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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]."
Yeah right.
Results of filtering - bearing in mind that the incumbent Labor federal government is largely ruled by the Catholic-dominated right wing faction:
This is a huge worry. The blacklist will not be subject to public oversight. As an Aussie expat, I'm glad to be residing across the ditch in New Zealand (where ISPs are allowed to opt out of the filtering).
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
then again, you can't expect to talk sense with the labor party....
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Yeah, all the citizens need to do is search the internet for the results of the trial, and they only get results indicating everything went great.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I guess the 15 users of Nelson Bay Online would be able to help, but iPrimus seems to be the only notable ISP taking part.
I'm interested in testing a few url combinations - so if you are using iPrimus, could you post the results for the following urls:
http://redtube.com/
http://www.redtube.com/
http://www.redtube.com/terms
http://www.redtube.com/contact
http://www.redtube.com/privacy
http://www.redtube.com/dmca
http://www.redtube.com/usc2257
http://www.redtube.com/?foo=bar
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Cyde/Weird_pictures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cyde/Weird_pictures
If you're reading slashdot, you should have figured out what I'm trying to test. The reason is that Conroy has claimed that only the exact url is supposed to be blocked, and if (for example) www.redtube.com is on the blacklist, no sub-pages should be blocked. How this is supposed to handle query strings (such as those used for slashdot threads) without overblocking or being trivial to defeat, I'm not sure.
Note that these sites contain adult content, but nothing that is illegal to view in Australia.
AC'ing because I don't want an $11,000 fine.
(Most sites taken from here)
As seen in countless examples where government officials state they have "high morals" and subsequently are caught abusing little boys or girls - I wonder if these same government officials pushing to censor the internet are cut of the same cloth.
iPrimus only joined the filter becuase that the time they joined their parent compnay was trading at 2 cent... they simply did it to get free hardware via the grant...
Funny thing is, we have a guy at work signed up for Conroy's media releases. Spam Assassin keeps blocking them and for rules that look odd from a government mail server. I'll have to scrounge one up and see what triggers it. Maybe the whole department are idiots.