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Australian Censorship Bypassed Before Live Trials

Posted by timothy on from the you-expect-free-choice-from-the-government? dept.

newt writes "The Australian Government is planning to conduct live trials of as-yet-unspecified censorship technology. But as every geek already knows, these systems can't possibly work in the presence of VPNs and proxy servers. PC Authority clues the punters in." Maybe the ISPs secretly like encouraging SSH tunneling — and making everyone pay for the extra bandwidth used. Not really; Australia's major ISPs, as mentioned a few days ago, think it's a bad idea.

6 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. The old saying still holds by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

    (And if you don't know who, turn in your Slashdot account by tomorrow morning.)
    =Smidge=

    1. Re:The old saying still holds by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

      In fact, the original quote was that "Usenet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," although the saying is widely misquoted.

      (Note how incredibly useful the uncensored usenet has become.)

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    2. Re:The old saying still holds by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be fair, the Usenet was killed by the old truth that if you give the people a cheap broadcast mechanism, the first thing they'll do is try to put advertisements on it.

      It has been said that prostitution is the oldest profession, but before they could be prostitutes they had to advertise their services.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  2. Re:Uh. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Until the Aussie government considers SSH, VPN's, and anonymizing proxies to be "hacking"(illegally circumventing a la DMCA) and takes steps to outlaw them.

  3. Google 'Nolan Chart' by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The US voted out the religious right yesterday. Pitty our religious right goverment isn't due for re-election for another couple of years...

    It has little to do with being religious or right. The problem is statists, no matter their views on God, Gods, no Gods, or economics.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  4. Re:Uh. by drsparkly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many businesses rely on VPNs to connect their remote offices? How many sysadmins use SSH to remotely connect to their unix systems? If the government moved to outlaw VPNs and SSH, there is no point having an internet any more. If the government did this there would be a major backlash from the business community. It would be political suicide, if the current plan isn't already.

    My internet connection is paid for by my current employer so I can (a) telecommute (VPN) (b) remote administer systems in case of problems (VPN, SSH). Its a home internet plan, so they could not simply limit this block to home internet users.

    I repeat my point... if the Aussie government starts blocking every protocol that can be used to bypass their stupid filter, there is no point having an internet. Australia will be back to the stone age.