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*

[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*

[orielbean]

they have a censorship minister. enough said!

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*

[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*

[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*

[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*

[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.

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: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: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.

and the land of the....

[sgt scrub]

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

Re:goodluckwiththat

[TheSpoom]

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

- John Gilmore

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: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.