Australia To Block BitTorrent

Kevin 7Kbps writes "Censorship Minister Stephen Conroy announced today that the Australian Internet Filters will be extended to block peer-to-peer traffic, saying, 'Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.' This dashes hopes that Conroy's Labor party had realised filtering could be politically costly at the next election and were about to back down. The filters were supposed to begin live trials on Christmas Eve, but two ISPs who volunteered have still not been contacted by Conroy's office, who advised, 'The department is still evaluating applications that were put forward for participation in that pilot.' Three days hardly seems enough time to reconfigure a national network."

Comments

*sigh*

[siyavash]

All I can say is "*sigh*" ...They really, truely do not get this "Internet thingy". :)

Re:*sigh*

[SerpentMage]

What do you expect?

1) Most politicians are lawyers, philosphers, judges, etc. Thus they will see these sorts of things from their perspective.

2) Techies have a serious communication problem. They believe in free without copyright, right to pirate, etc, etc. Take that attitude to lawyers and guess what answer you are going to get.

3) Techies don't get the business world. They don't think in terms of ROI, etc. And last I looked that is how the world turns, ROI, etc.

Techies need to start policing themselves. Yes BitTorrent has a real need, but until these protocols are managed to stop piracy nothing will change.

Here is the thing, I hate the drug laws, despise them actually. But I can't go out and start smoking pot because today it is STILL ILLEGAL.... The solution is to legalize pot, not smoke it and yell at the top of my lungs and say how dumb the laws are (they are...) How do I legalize pot? Work with the system and get it legalized.

Re:*sigh*

[Nursie]

"Work with the system and get it legalized."

Good luck with that. Meanwhile, those of us that have given up on the political process, given up any thoughts that "we, the people" will ever do anything about the daily abuse of our rights by politicians, given up any thoughts that most people even have a clue about any political issue beyond which candidate has the best hair, given up on the populace showing any sign of intelligence at all... we'll be having a quiet smoke somewhere out of the way, if you'd like to join us, because life's too short to wait for society to sort itself out.

Re:*sigh*

[pipatron]

What have HTTP done to prevent the massive filesharing through HTTP GET downloads?

What have the FTP protocol done to prevent it for being used as the central hubs for all cracker groups?

There's nothing else going on here than some politicians trying to get some free goodwill from the RIAA (A=Australia?) and the panicking parent crowd.

Re:*sigh*

[xonar]

I second this, just got this bad-ass new ash-catcher yesterday.

Re:*sigh*

[KovaaK]

The reason that BitTorrent is getting more attention is because it's more practical for the illegal spread of such files. HTTP/FTP involves the use of specific servers that have limited bandwidth, so it can't send to unlimited users. BitTorrent doesn't have that problem since the users are sending the data as well (assuming that enough people don't mind seeding for a small period of time after they finish their download).

Re:*sigh*

[moxley]

I totally agree....If my mod points weren't gone I'd + insightful on that....

The problem is that we don't truly have a functioning system - what we have could be described as forms of institutionalized corruption.

With this precious life that I have I have decided that I am not going to let tyrants deny me of freedoms I wish to undertake that meet my personal ethics, which are partly informed by things such as "the golden rule" etc.

Re:*sigh*

[SerpentMage]

This is a crap attitude...

The real problem here is that people become disenfranchised because they don't involve. After all why should I care about you because all you do is complain, whine, etc.

When you say people don't have a political clue, I would argue what you are saying is that people don't have a clue because they don't agree with you.

Well guess what this is a democracy (representative in most) and if you don't make yourself heard then it is your FAULT, not the politicians, nor the "clueless" voters who do vote and make themselves heard.

Re:*sigh*

[Hatta]

Here is the thing, I hate the drug laws, despise them actually. But I can't go out and start smoking pot because today it is STILL ILLEGAL.... The solution is to legalize pot, not smoke it and yell at the top of my lungs and say how dumb the laws are (they are...) How do I legalize pot? Work with the system and get it legalized.

When has that worked? If everyone had your attitude, the drug warriors would simply argue that the drug war is working well, because everyone is obeying the law, and declare it a success. There's no reason to change a law that works. You have to break unjust laws, or no one will see that they are unjust. Do you think alcohol prohibition would have been repealed if everyone obeyed it?

Just remember the words of St. Augustine, "An unjust law is no law at all."

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

No, in this case he has a very solid point: most people don't have a political clue. There have been studies that show people do indeed tend to vote for the best hair. (Annecdotally, my grandmother was actually one of them.).

Between people not willing to go dig up information about politics, candidates, etc. and new media more interested in who showed their panties (or lack thereof) than in reporting actual world events and politics - it is no wonder. We have a "resonance" of apathy between the voter and the news providers.

Re:*sigh*

[orielbean]

they have a censorship minister. enough said!

Re:*sigh*

[bigpaperbag]

What utter bullshit.

While you are "having a quiet smoke", other people are actively campaigning for candidates/running for office themselves/getting things done while you just whine. If you truly and wholeheartedly believe the system is corrupt beyond measure than leave or revolt. Whining solves nothing. The whole argument "It's broken and everyone is dumb" is just a crutch for the lazy to fall back on when things don't go their way. Move somewhere else, found your own nation, or revolt. All are valid options for you, all have had historical success in allowing people to live lives more attune with what they want. Take a pick, just stop bitching.

Re:*sigh*

[Nursie]

"When you say people don't have a political clue, I would argue what you are saying is that people don't have a clue because they don't agree with you."

Nope, I say it because they continue to vote along party lines, regardless of actual political actions. In the UK that would be "I'm working class, we vote labour" or "daddy always voted conservative" or any one of a myriad of tribal identifications with a particular party that preclude people actually thinking about anything much.

Well guess what this is a democracy (representative in most) and if you don't make yourself heard then it is your FAULT, not the politicians, nor the "clueless" voters who do vote and make themselves heard.

Who said I don't vote? Of course I vote. I just don't kid myself that anything will change. Established politicians routinely ignore the populace when they do try to speak (wars spring to mind), ignore scientific evidence in reports they commission because it doesn't fit with the political message they're pushing or their preconceived notions. Add in a little propaganda and a population conditioned to associate drugs with crime and death, susceptible to politicians doing their moral grandstanding acts and you have a recipe for a society that's not going to fix itself any time soon and is actively hostile to outsider opinions.

I'm sorry if you don't like my attitude, but working within the system is, AFAICT, an utter waste of time.

Re:*sigh*

[Nursie]

The whole argument "It's broken and everyone is dumb" is just a crutch for the lazy to fall back on when things don't go their way.

It's the truth though.
And maybe I am lazy, but I don't want to spend my life campaigning, I have better things to do (like living it).

Whining solves nothing.

Who said it solves anything? I just said I'll get on with my thing on the quiet, screw the rest of you.

Move somewhere else, found your own nation, or revolt. All are valid options for you, all have had historical success in allowing people to live lives more attune with what they want. Take a pick, just stop bitching.

Do you have secret knowledge of an undiscovered continent where these things are possible? Or a nation that isn't as set in its ways? Or any sort of revolt strategy that's going to do anything but get me put in jail and further waste my life?

Didn't think so.

Re:*sigh*

[unlametheweak]

Work with the system and get it legalized.

1) It's been tried. Trends in most countries are towards authoritarianism and more laws, not less.
2) The "system" is broken towards rationality. Simpler (or simple-minded) solutions are almost always more "rational" to people than more correct and thoughtful solutions. It takes time and energy and diligence and intelligence to think things through logically, for this reason sound bites like "think of the children" have more effect on the status quo than an essay from an ivory tower scholar or a slashdot geek. The democratic "system" cannot escape the lowest common denominator.
3) Money talks. If you aren't a part of the "system" then chances are you don't have any.

I think Napoleon had it right: revolutions often do work, but the unfortunate thing is that even revolutionaries who get into power let the power get into their head.

Re:*sigh*

[meringuoid]

Techies need to start policing themselves. Yes BitTorrent has a real need, but until these protocols are managed to stop piracy nothing will change.

Good luck with that, Cnut.

BitTorrent was created by one man. If he had created a system that included some way to prevent piracy, it would have been a straightforward job for another man to remove that defect, and create a BitTorrent 2 without it. Then BitTorrent 2 would have become popular worldwide. It's not that techies are all hard at work filling the world with villainous P2P apps - it's just that whenever one does create such a thing, the great masses of the public begin using it with enormous gusto.

You ask that nobody, anywhere in the world, ever, should write any software that transmits data over networks, without seeing to it that the media cartels have power of veto over what it transmits. I wish you all the worst of luck in achieving this.

Re:*sigh*

[suitepotato]

Given that the system is inherently tilted towards those with money to pay politicians off, and that the courts are used to get things pushed into law backhandedly rather than through the political process (by both sides), the common folk are left with not a lot of options. Between political/social correctness on the left and fear mongering from the right, both sides seek to use government to infringe on the rights of the people. What happens when you push people into a corner? They fight back. It is perfectly human.

A smash-up distributed network that crosses torrent, freenet, anonymous remailer chains, proxies, and encryption is slowly growing in pieces and will come together eventually. Due to ongoing refusal of those who govern to even attempt to reason with the governed, and due to the governed running from responsibility and intellectual labor, it is inevitable that other systems of communication and information transfer will grow organically to stymie every system of control.

The fault lies with everybody because the governed must in the end give consent to those who govern, whether a democracy or tyranny, for a non-compliant populace cannot be controlled by anything short of a god, as revolutions throughout history prove. As long as the people continue to allow the government and business to do whatever strikes their fancy, they will do so. But their nature circumscribes their will and demands them to actions that flow around obstacles and it will happen. As a result, a system will come about allowing totally untraceable transmission of all kind of information, not just music and movies but illegal materials, spy communications, and terrorist dispatches, and all of it will be beyond anyone's reach to identify who put it out into the cloud and unable to make it go away.

You gotta take the good with the bad in life, but there's a whole lot of bad that is going to be enabled by this, all because no one could get along and come to an understanding.

Re:*sigh*

[HeronBlademaster]

When politicians push on with such blatantly unpopular schemes as ID cards, you know they ain't listening.

If 50% of a Senator's constituency wrote to him and said "We don't want ID cards", he wouldn't push ID cards anymore. Do you know why Senators push things like this? They have no idea what their constituency wants, so they just kind of go with whatever sounds like a good idea at the time. (Obviously there are exceptions, but that's not really my point.)

Contrary to popular belief, Senators will, in fact, do what their constituency wants, if their constituency bothers to tell them. So rather than waste your time complaining here on Slashdot, perhaps you should spend the same amount of time writing letters to your Senators and House Representatives.

Re:*sigh*

[Endo13]

The thing is, the problem doesn't even begin with clueless voters. The problem begins with the fact that all the choices you have to vote on are bad. I mean really, a choice between 2 candidates that are both going to take the country even further into the crapper? It's like your financial advisor giving you a choice between setting your cash on fire or flushing it down the toilet.

Give me a government system where literally anyone who is competent has a real chance to get elected, and I'll agree that my vote matters.

Re:*sigh*

[HeronBlademaster]

Agreed; any law legalizing drugs should not be retroactive, because that would encourage breaking other laws in the hope that they will be made legal at a later time (e.g. traffic laws or something).

Re:*sigh*

[RabidMoose]

I've got to disagree. Movies keep breaking box office records, because there's no way to pirate the experience of going out to the theatre. If anything is going to kill that, it's going to be the bad economy.

DVD/Blu-Ray sales also continue to increase. I just read an article yesterday stating that legal music downloads are growing faster than illegal ones. The only explanation is that priacy is just not as rampant as it's being made out to be. In reality, most people (read: average consumer) would sooner go out and pay for a physical disc instead of figuring out how to pirate the movie/music.

I get the feeling that if there were a magical statistic machine that were right 100% of the time (if only!), we'd see that the ratio of pirates:paying customers is rediculously low, and that a relatively few people are the cause of a relative majority of pirating.

It's been said before, but I'll state it here again: Movie/music executives are using the fact that piracy exists at all as an excuse for any decline/slow increse in their sales numbers. In reality, it's more likely a bum economy, and a lower quality of product (though 2008 was an incredible year for movies) that's causing the dip in sales.

Re:*sigh*

[Endo13]

Yes yes, we've heard those arguments a billion trillion times. And they still mean nothing. Because Copyright is suppose to be a time-limited period for the creator to make a profit before it hits public domain for others to profit from it. Life +75 years is not time-limited. "Time-limited" means you get a reasonable but short duration to recoup your investment and make a reasonable profit. That usually happens within the first year from release or publication. In any case, for copyright to be relevant and serve the intended purpose, it needs to end while there is still profit to be made from the work. Not once it's obsolete, not after every possible cent has been sucked from it.

It's not that Joe Public doesn't realize that work goes into making these things - it's that Joe Public realizes that he constantly has earn his pay, and it's only fair that others should too. The other thing that Joe Public realizes is that it's not possible for everyone to be a performer/writer/artist of some sort - someone has to do the real work to provide the things we actually need. And since Joe Public is doing that work and isn't making that great of a wage doing it, guess where his money is going to go. Yep, for the things he actually needs, and things that actually took real work to produce.

So in the end, it's probably you who doesn't see and understand the whole picture. Have you ever gotten your hands dirty doing real work that pays just enough to keep you going, at a job you didn't really like, for 40+ hours a week? You should try it some time, instead of sitting there complaining about people downloading music. When you actually work (note: practicing with a band != work, sorry) for your money, it puts a whole different perspective on things.

Re:*sigh*

[Artemis3]

The system IS crap and won't let you do anything the big parties don't want, closing any pacific way out. See Greece for example.

These guys are wrong, the RIAA and MPAA, and big game publishers like EA are wrong; this is resistance and they can't stop it, and they won't stop Bittorrent in Australia or anywhere else either. The protocol is not going to be improved to help those who are wrong, it will be improved to resist and bypass the old fools who just don't get it. Put more restrictions and the answer will be widespread strong anonymous p2p. Prosecute sharers and see a rise in cryptographic and stenographic content. This is not cooperation with the system, this is struggle against the system until they behave or get retired.

Sharing is caring, period.

Re:*sigh*

[jlarocco]

A person shouldn't have to complain to the government to keep their rights and be left alone.

The question isn't why you should care about me - it's why you should have anything to do with me at all.

Re:*sigh*

[Ephemeriis]

This is a crap attitude...

The real problem here is that people become disenfranchised because they don't involve

People get disenfranchised because various political groups intentionally disenfranchise them - at least here in the U.S. that's how it works. Look at just about any national election in the last 20 years or so... There'll be some precinct somewhere that's trying to disenfranchise some segment of the voting population.

When you say people don't have a political clue, I would argue what you are saying is that people don't have a clue because they don't agree with you.

When I say that people don't have a political clue it has nothing to do with whether they agree with me or not... It has to do with people voting directly against their best interests. It has to do with people voting someone back into office who has proven to be unreliable or incompetent. It has to do with people voting the same kind of politicians into office year after year and continually complaining that nothing changes.

Here in the U.S. elections are not won on policies or records. It has nothing to do with who is actually going to do the best job in the position. All that matters is how good you look on TV.

Well guess what this is a democracy (representative in most) and if you don't make yourself heard then it is your FAULT, not the politicians, nor the "clueless" voters who do vote and make themselves heard.

How much of a democracy is it when the two big entrenched parties make sure their voices are the only ones that get heard?

The fact of the matter is that if you want to run for anything more than city-level government you have to be either a Democrat or a Republican. Nobody else has a chance at an important office. And by the time anyone makes it into a significant position they owe hundreds of people dozens of favors. There's no way they're going to make waves.

The fact of the matter is that when you're voting for your Senator, Representative, or President you rarely have a good choice. It's just varying degrees of bad.

Re:*sigh*

[Petrushka]

That was just a wee jab by the submitter. His official title is "Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy". I'm in favour of the new title catching on, though.

Re:*sigh*

[lgw]

There are *many* contries with other systems, and the facts don't support your desires.

Having the general public involved *directly* in lawmaking is a *terrible* idea. You think your elected officials are uninformed? Study the history of Athenian democracy for many examples of just how crazy this can get. Charismatic speakers with good sophistic techniques could get all sorts of crazy laws passed, by simply making the law "sound good" to the average voter.

There's are *plenty* of sides in a two-party system, if you care to pay more than the most passing of attention to the process. Political parties are nothing more than a group of "sides" who have made some internal compromises to form a voting block: you vote my way on my most inportant issue, and I'll vote your way on your most important issue. *That* is the essense of all politics. With a parlamentary system, you elect your representative from a long list of parties, and the many small parties form coalitions after the election - coalitions which you might be quite upset with.

How would you like it if, in order to get results on your hot-button issues, your representative joined the neo-nazi-led coalition. Sure, you got your way on your geek issues, but the neo-nazis are in charge. That sort of thing *happens* in real governments. At least in American system the coalitions are formed *before* the genral election, and if it turns out that the guy you voted for in the primary decided to join with David Duke to get your geek issue passed, you can still vote or the other party in the general election.

Re:*sigh*

[suckmysav]

There are four types of voters in modern politics.

1) The cheerleaders

These are the wonks that always vote the same way and remain totally oblivious to the shortcomings of their chosen "side"

2) The fanatics

These are the single issue voters that vote solely on the issue that concerns them. Mostly Greenies and Fundies.

3) The Morons

Vote for the best haircut or the best pork-barrel artist without giving much though to much of anything.

4) The Disillusioned.

These are the ones who realise that both parties are corrupt and essentially the same so they either abstain from voting entirely or try and find an independent local candidate who has reasonably sane views.

I count myself as #4

Re:*sigh*

[mjwx]

Yes yes, we've heard those arguments a billion trillion times. And they still mean nothing. Because Copyright is suppose to be a time-limited period for the creator to make a profit before it hits public domain for others to profit from it. Life +75 years is not time-limited. "Time-limited" means you get a reasonable but short duration to recoup your investment and make a reasonable profit. That usually happens within the first year from release or publication. In any case, for copyright to be relevant and serve the intended purpose, it needs to end while there is still profit to be made from the work. Not once it's obsolete, not after every possible cent has been sucked from it.

You're still working under the assumption that they are trying to make money from old releases. The publishers know full well that they will not make much from a 20 yr old film, or even a 10 yr old film, they understand perfectly that a movie stops being profitable 18 months after release (Cinema, DVD, TV). What they want is for people to keep buying the new stuff and not waste time watching old movies (superior in every way to the crap that Hollywood produces now). The "industry" understands that people have a limited amount of time and most people will be just as happy to stay at home and watch old movies and TV shows from the 80's or earlier (Day of the Triffids, old Doctor Who, and so on), this eats into the amount of time people have to watch new media (and with it the money they would spend).

Add on to this that if people had easy and free (extremely cheap) access to old media the new media would be forced to compete with the quality of the old media, quality which has been steadily slipping, see: loudness war, Reality TV, rise in Rap/Electronic music (cheap to produce, low quality sounds). They don't want to profit from old releases, they want to restrict your access to them so that you spend time and money watching the new releases so they can maintain the profitability of new releases while reducing costs and quality.

Re:*sigh*

[JeremyBanks]

The examples you gave are all crimes with victims â€" smoking marijuana, for example, harms no one but possibly myself.

Re:*sigh*

[Daimanta]

Irrelevant. A communist would claim that there is a higher goal namely destroying capitalism and creating an classless society and would justify his actions according to his goal. He can(in his view) justly claim that the people who govern him are tyrants and that their blood should be spilled(notice the Jefferson quote) because he wants concepts like equality(both lawfully and financially) and better representation(as a representation of the working class). Not obeying laws in a democracy is a sham 99% of the times and used by mostly pot-smokers(as you have illustrated). Do you find the law unjust? Sure, change the law by voting or get elected and change the law.

Instead of choosing that path you could go with the easy path and "stick it to the man", using some pseudo-anarchic philosophy. Breaking a law because you deem it unjust in modern society has nothing to do with oppression and everything with a pure disregard of the law and rules in general. It is the product of not idealists but spoiled kids who are used to getting whatever they desire at whatever moment they desire. People deem themselves revolutionaries and philosophers by reading badly written pamphlets written by people who have never tried to build a proper philosophy but instead pick and choose whatever they like.

I personally respect people with a concrete and thought out philosophy, irregardless if I agree with them or not. But a childish "rules don't apply to me" commands me no respect and the those people are rightfully not being taken seriously by people with power.

Long live Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and down with his ideas!

What about my own content

[Alain Williams]

Be that software, video or music -- why should I be prevented from sharing it with world ?

Re:What about my own content

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you are using Evil Technology(tm). You should switch to good wholesome technology like selling CDs. Otherwise you are a criminal, silly.

Re:What about my own content

[De Lemming]

The article indicates they want to filter peer-to-peer traffic, not completely block it. That would require an enormous effort and a lot of resources, to do content filtering on p2p connections. I'm wondering if it's even possible at all, as the original files are split up in blocks which are transferred between different peers. Seems to me a case of big words by government officials who don't know the technology...

Re:What about my own content

[Mille Mots]

Be that software, video or music -- why should I be prevented from sharing it with world ?

Because you aren't sharing profits with the people who make the laws.

Re:What about my own content

[SQL Error]

Yes, that's what it sounds like, which is even crazier than just blocking P2P traffic outright. I don't think Conroy is listening to anyone at this point.

goodluckwiththat

[hcmtnbiker]

The thing about P2P that's not the same for the rest of the internet is it's protocols are always evolving. Sure you'll be able to stop some stuff today, but you'll always be one step behind in a feudal battle against users, and in this case registered voters who may not fully agree with your ideas.

Re:goodluckwiththat

[0100010001010011]

There was Napster, but the centralized servers shut it down.
Then there was Kazaa, but it was a crap fast.
Then there was Bittorrent, shared bandwidth by all.

Our school tried to block BitTorrent too (back 2004-2005 era). One of my friends wrote a simple proxy server than injected a fake HTTP header into every new connection. Went straight through the 'firewall'. You block BitTorrent, it'll move to port 80 and look like HTTP traffic, or port 443 and then you won't know what the hell it is. Maybe it'll look like VOIP next. Maybe all of them.

"Strike Me Down and I Will Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine".

Re:goodluckwiththat

[TehZorroness]

To compress what you said into one sentence; Banning the openly specified protocol with endless legal applications just because it may also be used to illicitly send copyrighted material will only serve to generate 20 new protocols which will only be used to share copyrighted material illicitly and do nothing legal or beneficial.

I'll admit that I'm no angel. I download albums over bittorrent from time to time, but I also download plenty of legal content over it, including a bunch of creative commons works, and plenty of free software distributions.

Re:goodluckwiththat

[TheSpoom]

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

- John Gilmore

Re:goodluckwiththat

[ChienAndalu]

You're school's admins were morons.

Most are.

Re:goodluckwiththat

[TheSpoom]

And a whitelist firewall would make the network almost useless to nearly everyone. From a policy standpoint, it'd be great, but they'd be constantly getting an influx of unblock requests, and most users (including and especially legitimate ones) would just give up on using it at all.

Re:World of Warcraft and p2p...

[cromar]

You're right, and I'm glad they chose that distribution model because it will certainly get a lot of people's attention when they can't update their favorite game. Hopefully Blizzard will make some effort to point out the stupidity of this law, although I'm sure they will fix the updates in Australia if they are forced to...

Also, a nitpick, quotes aren't used that way. They are legally using bt, or *legally* using bt, but "legally" using bt implies that they aren't really using bt legally, or that they are using it in a way that is hardly legal or only pretending to be legal.

Re:World of Warcraft and p2p...

[oahazmatt]

True, this does not bode well for WoW players, or people distributing files legally. This ban may serve as a wake-up call. File sharing has a very negative association with it, and many in Government positions will just take it to mean "piracy", as groups such as the RIAA and MPAA (and their overseas counterparts) imply it to be synonymous.

Now, Australia blocks bittorrent. So, you've got a lot of pissed off WoW players and hopefully at least one of them will stand up and say the block is not right at all. And what about the Australian ISPs who download linux distros through bittorrent?

This block is being put into effect by someone who clearly doesn't understand exactly what bittorrent or file sharing is. I'm sure he will be thoroughly informed soon enough.

Re:World of Warcraft patches?

[aaron alderman]

Warcraft sounds like witchery and the Christian nuts behind this won't allow that.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have tiered internet services, how many people who presently pay for the high end will no longer need said services if they have no P2P?

The ISPs may well find themselves with the same users, but the users paying less (lower tier) if they have no P2P.

Despite massive security holes, they dont listen,

[faldo]

And yet there are so many ways that this could comprimise internet security.

Why the hell aren't Conroy and his cronies listening to the people who know what they're talking about? All social points asside for a moment, there are huge risks with a system like this. Security for one.

You could man in the middle attack everyone in Australia if you wanted to, and nothing that is being proposed will help stop child porn. The blacklist will leak as was proved yesterday (there's a story about it on the site I mentioned) and when combined with proxies, the very people this plan claims to stop will be given the keys to their perverted kindgoms.

Is this all just the illusion of safety for the technically illiterate, or is it just me?

Re:what happened to you, Austrailia?

[grarg]

Imagine "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" as a redneck and you'll get an insight into the mentality of a sizeable portion of the Australian electorate.

VoIP is next indeed

[Nicolas MONNET]

Cue last week's news about BitTorrent going UDP ...

Re:Stopping P2P

[loonycyborg]

Pirated versions of Microsoft's software are also distributed through bittorrent, so this will crush Microsoft too :)

and the land of the....

[sgt scrub]

At least they don't sing about their freedom while it gets taken away.

Re:and the land of the....

[VoltageX]

Except the equivalent here is - "Australians let us all rejoice, for we are young and free..."

User friendly had a great comic on this

[closetpsycho]

I know it's not the ever popular xkcd, but this comic is just too appropriate here. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20081109

Re:World of Warcraft and p2p...

[ultranova]

File sharing has a very negative association with it, and many in Government positions will just take it to mean "piracy", as groups such as the RIAA and MPAA (and their overseas counterparts) imply it to be synonymous.

File sharing has an extremely positive association with it, sometimes called with the misnomer of "piracy", which means it can be used to retrieve disinfected versions of such DRM-laden games as Spore, or out-of-stock items you couldn't otherwise find on your local warehouse, as well as circumvent censorship. It is only "negative" to groups of ill repute such as the RIAA, MPAA and censorship boards. People who don't count either the Mafia nor the Soviet Union amongst their role models need not fear it.

Port 80

[WilyCoder]

So what's next for BitTorrent then?

Run it through port 80 or 443?

Re:what happened to you, Austrailia?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll tell you what happened to us - the British came, and then they decided to send a bunch of prisoners and criminals to our place. That's what happened.

Re:Where is he saying that?

[roystgnr]

Technology is improving all the time. Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist

Do you think he realizes that peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic are based on this "technology" stuff too?

Losing an election over blocking Bittorrent? WTF?!

[he-sk]

Geeks vastly overestimate their influence if they think that a party will lose an election because of bittorrent filtering. The majority has still no idea what filesharing is and those who know are more likely to be young and therefore not of voting age.

Even if you can vote, know bittorrent and are opposed to its filtering, you still might vote for the labor party. Identity politics is a bitch.

Re:Karma be damned

[caitsith01]

I'm Australian.

What's weird is that on an individual level, I never meet anyone who wants:
- net censorship
- more speed cameras
- more alcohol and drug testing
- compulsory ID cards
- biometric passports
- DNA databases
- detention without charge.

And yet we have had successive governments ramming these things down our throats for about 10 years now.

Australians are, on the whole, fairly laid back (some might argue this is the problem, because we as a community never seem to stand up and fight). There is a definite tradition of irreverence for institutions here. But lately it seems to be being overtaken by a nasty, petty sort of "ok, let's get serious" meme in government. Sort of like the powers that be have finally decided to "stop kidding around" and start kicking our arses until we behave.

My theory is that because we have never had a totalitarian government or fought in a civil war for our liberty, we have no sense of what it's worth.