Australia's ISPs Speak Out Against Filtering

daria42 writes "The leaders of three of Australia's largest internet service providers — Telstra Media's Justin Milne, iiNet's Michael Malone and Internode's Simon Hackett — have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why ISP-level filtering won't work. Critics of the policy also say that users will have no way to know what's being filtered."

Comments

It will ruin the politians involved

[Anonymous Coward]

I take comfort in the fact that once typical people are aware their internet is being filtered and monitored they will start blaming every internet slow down and disconnection on it.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[BrokenHalo]

maybe i'm wrong, and Australians are more receptive to the voice of reason than Americans are. but then again, a rational society would not be facing this dilemma, since they wouldn't put anyone in power who'd even be considering this kind of nationwide internet censorship. i mean, the Chinese at least have an excuse since they don't really elect their government officials. but Australia?

Unfortunately, America doesn't have a total monopoly on stupidity. Australia didn't really have much choice at the last election. The incumbent Prime Minister was an outright fascist who was so in love with himself that he refused to accept the value of anyone else's point of view, and his replacement is an insufferable narrow-minded suburban prig with as much imagination as one might expect from the glorified parking attendant that he is.

Sure, the Prime Minister's office will no doubt spin this any way it likes, but when it comes down to it, the policy is still driven by the so-called "moral panic" imperative. We never voted for internet censorship (that idea wasn't mentioned in the run-up to the election) but that won't stop them trying to get it through.

The silver lining is that they have to sweet-talk a lot of MPs to get the policy through Parliament, so there's hope that they might still get the kick in the pants that they deserve.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[philspear]

just like people blame their internet slow down and disconnections on ISPs overselling far beyond their hardware capacity and creating unnecessary network overhead through the use of traffic monitoring/filtering & packet shaping technology?

Most people don't understand what that means. I've been lurking on YRO slashdot for a while and I'm not too clear on packet shaping (not asking, that's not my point). "Government is monitoring your internet and that's slowing it down" is a lot clearer.

Most important difference though: you can't vote against your ISP. You can switch, but they all kind of screw you over, right? At the very least, people generally seem to be concerned with price more than ethics of their ISP. You can, however, vote for the party that says "We're going to fix your internet and privacy rights at the same time!" And it won't cost you anything more than voting FOR internet censorship. ...at least, that's one theory on what might happen. I have no crystal ball. If it's not an issue with the average australian voter, then it's not going to be an issue.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[rohan972]

Further to the fact that Mr Howard was pretty much doing his best to turn AU into another US state

No, a US states citizens would be protected by the bill of rights. Howard would have done anything to stop that, you don't think he was a 2nd amendment fan do you?

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[electrictroy]

I think the previous two posters are correct. Here's how it will be reported by the television media:

>>> Australia's ISPs Speak Out Against Filtering

"Once again the mega-corporations are putting profit before morality, said Politician Joe Smith. Added his collegue Senator Sarah Jane: "What do they care if your children are exposed to pornography, or child molesters post their smut online? We need this filtering in order to protect our youngest citizens from corruption, and we can not allow corporate greed to derail us from out goal."

Our reporters than spoke to a few average people on the street, including a mother of two: "I don't know much about the internet, but I know I don't want that filth coming in my home! I'm glad our leaders are acting to stop it." And a businessman: "Clearly we can't allow open access; the government needs to regulate for the benefit of all." Later we spoke to a college student who felt the internet should not be censored: "Yo dude, don't be censoring my internet, that's bogus!"

-

You can't count on either politicians or the television media to do accurate reporting. They will twist the events in order to fit into their own preconceived notions. What Babylon 5's "The Illusion of Truth" for an example of this.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[mabinogi]

They need the Greens too, and they're not interested.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[Dracophile]

We never voted for internet censorship (that idea wasn't mentioned in the run-up to the election)

That's not entirely true. The ALP had internet filtering on their platform before the election. It was going to be an opt-out thing back then, but you can't get away with saying you didn't know they had this in mind. It's why I put their candidate in 4th place on my ballot paper, in spite of the then-leader of the Liberal Party and most of his cabinet being a bunch of irredeemable fucktards worthy of just about anything being done to remove them. Now if they'd just make it optional preferential voting like we have in NSW, I could cast a formal vote for a federal candidate that doesn't in any way assist either the ALP of the Libs.

Re:It will ruin the politians involved

[afxgrin]

"Once again the mega-corporations are putting profit before morality, said Politician Joe Smith. Added his collegue Senator Sarah Jane: "What do they care if your children are exposed to pornography, or child molesters post their smut online? We need this filtering in order to protect our youngest citizens from corruption, and we can not allow corporate greed to derail us from out goal."

LOL corporate greed. These people are hilarious. This isn't like TV, where you go to a channel and you get content delivered to you. The Internet basically gives you what you want - information - and if you go looking for corruption, you will likely find it. Instead, this Aussie government wants to piss away tax dollars trying to control the multi-tentacled information beast.

Oh no, parents needing to be with their children when they use a computer, having to make sure they aren't looking at pornography! Oh no, people needing to take at least minimal care of their children.

Holy shit, I think I get it now ... the Australian government should spend BILLIONS trying to regulate the Internet, so that parents can simply plop their children infront of a computer, and not have to interact with them any longer. So that their children will never be exposed to the interaction of the body parts that basically provided their means of existence!

The child molester issue is worth fighting, but trying to censor content is a giant waste of time and money. No one likes the idea of adults trying to lure children.

Maybe someone can find some dirt on Mr. Joe Smith, see what mega-corporations he's ok with making a profit. Such as ... the recording and movie industry, who already want content control ...

And if you want to make sure your kids aren't lured in by random internet creepies, don't let them use public chat rooms, exchange private email with strangers, don't let them talk using in-game VoIP ... the level of censorship required to provide 99.98% protection against internet based sexual predators would be far too high (bankrupting any company implementing it), because they would need censors/monitors in every public chatroom, on every teamspeak session, in every online video game ... good luck with that.

How long must we wait before most politicians are reasonably competent about these issues?

Well, maybe we know...

[SEWilco]

Zero comments. Maybe this post is being filtered in Australia.

Re:Well, maybe we know...

[Anonymous Coward]

That can't be true - I'm posting from Austr

Re:Well, maybe we know...

[jamesh]

I don't think Slashdot will be filtered... according to the summary:

"The leaders of three of Australia's largest internet service providers -- Telstra Media's Justin Milne, iiNet's Michael Malone and Internode's Simon Hackett -- have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why excellent and much looked forward to ISP-level filtering will work exactly as designed. Critics of the policy have now come to their senses and have also put forward their full support."

So as you can see we have nothing to worry about.

Re:Well, maybe we know...

[master5o1]

So posting from Australia is like saying candlejack. You either die or don't comple

Re:Well, maybe we know...

[Jesus_666]

I'm posting from Australia as well and the situation here is PERFECTLY FINE. Internet access in Australia is FAST AND CHEAP as it is, but now they're filtering all kinds of SITES NORMAL PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO VISIT ANYWAY. I also suspect they LEAVE INTACT all outgoing data so as to LET EVERYONE ENJOY THEIR FREE SPEECH.

Seriously, what kind of EXTREMELY LIKABLE AND INTELLIGENT government comes up with something like that? Australia is really looking more and more like AN UTOPIA. I'm going back to THE OUTBACK as fast as I can. DON'T LOOK FOR ME, I'M GOING TO STAY OUT THERE FOR A WHILE.

This government is really naive

[Anonymous Coward]

IaaA (I'm am an Australian)

If they think they can start censoring things they don't want us to read using child pornography as an excuse, they're really underestimating our intelligence. Everybody knows why KRudd wants this, he has some really unpopular solutions to problems nobody cares about (or those that don't even exist). Who knows what the great firewall of Australia would filter out?

Many technical users will bypass this in a matter of minutes. People should ask for a personal refunds from the morons who devised this scheme, taking back the tax money they wasted from their own pockets and giving it back to hardworking Australians.

Re:This government is really naive

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't say anything when they took your guns. You won't say anything when they take your voices, either.

Re:This government is really naive

[rtb61]

What is really odd about all this, is it was launched by what is now the opposition party, the Liberal party (think of a fairly even mix between the US libertarian party and the Democrats, Australia doesn't really have anything like the Republicans except for fringe political parties). So normally you would expect them to back away from this, one can alone think that the proprietary creators of the filtering have done a truly spectacular and likely very 'generous' snow job, just think millions of licences, annual update costs, filtering updates, and the inevitable targeted biases in accidental filtering.

There seems to be this growing paranoia amongst those that perceive themselves as the ruling class, that the internet is truly taking their power away and redistributing amongst the masses. The reality is the mots radical and destructive ideas tend to filter themselves out of the internet through lack of 'genuine' interests, sure a lot of people will review them for a bit of a chuckle but that is all they get out of it. Filtering is pointless at the general access level, keep it out in the open, where the problem can be readily identified and where laws are being broken, the perpetrators prosecuted. Burying underground solves no problem and can leave the general public a bit naive when it comes to some of the problems out there that they via their government need to deal with.

You don't block people from viewing hate messages on the internet, you simply prosecute those who are inciting the violence and so controlling the guilty and not the innocent.

Re:This government is really naive

[TapeCutter]

"People should ask for a personal refunds from the morons who devised this scheme"

IaaA and yes this is a complete waste since there is already an ISP sponsered option for filters and everyone knows this mandatory crap will get nowhere. KRuddy is pandering to this guy who (under certain circumstances) holds the balance of power in the senate, this dick sells his vote to whoever will "do something about the internet" - so KRuddy is doing "something" in order to gain Fielding's support to get certain more serious legislation passed through the senate. KRudy and Conroy are doing their best to weaken Fielding via "Conroy's" plan. The ISP's are already foaming at the mouth so I would say it seems to be working and come next election the senator may get booted out and the FF party may just find themselves in a political desert, it's just like the simarly rediculous "One Nation" party - it's highly likely many of their supporters are the same nuts under a different flag.

The mandatory thing will come to naught (as it has done every other time for the last 10-15yrs), the money is being wasted and will continue to be wasted by both major parties in an effort to appease and curry favour from a pro-censorship minority that, no matter how irksome, do have a right to be heard (now that's irony!).

Re:This government is really naive

[walshy007]

You didn't say anything when they took your guns.

some of us were too young to have any say in it at the time (1990) and while even more strict and limiting laws have been applied since then, the general public's view of firearms is only what they see in cop shows and action movies

It's those views that really harm shooting as a sport, and I know people who want all firearms in the country banned except for police.

Their view is nobody needs them, nobody needs to go rock climbing either, but should we ban it because some people like to be idiots and hurt themselves every few years? I have no qualms about requiring licenses for people who own firearms, hell even the whole requiring a safe over x kg or permanently bolted to a building foundation, but some of the limits are just too much.

as an example, I've always wanted a walther ppk, something just reeks of class about it, anyway I have no chance in hell of ever owning or using one in Australia, because it's 'too small'

granted, my other favourite firearm is justified in the limiting of civilians having access to, the aug steyr, it's a semi/fully automatic assault rifle, however being in the military solved that problem. I'll never own one, but using and practising with them all the time is nice.

Former prime minister John Howards irrational fear of firearms was clearly evident on one of the few times he went to speak to concerned firearm owners, he wore a bulletproof vest...

that pretty-much sums it up I guess. But the biggest problem is the general public's lack of knowledge of firearms, and lack of experience, that which people don't know they fear.

Re:This government is really naive

[doktorjayd]

actually,

the _vast_ majority of us didnt want guns fucking over our stable society as they do in the USA.

alas, the proposed filtering scheme will not ( aside from slowdown of networks ) affect the _vast_ majority of people at all - and the ones that it seems to be intended to foil ( kiddie porn fiends, copyright fiends ) will very quickly and easily be able to work around the filters.

i've written to the relevant senator here ( and of course got no reply ), trying to point things like ssh tunnels and proxy servers, but to no avail. ( not to mention https or any other transport layer security schemes )

it should also be noted that the project was started by the previous government, and looks more to be the relevant body (ACMA - australian communications and media authority ) following through on the original direction.

all up, it is pretty sinister as it really does imply someone will be watching over what you see, and i presume there will be a need to capture and analyse all request and response data in order to let someone consult a little red book of sanctioned content.

what is really obvious in all of it is that the people directing this really dont have much of a grasp on how the internet works.

in my comment to the minister, i even used a car analogy: to prevent the spread of unauthorised material, police will be required to stop and inspect every vehicle on every trip, and to keep a detailed inventory of everything on board.

Re:This government is really naive

[doktorjayd]

But the biggest problem is the general public's lack of knowledge of firearms, and lack of experience, that which people don't know they fear

... and if you dont do what i say i'll shoot you.

thats pretty much why the _vast_ majority of australians dont want guns in our society - there simply isnt a need, and the risk that a fuckwit with a short fuse and a .22 can kill with little more than pulling a trigger far outweighs the benefits of ' ohhh but i really want a gun'.

funnily, the more an individual wants guns the less stable they come across - furthering the argument against them having said weapon(s).

as for the 'sport' of it - i've always thought it a stretch at best to call it that - how much of a sweat do you work up pulling a trigger?

Re:This government is really naive

[timmarhy]

funny it's anti gun types like you who go straight for the do as we say type policies. you are also always the ones claiming to speak for EVERYONE.

has the last 10 years of anti gun policy in this country lowered the murder rate? http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buyback-has-no-effect-on-murder-rate/2006/10/23/1161455665717.html i think not

there is an old saying "an armed society is a polite society". perhaps this is why the streets are full of little thugs, because there is no danger of anyone fighting back and the cops are laughably under resourced. and no before you go off on some tangent about the wild west, it's not gun battles in the street that stop crimminals, the mere fact it MIGHT happen to be them that gets blown away that stops them.

Re:This government is really naive

[rohan972]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_rebellion
The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success.

They ended up getting what they wanted, even though they could not prevail militarily. Similar results were obtained in Australia from the Eureka Stockade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Stockade where they were overcome, but within a year had achieved most of their goals, the leader even being elected into the Victorian Legislative Assembly (one of their grievances was not having the right to vote, taxation without representation).

Resistance to the government doesn't have to mean "fight to the death of the last man standing". Even the Magna Carta didn't happen as a result of deposing the King, this is something you ought to know about for someone who claims that people with a different view to you lack knowledge of history.

Re:This government is really naive

[jonaskoelker]

the aug steyr, it's a semi/fully automatic assault rifle,

You don't need to explain to us what the aug steyr is. It was in counterstrike.

Re:This government is really naive

[walshy007]

funnily, the more an individual wants guns the less stable they come across - furthering the argument against them having said weapon(s).

or rather, the more stable people who want firearms know that anyone who speaks up about it is automatically regarded as at best a bit out there, at worst psychopath by people, as you clearly demonstrate.

I already know nothing I say will ever be taken into consideration by an anti-firearm person, because I will have already been written off as one, no matter how good the arguments are.

as for the 'sport' of it - i've always thought it a stretch at best to call it that - how much of a sweat do you work up pulling a trigger?

None to perhaps a little, but how much sweat do you work up playing chess? should it also be disregarded completely as a sport also?

If you think shooting is so easy, assuming your australian, try competing against one of our olympic athletes in their class of shooting, if you can beat them you will moot my argument that it is not a sport. Just because you don't break a sweat doesn't mean it can't take tremendous amounts of skill to do extremely well.

... and if you dont do what i say i'll shoot you. thats pretty much why the _vast_ majority of australians dont want guns in our society - there simply isnt a need, and the risk that a fuckwit with a short fuse and a .22 can kill with little more than pulling a trigger far outweighs the benefits of ' ohhh but i really want a gun'.

come on now, that's just fear mongering, we all know that the 'bad guys' don't follow the laws anyway, all you are doing is taking it away from people who obey the law, and, if you think it lessens the availability of said firearms to people who want them, I sincerely disagree, it is not terribly hard to acquire an illegal firearm, but most people have the morals to not do so.

The only reason I don't own the ppk I mentioned I'd like is for moral reasons, letting the government make everyone who likes shooting be a criminal is fine with them, don't let them have their way.

Perhaps your wondering why I still argue even though I know my opinion will be discounted by the anti-firearm people, it is simply because by completely giving in and not objecting clearly and concisely why for the reasons they bring up, the people who want to take our freedom to enjoy a sport away win.

That is all from me, I look forward to your reply, it has been rather long so if I was unclear on anything please ask :)

Re:This government is really naive

[MrKaos]

thats pretty much why the _vast_ majority of australians dont want guns in our society - there simply isnt a need,

And the vast majority of Australians are so apathetic that they don't recognise *why* there is a need. The series of laws that were passed after Port Arthur and justified as useful for the 2000 Olympics have yet to be sunsetted. As they are no longer neccessary is an extremely unsettling development considering Australia does not have a bill of rights like UK or US citizens but, 'she'll be right mate'(???).

That's why I credit the designers of the American constitution, they knew that the constitution was flawed enough let it slip into despotism, that's why Americans are armed. At the same time the rampant stupidity that is allowed with American weapons laws is the reason it needs some regulation and review.

funnily, the more an individual wants guns the less stable they come across - furthering the argument against them having said weapon(s).

So did you write to a politician protesting any of the terrorism laws that were passed? I actually think Australians would be better off with a few more weapons because our laws were very pragmatic about the way firearms licences were issued and, therefore, who could own a firearm. I don't recall the massacres that occured in Australia were conducted with 'legal' firearms, and Port Arthur has some uncomfortable facts connected to it. So considering that the illegal firearms used in those terrible events were a policing issue not a licencing issue, the premise of deregistering firearms owners in Australia was a political issue.

Of course, once you learn how to handle firearms you respect them, and are very careful with the grave responsibility you posess. It's the extreme of any safety based culture that you find in industry.

as for the 'sport' of it - i've always thought it a stretch at best to call it that - how much of a sweat do you work up pulling a trigger?

Hunting is a skill that goes beyond shooting a target and being a sport.

The ecology of firearms in Australia is the protection of native species. Humans introduced foxes, feral cats and dogs, pigs, goats, buffallo, camels, horses and rabbits that decimate the native population of animals, well over 500,000 species. Yellow tailed rock wallabys (a small, and very cute version of a kangaroo) don't stand a chance against a 60kg feral cat that some careless individual decided to irresponsibly dump in the bush once upon a time.

So it's also stewardship of this continent to protect native species by balancing out the damage humans have done by introducing those species in the first place.

If a farmer has to kill the animals he raised because they were severely burnt in a bushfire a firearm is the most merciful way possible. Below a certain calibre of weapon you are just prolonging the suffering, for the farmer as well. All of that takes skill.

I doubt that events now unfolding in the congo would be the same if thier population was armed. Firearms, owned, maintained and used responsibly with the proper training represent more than just a hunters weapon or a farmers tool. It also represents a long forgotten aspect of the civil rights movement that was maginalised by the 'shooters party' clumsy attempt to retain ownership of thier firearms in Australia.

An armed population is a symbolic counterpoint to a government becoming a dictatorship. It also says that government should fear law abiding citizens, not the other way around.

Re:This government is really naive

[Canberra Bob]

"... and if you dont do what i say i'll shoot you."

Where in the previous post was this ever mentioned? So you have made up something the previous poster never said, then use your made up statement as proof that gun owners are unstable. I would laugh if I did not see this used time and time again.

"funnily, the more an individual wants guns the less stable they come across - furthering the argument against them having said weapon(s)."

Here we go again

There was nothing unstable in that previous post. And yet again we have a repeat of the usual. Make up something about the previous post that was never there.

Read the study by Melbourne University. To quote the abstract of the study "The Australian Firearms Buyback and Its Effect on Gun Deaths"

"The results of these tests suggest that the NFA did
not have any large effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates."

It will start with Child Porn...

[Airw0lf]

...next it will be used to silence political dissent, and then the content cartel will lobby to block everything from torrent trackers to sites that about console homebrew software.

Oh wait it's already happening - from TFA:

Conroy's mandatory Internet filtering proposal caused a stir last week when it was revealed a member of his department had tried to censor severely critical comments made on the Whirlpool broadband forum by an Internode network engineer regarding the merits of ISP level filtering.

Re:It will start with Child Porn...

[QuantumG]

Actually, what they want to ban is this:

Publications that:
(a) describe, depict, express or otherwise deal
with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction,
crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or
abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they
offend against the standards of morality,
decency and propriety generally accepted by
reasonable adults to the extent that they
should not be classified; or
(b) describe or depict in a way that is likely to
cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person
who is, or appears to be, a child under 18
(whether the person is engaged in sexual
activity or not); or
(c) promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime
or violence

The way that this is done with films, books, etc, is that everything must be reviewed before it can be made available to the public. Consider how fucked the internet would be if they applied that standard.

Re:It will start with Child Porn...

[philspear]

The way that this is done with films, books, etc, is that everything must be reviewed before it can be made available to the public. Consider how fucked the internet would be if they applied that standard.

I'd be interested in getting a position with the australian government in monitoring the internet, specifically the porn portion. I have extensive experience.

Attention, Senator Conroy

[Jacques Chester]

You have managed to make Telstra into one of the good guys. This is an unnatural state of affairs. Reality will snap back to normal, and as the man defying it, you may be in for some serious harm.

Technical arguments are counter-productive

[QuantumG]

The purpose of this filtering is not to keep child porn away from pedophiles. It's not to keep hard-core porn away from people who wanna whack off. The purpose is to stop Mum and Dad and the kids from stumbling upon this stuff. Sure, if they can stop people who want this stuff from getting it, they'll do that too, but they're happy that they've put some effort into stopping it. Having Customs officers review the contents of video tapes does not stop people from getting this material through the mail, but it does stop some of this material from getting through the mail.. and the slowdown caused by Customs officers is considered acceptable.

Filtering websites with this material is easy. You just force the ISPs to blacklist certain addresses from their DNS, and hire some puritans to maintain the blacklist. No, it isn't perfect, but neither are Customs officers. And it won't even result in much of a slow down.

These technical arguments are being raised by people who are against filtering in principle. They are against censorship and, frankly, so am I! The technical arguments are being raised because these people don't want to enter into a censorship debate. Why? Because they perceive that this ship has already sailed. We've had censorship in Australia for decades, and arguing now that censorship is wrong and the government shouldn't be doing it, is considered by many to be futile.

I disagree. I believe we should be speaking out against censorship. I believe we should be ignoring censorship laws and fighting to have them overturned.

NC = censorship. End censorship now!

Re:Technical arguments are counter-productive

[Jacques Chester]

The technical arguments are not counter-productive. If filtering is technically unviable and the government tries to proceed anyway, then it exposes with great clarity that the motives are not about filtering per se.

Re:Technical arguments are counter-productive

[QuantumG]

But it is viable. I just told you how to do it and anyone with a vague idea of how a DNS server works can see how trivial it is.

Screaming about how "impossible" it is just makes it a challenge.

Re:Technical arguments are counter-productive

[jaa101]

Precisely wrong. The purpose of this filtering _is_ to block kiddie-porn, XXX ... all `illegal to possess' content. We wouldn't care if there was an optional porn filter for the kids but what's come out recently is that there will also be a mandatory filter. Government studies agree that this filtering has false positives, false negatives and a performance impact. They think it's good enough but slashdot types can well imagine that it will be inadequate, ineffective, expensive and slow down and/or break the web for everyone in oz. Our ISPs are against it because they can well imagine how their customers, help desks and ultimately their bottom lines will suffer.

Re:Wow..

[Jacques Chester]

Australia's constitution does not have an explicit guarantee of free speech. However in a series of cases starting in the 80s the High Court have found an 'implied right' to free political speech.

The reasoning runs thus:
* All Australians are guaranteed a right to vote in elections.
* To vote in an election you need to be able to inform yourself.
* In able to inform yourself you need to be able to freely discuss political matters.
* Ergo, political speech is protected.

This means that the whole project may be unconstitutional as any filter must necessarily cause false positives for political matters. If not, nothing stops websites from adding a "we hate the censorship laws and the ALP" statement to the footer of every page to force the matter.

Proxy versus proxy hunter arms race

[mlts]

Just like DRM, all this filtering will do is cause trouble with the honest users.

The real criminals will just use a VPN, perhaps a VPN over port 80 so it can't be distinguished from SSL traffic without deep packet inspection.

Does the Aussie government want to try to play this arms race? There is little to be gained, assuming they want to remain an open society.

Re:Proxy versus proxy hunter arms race

[zappepcs]

That is exactly what I was thinking. This arms race can escalate pretty damned fast, and at little cost to the user's fighting the filtering. Every time the Australian government has to rebuild or reinforce their great firewall/filter it will cost them money.

Judging from what they decided to implement, it's painfully clear that they won't have the savvy to keep up with the arms race. In effect they have created a great money pit. Some wise Australians should watch to see where the contract money goes and how much is sunk into this steaming pit.

I'm sure some enterprising tech savvy Australian already has set up a tunnel to some other country and is slowly spidering the Internet to see what is being filtered. Hopefully this/these person(s) will find a lot of false positives with which to complain vociferously about the problem.

There are likely to be quite a few sites willing to host the comparison results from such activity including caches of pages that are filtered, which should in turn make many of them viewable again inside Australia's filter system. OOoooops, guess that might be illegal? hmmmmmm Wonder if anyone will do it?

ISP's, how interesting

[digitalchinky]

Michael Malone personally banned me from iinet after I said I didn't want his spam sent to my iinet email address any longer. According to him I was the only one out of his entire customer base who complained about the advertising. He even drove up country to come visit me at my home because, in his words, I was 'causing them a lot of costly problems' (In the form of a simple 'opt-in' switch to continue receiving their corporate propaganda)

Meh, I call bullshit to this little pony show video anyway. The ISP's will cry a river saying it'll never work, the government will say 'ok, we'll pay for it then you frigging cry babies.'

The end result will be the federal government shoving in a few Sun boxes at public expense in various little choke points across the country, the ISP's keep their mouths shut about it all, and ASIO suddenly has a lot less need for their employees to be chained to federal crime authority as they run around swinging warrants and subpoenas - DSD will then recall all their worker drones from the ASIO basement, and life goes on. New overlord laws are set in motion never to be repealed, government gets to spy on its populous and live happily ever after.

I no longer live in Australia.

Re:ISP's, how interesting

[QuantumG]

All ISP traffic used to go through the University of Queensland's Prentice Hall. The ASIO office there was the biggest in the state. They're mandated to monitor all communications in and out of the country. Only naive people think they don't.

Re:Wont last long

[QuantumG]

Current affairs programs in Australia are a joke. Literally, respected journalists make jokes about them. No-one cares what the fucktards at Today Tonight have to say.

I mentioned this a few days ago.

[kaos07]

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1012207&cid=25565869

"Regarding the Australian filter, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

The Green party and the Liberal party are both going to block the legislation in the Upper House. Their numbers combined are enough to stop the bill from passing.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/10/30/1224956188036.html

The Greens don't get much of their other policies talked about very much, besides the environment, but they have the most pro-Slashdot internet platform out of any political party. By that I mean they support open standards, net-neutrality and internet freedom (no censorship). They also want the government to embrace open source and all government documents to saved in an open document standard."

Critics of the policy

[iminplaya]

"also say that users will have no way to know what's being filtered."

Well jeeze! Isn't that the intention? Why would the government want anybody "watching the watchman"? Supreme authority is the preferred idea here, no? "Turn off that camera!"

Debate rages on in the Australian Broadband Com...

[WTW - WP]

The debate has been raging for over 7 months on the Australian Broadband Community web site www.whirlpool.net.au See: http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed Current debate: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1079347 Many Australians have taken to using their graphic design skills to get their message out. See: Posters and Stickers here http://www.bbinternet.info/content/view/8/7/ It has been the governments attempt to mussel the debate by industry leader, Mark Newton, that has really fired up the community. Cheers WTW

Re:Wow..

[markerr]

re: free speech. I sent a Notice to Conroy via mail the other day protesting his filter. In it, I mentioned: "Consequences of an internet filter go against Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as delivered by the United Nations, of which Australia is a member." I could be wrong, but I would have thought as an Australian I do have the right to free speech, as inherited through the United Nations. The UN of course didn't go us the Right, they merely acknowledged what we already (should have) had.

Wake up! Take action!

[a.ameri]

The only reason a government can get away with this is if we, the citizens, don't act, and let our liberties gradually slip away.

If you are an Australian, please take action:

1) Call Senator Conroy's office on 03 9650 1188. Do not be rude, do not swear, just in a very reasoned and rational voice, express your disapproval, and in a few short sentences, say why you disagree. It matters a lot.

2) Write a letter to Senator Conroy, make sure it's between half a page to one page (no more than 400 words). Again, in a polite tone (that doesn't have to be formal, and doesn't have to have letterhead, etc., just your name and address) let him know why you disagree with him. His address is:
Senator Stephen Conroy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

3) Write a letter to your local MP. It doesn't matter what party he/she is from, Liberals will use your letter to back up their claims in Question Time, which gives publicity to the whole issue and will bring it to mainstream media's attention. Labor members will also express their criticism, privately, to him. This specially matters if your local MP is a Minister and serves in the Cabinet. To find out who your local MP is click here

4) Write a letter to Prime Minister Rudd. Let him know that when the Australian people voted him in office last year, they didn't know "Education Revolution" means censorship. Rudd's address is:
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

5) Donate or become a member of Electronic Frontiers Australia . Right now the EFA is the sole organisation fighting this. They need all the help they can get.

6) Write a letter to your ISP. It doesn't matter if it's the Evil Telstra; on this, we're all together. They are fighting the battle for us right now, but it would help them to know that what they are doing is a good business practice, that you expect them to fight this to the end.

Don't just sit around and do nothing and then complain about how evil governments are. We, the citizens are the ones who allow governments to become evil, by our political apathy. Move! Take Action! Now!