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Australia To Block BitTorrent

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the who-saw-that-coming dept.

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."

49 of 674 comments (clear)

  1. *sigh* by siyavash · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:*sigh* by SerpentMage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
    2. Re:*sigh* by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "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.

    3. Re:*sigh* by pipatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    4. Re:*sigh* by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      Like slavery!

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    5. Re:*sigh* by moxley · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:*sigh* by SerpentMage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --

      "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
      "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
    7. Re:*sigh* by orielbean · · Score: 5, Insightful

      they have a censorship minister. enough said!

    8. Re:*sigh* by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "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.

    9. Re:*sigh* by Nursie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:*sigh* by unlametheweak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:*sigh* by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    12. Re:*sigh* by Endo13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
    13. Re:*sigh* by Nursie · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm in the UK so we have no senators, but your point stands.

      And I have written to my MP about this. Stating clearly my concerns about the massive back end database that will contain masses of information about individuals, be a security nightmare, be abused etc etc. I also mentioned that I had no faith it would be delivered to time or budget, would not solve any of the problems it's supposed to etc etc.

      Three months later I got a form reply starting -

      "We've listened to your concerns but would like to reassure you that the ID card scheme isn't just about ID cards, it'll be backed by a national database..."

      i.e. Making it unequivocally clear that they had not read a damn word I said and didn't care at all about my opinion. This has happened with other issues too.

      Look at the Iraq war - Between 1 and 2 million people took to the streets of London, which is a lot in a country with a population of 60M, and to get that many protesting takes some serious feeling amongst the population as a whole. What happened? We went to war.

      The politicians in this country are in the business of overriding and ignoring public opinion at every turn. the public are in the business of voting for the best looking, most eloquent, best funded or smartest dressed guy, so long as he's in the same party their family always vote for.

      It's useless to try and get anything done this way.

    14. Re:*sigh* by Endo13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
    15. Re:*sigh* by jlarocco · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Maybe not
    16. Re:*sigh* by Petrushka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    17. Re:*sigh* by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's called "tyranny". If I want to spend my election day sitting in my recliner, drinking beer, and watching the Buffy marathon, that's my choice. Who the hell if the government to dictate I MUST be at a certain place at a certain time?!?!? Fuck 'em. Normally I vote but if such a ridiculous law passed in my state, I would stay home. It would be my way of protesting that it's my body, my mind, and my liberty. Nobody owns me. I'm not a slave.

      No, its not tyranny. Its your fucking responsibility as a citizen. Have you got such a warped sense of perspective that you think mandatory voting is anywhere near akin to tyranny! Deal with it - personally I would be for people losing citizenship if they fail to vote.

      Tho +1 for mentioning Buffy!

      --
      Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
  2. What about my own content by Alain+Williams · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:What about my own content by Voyager529 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      Support the Australian Post Office and mail everyone CDs.

    2. Re:What about my own content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    3. Re:What about my own content by De+Lemming · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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...

    4. Re:What about my own content by Mille+Mots · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  3. World of Warcraft and p2p... by ILuvSP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This does not fair well for all the World of Warcraft players in Australia. Blizzard "legally" uses p2p to distribute patches and such. I guess only one question remains to be asked to all Australian WoW players...Can I have your stuff? Sorry, it had to be said.

    1. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by MasterOfMagic · · Score: 4, Informative

      <pedantic nitpick>TCP/IP is a P2P protocol. It was designed so that anybody could be a client and anybody could be a server - there were no special addresses that were client-only or server-only. Anything that flows over TCP/IP is using a P2P network, and I would guess that there is plenty of legal content flowing over TCP/IP.</pedantic nitpick>

    2. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by cromar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by plasmacutter · · Score: 5, Funny

      Blizzard will introduce a new achievement: death to the labour party.

      A million aussies will charge the halls of parliament on horseback screaming "FOR THE HORDE!"

      --
      VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    4. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by oahazmatt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Those who believe the Internet is private,
      find their privates are on the Internet.
    5. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by ZarathustraDK · · Score: 5, Funny

      - Darkrogue hits Bennygnome for 400 damage.
      - Australian Officer casts search-warrant on Darkrogue.
      Darkrogue says: "What the h..."
      - Darkrogue dies.
      Darkrogue has left the game.

      --
      If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
    6. Re:World of Warcraft and p2p... by mollymoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're talking about application-level protocols (layers 5-7 in the OSI model), you pedantic git.

      --
      Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
  4. When will this die???? by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative
    Government report shows censor ship scheme is flawed

    When will this thing finally die? Every man and his dog acknowledges that it is a steaming pile of political rhetoric, yet it still goes on and on and on.

    From the article I linked to:

    Australia's largest ISP, Telstra, and Internode have said they will not participate in the trials. The second largest ISP, Optus, will run only a scaled- back trial of just the first tier while iiNet, the third biggest provider, has said it will participate simply to show the Government that its scheme will not work.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:When will this die???? by Davemania · · Score: 4, Funny

      pfft, common sense or logic is no match for Senator Conroy or the Australian Government

  5. Ministry of Censorship by gzipped_tar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > Censorship Minister Stephen Conroy announced

    What is a "Censorship Minister"? Is there a "Ministry of Censorship" in Australia??

    --
    Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
    1. Re:Ministry of Censorship by wall0159 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The summary is inaccurate, he is actually minister of
      "Censorship", "Civilian Pacification" and "Eugenics for a better Australia".

    2. Re:Ministry of Censorship by rswail · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, there is. There's 2 bodies that do censorship in Australia.

      OFLC reviews media for compliance. It's an independent body that reports to Parliament.

      ACMA is responsible for online/broadcast regulation. It answers to the Minister for Communications (ie Conroy). It refers things that it thinks need to be classified to the OFLC.

  6. Re:goodluckwiththat by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

  7. Re:goodluckwiththat by TehZorroness · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. And in other news... by leamanc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Australia reports a rise in connections to proxy servers in the USA.

    --
    :q!
  9. Re:Where is he saying that? by Andr+T. · · Score: 4, Informative
    Found it:

    The Government understands that ISP-level filtering is not a 'silver bullet'. We have always viewed ISP-level filtering as one part of a broader government initiative for protecting our children online.

    Technology is improving all the time. 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.

    --

    Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

  10. There is by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only one way to block BitTorrent.

    --
    What?
  11. A Good Thing? by splodus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the sooner an 'important' state does this sort of thing the better.

    The current situation is a chaotic cat and mouse game that's gradually playing into the hands of the publishing industry.

    If a big state blocks and censors parts of the internet, they can probably make it stick. The result might be an incentive for people to start encrypting data by default, and I kind of think that would be a good thing for the whole world.

    Here in the UK the government is up to all sorts of tricks - the RIP Act gives them the power to monitor all internet traffic and store it for up to 2 years. Even your local council can request to see which web sites you've been visiting - no need to involve the police or the courts, just a 'senior official'.

    I think there's just not been a good enough reason so far to encrypt more than the bear minimum. This sort of thing might shove things in the right direction...

  12. Australian politicians: Ignorant hypocrits? by Jonas+Buyl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The idea of blocking P2P traffic is flawed in a lot of ways. What defines P2P traffic? TCP protocol IS a P2P-based protocol. Obviously they want to stop the illegal traffic going on but this is not the way and like any type of crime you can't stop it from happening at all. Furthermore, banning the in essence legal means to perform a crime implies that they also intend on banning cars because they can be used to kill people, computers as they can be used to intrude one's privacy and many more examples. The Australian government seems nothing more than a group of hypocrits. Yet again only the honest people will be punished by this because people will always find a way to get what they want. Either through paying for payed hosting services (like Rapidshare), by setting up a proxy or in other ways that will unquestionably discovered soon enough if they choose to push their plans.

  13. and the land of the.... by sgt+scrub · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  14. Re:goodluckwiththat by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    - John Gilmore

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  15. User friendly had a great comic on this by closetpsycho · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  16. Re:goodluckwiththat by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  17. Freenet? Or some other encrypted filesharing? by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 4, Informative

    Frankly, I don't know if this is a bad thing. We've been saying for years that everyone needs to encrypt everything by default and it hasn't happened because "normal" people don't see the need for their "normal" traffic.

    Take Freenet as an example. It's never reached critical mass and there's little worthwhile content (as of the last time I checked; I gave up on it some time back). But what happens if people can't get their torrents to work and all their mules and limes and kazaas stop working? Freenet with Frost needs just a decent installer package and enough users so that it scales up to reasonable speed. If that happened, how would that get filtered? Would the govt demand the blocking of everything that's encrypted? I can imagine some big players in the e-commerce game might have a thought or two on that subject.

    I don't use bittorrent or any emule/kazaa-like applications, but I think I've read that they all can be configured to encrypt all transfers.

    If governments want to stop "bad" traffic, they should realize that the tools are available for it to all go underground and flourish in ways the govt can't effectively monitor, much less censor. Are governments really stupid enough to hasten that situation?

    I think so. Whether it's Freenet, some other encrypted environment, or just encryption on top of currently popular protocols, part of me welcomes the censorship because I know it will finally start moving people to protect their communications. I think that's a good thing that will come from all this censorsip silliness.

    And to think - If the music industry had just bought out Napster and and used it to its potential, how many man-millenia of labor could have been put to productive use instead of wasted in stupid cat 'n mouse games?

  18. Solve this Australian style... by Xenographic · · Score: 5, Funny

    This should be solved Australian style. Just arrange so that this crazy filter guy has to be rescued from his locked office, where he gets found drunk and naked with a sheep and a pile of kiwis.

    That should put an end to things, unless that helps him get reelected in New Zeland...

  19. First they came for... by guruevi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First they came for the child pornography on the internet ... and I did not speak up
    Then they came for the organized crime on the internet ... and I did not speak up
    Then they came to 'protect the children' against 'vulgar images' ... and I did not speak up
    Then they came for the illegal warez ... and I did not speak up
    Then they came for my bittorrent ... and I did not speak up
    Then they came for me ... and there is no one left to speak up for me

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com