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National Censorship Plan Offensive, Says Aussie Shadow Minister
downundarob writes "Senator Nick Minchin, the Australian Shadow Minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy, has written (or more likely a staffer has written) this interesting article on the Australian Federal Government's continued zeal to enforce ISP-level filtering in Australia. In the article he posits that 'Underlying the Rudd Government's plan to screen the internet is an offensive message: that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online.' Meanwhile, we wait for filtering trials to start, trials that have been delayed and which have next-to-no support among the industry. Telstra BigPond — Australia's largest ISP — has refused to take part, comparing internet filtering to 'like trying to boil the ocean.' The third largest, iiNet, is prepared to participate to highlight flaws."
So what he's saying is, this plan to censor the Internet is so offensive that it should be censored, right?
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he's an opposition minister. It's the job of the opposition to bitch and whine and pretend they would be any better if they were in office.
CF Obama, Barack
I'm sure I could do it if I really applied myself and the water weren't so salty.
Why did you feel you had to mention this? The authorship credit is to Minchin, not J. Random Staffer, not Kevin Rudd.
Stick to the facts.
As an American, I must say, we need to take a look at this nomenclature: Shadow Minister sounds so much cooler than Senate Minority Leader or the like.
It helps when the guy has an ounce of sense too...
This national censorship plan is so offensive that no one should ever hear about it again!
I propose that we censor it! Think of the children!
it's amusing to watch Obama atm, we had a very similar flurry of hope and dreams when Rudd was elected here. now look what we have, internet censorship, rolling back of benefits to seniors and families having babies and a string of empty promises.
give it just a little time and that shine will rub off revealing the politician underneth.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Blacklists and content scanning will have, at best, a negligible impact on child predators and pornographers. Any progress will be quickly negated as pedophiles adapt to the technology. Even proponents of the filter have to recognize that.
Given the enormous monetary and social costs, I can't believe this will ever really materialize. I'm sure some politicians exploited the issue for their own benefit, but I suspect the idea will either go away or be implemented in a symbolic, watered-down manner.
Well... The Senator for Censorship is becoming more and more unpopular in australia.... I was part of his trial for internet censorship (was... i switched ISP's) and let me say this... it was appalling the speeds we were getting.... I mean.. loading up google.com took at least 30 seconds on a decent speed broadband
I took that as being a jab at Julie Bishop. Could be wrong though.
When your own Shadow Government thinks you've gone Too Far, perhaps you've fucking gone too far.
I like music
Just before Christmas I emailed the Prime Minister of Australia twice. I got a reply (from Stephen Conroy!) yesterday.
--
Contact your Prime Minister -- Thank you for your message to the Prime Minister. Below is a copy of your comments to the Prime Minister for your records.
Senator Conroy is suggesting that peer-to-peer network traffic will be actively monitored and censored when appropriate. Most people would, at first glance, find this acceptable to catch the bad guys. The implications, however, are a bit more far reaching.
An example. The company I work for uses a Virtual Private Network (VPN). We use this to âoelink upâ our geographically separated offices. The way VPN works is that a network device in, say, my office connects directly to another network device at my head office. VPN is peer-to-peer networking. Communications between an ATM and the bank is peer-to-peer networking. Intra-government communications between networks is peer-to-peer networking.
What Senator Conroy is suggesting is that communications between the two VPN devices will be monitored and censored when necessary. How is that different to phone tapping?
To censor content you have to assess the content. To assess the content a person or computer has to read the content. To read the content being passed back and forth between two private computers (peer-to-peer communications) you have to intercept those messages. So, in effect, Conroyâ(TM)s solution is that all private communications amongst individuals or corporations will be monitored (read). Is this even legal without a court order? The solution proposed by Conroy is wiretapping without a court order.
Why is this person (Conroy) allowed to make such outrageous suggestions? This needs to be made known to people. A person who does not understand technology or law should not be making these decisions.
i still object to the term "shadow" anything, mainly because of the immediate gut negative reaction, that the post you were responding to alludes to. i listen to the bbc alot, and i constantly hear the term "shadow" used in terms of opposition politics, and i always scratch my head over the term
in the usa, there is no pro-abortion movement, there is a "pro-choice" movement
in the usa, there is no anti-abortion movement, there is a "pro-life" movement
there aren't even used cars anymore. they are all "certified pre-owned"
the whole point is, people have negative gut reactions to certain words, and so, such words are avoided for public relations reasons. in fact, governments and poliicians are usually most sensitive to this phenomenon, and are very antagonistic to angry or creepy sounding phrases and words and negative connotations, and the first to propose alternative phraseology with a very vague touchy feeling positivism about it
so it feels very weird to me to hear anyone in politics or government referred to as "shadow" anything without protesting and using an alternative term. i would, in fact, bet on seeing a slow scaling down and fading away of the term "shadow" anything in respect to government terminology. i mean heck, why not call him "sith lord"?
creepy and vague terminology is not a winner in political contexts. call him the "alternative minister" or the "new way minister", but not the "shadow minister"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You're an idiot. You wouldn't know the facts if they honked you on the nose.
If parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online, they cannot be trusted to vote you in the next elections...
so he sent a form letter that had nothing to do with your comments?, nice to see he`s in touch...not!
why do we vote these cretins in?
It'll be stagnant for a few years and when we've all forgotten about it, a press release will reveal it'll be delayed until further notice.
The suspense is killing me! :-)
All joking aside, what was his reply? Inquiring minds want to know!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
His words would be slightly more credible had the plan not originated with his lot, until they were kicked out in 2007, and then copied in its entirety by the present lot, for the same reason: to keep one fundamentalist Senator who just happens to hold the balance of power onside.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
As an Australian, I can tell you that the comment is entirely accurate and in no way trolling.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
So? Seems pretty obvious to me. Just ask Sun to build the internet filters.
This is how it always works:
When one party has control and the other is the opposition, the party with control moves forward the agenda and the opposition opposes it.
When an election happens and they switch sides, the new party in charge who used to be in opposition of the agenda now moves it forward while the party who is now out of power opposes it.
The agenda of world centralization of power and increasing control over the general public always moves forward.
Liberty.
The /etc/passwd file also contains information like user ID's and group ID's that are used by many system programs. Therefore, the /etc/passwd file must remain world readable. If you were to change the /etc/passwd file so that nobody can read it, the first thing that you would notice is that the ls -l command now displays user ID's instead of names!
The Shadow Suite solves the problem by relocating the passwords to another file (usually /etc/shadow). The /etc/shadow file is set so that it cannot be read by just anyone. Only root will be able to read and write to the /etc/shadow file. Some programs (like xlock) don't need to be able to change passwords, they only need to be able to verify them. These programs can either be run suid root or you can set up a group shadow that is allowed read only access to the /etc/shadow file. Then the program can be run sgid shadow.
By moving the passwords to the /etc/shadow file, we are effectively keeping the attacker from having access to the encoded passwords with which to perform a dictionary attack.
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Shadow-Password-HOWTO-2.html
Fnord.
Obama was elected by foreign powers, not locals. Your fault, not ours.
Screw it, you wanted my tax dollars but now dont like your election winner, Obama? Oh, thats right, he doesnt work for you any more.
On the one hand Minchin refers to experts who say that the filtering will be of little help, and on the other hand he says that he installed a filter on his family computer to help protect his children.
Athy, athier, athiest.
but that argument only holds if 'shadow' actually does evoke these gut reactions. In Australia, its such a standard term for the opposition minister with the same portfolio, that it doesn't have those connotations.
In fact, until TFS, the comicbook-geek second meaning had never occurred to me. So thank you American slashdotters.
To repay you, may I point out that the Shadow Communication Minister is a member of the Shadow Cabinet, ultimately answerable to The Leader of The Opposition, who once led the movement to bring in a Republic and overthrow the foreign empire! (But he failed.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
He should reroll Retribution Minister, I hear they're quite overpowered at the moment.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
My apologies that you had to take a karma hit just because I was too lazy to link to an explanatory source. My bad, should have known, will try to remember in the future.