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Technical Specs Released For Aussie Net Filtering
smallkathryn writes "Technical specifications have just been released for the Australian net filtering trial. The trial, which aims to prove that ISP-level filtering is a viable way to stop 'unwanted content' from reaching users, will go live on 24 December. The trial will involve ISPs choosing a commercially available hardware filter from an internet content filter (ICF) vendor, adding it to their networks, then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites. Still no indication of how peer-to-peer information will be addressed."
This is the time to invest in and bring to market an encryption product to the masses in Australia. What would stop a US company from selling cheap VPN tunnels to end users down under?
then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites.
Obviously someone wants these sites, else there would be no need to blacklist them.
ISP-level filtering is a viable way to stop 'unwanted content' from reaching users
Unwanted by whom?
What good could come from it?
There could be some new and interesting ways to get around such filtering?
Gains the attention of more people to find against such stupidity?
THE INTERNET SHOULD BE FREE, FOREVER.
Filtering should only ever be done on the client end!
"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." - Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf)
The government panders to them only for a single reason, namely that it is in the interest of the government to pander to them. More precisely, they're the excuse because "see, at least SOME want that!"
Else it would have been easy. You want filtering? No problem, we make a law that your ISP has to provide it at your request, for free (i.e. everyone has to pay for it, because no provider will ever sit on expenses and not brush it off to its clients). If you're concerned that you don't want to see OMGWTF content, here's an easy solution. That would have been pandering to those people if the government wasn't interested in filtering.
Since they are, the solution is to make filters mandatory.
So I wouldn't just say it's the fault of the OMFGPR0N! crowd. They're just the excuse to do what has quite different reasons but can somehow not really be "sold" that way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Rest assured there will be a law that absolves them. Else the lights will go out pretty fast in the fiberoptic cables of Aussieland.
Because, as everyone here knows, there WILL be downloads and there WILL be illegal content, and you can filter however and whatever you like, it will get through. Now, ISPs are usually international companies, few are still single country. And when I am in constant danger of a lawsuit that threatens my very business in some country, I'll pull out. Providing internet services is a lossy business in Australia? Ok. Shut down the branch, we move the resources to some other country. It's done everywhere? Most ISPs are either also in telco or cable TV, so let's shut down the ISP biz and concentrate on the rest.
If ISPs become the new scapegoat of the sue happy industries, they will close their doors. Unlike real people, corporations can easily move, and they can easily "die" without anyone being hurt.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Shouldn't trials test a hypothesis or design? If you set out to prove something with a trial, I'm fairly certain that you will carefully design it so that it does, indeed, prove it; as you have already decided you will do it and are now cynically producing evidence.
Trials should be neutral, investigating or testing or gathering data. The *RESULTS* of a trial will support or disprove a concept.
Ultimately, you cant really "prove" anything; just gain sufficient confidence that despite your best efforts, you cannot disprove it.
Perhaps the trial aims to check "the feasibility of" rather than "prove"... well, we can hope.
err!
jak.
Child pornography is not "information." Child pornography is a product made through the rape and other sexual abuse of children.
A picture is information. A video is information. Sound is information. QED
Since no one could possibly believe that CP is just "information" (and I have a very low opinion of the intelligence of most people), the most likely explanation for your position on this is that you are a consumer and/or producer of child pornography yourself.
Just to be sure I'm understanding you, you claim that classification of "product" as not different from "information" proves me to be a consumer or producer of child porn?
Never a legitimate reason to stop information? That's so ridiculous it's beneath discussion.No, no it's not. And while we're throwing around ad hominems you, sir or madam, are an idiot.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Australia has classification and censorship (aka banning) of film, tv, radio, video games, newspapers, magazines, advertisements.. why wouldn't we want classification and censorship of the Internet too? I, personally, think classification is a good thing, but it should be voluntary and banning/censorship is just draconian. But are my views in the majority? Who knows. The current policies of my government would not seem to indicate so.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This of course means that the blacklist will only impede a small, acceptable percentage of people and therefore should be implemented.
This of course means that there is a raging epidemic of accessing undesirable material is going on and the blacklist is therefore urgently required.
Why does no one ever demand scientific accountability? Let the government state its case, make testable claims and see if reality bears them out - and and scrap it if it does not even work out on paper!
-- Language is a virus from outer space.