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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???
"We have buttiduously canvbutted the industry, buttessed what is available and buttembled the finest selection of private contractors for this buttignment. The filters will buttociatively clbuttify all communications and filter then, I can butture you, rebuttemble them with surpbutting exacbreastude in any quanbreasty. Consbreastuents can be rebuttured that a mulbreastude of industry compebreastors will butture quality and keep our clbuttrooms safe. EDS Capita Goatse will not embarbutt us."
(Inspired by Daily WTF.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. - Plato
If anyone thinks this is about child porn, they are simply fooling themselves. This is about control. The governments of the world want the serfs to know who their masters are and what their place in society is. The easiest way to do that---as China has found out---is to limit the information coming into the country to that which is approved by the government.
This is nothing new: Australia is simply following an ages-old script. The difference between then and now is that you think you have control because you live in a democracy. Let me assure you that democracy and liberty are two entirely different things, and often are at odds. Please see Hoppe's Democracy: The God that Failed and Hayek's The Road to Serfdom for more detail.
The best reaction you can have to this is to encourage yourself and others (especially your own children) to differentiate respect for others' rights from respect for artificial "law", and to show the latter none while deferring to it only enough to keep from attracting too much attention. Defy all rules that have nothing to do with protecting the rights of others, and you are a free man; obey them, and you are a slave.
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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.
The Australian governments' proposed ISP filter system has little to do with censorship or child porn - it is all driven by Australian domestic politics.
The government requires control of the Senate to get its legislative program through. The Senate consists of 76 members, with the Government (ALP) holding 32 seats, the Opposition 37 seats, the Greens 3 seats, Family First 1 seat and one Independent senator.
The goverement requires the support of all non-Opposition memebers to get legislation passed - with Senator Steve Fielding, the Familiy First senator a vital supporter.
The Family First party is a socially conservative political party. Senator Fielding recieved 56,000 primary votes out of a 3.3M votes cast. However, through preference distributions he gained a quota and was elected.
Senator Fielding has demanded that the government implement porn filters, with ISP filtering being his method of choice.
So, the Australian government is implementing ISP filters, no because they work for filtering porn, but because they work at meeting their political needs. Complaining about the effects of ISP filters on freedom of speech or internet performance will fall on deaf ears - the filters will be implemented because they are critical to the governments tenuous control of the Senate.