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Filter Vendor Agrees Aussie Censorship Can't Work As Promised
Acidspew writes "The Australian Government's plan to filter the Internet has caused furore and has been met with vehement objection. Many people have put their opinions forward regarding this matter, but this time around, M86 Security — the vendor that provided many ISPs equipment during the initial filter trials — has finally weighed in on the discussion. Six of the nine ISP participants in the URL-based Internet filter trial last year used M86's R3000 filtering kit. According to ARN: 'Internet filtering won't prevent people deliberately looking for inappropriate material from accessing blocked content, according to security vendor M86 Security.' The company continues by saying its filter gear was designed to be implemented into schools and enterprise businesses, not for an entire country. The article also touches on M86's views on censorship."
See now, I'm confused by where the article states that the filtering is predominantly aimed at preventing kids from accidentally stumbling on child pornography. Now, it strikes me that given that such images are strictly illegal pretty much everywhere it's actually quite difficult to 'accidentally stumble' on.
In fact, the mere fact that the article then goes on to say that criminals already have ways around it that are not prevented by this kind of filtering suggests to me that you're not going to just enter keywords somewhere and have it show up.
The whole premise of the network filter - stopping kids from accidentally finding kiddy pron - is utter baloney. If it was so easy for a kid to find it accidentally, law enforcement wouldn't need to go to such measures to shut it down.
'Think of the children' is, as always, an excuse. Given that's not the real goal of the filter, one can imagine what the actual purpose might be.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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The problem with blocking "illegal material" is the definition of "illegal material". For example, at what point is a medical textbook photo of a paediatric condition considered "indecent"? From this you can get into debates about intent, and if there's titillating intent is that a "thought crime"?
Another example is text relating to the formulation of explosive materials: should that be considered "illegal information" too? From this we return to the concept of illegal numbers, then it all starts getting ridiculous.
I believe it's easier to hold the position that no information or data is inherently illegal, neither should possession (which becomes a strict-liability offence, a can of worms) than to get stuck in the debate of what is and isn't illegal. Besides, if you're really after a piece of information or data then you're eventually going to be able get it.
In related news, I want to add that the biggest and oldest ISP of The Netherlands (XS4ALL) has also taken a stand against internet filtering. Unfortunately the site and documents are only available in Dutch:
http://www.xs4all.nl/overxs4all/maatschappelijk/dossiers/downloaden.php
What they have done is write a very thorough 32 page document explaining why internet filtering should not happen. It centers around a couple of arguments:
- It's very expensive
- It introduces single points of failure and bottlenecks, doing the opposite of what an ISP should be doing
- It can't work without also blocking a lot of legal content, no matter what method you choose
- Blocking legal content and censorship is against the idea of free speech, but more specifically the Dutch constitution and the European treaty on human rights.
It's really well written, I wish there would be an English version. It's well worth the read.
They have sent this to all Dutch political parties and the committee for copyright legislation. I was very happy to see them get involved in this discussion. We're having national elections next june, and it looks like at least some political parties are picking this up and making it a point in the elections.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
This is a dangerous door that you're opening here. Let's take your assertion at face value. Let's say that the firewall is indeed defective by design; that Australians are meant to be able to bypass it should they have the desire; and there is no law punishing you for bypassing it. What makes you so sure that it will stay that way?
Do you really believe that no one will notice that the firewall doesn't work? When they do, do you think they'll a) say "whoops, this was a mistake" and tear it down, b) say "eh, shucks, leave it be," or c) say "GOOD HEAVENS THE CHILDREN" and try to "fix" it? If you said b), then you've just stalled. What will they do next year? Lather, rinse, repeat until they take one of the more conclusive options. It'll be a) or c), and once you have that damn firewall in place, a) will be political suicide. That leaves c).
On a technical level, secure Internet filtering for censorship does not work, and never will work. When the technical consultants come back and say this time and again, moralizing politicians will stop looking for technical solutions, and start looking to more traditional ones: fines and jail sentences. It will be a crime to visit certain websites, and the infrastructure will be in place for the government to find out that you did it. It won't be perfect. It will still be perfectly evil.
This seems like a mighty steep price tag for fast Internet and laptops for school kids.