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Australia's Vast, Scattershot Censorship Blacklist Revealed
mask.of.sanity writes "Australia's secretive Internet filter blacklist held by its communications watchdog has been leaked, revealing the government has understated the amount of banned Web pages by more than 1000.
Multiple legitimate businesses and Web sites have been banned including two bus companies, online poker sites, multiple Wikipedia entries, Google and Yahoo group pages, a dental surgery and a tour operator.
Andrew Twaits, CEO of Betfair, a billion-dollar business blocked by the blacklist, was furious the government has potentially annexed tens of millions of dollars in revenue after the Betfair.com gambling site was blacklisted.
The blacklists were reportedly leaked by a Web filter operator to wikileaks which has published the full list of banned URLs.
Outraged privacy advocates say the government has effectively lied about the amount of URLs included in the blacklists, totaling more than 2300, and the type of content which it would ban.
The leak follows a series of attacks on the watchdog in which irate users successfully lobbied for web sites to be banned, only to be threatened with an $11,000 fine for publishing the link contained in the PR response. It was also revealed the watchdog can ban Web sites at a whim, with no accountability."
Then I typed the word "Goat" - I saw the .cx variation - well, at least they're making some attempt at saving the populace from the horrors of the web.
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i took a quick look at the blacklist and found some porn sites that i didn't know about. awesome! it's like a pre-filtered list of quality porn links! they saved me a lot of surfing time!
The www.techworld.com.au blog link in the summary is broken. It is missing couple of "s" letters.
Here is a working link:
http://www.techworld.com.au/blog/broadbandvoice/2009/03/acmas_blacklist_a_bigots_battleground
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
god bless wikileaks.
The blacklists were reportedly leaked by a Web filter operator to wikileaks which has published the full list of banned URLs.
These numerous government blacklists have proven to be a boon to porn and gambling industries. There are Web sites that I never would have even thought to go to if it weren't for these black lists. I want to thank the government of Australia for helping to open my eyes and my mind to the vast unseen Internet.
My favourite from the list: files.kavefish.com/pictures/collections/funny_cat_pictures/_index-list.html
It's just funny cat pictures and nothing suggets there's ever been anything else.
Also, the list (although a month older than one on Wikileaks) can be obtained from Integard filter software. Hex edit the integard.exe and change first occurence of "datetimepicker.js" to websites_ACMA.txt, then login to integard's webUI and request that file. Apparently there's a whitelist of files the webUI server can give to the user. I've confirmed myself that the lolcats URL is indeed in that ACMA file from the filter software...
-- Matti Nikki
[Bookmarks] -> [Bookmark This Page] -> [Done]
Australia's Secret Internet Filter: Your one-stop shopping for porn!
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
And I'll say it again.
In the haste to throw out the smarmy blue blooded $50k a year private school aristocrat wannabes known as the liberals out of government, we've introduced something that's so far been *far* worse. And I say that as someone voted for them!
At least the liberals had a solid grounding in running the country and seemed to know what the hell they were doing. So far Rudd and that dimwitted treasurer Swan have been blundering about without any sort of cohesive strategy and burning through billions of dollars a day doing it.
It would seem that like any 'revolution', when the dust settles usually the country ends up worse off when the populist leader takes power.
Even my father, a dyed in the wool blue collar labour man has started questioning whether Rudd's more interested in selling us out to China, financially AND ideologically than the he is in the national good. What sort of politician pushes something like this onto his own free country?
Who is Rudd really? (Seriously I'm genuinely interested).
Not a hoax. I've confirmed it myself by ripping websites_ACMA.txt out of Integard filtering software. Even if it's not identical to ACMA's own list, it damn well is identical to Integard's version of ACMA's list.
The list is real.
-- Matti Nikki
That's just obvious attempt at spin/cover-up. Some simple (as these things go) binary reverse engineering of the "Intergard" content filter already showed a similar (though not-identical, earlier) [snapshot of the] list - after all, it's a dynamic blacklist.
http://techwiredau.com/2009/03/was-an-acma-blacklist-leaked/
So, yeah, of course it's the real list, as at mid-2008. The current ACMA list is probably even bigger and more abuse-of-power filled.
Look, nobody not mentally ill likes true child porn. But consider keeping something valuable - do you demand everyone chop off their hands so they don't steal your gold? Or do YOU put it somewhere safe, with CCTV surveillance? So it is with children -
they don't have adult legal rights, being children. So monitor _children_, perhaps even encrypted feeds over the internet (and monitor who's watching the feeds, mind - unless they're parents or peers they're almost certainly sickos). When children turn 18, they get full adult legal rights, including right to privacy, and the camera monitoring is disengaged.
i.e. if you want to keep children safe, restrict and monitor them, not everyone else, just like keeping anything else precious safe.
When someone says "think of the children" about installing internet censorship, their goal is internet censorship, not keeping children safe!
Is I told you so redundant?
There is NO reason to trust any government, ever. period.
The more they ask you to trust them with, the less you should trust them. This is the rule of the land. Governments are not here to help anyone but themselves. When you get rid of one bad politician, 10 more are ready to take their place. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Think about that for a minute. These people are not absolute rulers and look how fucked up they are. The more we trust them with, the more fucked up they will get.
No, there is no simple answer, but citizens should never allow such things as this to exist in the first place. In the US, the second amendment helps to ensure that citizens have a method for revoking license given to governments... if it comes to that.
P.S. They are NEVER doing anything for you, they (the government) always do things for themselves. They just say it's for you, kind of in the same way that a rapist says "this is for you" before they start in on you.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
In the US there is a lot of overlap between the Christian extremists and the Libertarians. The few christian extremists we have in Australia don't subscribe to libertarian views.
Another factor here is the role of minor parties in the upper house of parliament. The Christian senator pushing the filters got in with less than 1000 primary votes. Most likely he got a lot of preferences because of the number of worse sounding groups on the senate ballot paper.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Don't believe what the government or its contracted agents say about themselves. I mean really, how naive do you have to be?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
"It's kind of typical of politicians to say things in a way that sound like they're saying something else. You'll also notice he's threatening to launch an investigation into the people who released it. If it's not the list, then what exactly are they going to investigate?"
I agree, speaking of "saying things" I still haven't heard Conroy say he is in favor of a blacklist...here let me clean up then cut&paste my theory from the last story...
Labor is playing the same game with Fielding as Howard did when he "wanted" to implement mandatory filters (that his party are now blocking in opposition). There were similar circumstances for Howard at the time (ie: a censorship nut holding a deciding vote on more important legislation). Here let me spell it out.
Labour have a full majority in the house that the Lib's can't block, (that's what makes them the government of the day). However they need the support of the all the Green's and the two independents (ie a coalition) to pass legislation through the senate that the Lib's cannot block. The Lib's also need a coalition to sucessfully block but only have to find one senator to join their coalition if they want to block the legislation.
Xenophon[sic] and Fielding (the two independents) both wanted a mandatory filter, (Xenophon has an anti-gambling platform). Labor set up a "trial" to keep them onside for as long as possible. Xenophon to his credit has seen the glaring human rights error in his plan to ban offshore gambling sites, Fielding has nowhere to go because he is now in the position of voting for a blacklist that bans his supporters (anti-abortionists), an independent's vote is no longer of much value since the major reform is out of the way ready for the next election, the Lib's, Labor and Greens are happy because they have collectively screwed "Mr 2%" for winning on their preference fuckery, Rudd is happy because Conroy is showing loyalty instead of challenging him in the back rooms like Costello did with Howard,....get my theory.....it's a YES MINISTER episode if ever I saw one.
Oh and check out the nude pictures of Hanson, unfortunately it's only funny because it's happening to someone I don't like.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
When children turn 18, they get full adult legal rights, including right to privacy, and the camera monitoring is disengaged.
By then it's too late. You've already conditioned them to accept the fact that Authority can and should monitor them for their own good. They're already used to the idea, so the next thing you know they'll think it is normal to pee in a bottle for a Manager so that employers will know what drugs they've taken, or they may think it's normal for companies or governments to monitor what you email to people. Nope, if you treat children like shit then they will grow up to be assholes. Garbage in garbage out.
I agree with NevarMore. Anti-abortion sites can have some stomach-turning pics. But that's not the real problem. The real reason why that one was blacklisted is pre-term porn. Yep, it's a growing evil. All those nekkid pictures of poor defenceless foetuses: Pre-term porn, a social disaster just waiting to happen. http://vmlojwclog.blogspot.com/2009/03/official-concern.html
Conroy and ISPs implementing the blacklist confirm that this is a fake
And yet in spite of this list's confirmed fakeness, Conroy has threatened that anyone distributing this confirmed fake list will be subject to investigation by federal police and suffer criminal prosecution.
o_O
"This is fake"
um ugh, hmph... and...
"ACMA is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Any Australian involved in making this content publicly available would be at serious risk of criminal prosecution."
If the list is fake what exactly are they going to prosecute anyone for?
When my government denied their were secret CIA prisons then threatened to put people in jail for revealing stuff I nodded my head and said their are probably secret prisons. People don't threaten to call the police or put people in jail unless the item in question is real. I'm willing to bet that regardless of the fist pounding and outrage that this might not be today's list, and it might not be the August 8th list but it's the list at one time. No question about it because of the way he responded. The language makes you think they deny it's the list, but it appears to me their denial is very coached. It's not THE list. Not it's never been the list.
I'll be in the audience. Suggestions on the most effective way to point out flaws in the proposed censorship regime welcome. :)
Throw a shoe at him.
Actually they do help... A lot actually!
1) They make the world aware of the censorship taking place.
2) They make it obvious that a secret list might contain anything. We can't check.
3) They make it obvious that the list needs to be public because that would make it possible to avoid non-relevant censorship. Even if the list is publicly available, it cannot be used to find the blocked stuff because - well - the stuff is blocked.
4) They force the authorities to engage in debates about the censorship thus again making the world aware of what happening.
5) They show that such secrets can never be kept and thus shouldn't.
There's no reason to have such a blocklist to begin with except to engage in censorship. You don't protect anybody against anything with a blacklist. For every site listed there's 10 others just like it. List those and each has 10 alternatives... The odds of you hitting one is the same with or without the blacklist.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
... I didn't get one valid link out of about five or six I clicked.
The links work, it's just that they've been Slashdoted.
Shouldn't it be easy enough to find out if its fake. If someone from OZ clicks a bunch of the links, and they can't access them, its real, if they can....its fake....or am I missing something?
There could be a severe punishment for anyone dong this. They could even be transported to Britain.