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Australia Air Travelers' Laptops To Be Searched For Porn
bluetoad writes "Australian customs officers have been given the power to search incoming travelers' laptops and mobile phones for porn. Passengers must declare whether they are carrying pornography on their Incoming Passenger Card. The Australian government is also planning to implement an Internet filter. Once these powers are in places, who knows how they will be used."
So they can search for porn. What can they do if they find it? Is porn illegal in Australia now?
.
Well there goes my plans to smuggle porn into Australia and use it in a terrorist attack.
Well, I hope the guards are really desensitized because once they search my laptop they will most likely vomit.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
In the US this kind of thing would usually be blamed on politicians pandering to the Christian right. Are there really a lot of fundies in Australia too? I always thought it was a very laid back sort of country.
I am embarrassed to be Australian
Always remember that all this fascist measures is for our own good. Politicians are intelligent people that know better than us and, if you disagree, you are probably a criminal.
Dear
Everyone should start carrying an SD card filled with variations on goatse and 2 girls 1 cup
Twinstiq, game news
Censorship is not only morally wrong, it is ineffective. You chase your tail wasting time and money often to accomplish nothing.
When will people learn?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What is it with these nutcases and pornography? ...but sending your own people to an obscure war on the other side of the world to involve them in shooting at civilians, that's okay?
"Eeeeeeek, a woman showing a naked boobie! How horrifying!"
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
What's that you say skippy?
The porn is trapped in the free world!
Back to dream time.
What if my laptop is encrypted because of PCI compliance? What if it is against the law in my country for me to compromise confidential information, but now Australia demands to see it? Does this mean American businessmen can't travel ao Australia with company laptops?
Or will Australia not search encrypted laptops?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
When travelling to Australia, remember to use drive-level encryption and turn off my laptop before passing through customs. I could also keep a LiveCD in the CD drive to keep customs happy since they'll have something to search.
I can't see this going well. From experience working with all sorts of security guards and the like, I can say that the vast majority of them had little to no computer skills whatsoever. They could log in, log out, browse the internet, use Word and Excel, and respond to emails in Outlook.
With the highly obscure folder structure some people create to hide their porn stash, I can't see them being able to find anything on people's laptops. What are they going to do? Do a search for dirty keywords?
So next time I go to Australia, I'll set my background picture to the goatse dude and when quizzed about porn I'll be happy to turn on my laptop for the immigration officer. Preferably when large groups of minor travellers and christian bible students are congregating around the security point. Once they have collectively fainted, I'll smile at the officer and mention, that these kind of pictures are, of course, vital study-material for my Urology-degree and can I go now?!
With the new filter, they need to get their porn somehow. This was the best option.
And then were silent.
(Bonus: captcha = "hookup")
Their government is full of dicks and their citizens are nothing but pussies. Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism strictly enforced. Their country is perverted far beyond any porn ever could be.
Well, Australia just came off my honeymoon list.
How bored the rent-a-cops at airports are? I still remember the two idiots who deliberately attempted to make me miss my flight .. somehow I don't think that type of person is the most qualified to make judgement calls.
.. welcome to 1984!
And what exactly is this hoping to achieve anyway? If someone wanted to smuggle illegal porn into Australia a laptop isn't exactly the most efficient means, just use public email systems and some basic encryption. Unless the government is going to demand that all home PCs have monitoring software enforced there's no way that stopping the 'smuggling' of software can even be considered.
Or maybe that's actually what they want
Check true even if you don't think you have any since someone you know has probably borrowed your PC for 30 seconds and visited http://boobpedia.com/ .
What is the legal definition of "porn" in Australia?
And change your wallpaper to goatse.cx.
Look at Fox News. The owner/operator is from Australia and look at the holier than thou attitude on that network. Fox is just an export from the uptight right.
Hey...does that now include Michelangelo and Davinci in the loop?? I mean, the statues or David and the Venus De Milo as well as the paintings on the chapel ceilings are too risque for many people.
Not being Australian, I have to ask, "What does the Australian government have against business and tourism?"
Now just define 'porn' for me.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
So how does this work anyway?
If I check off YES, do I just get to walk through?
And if I check off NO, I wait in line to be searched?
I have nude pics of my wife, and no you can't look at them, fuck off, and have a nice day!
The mostly likely 'reason' is that the vast majority of porn s probably captured and snippets (who has time to watch the entire plot of the production) and tends to be a violation of copyright. If you cannot prove that you own the copyright , then you can probably be charged with that 'crime' until it is proven that you do have a legit copy, Even if you have the DVD with you, that fact that it is one your computer probably means you violated some standard or assumed to be present licensing agreement. So unless you starred in the production yourself, they will probably use that angle to charge you with something.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
It’s become a political thing over here, every second phase is 'we are protecting the children' and it’s being used to justify everything. Funny thing is that from a tech perspective we are getting a porn filter that only dose ip address filtering... p2p anyone. And laptop searches which anyone here could probably find a million issues with.
The funniest one, one of our most handsomest politicians declaring that the filter will protect children from finding child porn, clearly his kids are seriously f’d up.
A special adults only episode...
You chase your tail wasting time and money often to accomplish nothing.
Don't think about that. Think of the millions, possibly billions of dollars this will rake through the business of government, and the precedent it will set for the next expansion of power and revenue. At the top of the power pyramid, it doesn't matter where the money ends up -- what matters is that it passes through your hands, giving you a chance to exploit it for personal gain.
Make no mistake, they don't give a damn whether you have child pornography on your hard drive. What they are interested in is money.
You're not in the business of government, are you?
porn searches for you!
Scenario 1:
You have a drive full of happy family pictures, with your 2yo running around naked on the beach.
Scernario 2:
You lend your laptop to your 14-15yo something teen for homework or an assignment, who ends up collecting sexy pictures of current love-interest or webcamfling, or whatever. You walk through security with a confident smile because you don't look at pron (on that laptop).
You're jolly entering Australia for a nice warm vacation or business, but you did not get in because you're now in jail for childpornography.
"Sir, did you leave your laptop unguarded? Did you pack your laptop yourself?"
Australia, it could happen to you!
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Gives a new meaning to the words: Do you come to a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder? Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover.
HRH The Duke of Windsor
Are there really a lot of fundies in Australia too? I always thought it was a very laid back sort of country.
There may not be a lot of them there, but they are loud and have money. See: Rupert Murdoch.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Your papers... ah I mean... Your Porn please
goatse
That's not porn. That's art.
Is Australia _that_ short of porn that they need to resort to this? Surely there must be an easier way.
... Works for Drugs right? Oh, wait... Well at least they'll see a drop in imported pornography and, err, people visiting Australia.
heya,
As an Australian, I have to say...what the? This is the first I've heard of this, but it sounds bloody ridiculous.
I mean, seriously, this would be the same Labor party that say....just had their road/transport minister resign for visiting gay s*x clubs?
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ncl=dm89TYq5QNgdQeMwGfI6gmxCykKlM&topic=h
Now, I don't support chlid pornography any more than the next person, but this just sounds like some more ridiculous pandering to the religious right, and stupid government posturing that will only waste our (taxpayer's) money. I mean, yes, I know we Christians have a reputation to maintain, of being all show and bluster, and nothing more, but this is getting absurd.
Firstly, what idiot carrying actual child pornography is going to tick yes on the form, then brazenly hand over his laptop? It'll be encrypted, for crying out loud, or they'll just sent it over the damn network, why on earth would they store it in the clear on their laptop. And yes, say they are completely retarded and didn't know how to go to www.truecrypt.org, at the very least bury it deep within the filesystem, it's not exactly going to be on their desktop in a folder entitled "CHILD PORNOGRAPHY - CUSTOM OFFICIALS, DO NOT LOOK HERE" is it, now?
If you look at this SMH article (as a background, SMH is a fairly left-wing paper, normally)
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/travellers-to-be-searched-for-porn-20100520-vh09.html
they ask the very good question of why the heck does it say "pornography", as opposed to "child pornography"? It's like they wanted to make it intentionally vague, and catch out people who were not carrying illegal material as well. Seriously, pornography may be a terrible evil and all, but it's hardly your right to impose your own moral values on the public to this level.
And if you read the comments, one apt observers notes it'll probably be the customs officials themselves who'll make a copy of and distribute this stuff ("normal" pornography), that is. Seriously, if you know the sort of people that work these jobs...probably a bit like those clowns at the TSA, who beat each other up, over jokes about the size of their you-know-whats...
This is nearly as hypocritical, and pathetically absurd as say, Thailand's whole two-faced "we're prudes" on the one hand, yet we allow a thriving s*x industry on the other. I mean, they make pornography illegal (http://www.thaipulse.com/cautions/laws-against-pornography-and-indecency/), and then basically have legallised child prostitution? These people are a joke. It's nearly as bad as their whole barbaric Lèse majesté laws - all bluster and face, and no real substance underneath.
Have any Australians actually encountered this policy? Experiences? Next time I fly, if it weren't for their rumoured lack of a sense of humour, even if I don't actually possess any pornography, I'd be sorely tempted to write something vaguely amusing on the form, or possibly boot up my laptop, and play one of those indecent scat videos. I'm sure the Slashdot community would be happy to suggest things to play here...lol.
Cheers,
Victor
I don't see how this is feasible by any means. There is so much ambiguity involved... For example: Does looking at porn online and not clearing my cookies or browser data constitute as porn? If the porn is in a temp folder does that count because as soon as I turn of my computer then the will no longer be there. If I delete the porn it's still recoverable with some tools... does that count?
I can also see this being bad for geeks. What happens if they doubt me and force me to turn on my laptop and it boots to a CLI? They'd probably confiscate it and tear it appart to find out what sort of commy-porn-smuggeling-system I'm using...
What if I have the porn stored in a vm on my machine? Do those guys even know what a vm is? What if I have a totally unsuspecting laptop and I'm actually trying to smuggle porn by store in on a disc partition and clearing the disc information from fstab (or windows equivalent so as not to be suspicious)?
There is so much grey area, and like so many of you said this will be a giant waste of time. I believe the most this will do is infuriate many of us who use unfamiliar systems and get them confiscated because of it.
I just want to know where I can sign up for that Australian Sex Party mentioned in TFA...
I don't even live in Australia, but I'm going if the party is still on.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Just to clear up a few things, "illegal porn" could always be searched for (under normal search procedures of prohibited items) and confiscated it's only now they've added it to the declarations card so they can also charge you if you lie about it. Fact is, Australian Customs is fairly bad now anyway, I know of cases where people from countries in the middle of SARS outbreaks were so ill from matching symptoms they could barely walk but were let through without too much drama, think they're going to bother searching your hard drive? It's mostly magazines and printed material they search and care about currently, they neither have the time or resources to do much more.
Anonymous because I work in Aviation Security in Australia.
"sudo mount internet"
Then they search, and search, and search...
I be teh worlds biggest convicted porn-villain...until someone does the same thing 5 minutes later...
Am I splitting hairs here, or is this the exact *opposite* of online rights? These are offline, traditional rights that are being violated/reneged on.
Guess the customs workers need more porn eh? Figure they'll work just like some of the IT people do right? (Copy what you find?) But in all seriousness, what happens if someone says they don't have any? Are they then going to then spend hours and hours looking?
brickspeed.net for your old Volvo performance addiction
Customs Officer: "Anything to declare, mate?"
Educated liberal-minded international traveller: "Why, as Oscar Wilde once said: 'I have nothing to declare except my genius!'"
Customs Officer: "OSCAR WILDE?? He's a slim-hipped pillow of a pommie quincie bastard! Get 'im!"
Traveller is beaten, tasered and dragged off to a sideroom by six large men.
Customs Officer: (Glaring at a line of nervous children) "Awright, who's next? Any of you little ankle biters carrying computer games, eh?"
TrueCrypt detection software is used :) .... 5 years later ...
Decrypt or its 5 years for not giving a password.
In 5 years, your asked again
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
1. Why not just setup a dual boot system. Hide the offending partition and boot into a clean OS. They're not CS majors and most won't have a clue anyways.
2. What if I have bath shots of my kids on my laptop. You know, blackmail for when they are in their teens or getting married. Many of my customers have swapped over to laptops from desktops and keep this kind of material on them. Are they instantly child porn offenders when they walk in the country?
3. As far as encrypting the drive goes, that may be counterproductive. I'm sure the minute they see a drive that is encrypted, they pull you aside and get a manager involved. Flip side is like I said with #1, they're not CS majors and may figure the drive is blank.
Well, if I ever go to Australia, I'll have to remember downloading 1000+ pictures from icanhascheezburger.com, answer "yes" on the pornography question and claim to have a huge furry fetish. I would probably get fined, but it would totally be worth it :D
Australia is like the Arkansas of the world
When searching for porn it's amazing what you can find. Given the fact the majority of laptops are going to have something that can be loosely defined as porn you can easily grab any suspicious machine. Let's say today you are looking for terrorist. History shows most bombers indulge in decadence before they blow themselves up so odds are there would be porn on their machines. Suspect some one? Simple way to grab their machine without a court order, one is needed in the US. The problem is you can search for anything with that excuse. Even with porn you have to wonder how many husband and wife sex tapes are going to wind up in private collects after being ceased.
The proper protest to this is not to avoid Australia.
The proper protest for this is to put a folder on the desktop of your laptop named "Porn", and put the raunchiest porn you can find (that is legal in Oz,) in it.
And rig your laptop so that the speaker is at maximum volume, mute disabled, with the headphone jack disabled, so that it can't be made quieter at all.
Well I don't think I need to point out how wrong this all is here on /. But that has brought the question to mind that if I was to travel through Aust customs and didnt particularly want someone sifting through all my files and documents, what is the best way of encrypting your documents without reinstalling everything on a partition/disk level type crypt system? Zipping stuff seems a little to easy.
It sounds like there's an excellent market for a backup app that just sucks all data off a mobile PC, stores it on someone's home PC, then wipes the mobile PC and installs an empty, quickly searchable OS and storage. Then later, the mobile PC hits a website that redirects to the home PC, from which the mobile PC is restored intact. Network transfers all encrypted.
Business and other travelers would backup before leaving, then restore when arriving. No way for customs to mess with that. And it would give backups for restoring anyway. Like if you want to leave your mobile PC at home entirely, and just get a temporary one in the place you're going. Or if your mobile PC is damaged, or lost in luggage transfer, or stolen...
This kind of stupid privacy invasion, that anyone who's really a threat to a country can easily evade with cruder tools doing what I described, ought not to be a worry. SW is stronger than the government here.
--
make install -not war
My employer instructed us to not cooperate with foreign customs officials wishing to decrypt a company laptop. My personal policy was, if Tel Aviv airport security wished to examine the laptop, fantastic! They are one ones with guns in a country that I would like to really really leave. Please, take my computer, take my luggage. Just let me get on the damn plane back to, at a minimum, a land with ASCII in the signs. English signage is better, and the ideal destination is a place where I pay for the cops and have a slight say in their behavior.
http://www.portlandmercury.com/columns/savage-love/Content?oid=25486
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What if I take some pictures with my phone during a mile high session in flight to Australia ?
Have they worked out a good, legal definition of what constitutes 'porn'? If they haven't then you;d better not take *any* gadget into Australia.
No sig today...
so i can only bring 0.03% of my porn collection to australia?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was going to say something silly about not being able to go, but then I read the article. Critical snippet: "Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex Party, is demanding an inquiry into why ..."
Australian sex party...!? Can we get one of those here? Is it legal to take photos?
That's exactly the way we do it. We send people to France with some regularity and it's illegal to take an encrypted device into that country. Thus, we wipe the machine and put a base, unencrypted image on it. User flies to France. Once inside, an encypted blob of user data is VPN'd to the local IT guy who puts it on the laptop. User does his job. Before flying out, local IT guy wipes the machine.
If Australia is going to start insisting on poking around in our machines, we'll have to do the same for employees going there.
Of course, if it's optional I imagine our folks won't be subjected to it. Those red passports open a lot of doors. :-)
(Actually, I've never seen one of our "official business only" passports. International travelers have their official passports stored in a safe in Washington D.C. and only get them issued right before departure. So I'm not sure they're red but that's what I've been told.)
The point of this is for politicians to claim to be doing something.
The only argument is whether that 'something' is 'making an idiot of themselves', because hardly any voters will vote for them afterward.
No sig today...
go fuck yourself, but don't film it
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
It's interesting to me that it seems like members of the Commonwealth of Nations are going in this direction. At least the UK and Aus it seems are becoming more police-state-like everyday.
Am I wrong?
What about Canada, NZ, SA and the rest?
Are they far behind?
Is there some historical/social precedents for this sort of totalitarian leaning?
As a practicing Muslim I, of course, support anti-porn actions. But also as a practicing Muslim, I oppose this particular action as an invasion of privacy.
The Prophet Muhammad, sal Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam, said that anyone who peeks throw the hole into somebody's house deserves to be poked in the eye.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
are having intercourse with the teddy ruxpins, while the cabbage patch kids are fellating the my little ponies
the tamagotchi orgy centers on aang the last airbender and spongebob square pants is using the tentacled kate gosselin dildo on adam lambert and dick cheney ...
oh i'm sorry, you meant define porn IN GENERAL, not my specific porn, sorry
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
These days my personal laptop has a copy of my family photo archive. (All perfectly innocent... unless you find sunsets and landscapes arousing...) I'm sure this is true of a LOT of people, perhaps even the majority of people who travel with laptops. I suspect my current archive is smaller than average, a few thousand images, under 5GB if I recall. Skimming quickly through this meagre archive is not a quick exercise
If they really intend to inspect every single image on every single incoming laptop then they had better have lots of employees who are not likely to fall asleep...
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
A friend of mine usually puts a couple of Penthouse mags in his suitcase when traveling to some third world countries (North Africa in this case) on purpose to bribe local customs officers. Works like a charm every time: they "confiscate" the material and wave him through with a big grin without bothering him anymore with his electronic gadgets, netbooks, video cam etc... I guess Australia is finally catching up with those countries.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
If they ask you to declare porn on your computer and you have it all on an external hard drive with truecrypt, can you answer 'no' and what are the odds of encountering any problems?
... I'm totally naked under my clothes.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Are they actually looking for porn, or saying they're looking for child porn and actually looking for documents that could end up embarrassing the government?
I am officially gone from
Got to have that protection for the Australian porn industry
with linux a file's type is determined with a program called file, which uses more sophisticated tests, in some order (i cant remember exactly). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_(command)
one of the stages actually examines the contents of the file and or its header, making use of a database of 'magic numbers' in this way you can rename a jpg, mp4, or wav to anything you like, and in your gui file shell of choice (eg i use gnomes' nautilus) the file previews, and mime type, will be correct, independent of those 3 letters that microsoft cant get rid of back from their very beginning with dos.
and unix only developed the file command in 1973. hrm, i wonder if microsoft knew about the more sophisticated ideas and just went with whatever was quick and dirty enough to get out the door and sell as fast as possible. do the users of windows suffer to this day because of the attitude and methods of their chosen operating systems' creator? perhaps, but you dont have to. ubuntu is pretty damn good. the only practical reason for using windows today is an app or game which is only avail on that platform because of their past api and dev lock in strategies. ah what do i know. ive also heard programmers defend microsoft when compared with os2 and said that in the early 90's ms allowed them to meet deadlines on budget. but today, opensource is likely the more dev friendly and sophisticated. the fruits are to be seen in the flexible and humane interfaces avail.
LOOPHOLE! Everyone just bring your desktop PC's. Take that Australian government. But seriously, how are they going to search a computer for porn? If they're anything like Americans, most won't be very computer literate. Looking for a folder named "porn" in My Documents probably won't turn up much on anyone. They treat porn like it's a disease that needs to be contained and that isn't already loose in their country. If I were the one checking bags, I'd demand that the Australian Government pay me extra for the psychological damage I'd have to endure as a result of searching through vast amounts of international pornography.
its also partly cause its so cheap to get a couple of TB in sata form, and via the magic of esata its just about as good as a local drive. it also helps that this laptop dock has extra esata ports.
We keep hearing endlessly about everything Australia is doing to combat CP, once a week a new story comes along about them. I'm left to wonder, how bad exactly is their CP problem? It's starting to seem like it's a national epidemic over there.
1 - creating an industry that the lobbyists for these laws can profit from.
2 - putting in place the mechanisms to stop information on things such as governmental corruption, corporate corruption, and sites like wikileaks and whatreallyhappened.
He is our example, nobody can smooch tarmac like the pope.
Be fair, where else is a celibate nazi pedophile going to get some action?
Burn karma burn
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This does not apply to iphone or ipad right?
Steve has liberated them from pr0n you know
I would love to have someone organize the absolute sickest (but legal) porn content on a website so that travelers to Australia could inflict this on the customs agents. I'm talking about morbidly obese men being fisted by dwarves in kangaroo outfits, stuff in that league. If you can get enough of these state employees to lose enough lunches, this policy will be reconsidered.
And I suppose all those Jews were just fools for telling the Germans they were Jews? Silly buggers.
Are you REALLY suggesting that a draconian law is okay because you can always attempt to break the law?
Good news everyone, the anti-drug laws are not an issue, just keep your drugs in your pocket when you pass customs.
Bad news for the zoophilia lovers, horses stretch your pockets out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
porn is in the eye of the beholder. some images of naked people do NOTHING for me. intravenus demilo.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
These inspectors should be required to keep their laptops on site, so that I may search their private information whilst they search mine. It's only fair.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
You seem to be confusing Urology with Proctology...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I will definitely be rebuilding my laptop with an encrypted file system, if I take it to nazi countries like America or Australia. Who wants all that effort building a good porn collection, to benefit the simple minded halfwit who typically works in American customs? He can collect his own damn porn.
On a serious note, there is no justification for searching people's private data in a democratic country. Once you start doing that, the terrorist has won. The terrorist generally wants a fascist religious state. Is a fascist capitalist state really any better?
"Passengers must declare whether they are carrying pornography on their Incoming Passenger Card."
How is there any space left on the card for a declaration after customs provide a clear and thorough definition of what constitutes "pornography"?
Hmm You better watch out and make sure you don't have the simpsons movie with you..
OR ELSE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7770781.stm
The former prisoners from Europe (australians) build higher and higher walls around themselves.
The irony is great.
I like you Australians, but how could you bread such a bullying crowd.
One just have to watch your imigration series.
Porn in Australia will have to be local.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I would never have guessed the Aussies (of all people) would be as terrified of human sexuality as Steve Jobs.
Really is this that shocking? It's Australia!!! They impose some of the dumbest laws and love to impose on the privacy of their own citizens and visitors as often as they can. Hey I am all for stopping the use of or existence of child porn, but it's just another case of making everyone criminals till proven innocent. The RIAA model to justice.
I know this isn't the US, but similar things happen here, not quite as stupid or overbearing but, when is it that the people will be listened to or at least innocent till proven guilty?
It's pretty obvious where they're going with this. Once they force you to declare it, they can make you pay heavy importation duties on it. No different to alcohol and tobacco really. :-/
They are just respecting their history as a penal colony. It stands to reason, all visitors will be searched for contraband on entry or exit of the facility.
I really doubt any of those meat-headed morons at airport security could do much without a gui. Uninstall X before leaving, then reinstall it once in the country.
For that matter, just set the default WM to something like ratpoison or xmonad...
The moronic thing about this website that you link is that, apart from the goofy Welcome Back Kotter fashions, you could get very similar photos of people in Tehran today. Of course the mullahs are reactionary thugs who control the country with a desperate and paranoid iron fist, but the Iranian people themselves are not so monolithic.
I've been out of Australia for nine years. It is almost impossible to believe it is the same country that I grew up in and lived in for 40 years until 2001. During most of that time - well, since the cultural changes that swung through in the early and mid 1970's (strange - that corresponded to a time of left wing federal government), the puritanical fringe were just that - Fred Nile and his "Festival of Blight" fighting a losing battle against sensible approaches in "live and let live" - what people did in private was their own business.
Now, we have the these social conservatives / bible thumpers / puritans taking over. I don't think it's my country any more.
Fill one of them new-fangled "terrorbyte" drivers with goatse.jpg HotBlowjob.jpg lemonparty.jpg tubgirl.jpg
Over and over. With randomized names and sizes.
Declare it, give 'em the drive, and a card with the name of a good psychiatrist.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Does your laptop contain porn? Yes? I'm going to have to search this. I'll be back in 10 minutes.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
Even with our flirtation with radical conservatism here in the States, we didn't manage to elect people who'd go this far off the reservation. What the hell happened down there? Are we really the only country in the world who believes in ture freedom of speech except for very limited special cases?
No need for them to strip search. They've already got you naked on their 'turrist' backscatter scanner machines.
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Sure I can understand that child porn is horribly wrong. I can agree also that sexual violence is wrong. But ordinary porn? Who does it hurt? No one is forcing you to watch it or buy it. In fact, these days you have to buy it to see it on the Internet. The whole thing stinks. It is CENSORSHIP plain and simple and goes against everything the 'Net stands for. Governments are always trying to control it and rarely succeed. China does the best, as it is a police state, and controls all the ISP's. But even then, crafty folks have invented ways to get around the filters and access the REAL internet. I agree with some of the other posters. What is up with AU this days?
Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Good luck getting through my 128kbit encryption key.
What's next? Brain scans to search for porn memories..
You've forgotten at least two other possibilities: they produced it themselves after entry, or they obtained it from someone else who produced it within Australia.
May I suggest that every single traveler puts 2girls1cup pictures & videos on their laptops and declares them? There's probably other, similar content out there too that they would really enjoy over there...
This was only discussed in parliament, like many things that get discussed in parliament nothing at all happened. The actual story is about female ejaculation if you bothered to follow the link.
There fixed that for you. The law relates to depictions. I'm sorry if this doesn't jive with the groupthink but cartoon pornography is still pornography (defined under Australian law as a depiction of a sexual act, hint a naked breast is not a sexual act in Australia, that is just nudity and often falls under the M15 rating). Most Anime that is 18+ in the US is considered 15+ in Australia. As far as pornography goes, in Australia 18 is the limit. An adult actress must be 18 or over in order to be in a pornographic movie or image made in or sold in Australia, no distinction is made between a cartoon or a photograph (because they are both "depictions").
Whaaaa...
Stop the presses, you can be arrested if you posses something illegal.
But AQIS wont be arresting you. They don't have that power, as the AFP proper is required at that point. AQIS however can confiscate anything from your luggage if it is suspect. As I've indicated before, AQIS is not interested in your porn collection, they are more interested in any foreign pests or diseases you might bring to Australia.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Big Brother has a hard on but can't get any porn so he wants yours.
By looking.
Wow, projecting much.
Examine my post history Mr Rabid Foaming at the Snout Fear Monger.
I've admitted to being a sex tourist. Only one of us is frothing at the mouth good sir and it isn't me and nice way of ignoring all the points about Australia being less sexually repressed then the US, a bare naked breast at the AFL grand final will not cause national outcry here, quite the opposite, we'd ask for an encore. Sexually suggestive materiel that is often restricted to 18 yr olds often given the M15 (mature, 15+) rating this includes infrequent nudity, sexual suggestion, sexual references and simulated sexual activity.
Explain that one, I doubt you could have chosen a more appropriate nick. So in no way could the production of pornography be linked to any harm.
The idea is that cartoon pornography is still pornography the same as a cartoon drama is still a drama. Same same but different na? Because the word "pornography" describes the content not the medium.
But then again I live in a nation where a naked breast does not cause national outcry. In fact they are quite common. AQIS will not arrest you for having porn, they don't have that power only the AFP (Australian Federal Police) agents (not the AQIS agent) can arrest you and you have to be charged for that to happen where you have rights under Australian law to a trial and representation. Unlike the US you cant be thrown into a room just for having Thailand and Philippines stamps on your passport.
I'm really sorry if you're having trouble with this concept, and that it upsets you so much but please, get your facts straight and do not project your fears onto other people.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What are these dick heads going to pull next? Mind scans for people who have fond memories and thoughts of their trip away or the way the air hostess bent over in front of them? OOooooooo the NAZI thought police.
How exactly do they plan to search through, laptop has like 500 GiB hard drives, and I'd constantly be upgrading to the biggest 2.5" I can get in my machine.
Luckily, Broadway has seen Australia's distress and sent their experts to Brisbane in the first quarter of this year. (ps. Avenue-Q is quite a decent show, well worth the ticket.)
Day is not far when people will have to do something about the sexual organs they are carrying around. I am sure it will be illegal.
The only thing I have on my laptop is Abby Winters, ah, those Aussi women are the best!!!
"Do you have pornography on your computer" is to reply "Do naked pictures of your mom count?"
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.