Say they all dried up. Being white will only keep US Republicans from attacking for so long, and "worse than Iran" is not something you want associated with your country right now.
Pretty much everyone in Australia knows this is not actually going to get implemented. The Australian EFF are just enjoying having their moment in the sun. There's no reason to have another story on the exact same topic every few days.
It's time to pick up stakes and move to Iran, that fabled land of freedom and tolerance--a shining country upon a hill.
It is an absolute. Either you have it 100%, or you don't have it at all. And the idiots who think that censorship stops child pornography neither understand pedophiles nor censorship. It is akin to DRM, where you don't stop the problem (pirates/pedophiles/whatever) and instead punish everyone else.
If you're upset by kiddie porn, then treat the problem. Don't shut off the internet.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
A preimage collision on MD5 (as requested in the article) is quite difficult. If you don't insist on controlling the actual hash value, but instead just make two files with the same hash, then it'll work.
As an aside, do these filtering technologies handle HTTP chunked encoding properly? How about if you deliberately chunk more than necessary?
The real story here is not that the government wants to censor the internet, but that the government has moved to gag a critic of the plan.
I think the anonymous reader in the final paragraph of the summary needs to read up a little on the MD5 vulnerability. It's possible to generate two files with the same hash containing a 16-byte block of differing code (where you have no control over the contents of that block in either file), but the rest of the file needs to be identical to the original. That's fine for dynamically generated HTML or even executables where a decision could be made on the contents of the varying block, but doing anything useful with jpeg is a pretty tough ask. Or are they suggesting we brute force it?
Athy, athier, athiest.
In a Democracy, the people get the government they deserve.
The idea of censoring the internet, especially for the laughable justification that its "for the children" simply indicates to me that the people of Australia need to start taking responsibility for their government and elect candidates who will not pull this kind of crap.
Don't get fooled into thinking that "the government" did this. It was the people of Australia who elected politicians who are doing it. It is up to the people of Australia to un-elect those politicians, by force if necessary.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
You should have kept John Howard in office!
Silly Ozzies!
Hi,
First time posting a reply so be kind :)
The Australian Federal Election last year was the first one I had actually voted in (I'm 21).
I am now sad to say that after watching what has occurred in australia in relation to the NBN (National Broadband Network) and this...filter, I am seriously believing that I made the wrong choice in voting for Labor.
This is an absolute disaster...I was always under the impression that no matter who got into power here, neither side would actually attempt such a radical censorship let alone be completely willing to implement it.
Does anyone have any ideas on what little me can do to perhaps turn this around? Writing / calling Conroy or my local MP perhaps?
Kind Regards,
Eliminatrix
After reading the article, it seems like the entire point of this law is to prohibit users from accessing child pornography.
Here's what I don't understand: why should the overwhelming majority suffer because of a few perpetrators? And ultimately, blocking child pornography accessibility doesn't help the root of the problem. The offenders will still be there. It's like blocking conventional pornography to fight the sex addicts, but people won't stop being horny just because of that.
Full Tilt
If people equate freedom of speech with bot having ones internet connection choked by monitoring software, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.'"
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Anything outside of Australia I'll route over a VPN to a VPS in the states.
Somehow, I don't think you've thought your cunning plan all the way through.
conroy is in the rudd labour government
... if this will become Australia's "Prohibition".
What percentage of the population supports this, anyway? Anyone have any figures?
Two fundamental design features of the multiple networks that make up the internet are "transparent encapsulation", and "path redundancy". The upshot of this design is that no filtering mechanism can prevent *simple* circumvention. None. It is simply not possible given the way in which the technology is implemented.
For the case of parents attempting to stop children looking at pornography this is not a drastic issue, as children likely will not know how this circumvention can be achieved.
Once you are attempting to filter out "illegal content" however, you have entered a whole new realm of pointlessness. If someone is attempting to access illegal material on the internet, they are presumably already technically savvy enough to find such material, and so will have no problems at all circumventing any filtering mechanism.
The point being, the government is currently opening itself up to vocal criticism over the implementation of a filter that will not actually do anything. That does not seem particularly clever.
Presumably it will get worse once the money has been wasted on the filter and videos explaining how to circumvent it start popping up on youtube.
I sincerely urge you to rethink this technologically naive and fundamentally flawed plan.
end
I realise some of this is mostly just magical handwaving. But I was trying to get my point across.
As proof of concept, how long will it take Slashdot users to create an image with the md5 hash of 5ff742a58529efa02ba00ec8fa2e89bf? This md5 was picked because it is the hash of the current picture of the Prime Minister on his party's web site. A couple of points: The created image should be a jpg. It must be safe for work.
I think it would be more effective if the image was not safe for work :)
Barring a major advance in cryptography theory, at least a millenium. While the MD5 hash function has been broken, in the sense that you can generate two files which collide with eachother, this only works when you generate both files; generating a file to match a particular hash is still infeasible, and if it were feasible, MD5 would be completely abandoned overnight.
According to at least some (scientific) experts, completely eliminating "kiddy porn" may in fact raise the sexual assault rate against minors by removing a release valve for those predisposed to such a thing.
Not that censorship is effective enough to cause such an event.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
The parent post is caustic, but on-topic, and even insightful. The title of this story is, "Australian government censorship worse than Iran." That is a strong -- and odd -- claim indeed. Why would the story compair censorship based on a religion against the arbitrary censorship of a fear-mongering government? Apples and oranges.
Furthermore, I disagree with the title. Forced filtering of the internet is nothing like government control of political speach. If the Australian government were forbidding discussion of certain key political figures, or of certain religions, the claim world hold. As it stands, this is pure FUD.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
If you want to push through Patriot Act-like legislation, play up the security angle.
If you want to push through censorship legislation, use child pornography as your ramrod. Anybody who opposes the bill will be a pedophile!
This is deeply worrying. Not only is it insane, it's, ultimately, Kevin Rudd (the Prime Minister) being a damn hypocrite. Just before the federal election the news media made a big deal of "catching" him visiting an adult bar (strip joint) in Japan or something. His response was something along the lines of he is an adult and can make choices and it was harmless. Now that he is in government there is this insane vendetta to censor the internet. Further, censor anyone who is critical of the plan. The Minister in charge of this (Stephen Conroy) is clueless. Unfortunately the rest of the elected government seems just as clueless and agrees with his recommendations. I don't think that it's been said, but I would guess that circumventing the draconian filters may also be made illegal (or at least the attempt might be made). We already have shitty broadband; what the fuck is mandatory filtering going to do to our already inflated prices and absurd monthly download limits? /rant
Who the hell modded this interesting? This is an absolute and complete fabrication. Nothing but pure slanderous bullshit.
When you have an argument with someone you can always tell you have won (or at least it is over) if they resort to calling you or something you are discussing Nazi's. We have to do it "for the children" is the new Nazi.
The issue here is to stop people access child porn. While I hate to be a black sheep, if you take speed away from a speed addict, they turn to meth or cocaine. You take ecstasy away from an addict and they turn to heroin.
What will pedophiles turn to if you take child porn away from their browsers at home?
Personally, if something like this ever went through, I would become more worried about kids on the street.
Put offenders into rehabilitation, or stop their contact or do something with a little common sense. This sort of knee jerk reaction solves nothing and generally creates more trouble than anything.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
To solve the problem of child pornography, you need to combat the problem at the input, not the output.
There were pedophiles before the Internet, censoring everything will just make them not talk to each other, but they will creep around kindergardens and masturbate... or worse.
It is a a sexual deviation and if they keep it in their head it's alright. People can have weird kinks and I don't care. It's the small percentage of those with the deviation that actually cross the line and ACT their fantasies that are the real problem.
You need to make sure there is help and that they know it's their for them in case they choose to seek help. You need to talk about it in school. You need to educate people about that as much as possible. This is what we call "prevention".
Sharing pictures or not, these guys will still be around... as they were at the dawn of mankind.
The problem with Australia is I can never decide is it full of morons or is it full of idiots. Any ideas?
You're quite incorrect.
The Australian Labor Party was founded in 1891 as a centre-left, social democratic party representing the trade union movement. The Communist Party of Australia was founded in 1920, never found electoral success and disbanded in 1991.
Conroy has to get with the times and to stop using the 'nothing to hide' argument (in another light here: if you don't agree with us, they you are a pedo). That itself is a completley flawed argument because of the way child porn is distributed. The internet is used to move porn yes, but its largely not through HTTP/HTTPS, and there is no kiddyporn.com webserver to be blocked. ISP WEB filtering won't work. With services like SFTP, Tor, DC++, bit torrent and other encrypted forms of transmission and private networks, these filters will make no difference at all. I've written to Stephen Conroy and his office by letter and email at least a half a dozen times and received nothing but silence on the issue, even my local member doesn't respond on this issue. I also don't understand why this is such an issue, the previous government launched an internet saftey awareness campaign and offered FREE content filtering applications for every Australian if they wanted it, and this program was not well received, highlighting the fact that really most Australians don't care or are satisfied they can control their children's access without them. To me this appears to be nothing more then a government initiated campaign to restrict our access to information, and if it passes, this will be a very sad day for Australia.
There was a book I liked as a kid called, "Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day." Bad stuff kept on happening to the protagonist, and he kept on threatening to move to Australia. At the end of the book, someone pointed out to him that Australia sucks, too.
Just when I started considering relocating to Oz sometime after I graduate, to get away from all the American bullshit, you guys come out of the woodwork and remind me of that book.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
WMD did exist. Talk about old rhetoric.
Actually Bill Clinton came to Bush's defense saying that for years first hand he saw plenty of intel proving the WMD existed. That is why he justified bombing Iraq. Heck, he also bombed Sudan on the basis that Sudan was developing WMD for Iraq. Over 30 different countries came forward with their own intel on Iraq's WMD. The UN Security Council unanimously voted over 75 times finding Iraq in violation of the terms of the cease-fire.
In case you forget, the terms of the cease fire authorized military force if Iraq was not COMPLETELY COMPLICIT in the terms. 75 violations is authorization in and of itself. Driving Kurds into the mountains and attempting genocide is authorization in and of itself. Shutting off and food and water to towns while building dozens of personal palaces is authorization in and of itself. The well being of 30 million people is authorization in and of itself. Recent statistics show Baghdad today is safer than Detroit.
Two weeks before we went into Iraq, Bush held a speech saying that we'd go into Iraq in two weeks. Immediately after that, we watched caravans of vehicles leave Baghdad heading for Syria and Colin Powell immediately said that we'd likely never find the huge stockpiles now as they were leaving the country.
Despite that we still found missiles filled with Sarin gas, documentation for WMD, storage facilities for WMD, training manuals for WMD, etc.
Never mind that both parties universally said that Iraq had and pursued WMD for over 11 years. Never mind the entire world said Iraq had WMD.
Clearly, one person made up the story years later, and people believed the lie retroactively before he was in office.
Your logic makes so much more sense, that you were modded up.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Senator Conroy has since last year's election victory remained tight-lipped on the specifics of his $44.2 million policy
Lets rephrase that..
1.) Acquire $44.2 million in government funding
2.) spend $200,000 making people implement a system that will do nothing more then slow down the internet to make it look like it's an actual attempt to do something
3.) profit from remaining $44 million
...
wait.. that business model REALLY DOES WORK!!!
Defective Logic
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...reading his party's platform I have to wonder if he is really a conservative. I have to say, what they stand for looks far, far preferable to what so-called "conservatives" in the U.S. are pushing for...
Conservative? That's a title I haven't heard of before. Minister or Senator is what I would expect.
He's in the damn Labor party, which hardly makes him a lower c conservative.
So just what the hell is an upper C Conservative in Australia???
This is an absolute and complete fabrication. Nothing but pure slanderous bullshit.
Bullshit? On the internet? Are you SURE? Wow. I'm shocked.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Does the old saying 'For the People' ring any bells?
You mean as in "government of the people, by the people, for the people"?
What drugs are you on mate? Obviously not from the great southern land, thats for sure. For starters, Kevin Rudd served the Department of Foreign Affairs and was stationed in China back in the 80's. Hence him speaking Chinese. He also had business dealings with China.
The ALP (Australian Labour Party), as already stated was founded in 1891 NOT 1991 (kinda 100 years difference mate) and is the OLDEST active political party in Australia.
Should I be looking for commies under my bed? OH NO! GOSH! The ALP has close ties with the Unions!!!! That MUST mean they are communist and maybe they will lock up foreign immigrents in desert prisons! Wait - that was the last government (Liberal).
You, my sir, should crawl back under the rock you came out from and stop your FUD.
According to reports: http://forums.mactalk.com.au/20/56127-coming-soon-censored-internet-15.html#post668070
The list of excluded sites used in testing includes sites like: "The Pirate Bay, demonoid, mininova, Erowid (the web's best known haven of drug info) and 4chan"
Australia's 3 commercial tv stations are struggling under the load of huge debts and poor revenue, time to throw them a bone I guess.
Conroy may be Labor by party, but would you call censorship on this scale progressive?
Everything Conroy does and certainly the way he has played this smacks of a conservatism:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22stephen+conroy%22+conservatve+christian
Just use The Onion Router (TOR): http://www.torproject.org/ See "Breaching the Great Chinese Firewall" here: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/3.htm#_Toc142395820
EFA made that comparison. It's a straight quote. The scale of Conroy's filtering, right at the ISP level, with two levels of blacklist, and no way to opt-out, it's beyond anything ever done before. Saudi Arabia has a filter, but you can get around it. I'm not sure you'll be able to get around this, because Conroy has thrown the blanket over such a wide area, thus the huge number of false positives. So yes, this filtering will outdo Iran.
The problem is Conroy's filtering is what is slowing the net down (they're trialing this in Tasmania). It is creating a bottleneck for all traffic. The speed of the fibre to your door won't make any difference.
From the summary:
Note capital on the 'Conservative'. Has someone replaced Labor with the British Tories while we weren't looking?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The Australian Labor Party is supposed to be progressive but under Kevin Rudd has moved far to the right. What the official party policy says is one thing - it's passed at conventions - but he isn't bound to follow it.
Both Rudd and Conroy are Fundamentalist Conservative Christians. Rudd was shown a photo of a nude girl at an art exhibition. He said on camera it was "disgusting". Rudd doesn't even drink. The only time he did was at a strip bar in New York (!!!!) where he drank and lost it. He's a very hypocritical man.
I am Australian. What can we do to stop this? Is their an organised campaign of some sort?
OP here. I said "Conservative Christian". Subeditor didn't realize the significance and no surprise, because let's face it: Conroy's censorship is EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE! ALP is hardly a party of the left these days.
I've been feeling that my broadband is just too fast, I've longed for the days of 33.6k dial up. Ahhhh the good ol' days.
I don't have a problem with offering a safe internet, I have a problem with the Australian Government forcing it upon us though.
And who is going to monitor this supposed 'black list'? The Government, sure we can trust them not to filter out anyone who speaks out about their policy? Yeh coz that works extremely well in China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, etc.
And what about businesses who rely on high speed internet? Video conferencing = Fail, Skype = Fail, Online TV = Fail..
Get serious with this 'clean feed', offer it as an opt-in service for those who want it. Don't force it upon us all.
In Australia we have two major parties: the Liberal Party, who are the conservatives, and the ALP, which I've heard stands for "Another Liberal Party".
Blank until
The author of this story stated incorrectly that the Australian Government Minister is from the conservative party. This is incorrect. He is from the Australian Labor Party, not the conservatives! If the author gets simple facts like this wrong, why should anyone believe the accuracy of the rest of his posting??
I don't care what the arguments are. The censors are wrong. Unequivocally. Without any doubt. History has shown so many times that their actions are exacty the WRONG thing to do, that anyone who tries to say that it is done in the public interest MUST BE either dishonest, woefully ignorant, or an idiot. There are plenty of all three milling about.
The facts are so clear, I have somewhere between little and no sympathy for those who allow such things to happen. I might feel sorry for you, but it's your own fault. So quitcher bitchin', and FIX IT!
*I* did not make things this way. I am not that dishonest or that ignorant, nor that kind of idiot. You did it. So fix it. Next time I hear some young person bitch about this without telling me what they personally did to fix it, I am going to warn them that they are about to be punched in the nose. The second time, I will do it. After that, I will just conclude that they are too stupid to run things. I am dangerously close to concluding that as a group, it is true already.
Various international groups have estimated the number of child pornography websites alone to be in the millions, while one local internet service provider told The Australian it could be as high as 30 million sites globally.
Followed by...
ACMA's Donald Robertson confirmed there were "currently 1000 pages on the blacklist".
So... why are they bothering with this?
To be quite frank, I'm getting pretty bloody sick and tired of "but think of the children!!!" Not only do we have to put up with that crap from Michael Atkinson (may he rot in hell), but now we're on our way to Australia's version of The Great Firewall?
Get me off this freaking boat. What's New Zealand like these days?
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
comparing pedophiles to drug addicts is totally ignorant and feeds into the fear that such people are volatile, dangerous, and always looking for a fix. You simply do not know this to be true, but have been taught it by your culture.
Also, child porn is no more a drug for pedophiles than legal porn is a drug for normal folks.
You'll notice I said "more technical interference", even our communications minister isn't as bad as the Ayatollah. :)
The quote appeared in the paper here.
For anyone interested check out, our (Electronic Frontiers Australia) campaign site.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
R.I.P. Zero-Punctuation
Everybody donate to buy Yahtzee a plane ticket out of Australia before he gets censored.
You have completely lost your grip on reality.
And yet you didn't dispute his point... that there were more murders in Detroit than there were in Baghdad for the same time period.
Look, I love the "lies, damned lies, and statistics" quote from Twain too, but facts are facts... you had a better chance of being mowed down in Detroit than you did in Baghdad. I've got a college buddy that's a law enforcement officer in Detroit, and he jokes about the Iraq/Detroit comparison all the time.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
OP here. I said "Conservative Christian" but the subeditor didn't realize the significance and edited out "Christian" and let's face it: the Labor party is supposed to be left-wing but don't you think censorship on this scale is fare more CONSERVATIVE (with or without the Christian part) than anything ever attempted by the Liberals? The ALP and Liberals are so close on together, the distinction is a moot one. Rudd told is he was going to be a conservative leader, and that's one promise he's kept.
To respond to all of Iran's long-term goals would take up too much room and time. I would like to address the most obdurate ones, though. Before I start, however, I should state that to understand what Iran's particularly violent form of expansionism has encompassed as a movement and as a system of rule, we have to look at its historical context and development as a form of counter-productive politics that first arose in early twentieth-century Europe in response to rapid social upheaval, the devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. The underlying message is that there is no place in this country where we are safe from Iran's cronies, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack. Mercantalism and irreligionism are not synonymous. In fact, they are so frequently in opposition and so universally irreconcilable that there's something wrong with this picture. Too many emotions to count raced through my mind when I first realized that Iran's scribblings remain opaque to many observers who dismiss Iran on the basis of its treasonous accusations and general lunacy.
No matter how close it's come to making me lose all self-control, Iran won't be satisfied until it finds a way to plague our minds. Let me just say that I'm not a psychiatrist. Sometimes, though, I wish I were, so that I could better understand what makes organizations like Iran want to offer hatred with an intellectual gloss. Of course, no one of any intelligence believes that we should avoid personal responsibility. Iran doesn't care about accountability in our public systems -- sincerely an instructive warning for the future.
One argument Iran makes is that it is a martyr for freedom and a victim of deconstructionism. That's just plain nonsense. The truth is that it somehow manages to get away with spreading lies (it would sooner give up money, fame, power, and happiness than perform an unruly act), distortions (people don't mind having their communities turned into war zones), and misplaced idealism (racism is a noble goal). However, when I try to respond in kind, I get censored faster than you can say "uncontrovertibleness". It should be readily apparent that if the public perception is that in my speaking engagements, I have found in audience questions an alarming increase in concern about lame-brained licentious simpletons, then the time has come to drive off and disperse the delusional scum who trick academics into abandoning the principles of scientific inquiry. All that we have achieved may now be lost, if not in the bright flames of interdenominationalism, then in the dense smoke of the unscrupulous abominable stratagems promoted by slaphappy spivs. Let's just ignore Iran and see what it does. In the end, experience shows that it would be grossly premature for Iran to claim final victory.
Rudd and Conroy are both conservative Christians. You can see it not just in this, but also in the 'Alcopop Tax' they just introduced. Rudd doesn't drink and both men are on the record as being anti-pornography.
It explains the zeal with which Conroy is pushing this through. Any politician with a brain would have looked at seen it was going to go to crap. But Conroy doesn't have to worry, because his prime minister is on a mission from God.
Don't vote for Conservative Christians. They ram their ideas down your throats, and there is no a damned thing you can do but wait to the next election.
You have posted anonymously and looking for Karma?
Sounds like masturbating on Eiffel Tower and hoping somehow it reaches Audrey Tautou!!!!
hilarious
Conroy is NOT conservative. The current Labor Government is a center left party. Not even the former conservative Howard government tried to do something like this.
Wow, the Commonwealth nations are more restrictive than the old USA. No guns, genuine Orwellian monitoring and censorship, the whole shot.
Nope, not going there.
This is what the Opposition Broadband Minister said:
"Like anything in life it's about finding the right balance between the basic freedoms we all expect to have in a democracy like ours while at the same time wanting to protect minors from exposure to material we prefer they didn't see. We think the arrangements that we had in place when we left office struck that balance. We'll watch the government's trials of this and we are prepared to consider what comes out of those trials. But our presumption is this cannot and will not work, it's very heavy-handed." http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;879301684;fp;4194304;fpid;1;pf;1
As for Conrad, I can't believe this guy. This is his testimony at a senate estimates hearing:
Senator Conroy: I trust you are not suggesting that people should have access to child p-rnography.
Senator Ludlam: No. That is why I was interested in asking about the law enforcement side of it as well.
Most countries have given up their guns. The United States, for example.
"But I have a gun!" you cry. Well, sure. But tell me this ...
Do you have a fully automatic gun with a 30-round magazine?
Do you have a tactical mortar?
Do you have fragmentation grenades?
Do you have a tank?
Do you have a nuclear-equipped ICBM?
Do you have a biological weapons facility that maintains live strains of anthrax, smallpox, and god knows what else?
The Constitution might say that we all have a right to "bear arms," but modern interpretation has lead that to really mean "only these arms." You might have a gun ...
But it is just a security blanket, and only effective against thieves (enemies of our big brother government, no less).
Mod parent up.
Most yanks don't seem to understand that violence is not the best answer to life's problems.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you can get enough of the ISPs to do it, a day or a week without internet connectivity might knock some sense into their legislators.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Maybe we can get some bullshit filters with our cp filters?
Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/bizt : States here that NZ has similar schemes implemented according to Conroy.
First time I've ever heard of such a scheme, or it doing aything.
WMD did exist. Talk about old rhetoric.
You should tell W. before he leaves office. Last we checked, he was still looking for them under his desk.
How much do politicians actually know about internet technologies?
Why do I have the feeling they do not understand it and do not know the full consequences of something like this?
the reference to Iran was about technical interference in the internet, not the level of censorship.
Most countries have given up their guns. The United States, for example.
"But I have a gun!" you cry. Well, sure. But tell me this ...
Do you have a fully automatic gun with a 30-round magazine?
Do you have a tactical mortar?
Do you have fragmentation grenades?
Do you have a tank?
Do you have a nuclear-equipped ICBM?
Do you have a biological weapons facility that maintains live strains of anthrax, smallpox, and god knows what else?
The Constitution might say that we all have a right to "bear arms," but modern interpretation has lead that to really mean "only these arms." You might have a gun ...
But it is just a security blanket, and only effective against thieves (enemies of our big brother government, no less).
All true, but the actual people manning those weapons are citizens and neighbors too. In the USA, if an order came down to bomb/assault a US town/city, the most likely reaction of the non-coms and even most career officers would be to refuse the order and relieve the ordering officer of duty and possibly throw him in lockup, or worst-case, shoot him if he persists/resists.
A large portion of the military these days is National Guard, and they would be even more reluctant to follow any such orders as they might be killing their own family members. Most likely, the local NG members would throw open the doors of the armories and armored unit motorpools to the citizenry under extreme circumstances and help them plan, organize, and equip themselves.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Ok bear with me here.... but, suppose they actually succeed in filtering out all the child porn on the net (its not going to happen, but lets just pretend)
What do the child molesters and pedophiles do when they cant get there fix, I mean I dont think that we should be condoning what they do, but surly someone who gets his rocks off at home under the glow of an LCD is better than someone doing it in front of a primary school or worse.
Anyway thats my two cents.
'If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.'
I suppose if you think you can agree or disagree about what falls under freedom of speech you have not understood the concept. I thought it basically meant that you not only let people have that freedom that agree with you, but also people that you disagree with. I certainly disagree with people watching child pornography. And I do think that people that hurt children need to be punished (really really hard), but I always thought that reading or watching something (as an aldult) does not hurt children.
Well, maybe he knows better than me. After all he his a government minister.
It will be a joyful day if Obama can win the election and signal an end to the United States injecting its toxic whackadoodle mix into the global vein. I do believe it's not a coincidence that normally reasonable countries like Canada, Australia, Germany, and France have been electing right-wing politicians as well.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Thanks for posting that. Remember the government has been giving away Net Nanny and the uptake rate was really low because I think most people aren't interested. This nanny state thing. Sheesh. How about parents parent their own kids. And what really bugs me here is Conroy's definition of 'illegal' - we've seen the government already really happy to suppress information on Euthanasia, Underbelly... What worries me is they're using our money to set up an infrastructure that will let them throw a switch and block out anything they don't think we should see. The way Conroy has barged off doing this, even accusing people criticising him of being child pornographers, it's very low: I just don't trust this guy.
I voted for Rudd to get rid of Howard. Not for this crap. I'm so looking forward to the next election.
You contradict yourself....
"Viewers of adult porn don't usually go out and become rapists do they?", then "your implication that blocking child porn would increase child abuse doesn't seem credible, in fact it is more likely to reduce it. The current situation probably tends to lead pedophiles to believe that their mindset is relatively normal which is far more dangerous to children."
In reality, most paedophiles don't molest children for the same reasons that most men don't rape women. Even those who think that sex with children is inherently harmless avoid sexual contact because of the effects of a socio-legal response for both themselves and children. From Freel (2003):
I suspect that blocking internet access to child pornography would increase rates of child sexual abuse, but not necessarily in the way many would imagine. Digital storage and distribution means that any scannable or digital material can survive forever and be distributed on a much wider scale than would be possible without the internet. This means that there will be less interest in new material being produced, which is obviously a good thing if the material in question is child pornography.
There will clearly be some paedophiles who would abuse children regardless, but they are in a tiny minority of what is a large but hidden demographic of paedophiles.
"The current situation probably tends to lead pedophiles to believe that their mindset is relatively normal which is far more dangerous to children."
What "current situation" are you referring to? I am a paedophile, I know that paedophilia is normal, but I don't molest children. Believing that a fantasy is normal doesn't mean that one considers acting on the fantasy to be acceptable. Freel's research also shows that:
From Hall, et al (1995):
"citation needed"
If you're referring to the argument that most child porn viewers don't molest children, see a collection of quotes here
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
This is not about doing it.
This is abpout prooving that it can be done.
And have that try paied by the australians.
If it works it will be applied to somwhere else.
"idle playthings."
It's time to move the government to us.
we are equating you, your government and your bunch with idiocy, ignorance and bigotry. you should shut up and do not mess with technical matters you do not understand. for, you clearly dont understand anything about how internet works.
when has electing ignorant idiots become a fad ?
Read radical news here
hell, im in turkey and all what the parent says is happening right under my nose.
if any of you americans are foolish enough as to disbelieve these, and mod truth flamebait because you cant make peace with it, i dont have anything to say to you.
Read radical news here
That's a thin shield. I'm much happier with a citizen army than any alternative, but I'd be even happier if I could register a militia and keep AKs and so forth in an appropriately secured facility, as a private citizen. I acknowledge that this would put me under greater scrutiny than normal citizens.
I think that National Guard troops would be willing to disregard orders to harm innocent citizens, but they could be misled without much trouble. Also, I think they would have trouble opening up their armories to random citizens except in the most extreme circumstances. Even if the US government turned entirely fascist and authoritarian, I doubt that would suffice, unless it were accomplished by violence.
but the actual people manning those weapons are citizens and neighbors too.
Isn't that always the case, though, when the military is used to suppress the population?
My other post got modded as -1, Troll.
I guess almost 100% of the users in here are the brainwashed variety who have been sucked into the media/EFF/whirlpool fud machine.
Have fun wallowing in your failure you imbeciles.
Add to that
4) Annoying ticker ads that run across the bottom of whatever you are watching
5) A Big Station Logo watermark stuck on the screen. "Wow! Where did they go? Ahah! There's the Millenium Falcon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Oh wait. That's the Channel (7) Logo. [Power Off]"
Instead of coming up with plans on how they could filter internet traffic, .. which they can't because once these providers notice this, they will just introduce ssl and there back where they started, worse they made it even harder to spot, you can not control the internet with filters or whatever, when are these morons going to learn this, .. they can better use this money that there using for these filters to assemble a team which looks for this stuff and have them report it to the appropriate authorities.
It's time that they put people in charge who know what they are talking about, instead of some idiots who think they know. Now they have spend all there time arguing about something which can never succeed, spend all this tax money and efforts for nothing.
Regards, ..
When is Australia going to erect a statue of Mao Tse-tung?
Seems that would be the next logical step after you censor the population.
I guess your government officials never heard the phrase "Be responsible for your own actions!"
People need to be able to decide for themselves what is objectionable and what is not. A government entity cannot do it for the whole population.
And what does the government consider objectionable? Porn? Hacking? Stories about government corruption?
You are not in control of what they will censor. They will decide what is best for you. You have no choice!
First they will censor your internet, then the media and before you know it, you will be no better off then China or any other communist country.
I can not believe a civilized country such as Australia would even consider this form of censorship.
Makes you wonder what direction the government is heading in.
TaZMAn
Stephen Rooster Conroy certainly is anything but a conservative. The current Australian Federal Government is run by the Australian Labor Party, generally a centre-left party. After running a campaign in the 2007 Federal Election against the socially & fiscally conservative Howard Government, Kevin Rudd (now Prime Minister) modelled himself as a mini-Howard trying to convince voters he was a safe choice as he also was a "fiscal conservative". This couldn't by further from the truth. From the immigration debacle, industry "picking winners" through the to most recent self made disaster with the the Australian financial system - this government, and Stephen Conroy, are anything but conservative.
Whether you are conservative or progressive is fine, but let's not call a rooster a swan.
centre-left parties do not censor their population. Conroy is a conservative and a fundamentalist Christian and he's pushing his values on everyone.
OK, lets get one thing clear, it doesn't matter about the speed. I don't care if it doesn't affect the speed, the issue is that it's a blacklist decided by a government department. Some public servant sitting in an office reads a comment on /. that's actually a joke about bomb plans on the internet, doesn't get the reference, then /. becomes a banned site because of "illegal content".
Don't think this can happen? Think about the stories of "wags" who miss their flight because they're asked a few questions by police about the "bomb in their luggage" joke they cracked to a mate as they were queuing for the plane. That is how Australia's net censorship plans will "work".
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
It is so sad that all this money and resources will be wasted on a system that probably won't even work. Hackers will get through whatever firewall they put up. There's some more at this interesting article.