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Australian Censorship Bypassed Before Live Trials
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.
Ssh typically does compression and then encryption, so we might very well end up with a net savings in bandwidth.
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=
I can see a positive possibility here. Find a work-around, and when you're caught visiting "illegal sites", claim that you thought your actions were legal since there's a "foolproof" filtering system that should've properly protected you.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Won't it be embarrassing when people start routing their traffic through China to get around American and Australian internet legislation?
Vik :v)
As an Australian who fervently opposes Chairman Rudd's censorship bill...
There is one advantage I can see to all of this. Big Brother will block anything illegal and offensive to me, right? So I can download absolutely anything I DO find since it MUST be legal. After all, the censorship is perfect!
Pirate bay here I come!
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Any decent blocking software also blocks all the popular proxy lists and proxies too (and it constantly updated). Software that does this (like Websense) may not be impossible to get around, but it makes it damn hard (and I know, this is what my school uses and even with my knowledge it's still hard to find a proxy).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So far it's working out great! Haven't had my net cut off y
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Hrm, so 11 years after their Federal powergrab to start banning arms. Not as fast as some regimes, but fitting the pattern pretty well.
Remember what Paul Hogan says, "That's not a knife, this is a knife... that'll get you locked up for two years if you try carrying it in my country."
Australians used to be such bad-asses.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
you thought your actions were legal since there's a "foolproof" filtering system that should've properly protected you.
It's fool-proof, not criminal proof. Since you're reading material that's critical of the Australian government you've proven yourself a criminal.
Please come with us. *click-clack*
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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)
1. http://www.google.com.au/
2. 'Australia internet filter bypass'
3. 95% of the population can bypass the filter.
He mentioned adding it to the root certs to get around that. Just persuade Microsoft to add it as a "critical automatic update" and the majority of people won't notice a thing.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The filter is there for people who don't want to bypass it.
The only reason there is no opt out planned for the "illegal material" filter is because a "reasonable person" should not want to opt out of it.
In other words: it's not malice, it's stupidity.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Microsoft is not high on my list of companies that I regard in good stead. But the Australian Government "persuad[ing] Microsoft to add it [forged certs] as a "critical automatic update" targetted at AU users only seems a bit far-fetched--even to me.
Yep, and the DMCA was a bi-partisan effort here in the States. Neither side cares much for digital rights.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Really? You might want to read up on California's newest constitutional amendment.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Not if they block google.
It's LZO compressed by default - not to mention encrypted and X509 authenticated - which probably means a net reduction in bandwidth. Go visit their site. It's truly excellent open source software.
But seriously. As a practical matter, anyone stuck behind state censorship can use a friend's OpenVPN and proxy in another country.
you had me at #!
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
-- Adolf Hitler
Sorry for Godwin'ing this article but it is quite relative. Senator Conroy is trying to argue this like a Christian, any time someone speaks against him about the filter he just puts his fingers in his ears and says "la la la can't hear you, you're a pedophile because you oppose my filter"
Hopefully, they will. Google is mainstream enough that killing it will be one of the quickest ways to piss off the public and get this whole plan scrapped. There's an old rule that 'the best way to fight a stupid law is to enforce it to the letter.' This explains why Australia has a tonne of boneheaded laws that are never enforced.
It's not about whether you can read by flashlight under the covers. I realize as a 'murican that the First Amendment freedoms of speech are a "local ordinance" in cyberspace, but Australia is copying China...Communist China. I am of the understanding that a printing press can reproduce odious child porn...so we should register and monitor ALL the presses. Does not this small bit offend, concern or otherwise motivate those "down under" ? I'm not very familiar with Aussie politix, but I would think that in a nominal democracy something this huge would trigger backlash. Censoring the internet in a free country ? Who cares if you can work around....that's SO not the point.
When deciding whether to allow them to have access to my first kid I bought their course materials. I have no problem at all with kids learning bible stories (I'm a amateur wannabe bible scholar myself), or being taught to be kind to one and other (in fact if the catholics we here I might let him go). But that is not what is being taught. The course has been cleverly designed to inculcate the kids with fear and an unshakeble belief in God as the evangelists see him (complete with creationism).
Hmm, I know the problem. I fixed that in my kids' school---I teach the Scripture lessons. Few of the kids in the classes I teach (11-12 year olds) had heard of evolution until I taught it to them last week.
It wasn't strictly in the curriculum, but it's nothing that's not (officially) in the school curriculum anyway, so I think I'll keep my job. If I stop posting on /. in the next week or two, though, send out a search party...
Cogito, ergo sig.
The ALP's position on this before last year's federal election was that the proposed filtering system was optional; you could opt out of it. However, on 2 November, just weeks before election day, ALP candidate for the seat of Kingsford Smith, Peter Garret, told 2UE journalist Steve Price, "once we get in we'll just change it all". Now that comment was in the context of climate policy, but I guess now we know that it has a somewhat broader application, because the ALP's position has changed post-election to a mandatory filtering system.
Given that there are ISP plans that offer the sort of filtering that the ALP wishes to force on everyone in the country, and that the government already offers client-side filtering packages, free of charge, this post-election flip-flop is nothing sort of treacherous, and if they go ahead with it I suspect that a lot of Australians will be waiting for the ALP at the next poll with metaphorical baseball bats. I, for one, talk to my friends and family about this issue. It's a vote-changer for me, and I take time to make sure that my friends and family understand how this affects them.
Memo any ALP apparatchiks that might have found their way to Slashdot: This is a vote-changing issue. There are many of us who are extremely displeased with the pig-headed way in which the Minister has pursued this matter. The ALP stands to lose many votes over it. There are few votes to be won because nearly all of those you hope to gain over this filtering proposal already go to religious candidates and you have stuff-all chance of changing that. Summary dismissal and form letters that don't even address the issues are no longer good enough. Ignore the users of the internet at your electoral peril.
Athy, athier, athiest.