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Australian Net Filter Gets One Step Closer
Condobolin sends in an update to the Australian government's ongoing efforts to implement ISP-level filtering. One of the hurdles they had to overcome was to build a system that would allow them to filter content without impairing other internet usage. A trial of the system has just concluded, and the results are positive — at least, for the government. Quoting:
"More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems. Of the nine participating ISPs, iPrimus, Netforce, Webshield, Nelson Bay Online and OMNIconnect told ARN they had seen no slowdowns in Internet speeds or problems with the filtering solutions in place. Of the remaining four ISPs, Tech2U and Highway1 were unable to respond by time of publication while Unwired and Optus refused to comment. ... 'From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory Internet filter based on or around an Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist or subset thereof, then it can be done without any impact whatsoever to the speed of the Internet,' [said Webshield managing director Anthony Pillion]."
....sure, they'd be entirely neutral.
All right thinking Australian citizens cheered and congratulated their government for purifying and liberating the Internet from malicious foreign badware and badwords. The future is bright and pure for Australia's youth, who will be the first to experience the liberated internet. "Three cheers, nay, four cheers, for our wise and benevolent rulers!" said a man on the street of Canberra.
UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
The participants were all
And an the obvious (some would say FOREGONE) conslusion was "it works just fine".
.... brought to you by the department of No!Really?
Seriously folks, aside from all the dodgy (ie totally unscientific and statistically irrelevant) testing, this "internet filtering" is bad because CENSORSHIP IS EVIL!
Always, in every case, by definition and in principle.
Censorship is NEVER, ever, in any sense of the phrase, a good thing.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.
The whole point of censorship is to thwart opposing opinion, the ministers apparent asshattery should come as no surprise.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
move out of Chin..ahem.. Australia.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
Are all my fellow countrymen who just don't care. Indeed, even my close family believe it to be a good idea, even after I've explained just why it isn't. They either think it'll stop them receiving spam, or think it'll stop some middle eastern type fellow from finding bomb plans on the internet and killing us (because we've had such a problem with that here).
I'm tired of explaining these things to people only to have them throw it back in my face and ignore everything I say. I've sort of gotten to the stage where I just think "Fuck em. Let them implement their filter and we'll see what happens." If it fails miserably, perhaps we can finally get some interest from the every day Australian.
Why aren't you protesting against existing censorship in Australia? Unlike America our ratings system is run by and enforced by the government. This is why our highest rating for video games is MA and we why we have no R rating ("because the nintendos is for kids right?").
Sad to say it but this internet filtering fits right in with general government and public belief that a minority should be able to control what material adults consume.
Fire up your proxies gentleman!
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems.
So, in other words, just less than half reported significant speed and technology problems. This entire situation pisses me off! I emailed the minister in charge of this and he didn't even have the decency to reply with a non-canned response. So, all the big ISPs are saying that this will result in big speed disruptions, but the other half (idiot home-run ISPs most likely) are saying it's fine. Gee, I wonder if it's because those ISPs have negligible traffic anyway!
it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.
Yes. But you see what is happening don't you? He (Conroy or his department) is playing with dodgy statistics to put his argument/proposal in the best probable light. "More than half" of the ISPs he surveyed said the filtering was ok. What does that mean? Does that mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs were little players without many customers? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are in the government's pockets? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are OWNED by the government? I don't know. But these are not reasons being put forward. They (the government) are playing the dodgy statistics game in the hope that the masses will fall for their flawed studies. The masses will fall for it, though. I won't and I will remain pissed off.
Yeah, but they have to actually implement it before they can find out whether it can withstand all the attacks that will be launched against it. That's where it's likely to really cost them. :)
I think the main attack is going to be the voter especially if the opposition groups can get a good logical argument going and definitely not any disobedience which will play into these peoples hands. The problem you have here in Australia is many people vote for a party (Liberal or Labour) not the man and even if you have a minister cultivate a small moustache, wears knee high boots and walks in a funny way many will vote for him because he is a member of the party that that person votes for.
This is the sort of action that slowly erodes basic human freedoms by effectively having the Government gradually take over thinking for you and you really have to be stupid or just plain lazy not to see this. I have seen and heard arguments from various Government ministers on the so called internet monitoring and they initially sound rational with quotes like "Think of the children" and "We are against child porn" but behind the faÃade you really do have to worry.
A very good quote comes to mind here. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
But its for the children.
Seriously tho, i'm afraid LOTS of people out there believe that some censorship in exchange for their 'safety' is a good thing. Which is sad. Actually most of the world is ok with giving up rights ( that most never really had ... ) to their governments.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And if we killed all humans, there would be no more murders.
Shitting on your face would be a waste of crap, toilet reject. Censorship works on the loserboy principle that someone knows what's good for me better than I do and therefore has the authority to "protect" me.
Newsflash: I didn't sign up for any "protection" and anyone who would do so is welcome to swim off to lobotomy island.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.