Clarifying the Next Step in Australia's Net-Censorship Scheme

teh moges writes "I recently received a response from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, regarding issues I had with the ISP filtering proposed for Australia. My comment can be summed up by 'Any efficient filter won't be effective and any effective filter won't be efficient.' His response clarifies the issue of using the blacklist for censorship." Read on for the gist of Conroy's mistakes-were-made response, which seems to sidestep teh moges' critique, but offers Australian Internet users some idea of what they're in for. From Conroy's email in response: "...concerns have been raised that filtering a blacklist beyond 10,000 URLs may raise network performance issues... The pilot will therefore seek to also test network performance against a test list of 10,000 URLs ... As this test is only being performed to test the impact on network performance against a list of this size, and actual customers are not involved,the make-up of the list is not an issue."

teh moges continues: "My initial query about the lack of effectiveness of the filter still stands, however it is important that the censorship issue is clarified. It seems, at least for now, that the trial that will begin on December 24th for the '10,000' list is for testing purposes, rather then using a list that will be used later. Still, no information on a guarantee of regulation is provided, so there is still a long way to go before this ISP filtering gains support, especially given Senator Stephen Conroy's lack of ability to answer questions in media conferences."

Comments

Re:10,000 URLs?

[lgw]

This is pretty clear:

1) Creat blacklist "just for kiddie porn"

2) Deny citizens access to the contents of the blacklist "why do you want to know a list of kiddie por sites, you pervert?!?!"

3) Add political opposition sites to the blacklist.

4) ???

5) Totalitarianism!

Didn't Finland move from step 1 to step 3 in just a month?

Think of the Children.

[retech]

I am completely tired of listening to people use the "for the safety of the children" argument for every damn thing. 20 years ago there were just as many pedophiles per ca pita as there were 100 years ago and will be 100 years from now. We just hear about them more now!

News agencies are businesses. They are in no way shape or form an altruistic humanitarian agency that is set to expand our minds. They want to scare the piss out of you because, no different than the movies, TERROR SELLS. And terrifying people about innocent children sells more. If you make people afraid enough than they'll give up everything they have to feel safe again. They will not consider their actions. It's a cut and run response to a perceived danger. No different than being chased (literally) by a wolf. You run fast till the danger is gone and when you get the chance you think.

In the latter part of the 20th century we willingly gave up (en masse) our desire to think. We let agency after agnency, group after group, make policy and laws to envelope us and make us appear protected. All the while those very structures were sucking the very marrow from our bones - making enormous profits off our fear.

The net will effectively be the last stand of us as a species. Our very society will either evolve or fall into dystopia in the next 10 yrs over the issues surrounding the internet. From over priced billing to international spying, everything we do, every bit of culture we have, all of what it is to be us will pass through a point on line.

And someone will want to control it and profit off of it.

We either make a choice to say no and let it be completely free. Or we make a choice to let them control us. Issues like the Oz law will be seen by history as a major turning point. That is, of course, if that history remains intact.

Re:10,000 URLs?

[xSander]

Didn't Finland move from step 1 to step 3 in just a month?

The Netherlands has a blacklist as well, just as ineffective as the Finnish one. Just don't use your ISP's DNS. Governments should concentrate on taking down sites rather than act like the three wise monkeys.

Re:$30K donated to fight censorship, protests plan

[Malekin]

There are protests planned around Australia around December 15. I'm going.

All of the protests are on December 13th, including the one in Brisbane (assuming by the fact you link a Brisbane newspaper that that's where you are) Details can be found at http://stopthecleanfeed.com/

A call for Mod sanity

[earlymon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) --

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

I disagree with part of what unlametheweak wrote above. HOWEVER - while controversial, his comment is neither disruptive to the conversation nor is it obviously intended to evoke an emotional response for its own sake.

As I write this, the above post has been modded Troll - and it is not. That is not an opinion that it's not trolling - it is a statement of fact.

Will whatever fucking dweeb or dweebs going around abusing their fucking mod privileges please fucking stop? There have been a lot of LOT of unnecessary Troll mods in the last few weeks and I, for one, am getting sick of it. Mod points are here to help us focus and defocus interest - they are not intended for your personal censorship agenda.

The irony of having to explain this in a thread on free speech is maddening in the extreme.

Comrades all - N.B. that I am not posting anonymously.