Slashdot Mirror
Aussie Internet Censorship Minister Censors Self
An anonymous reader writes "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the minister attempting to ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat, has been removing all traces of the unpopular legislation from his main website with a JavaScript filter. From the article: 'It was revealed today a script within the minister's homepage deliberately removes references to internet filtering from the list. In the function that creates the list, or "tag cloud," there is a condition that if the words "ISP filtering" appear they should be skipped and not displayed.' Bear in mind, this is the same minister that tried to get the ISP of tech forum Whirlpool to pull the site after users there posted a response email from the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority)."
Unfortunately, this won't happen. (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the minister attempting to ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat has been removing all traces of the unpopular legislation from his main website with a javascript filter.
The summary of this article is a ball-faced lie. The JavaScript in question removes the term "ISP filter" from the tag cloud on the home page of the site, nothing more.
There are still plenty of pages on the site that mention "ISP Filtering" such as the following:
Media Release - Measures to improve safety of the internet for families
Measures to improve safety of the internet for families
Media Release - Optus to participate in ISP filtering pilot
Media Release - Pilot to assess technical feasibility of ISP filtering
PS: I still think Conroy is an ass-hat. It's a very small minority of Australian citizens who want internet censorship - Kevin Rudd and his government need to remember that they were voted in by the majority. Say "NO" to Kevin in 11!
Actually it could be a sign that perhaps the Department is preparing to quietly let this matter slip into the background ... i.e. give up on it. Rationally, this filter was never going to get off the ground. The Government's own report says it is a waste of money and won't work. It doesn't do anything other than block a handful of URLs, which is pretty pointless considering most of the traffic they are interested in stopping would be via P2P, usenet, IRC and other such channels, which are not filtered at all. It's not a major priority except for certain fringe elements ... and Labor doesn't have the numbers in the Senate to get this proposed legislation through.
For all the sensationalist reporting on the proposed filter on Slashdot, anyone that knows how the Australia Federal Government works internally knows this filter is pretty unlikely to ever come into fruition (in its current form, at least). Governments definitely don't like wasting money on things that are going to make them less popular. Especially considering it's an election year.
Actually, the polls that have been performed so far seem to indicate that the 'clean feed' idea behind the legislation goes over very well with the average Aussie voter, and they're not getting the 'geek rage' message that it won't work and will slow down the internet.
There needs to be a whole load of education to the masses to get across the reality of what they're proposing, and how it can be used in future to censor anything the pollies don't want the public to know about, before there's any real chance of this not going through.
And don't depend on Mr Abbott and friends to stop it. The Churches are all for it, in fact there's a strong indication that the Clean Feed is a deliberate play to the right-wing church lobby groups.
Our only hope is the Greens (and the Sex party and Pirate party*) who are the only 'major' political party who have definitely come out against this.
(* who should definitely join forces to form the Sexy Pirate party)
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Don't worry ... we are still like that. Don't confuse a few fringe Senators' ideas with the status quo. Slashdot really gives you a warped view on anything that involves privacy/censorship and countries outside the US. Remember, this 'great filter':
- Is currently nothing more than a proposal. Not legislation, and not even an actual Bill that's been introduced formally into the House or Senate; ... it's not subversively being shoved down anyone's throat, despite what one or two loony Senators would like; ... and failing pretty badly. The Liberal opposition and the Greens are almost certain to prevent it ever passing the Senate;
- Is clearly being discussed and is a major topic in the news here. People are informed about it and forming their own opinions on it
- Is being attempted to be introduced via the normal democratic process
- And finally, even if it gets implemented, it is nothing more than a simple HTTP URL blacklist. Circumvented in about 5 seconds and doesn't do jack to P2P/usenet/IRC/any other protocol.
This is not to say that the filter is nothing to worry about and shouldn't be fought - it absolutely should be! But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch.
Australia is still an open and free country, and probably still the country out there that's most similar to the US, culturally and ideologically. Sure there are those that would wish to reduce those freedoms ... but those kind of people exist in the US as well. But both countries have strong, independent legal systems and proper democratic process by which to challenge such things.
I'm a dual US/AU citizen and travel regularly between the two countries every year. I'm pretty familiar with the news and issues in both countries. Slashdot definitely puts a slant on most of these kind of stories, making things outside the US seem worse than they are. Same applies to their reporting on the UK and other European nations, to an extent.
Some come down and visit again some time. We won't bite :P
Wow I'd like to see where you are getting your stats from but the majority of child abuse is from family and friends (82% according to a quick wiki search)
Maybe show some references and I'll take you seriously but at the moment you are coming across as nothing more than a bigot.
Kactus
But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch
Now Conroy wants Google to filter YouTube in Australia
Conroy himself is drawing comparisons with China without the need for those opposed to Internet Censorship in Australia to do so.
The Liberals, with their born-again conservatism in light of their newly appointed leader (Tony Abbott, aka the Mad Monk) support the concept of censoring our 'net. The concept is flawed, it's not the implementation that we should focus on. And we have to remember this. Information is meant to be free, etc etc.
The only possible way the Liberals (and the name MUST be capitalised for it to mean exactly who they are - they are by no means liberal, save for a minority faction of the party) will vote against this is if it is seen to be flawed in a technological sense (i.e. it will slow down our Internet)
The aforementioned article shows how Conroy has found through the trials that large sites WILL be slowed down when just one element of the site is added to the blacklist. This is because the filter works by sending all content for a filtered site through a proxy if a single element is added. The filter will be the bottleneck, particularly for large sites, and Conroy knows it, and he's posturing for a position once this becomes general knowledge.
Google are only required to filter, in the way Conroy is now suggesting, in countries like China and perhaps North Korea. Now Conroy is trying to apply the same rules here. Luckily Google, with their recent positioning on China, are pushing back. But, how hard they continue to push back is anyone's guess. Perhaps the US will strike a secret deal with Australia that REQUIRES Google to filter content, just like their doing for the sake of the media companies, and music / movie piracy.
Its just a simple HTTP blacklist, yes. But it's the idea of censorship we should be worried about, and the long-term impact it will have to online commerce. Not to mention the long term prospect that MORE conservative governments will use the implemented technology for something much worse than what's suggested now.
Both major parties support the idea NOW, and that's what worries me.
What you have described is the status quo. ISPs are required to offer a client-side filter at cost price.
Under the old NetAlert system you could get a filter for free.
Take-up rates were absurdly low when it was free and remain so today.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
"But everyone should know everything." -markab