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.
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
...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...
I think you have it backwards:
If the security angle is playing up, push through Patriot Act-like legislation.
If the public are using the child pornography ramrod, push through censorship legislation. You wouldn't want to look soft on paedophiles, would you?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You have completely lost your grip on reality.
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.
Well, mostly Australia is filled with vast areas that remain empty because of the harsh environment. The places that have an easy going environment, and regular rain, fringe the coastlines. The interior is harsh and brutal but, at the same time, beautiful. Along Australia's eastern coastline there is subtropical rainforest (both temperate and cool-temperate). Further north there is true tropical rainforest. Along the coasts there are huge areas of coastal heath. In the mountains and in place where rainforest is absent (mostly on rhyolitic soils) there is montane heath. Further south there is the montane snow fields. In Western Australia there is vast plains of heath like vegetation. In the centre where it is HOT and very dry, plants still thrive.
Every inch is inhabited by fauna that adapted and diversified over time to deal with the diverse conditions. Along the north-eastern coast there is the Great Barrier Reef which caused Captain Cook no end of grief--living "rocks".
So to answer your question: I think that Australia is full of life. Hope that helps.
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
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. . . .
There was no such evidence.
That's because there were no WMDs.
That's why you have no evidence to show, no links to connect to, nothing to provide any shred of evidence.
You can insist your fascist masters are not lying, but you can't find a shred of proof to back that up.
He who asserts must prove.
You've painted yourself with the color of lies and deceipt.
E
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
Yes, there is. Here
Actually Bill Clinton came to Bush's defense saying that for years first hand he saw plenty of intel proving the WMD existed.
Don't you mean he saw plenty of Intel proving that *AMD* existed?
And apologies for straying on-topic, but... you know it's time to move countries when your supposedly liberal (but in reality, only barely left of central) government starts introducing socially conservative policies such as this. Can we please have the Greens in power now? Thanks.
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-- INSERT --
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.
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
When you next have something to say, attach proof or it shall be given the attention it earns -- namely none.
Sorry you use a different dictionary. We don't all live in your hole. Get used to it.
E
"Conroy may be Labor by party, but would you call censorship on this scale progressive?"
I'm would not call myself a conservative and I am not in favour of censorship but what on earth makes you think that censorship is not promoted by some "progressives"?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Then where is it? That's right, it got away so no evidence is required!
We can be really thankful that Iraq had already been bombed into the third world over the course of a decade and that there were was no nerve gas to use on the troops. The reasons to go in were many, complicated and in IMHO mostly stupid but the WMD bullshit was a big PR campaign masquerading as intelligence information. Powell's presentation to the UN on the subject probably put back international trust about twenty years.
R.I.P. Zero-Punctuation
Everybody donate to buy Yahtzee a plane ticket out of Australia before he gets censored.
WMD did exist.
Yep, they know they existed! They kept the receipts!
I am not stubborn. I am right!
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.
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 forgot the cane toads. (http://www.badmovies.org/movies/canetoads/_
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.
I still don't see why that would be capitalised.
And yes he's from the right half of the Labor party, which compared which puts him somewhere left of Stalin in terms of US politics, and somewhere right of Menzies in terms of Australian...
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.
Good lord, you don't actually believe any of the crap you just spewed do you?
WMD did exist. Talk about old rhetoric.
Of course they existed -- past tense. That was never at question. That's why we had the UN inspectors there. But as the inspectors told us, and we later found to to be the case, most of those WMDS were either destroyed or not in any condition to where they could actually be used.
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.
That never happened. The announcement that we were going into Iraq was 48 hours before we did, not 2 weeks.
Despite that we still found missiles filled with Sarin gas, documentation for WMD, storage facilities for WMD, training manuals for WMD, etc.
We found chopped up missiles with sarin gas residue in the warheads. That is not the same as what you are suggesting. We found defunct, destroyed, and useless old chemical weapons. We never found ANYTHING that could have been used against us. Ever. That's a fact -- look it up.
And in fact, those destroyed warheads we did find were, right where we were TOLD they would be. It's not like it took any great detective work to find them -- we demanded documentation of all of Iraq's WMD programs before we invaded and amazingly -- they complied. Remember the footage of a table full of thick files, books, and covered in cd-roms that Iraq said was all of the information on all of their WMD programs? Remember how, just hours later, without even taking the necessary time to be able to pretend they had actually read all of that information (even with a team of a hundred people they would have needed a few days to process all of that) the Bush Administration immediately announced to the press that it was incomplete and false?
Yeah, we found documentation on WMDS -- they gave it us when we asked for it. We barked. They rolled over. That was the whole idea behind the resolution giving Bush the authority to go to war. We wanted to show Iraq we were serious so that they could capitulate and we could *avoid* war. Guess what? It worked. And, despite that, we went in anyways because the Bush wanted the war. He said from day 1 he was going into Iraq and he found a way to make it acceptable to the public -- he just had to lie a lot.
Bush won the war without ever going into Iraq, then somehow snatched defeat from the Jaws of victory. Whether this was due to some sort of "democracy will flourish in the middle east" naivete or just "daddy issues" as others have suggested, I have no idea and won't guess -- but the facts are the facts: We won the war in Iraq before it was a war -- and we threw that victory away when we went in.
We never found any documentation on WMDs that suggested the programs were still active. We never found any sort of weapon of mass destruction that wasn't just some rusted old hunk of metal in a scrap yard. We killed far, far more civilians (accidentally, of course -- don't suggest I am suggesting otherwise) than Saddam could have killed if we let him live out the rest of his life (he was clearly already knocking on Deaths door anyways). We've spent nearly a trillion dollars on the war. I won't even tell you all the ridiculous things we could do with that much money. It's 25 times the ammount we spend on education per year, and we spend more than anyone else. Don't even get me started on the cost to our troops. There's simply no metric by which you can look at this war, or the Bush administration by extension, and not conclude that it has been an unmitigated disaster for this country. It disgusts me, as does your willful ignorance and gleeful repetition of republican talking points and right-wing radio misinformation.
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).
Well, in this particular instance, its just complete and utter garbage.
There's about 1 million people living in detroit and about 400 murders per year. That's fairly bad.
Here's a link to 2006's muder rate: http://detroit.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm -- it was actually less than 400 in 2007. So we'll just say, about 400.
Now what someone is saying, when they make up a bullshit statistic like this one, is that there were fewer than 400 SOLDIERS killed. This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. This would be like comparing the number of police killed in Detroit to soldiers dead in Iraq, not civilians to soldiers. But moreover, there are about 8 times more people in Detroit than soldiers in ALL OF IRAQ -- and far fewer than that in just Baghdad. So of course, on a per capita basis, its just nonsense to say its "more dangerous" in detroit. Complete nonsense.
There have been over 29 civilians CONFIRMED as killed in the past WEEK (from last friday to this thursday) in baghdad. Just one week. At that rate, we're looking at about 1500 per year. Way higher than Detroit in a city with a much smaller population.
It turns out, that's a *GOOD* week. Check this out
From April 14th to 31st August, 2,846 violent deaths were recorded by the Baghdad city morgue. When corrected for pre-war death rates in the city a total of at least 1,519 excess violent deaths in Baghdad emerges from reports based on the morgue's records.
And last year? Try over 20 thousand confirmed civilian deaths. It's no wonder the fighting has died down since the surge -- there's hardly anyone left to kill. All the neighborhoods are now completely segregated because anyone who didn't flee is dead. That's one way to put an end to ethnic infighting -- not the one I would have chosen.
Nevertheless, suggesting the murder rate in Baghdad is less than Detriot for any period of time in the last 50 years is just a ridiculous joke. Like I said, the only way you could come even close to such a ridiculous number is if you ONLY COUNT American troop deaths in Baghdad. The most up to date information I could find suggests that we have roughly about 13,500 of our troops in Iraq in Baghdad. This falls WAY short of the 1 million people in Detroit. So saying that fewer of those 1 million people were shot than of the 13,500 troops is saying very, very, very little. It's per capita that matters here and that clearly has been ignored.
That's how easy it is to make a statistic lie -- thus explaining your Twain quote.
I took a look at at the statistics from Iraq Body Count and these seem to corroborate. Note however that the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count states that "Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are much higher than the numbers recorded on this site. ".
I haven't actually been following the whole situation lately, most of my knowledge stems from mid 2007, but there are still some critical voices. For example, take a look at this documentary by a Iraqi journalist with the Guardian from March who investigated U.S. claims concerning the success of the surge. In the beginning of the video concerning Baghdad he states: "It has been transformed into a city of walls.".
Note the following footage from before the invasion in 2003.
That might give you some more insight into the some of the reasons behind the statistics. There are a couple of more videos that I know of. Though note it was a while ago that I saw these, but I believe the information it offers is still quite important.
Such as the following short news report from March 2007, a quote:
Another (more lengthy report) aired on the September 2007 edition of People & Power, a news program by Al Jazeera English. It's made available through YouTube, Part I and Part II..
Here's a transcript from one of the interviews with some sort of local leader:
And the introduction from Part II:
Note that the sheik interviewed in the video (but not the one I transcripted above) and apparently portrayed by the U.S. as a key figure in controlling the tribes was assassinated shortly after arriving in Iraq.
Also I'm not sure if Angelina Jolie was amazed, her article in the Washington Post uses words such as "positive" and "hopeful". Amazed might be too strong of a word in this case.
I'm interested in your comments.
Perfect is the enemy of done.
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!
Despite that we still found missiles filled with Sarin gas, documentation for WMD, storage facilities for WMD, training manuals for WMD, etc.
Could you please provide a citation? Also most importantly those weren't the WMDs you were looking for ("But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.").
Also note that the U.S. actually supplied or played a significant role in acquiring these weapons during the Iran-Iraq war and from what I know the leftover weapon caches that were found weren't actually usable any more (also there was no clear intent on the part of the Iraqi regime to use them).
Though obviously we should not forget about the role others, such as Singapore, France and Germany and many many others, played in supplying Saddam (the obvious aggressor) with weapons.
Here's an interesting statement from Iraqgate: Confession and Cover-Up, though these aren't the weapons you mentioned.
The Wikipedia article is a good start, follow the sources given.
Perfect is the enemy of done.
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.
So censorship can't be progressive? Shall we talk about Woodrow Wilson?
There's 9 million people in the Baghdad metro alone and Iraq has just over 29 million which is countless more people alive than have been killed in the sectarian violence that has wracked the country.
I'd say the deaths are down as a result of coalition and Iraqi operations than just lack of "anyone left to kill". Perhaps the Shia/Sunni segregating themselves made some difference too; the rate is down due to several variables.
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.
I thought this was settled a long time ago, but apparently some of you twits still insist on believing the lies told by the left. Why the news media has not followed up on this old report you'll have to answer for yourself.
Monday, April 26, 2004
OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Saddam's WMD have been found
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms
Posted: April 26, 2004
1:36 p.m. Eastern
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
© 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.
New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success than is being reported.
Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media and by critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all.
But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.
In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles -- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight.
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner.
The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war.
Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects."
They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence.
"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight.
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area.
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice.
Among Kay's revelatio
No Platform is exactly that - a bunch of unemployable lefties who think that bad words can hurt their delicate little ears, or perhaps a bunch of fascists who think that denying free speech to those with whom they disagree is somehow "progressive".
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
A serious shortfalling of Western democracies is that if the government (and associated media) manage to misinform the majority of the public to believe a lie, they are allowed and expected to act on that lie.
If I hadn't wasted all my modpoints on a debate of the finer points of copyright yesterday, you would certainly be getting a +10 True.
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Posting to nullify slip-up in moderation. You deserved a "funny"!
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.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/
If I recall correctly (it's been 4+ years), they're honestly not even sure that shell was even Iraqi.
'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.
Actually the idea of "no platform" has got nothing about words hurting ears, and a lot to do with actions hurting people.
For a discussion, start reading this thread The Philosophy of Anti-fascism at RevLeft.
No Plaformism rejects the right of fascists to organise, because they are a menace.
Anyway, lots of anti-fa types (including myself), reject any and all government censorship, but at the same time support community efforts to fight fascism and racism.
Anyway, so I guess you support the right of fascists, and other scum (inc. the KKK in the USA), to organise, go around encouraging violence against "non-whites" and even beating up "immigrants" (many of whom were born in the country, and who's parents were born in the country). ). (The sort of violence I'm talking about happens a lot in the UK and other parts of Europe.)
Anti-Fa opposes fascists because their actions are dangerous, not their words.
I wank in the shower.
As someone from Michigan, I can assure you that if a location exists that isn't Detroit, it's safe to assume it's safer than Detroit.
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
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.
A Jamaican friend of mine summed it up for me - he doesn't care what any bigot says, and will happily tell them so to their faces.
Also, if you reject any and all government censorship, then I assume you are against the censorship of anti-semitic / racist / anti-gay speech under the law.
Speech is not the same as action - if someone goes around beating others up (for whatever reason), there are plenty of laws to deal with it without invoking the 'No Platform' idea.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Here you go, every scrap of tangential evidence pertaining, even remotely to WMDs. Clicky If this is the best that the world's right-wingers can come up with, I'd consider Enderandrew throughly debunked.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
What if it's the only way to stabilize things, though?
Actually, my opinion of the liberal movement is that they want complete control. Their thought is, we know how to handle your [money, job, family, education, etc] better than you do. So let us take care of you and don't worry about that guy behind the curtain.
In my opinion, the Conservative movement has the stance of get the government out of my life and let me run my business the way I want.
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
Also, child porn is no more a drug for pedophiles than legal porn is a drug for normal folks.
And yet there is a link between legal porn and addiction. From the always-trusted-and-reliable Wikipedia:
"Pornography addiction can be defined as a psychological addiction to, or dependence upon, pornography, theoretically characterized by obsessive viewing, reading, and thinking about pornography and sexual themes to the detriment of other areas of one's own life."
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
"Well, I don't support the right of any group to break the law, but I do support free speech, no matter who is speaking or what they are saying. A Jamaican friend of mine summed it up for me - he doesn't care what any bigot says, and will happily tell them so to their faces."
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our mind." - Bob Marley.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Was that ever actually true? If it was, I'd call it the good old days.
Of course, during the time it might have been true (goldwater?) the US government was busy having the FBI execute black militants, so they didn't have to hit too high of a standard to be the movement of less intrusive government.
"idle playthings."
Allow me to quote Bill Hicks:
"Playboy doesn't lead to sexual thoughts. There ARE sexual thoughts and therefore there is Playboy."
Learn something new.
A serious shortfalling of Western democracies is that if the government (and associated media) manage to misinform the majority of the public to believe a lie, they are allowed and expected to act on that lie.
I'm sorry but this is rubbish. The public chose to be misinformed because Americans wanted to lash out. Afghanistan was not enough. They wanted blood in retaliation for 9/11.
The rest of the world didn't believe in this war from the start as they knew there were no WMD's that were a threat to anyone, let alone the USA half a world away. They knew Al Qaeda had been kept out of Iraq by the Baathists. I lived in Canada at the time (currently in the US) and no one believed that the US govt was telling the truth. The reason they got away with the lies in the US was because the public wanted blood.
The real problem with democracy is that sheeple get to vote
Well, note I did say Conservative, not necessarily Republican. Particularly when the Democrats voted the current Republican nominee, and the Democrat(ic) nominee is a socialist.
:pDemocrats = being run by loonies who want to tax & spend and wants us to suck off the government teet
:^/
Currently:
Republican = says they're less government and not tax & spend, but really they're no tax and all spend... thanks guys
/where's my motivation to improve if I'm given everything? It didn't work for Russia, it's not going to work for the USA. And China's this weird version of captialist socialism which is eventually going to fail.
Oh, to answer your question... yes, my idea is sort of a utopian idea
And do you really believe that the US forces would let a celebrity travel without armed escorts, people cleaning the trail ahead, and an itinerary planned by US forces? May have well been a congressional trip to Iraq(read: useless)
From the linked article: "As I noted in previous posts, the AP reports that the number of violent deaths in the entire country of Iraq has recently hovered at about 500 per month."
Okay, that's 500/month compared to Detroit's 400/year. I think your math is off a little.
Bullish Machine Tzar
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
I truly believe that we will be doomed under Obama, but to a lesser extent than if we elect McCain (the current poll has a nice little flame war about this).
I am an independent, and have written in Cthulhu in pretty much every major election. However, I do tend to lean pretty left in local matters (I voted for a socialist), because republicans try to lower taxes and institute computerized voting and democrats/independents seem to try to fix our failing infrastructure without raising taxes above inflation rates (this is the local level, where I'm on a first name basis with both candidates. YMMV.)
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
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.
What makes you think the Klan is forbidden to organize in this country? They're perfectly legal, as long as all they do is talk. As soon as they start hitting/shooting, they get arrested just like anyone else who starts hitting/shooting.
Of course, you're talking about the UK. The country that brought us the surveillance society....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The reason they got away with the lies in the US was because the public wanted blood.
Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Please, stop posting in this thread: some interesting comments are showing up but yours isn't one of them.
The real problem with democracy is that sheeple get to vote
Yes, because matters are so much better in countries where people don't get to vote.
Get a grip.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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?
He's talking Baghdad and Detroit. You're talking Iraq and Detroit. Seems like you're off a little. Mentally.
what on earth makes you think that censorship is not promoted by some "progressives"?
None whatsoever, but a "porgressive" who advocates censorship isn't much of a progressive. I offer the Democratic party of the US as a sterling example of such.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Excellent reference. Touche.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
That may well be. I saw some very interesting maps of Iraq showing ethnic distributions now and 2 years ago, however, and they suggest to me that Sunni and Shia Muslims have completely segreated themselves from each other in Iraq. Before they were fairly evenly distributed, now each neighborhood is fairly solidly either one ethnicity or the other. Many people far smarter than myself have suggested that this is, in fact, the real reason behind the decline of violence.
I have no idea which it is, but most likely its probably some combination of the two. I'm sure the US efforts have had at least some results.
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, ..
To once again be serious we can be extremely thankful that there is nothing but an own goal with propaganda instead of a lot of dead, gassed troops. At short range the very primative technology in the roadside bombs (ask any vet for detail on how simple the things are to make) has proved suprisingly effective against anything short of tanks, but the nerve gas etc thankfully doesn't exist outside of Rumsfeld's mind. The very brutal war against Iran and other uses nearly a couple of decades ago used up all the nerve gas that we were stupid enough to sell to them. Perhaps we were stupid enough to sell some to the Saudis which might get used against us in the future but for now the WMD hoax on Iraq is a completely dead issue.
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.
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.