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

World of Warcraft patches?

[oDDmON oUT]

Aren't those distributed through BT technology? Won't this adversely impact the gaming segment? Or will they find that it's been automagically exempted from filtering?

Re:True Freedom

[theaveng]

"From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." - "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."

- Founder of the U.S. Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson

I like these too: "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."