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Australian Government Ignoring Problems With Proposed Filters
halll7 writes with an update to the proposed Australian national firewall we discussed recently. According to the BBC, "The official watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has been conducting laboratory tests of six filtering products, and the government plans a live trial soon. ... After its recent trials, ACMA reported significant improvements on earlier studies. The network degradation on one product was less than 2%, although two products were in excess of 75%." Now, Ars Technica reports that "an Australian newspaper has uncovered documents showing that the government minister responsible for the program has ignored performance and accuracy problems with the filters, then tried to suppress criticism of the plan by private citizens." The EFA has a great deal to say in opposition of these plans.
What is going on with anglo-saxon governments?
They used to be the vanguard of freedom and liberties! Now, they seem to be degrading into a spiral of power-hungry stupid obtuseness!!!
Is it something in the water, or the anglo-saxon culture has run it's course and is now totally decadent???
The Autrailian government is considering implementing a web filtering system - but they don't want people to know that it doesn't work.
Given that they state (in the cited article) that it will block "all illegal material", then by definition anything it allows through must therefore be legal, The only conclusion I can logically draw from this is that their government is against filtering, blocking or generally censoring the internet - but that they don't want their people to know this. Strange!
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That's weird, in the 15 years or so that I've been using the Web, I have never, ever, seen one single photograph that could be classified as "child porn".
I have seen some pictures of nude children in nudist camps and beaches, there are many beaches in Europe where whole families go totally nude. There are many so-called "teen" sites, which show nude women with small breasts and shaved pubic region, who could be of any age between 15 and 30.
But I never found one single picture of a child engaged in sex. This must be some different "internets" we are talking about. That, or people have extended the meaning of "child porn" to "any image I don't like".
Disclosure: I am American.
Now that we have that out of the way, I really don't feel the American government should be telling Australian government how to rule their own country ( This statement does not apply to things such as are killing political dissidents ). However, I would have no problem if the US government made it illegal for US government agencies to purchase equipment from any company who supplied a foreign country with this kind of filtering technology. The ban could be extended to any organization who receives any form of government support ( most of the collages in the US and for the next few years the entire US financial system ). Then, companies like Cisco would have to decide if they are going with China and Australia or the US.
There are ways to get what you want ( or this case, to do the right thing ) without directly going to another country, getting in their face, acting like arrogant Americans and telling them that they don't know what is best for their own country.
So, if Australia's filtering, that means I NEVER have to worry about getting in trouble for using the internet! Right?
A while ago, a place I used to work at implemented filtering. I was actually kinda happy about it! I no longer had to worry about going to an inappropriate site, because the filters would stop me from getting there. Great!
Except that, a few weeks later, the CEO sent an email to everyone stating how annoyed he was that people were trying to access the filtered sites. It didn't matter that the sites were blocked. It didn't matter that people never saw the blocked content! The mere fact that we were still adjusting to the new filters caused our CEO to chastise us about our internet usage.
And that's the ultimate insult with filtering- It doesn't matter if it works 100% perfectly. You will be expected to filter your brain as well. If the filter admins see that you're trying to access things that you cannot even access because of the filter, you WILL get in trouble.
Hopefuly the logout button worked this time, so i can post as an anonymous coward to protect my government job here in Australia.
Here's the issue as I see it.
I have parents who come up to me all the time(I work in education) telling me what software to use to stop the baddies from getting to their kids.
I ask them a simple question in return:-
"Do they have a computer in their room?"
Out of the ~150 that have asked me over the last 2 or 3 years now - 90% say yes(and half of said schools are primary!)
When i tell them to move their computer out into the lounge room and not let them onto the internet unsupervised- They usually :
1) Say "But thats too much effort!"
2) Give me a blank stare, as if i just accused them of being murderers.
Either way, my response to that is always:
"When you took your kids to the playground, you did not piss off down to the shops while they were there did you?"
Compare SlashDot.org to, say, Whirlpool.net.au
Last time I checked, SlashDot won't remove users' comments unless/until ordered by a Court.
Last time I read 3 user-forum threads at Whirlpool, there were an -average- of 5 remains of Whirlpool- moderators' work, ie, of removal of user comments from -each- thread.
Users have been -permanently- banned from posting on Whirlpool.net.au (eg, for about reminding people that French ISP plans offer unlimited downloads, include local & long-distance (within France) calls, plus some cable TV channels... all for about Au$45, at the time.)
Australian aren't really in favor of free speech, any more than recent (eg, Japanese) textbook re-writers are.
The world is looking, and Whirlpool, the gov't run ABC all "reserve the right to" remove posts that the owners don't like, long before courts are asked for a more objective opinion on the appropriateness.
AUSTRALIA: Slow, expensive Internet, soon to be filtered & even slower. Past is prologue.
Folks, we've had a documented "brain-drain" here, eg, in the previous reported year, and it's not over yet.
Low on the "fights corruption effectively" scale, Australian online institutions (like Whirlpool) can be "bought" and - when they are - freedome of speech is just a dream.
"How to make a small fortune in Australia? Bring a large one with you."
PS Whirlpool reportedly derives support from ISP contributions (not openly detailed by its owner(s), AFAIK), and - naturally - Telstra Big Pond is listed as "Big Pond" so as to raise its visibility in Whirlpool's alphabetized ISP listing... or was recently.
For a long time, its flow of Internet news front page was slower than molasses; of course, new news stayed queued until -one- person (the owner) decided to publish it, and it's not much better now...