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AU Authority Moves To Censor Net Filtering Protest Site
An anonymous reader writes "On Friday the Sydney Morning Herald reported that an Internet censorship protest site had been set up under the banner 'Stephen Conroy: Minister for Fascism' and was ironically registered under the very name of the Australian Communications Minister responsible for trying to mandate the compulsory filtering scheme in federal law, stephenconroy.com.au. Within hours of the story being published, auDA, the Australian Domain Name Authority, had shut down the site, giving the owners only 3 hours to respond to a request to justify their eligibility for the domain. Normally auDA would allow several days to weeks for this process. An appeal to request an extension was denied, with no reason given. The site was quickly moved to a US domain, stephen-conroy.com in order to stay active while the dispute with auDA is resolved."
I think this is somewhat justified. Sure, where do you draw the line but this site was registered under a false name -- that of someone in Parliament. There's always the mature way and the immature way to handle things, and in this case with the people who created the same, they took the immature route. There's a time and a place for things, this sort of thing is more suited to personal jokes between friends and groups on Facebook.
I'm no fan of Stephen Conroy's Great Wall of Australia, but the owners of the site in question can't have any claim to legitimacy if they fraudulently use someone else's name to register it.
You can't censor in secret anymore. Either you can pull a China/North Korea/Cuba/Most of the Middle East and just outright limit, filter and forbid in the open and go full tilt enforcement while not hiding the fact you're being a douche about it, or you can go hands off and only enforce your countries top level domain. Few people in the US use a .us top level domain, though the popularity is increasing. .com is for the world and can be hosted anywhere nearly transparently. It's time Australia figures that out.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
These pesky political protest sites are wasting my valuable time when I could be working industriously for the greater good.
"The site was quickly moved to a US domain, stephen-conroy.com in order to stay active while the dispute with auDA is resolved.""
Aren't we suppose to be moving things FROM the US in order to avoid censorship?
Having registered some ".com.au" names previously, they are much stricter about ensuring that ".com.au" are only used for commercial purposes - you generally have to supply evidence or details (such as company registration numbers, registered business name details, etc) that confirm the commercial nature of the registration.
There are most likely also strict rules regarding usage of names, trademarks and similar items
Given this, it is highly likely that the AU domain authority have decided that the registration does not meet the .com.au requirements. I would not be surprised if they've pulled the registration because of this.
They've moved to a .com registration anyway, which doesn't have any significant commercial criteria for obtaining the registration
this is what labor are all about, they are all about making everyone tow the line, there's a good worker join that union and don't you DARE try better yourself or we will label you "rich" (income of 90k and up? are you for real that's not rich) and tax the bejesus out of you.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
You're only allowed to register .com.au domains that correspond to the names of businesses that you own, or your own name. This isn't censorship so much as rule enforcement.
AuDA is a fascist organization [organisation]. They do what they want, use their funds to hire high-powered lawyers, and out-spend those who seek to use their services within their fascist rules or even those used by the rest of the Internet world.
I think Australia is a beautiful wonderful place, and have many friends there. When they can free their government from AuDA and their Big-Content masters, it will be a better place.
Oh yeah I need a punchline to get the karma masters happy. AuDA and Australia fascists: step off.
E
I got it done fast, before you even saw it coming, like Australians it's all in the title it's all over go away.
...that Bob Brown is the best choice for PM, The Greens really have the only policies that make sense. Can you all imagine no Labor or Liberal bastards calling the shots and the country actually being run by someone who cares about it rather than these insane power hungry pollies with mad personal agendas to fulfill.
There are only very minimal requirements which are very easy to meet such as placing a few ads on the sited related to the name which would qualify the site as a commercial monetised website - you can't resell the site for 6 months, but this is not a real barrier. Yes, this is not what most people would expect, but this is how auDA have managed the .com.au domain space, which is now full of parked domain names.
.com is NOT a United States domain name. .us is the united states.
Just more clueless idiots posting fallacies.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
...The Aussie intarwebz people stopped pulling shit like this?
How would he spam Slashdot's frontpage with "news" from his beloved Australia if all that was left to post was stories such as "Aussie Man Buys iPod: Quite likes it"...?
Even CowboyNeal would put an end to it.
I'd like to hear the details of this before I take it at face level. As much as I am opposed to Conroy and his barmy internet filters as an Australian I do also recognize that .com.au has different requirements than a .com domain, and still take stories like yours with a pinch of salt. Please back it up.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
This is mainly a "hind-site" phenomenon. Someone idiotic tries to stop getting attention by trying to silence someone over the Internet. Because of this, it spreads like wild fire. That's because people love to mock idiocy. Often it's because a notable person or entity is trying to stifle free speech, and we love to get all up in arms about it. That's because the news is interesting in some way.
Don't let this fool you into thinking that information cannot be kept down. And don't think that it isn't happening every day in millions of ways. The Streisand Effect is a cute name for something rare. Censorship is real, and it happens. The reason you don't hear about most of it is because, well, it has been successfully censored. You can only pray that the manner of censorship is so asinine that it causes a stir. Normally it doesn't. People get paid off, killed or threatened with merit-less lawsuits.
Don't let these false phenomenon allow complacency to set in. Speak out where you can about what you think is important.
This is how it has always been with Australian Domain name registrars. It has nothing to do with a Labor government, the Australian domain authorities have always been complete bastards, no matter which party is in power. It has nothing to do with party politics, it's just about anal-retentive bureaucrats and very strict rules about who is allowed to register a domain.
Even businesses with a legitimate claim to a .au domain name have a difficult time registering it. It's completely different to the US, where basically anybody can register .com domain with any available name.
He could have been good friends with http://www.dustindiamond.com/ !
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45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I suspect someone within the AU registry side-stepped some processes to get the domain through.
This may sound strange to americans, but over here in australia, com.au is fairly strictly regulated.
Good to see .com is still up though, I agree with the cause :)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The domain WAS registered using a registered business ABN. auDA pulled the domain for an undisclosed reason and it broke none of their rules.
I am not be condicending. It seems all countries' rights are being eroded quickly, but Australia seems to be going quicker than most. As a US citizen, I'm thinking of just buying some cheap woodland and building a cabin. Eating squirrels and cooking over a fire would stink, but at least no one would come to put me in prison for something I didn't even know I did.
(Hi NSA/Echelon! Hope you are having a nice day. I once threw a paper cup out my car window.)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
The OP claimed "government intervention" in this specific case not some other case and he did it without a shread of evidence, I never claimed auDA or the government were good/bad/indifferent, just that auDA did this off their own bat.
Some people don't need a prod to attempt to suck up to government OTOH they could have done it deliberately knowing many people would blame the government. I don't know their "hidden" motive and neither do you.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
While this kind of thing is permitted to go on, Australians cannot consider themselves a free people. In the U.S., there are quite a few reasons we should no longer be considered a free people as well, but this example of censorship is pretty extreme. In fact, both examples are extreme... the original cause and the satirical response.
If I act/dress like Steven Conroy goose-stepping through the streets, THAT is parody. If I create a passport with his name on it, then that is fraud.
They should have registered the site in their own name, then it would be parody and they would probably win in court (don't know aussie laws on parody but presuming they are as similar to EU/US laws as you can expect from a continent of criminals).
Mind you, the fact that the registry changed its normal procedure for this case shows that this is a real attempt at suppression of critical thoughts. Then again, everyone knows not to use local registers for anything, they are all corrupt but without the global oversight the .com.org.net have to work under.
But if you want to parody/critize, you need to know what battles to fight. Like the show "Have I Got News For You". They can only do what they do because they got lawyers watching the entire show, who decide what joke/satire is worth it and which isn't. You can make far harder satire, if you give the enemy only the satire itself to fight. Not accidental criminal/libel stuff that they can use to shut you down.
For instance, I can say that George Bush is the monkey whose brain was served in The Temple of Doom, but if I then hint "which leads him to cheat on his wife" I am opening myself up to much to attack. This side is now attacked because it faked the registry, neatly allowing the attacked to side-step addressing the charge of facism.
Just as my post may now be modden down for attacking Bush, or the criminal aussie remark, rather then the main point I am trying to make.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But if we don't want to use carbon-fuels because they are running out, then nuclear ain't much better.
And Australia got a better chance at renewable energy then most countries because they got far more land available to put it on, and you can't import cheap coal electricity to make green energy to expensive.
Nuclear is far less economical then the nuke industry wants to make it appear. Would you trust a coal producer to tell you the truth about coal?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
... the domain name being registered was stephen-conroy-facist.com.au or stephen-conroy-destroys-freedom.com.au or something like that.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
He's the Au lawyer who really knows domain name law and has previously taken on AuDA. He's also the guy who can authorize [authorise] whatever information deserves to be public.
E
Full disclosure: I don't work for Erhan, CooperMills Lawyers, AuDA nor am I involved in any current aspect.
The TLD "com" is not a US domain. It is a world-wide top level domain. Aussies are just as eligible for it. And the actual site hosting is still in Australia:
And the IP address is under this network:
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think Bush was the one where the heart was ripped out. They needed a monkey with brains for the other scene.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
that we start registering urls like
stephen-conroy.co.uk
stephen-conroy.gl
stephen-conroy.dk
stephen-conroy.se
stephen-conroy.fi
stephen-conroy.is
stephen-conroy.nl
stephen-conroy.de
etc...
that should send a warning to others playing the same game.
I was once an expert witness in a case where AuDA stole domains from someone who legitimately registered them.
AuDA is a fascist organization [organisation]. They do what they want, use their funds to hire high-powered lawyers, and out-spend those who seek to use their services within their fascist rules or even those used by the rest of the Internet world.
I think Australia is a beautiful wonderful place, and have many friends there. When they can free their government from AuDA and their Big-Content masters, it will be a better place.
Oh yeah I need a punchline to get the karma masters happy. AuDA and Australia fascists: step off.
E
Yep ~ i'll agree their a bunch of fascists...
i saw a client battle for over 12 months to get the domain name;
http://www.cope.com.au/
auDA had decided that they should 'reserve' the word "cope" for their own use, and had this reservation on the name for more than 7 yrs previously.
And by "reserving" - auDA had simply decided that no-one should ever be allowed to register the name (in case auDA wanted to), until my client decided that it was worth challenging.
I think your 5 cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough.
the name is a registered business/company name or trademark or statutory authority or association.
They can fast track it because it is fucking obvious it isn't in this case.
After all, the legislation is tabled to be proposed right before the next federal election, eh?
Politicians ALWAYS use the "to protect the children" line to create laws that are used for political censorship.
They push these laws through with hoards of whiners crying that something must be done to stop child pornography, but the true aim is never that.
The true aim of any law that tries to catch "online predators", or kiddy porn distributors is really to stop political dissent.
How often have we heard the cry that "they" need to circumvent basic rights of freedom to "protect the children". This is always effective because anyone that opposes these laws on the basis of "rights" is slammed as supporting sexual predators.
I for one am sick of losing constitutionally guaranteed rights to those that want to suppress free speech, and use the lame "think of the children" line over and over again to fool the stupid.
So, there!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I find it amusing that they managed to do this (though it does sound like they were within their rights to do so) just before they close for 3 weeks.
fencepost
just a little off
I'll bet that they knew exactly what they were doing when they registered the domain and the government / domain authority played right into their hands.
After all, here we are discussing it on Slashdot.
-T
The Greens express very nice sentiments and I like them too. In fact who would not - I am sure that in principle just about everyone would agree with such magnanimous principles.
The problem starts when figuring out what the Greens would actually do, as action, if voted into power. Their rhetoric insists that all society's ills must be solved, immediately, without even a moments delay, and it is highly immoral not to simply ban everything you don't like out of existence, again immediately, no waiting.
How exactly could you ban coal burning, all dams, all development, all human life near the coast, near a forest etc etc etc in one simple act of parliament? and how could you expect civilization as we know it to continue, and not (as I would expect) result in chaos, famine, and general untimely death of millions?
It really is unfortunately ridiculous to contemplate.
The fact is that if the Greens ever got power they could not come within a gazillion miles of matching their years of rhetoric with actual action. In fact they would start to look like every other political party very quick smart.
The humbling of Peter Garret is a classic example of how such things turn out. From saviour of the environment to saviour of jobs, heavy industry and mining in just a few short months.
Politics is not easy - we live in a finite world and by definition someone will always lose. Politicians have to decide exactly who. Glad it is not me, and I don't think the Greens have the capability to make such hard but necessary choices.
C/- the Sydney Morning Herald - http://digihub.smh.com.au/node/1484