Conroy Still Hell-Bent On Internet Filter

lukehopewell1 writes "In an interview for the ABC's PM program yesterday, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said that there would be no conscience vote on the Australian government's proposed mandatory internet filter. 'Conscience votes go to matters to do with life and death in the [Australian] Labor Party,' Conroy said. The minister said that the filter debate was not about censorship, rather it centred around refused classification material — an issue up for review in parliament. 'I'm not sure that the censorship claim stacks up. This is about classification systems. At the moment in Australia, there is no conscience vote on refused classification for movies, TV, DVDs or book stores,' the minister said. Conroy then called on the newly installed Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to justify his position on the filter to families concerned about child pornography. 'According to the latest information I have here from the [Australian Communications and Media Authority], there are 430 child pornography sites on the [World Wide Web] ... that are accessible to anyone...[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added." I hope some Australian and UK readers can help the rest of us understand the significance of conscience votes, though Wikipedia helps.

Comments

Still depends on Fielding?

[MichaelSmith]

Fielding will be gone in six months so maybe the policy will change then.

430?

[YoshiDan]

430 sites? Surely there are more. It's not like a child porn site is going to go around advertising itself is it? God he's stupid.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by religion.

Re:430?

[srjh]

Well since the blacklist contents is blacklisted itself, there's no way of knowing. When the list was leaked last year, there were about 1300 sites and not a single one of them contained any child pornography. Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.

We know that most of the worst stuff on the net is much further underground, with P2P and private trading via email.

What limited child porn there is on the web specifically falls under only a handful of categories.

* Hacked websites. Supposedly this is why some of the sites appeared in error in the leaked list - they were "hacked by the Russian mob". An Aussie dentist website with a known hosting company had some child pornography buried under several "backslashes" (as Conroy put it) after being hacked. Instead of contacting the owner/host and getting their co-operation in removing the content and prosecuting those responsible, the whole site was just blacklisted without notifying anyone. The guy running it only found out when the list was leaked. A "just ban it" filter will only encourage laziness such as this when we should be policing it.

* Trolling attempts. There was a rather unfortunate case a few months ago of a certain imageboard trolling the facebook memorial of a murdered eight-year-old girl by flooding it with gore, bestiality and child porn. Not a lot really needs to be said about the perpetrators here, I think most will reach the same conclusion. It was jumped on by the censorphiles in Australia, but even in the best case, classification of websites takes months (I know, I've tested the submission process). Legislation is probably years in the future, and certain to fail with the current parliament. Sites like Facebook would actually be exempted because "high traffic" websites would break the filter and embarrass the government. Rather than the filtering approach, Facebook removed the images themselves in a matter of hours (and the police would have if they didn't), and the guy who did it was eventually prosecuted. Good riddance.

* Honeypots/sting operations. I think Conroy's even said he'll exempt sites from the filter if the filter would interfere with a police investigation. People dumb enough to access/post child porn on the open web deserve to be caught. With the proxying of the filters making online forensics more difficult, and policing resources being diverted to an idiotic waste, this is yet another example the filter will only make worse.

And that's without even mentioning the fact that the filter is being sold as a child-safe filter. The government has already dumped its "voluntary filters for parents" program, and has left almost all hardcore material accessible under the filter because blocking it all is obviously impossible.

Every time I think about this plan, it makes me furious. It's the main issue I voted against the government on last month, and I wouldn't be surprised if enough people joined me to have cost them their majority. But the independents hand the reins back to the ALP and it's full-steam ahead with the filter despite no-one outside of the ALP supporting it, the ALP being in minority in both houses of parliament, significant elements within the party opposing it, and ALP members only likely to vote for it because they will be expelled from the party if they don't. (That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this.)

Re:430?

[gandhi_2]

I'm not sure the "I was helping to slashdot it" defense will work out in court, bud.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.

I got some accidental inside information from a religious political lobbyist some years ago when this furor began... he was happy to get anything done to filter the net. But the religious lobbyists don't have that much clout .. he pretty much provided his perspective on legislation that happened to fall into his area of knowledge or got laws tweaked here and there to fill loopholes, that sort of thing.

The real reason that the lower house members listened to this suggestion was because the casino operators sided with the religious lobbyists to try to stop off-shore internet gambling, which is of course losing them loads of cash and losing the government loads of tax revenue.

If this filter were to be implemented (which appears to be next to impossible at this point) the first additions to the list would be every identifiable offshore gambling website. The 'child porn' is just to raise public outrage / support and imo the rest of the sites just added to the list as white noise to hide it's purpose. I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy and that the average on-line gambler may not even bother to try ... just hop in the car, and go to the casino.

Re:430?

[totally bogus dude]

I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy

No harder than any other site; but obviously the people who think the proposed filter will do anything at all are banking on the majority of people never trying to circumvent it.

Re:430?

[TwistedPants]

Also - think of the cost! I believe it was around $42 million set aside to implement such a filter - a hair over $100k per site. Are you really telling me that there is value in this? Are you really telling me that you could not put $100k under a police investigation per site in order to shut some of them down? I'm aware there was already funding for the AFP included in the initial proposals; but if you are going to do something, why not do it right? Give $42 million to those that can actually prosecute the offenders in some % of cases.

Re:430?

[scdeimos]

I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy and that the average on-line gambler may not even bother to try ... just hop in the car, and go to the casino.

It's very simple to block SSL sites. Though SSL connections are encrypted once they are established, clients still have to pass a "CONNECT domain.com:443 HTTP/1.x" request through the proxy to create a tunnel. If the domain is in the proxy's blacklist it can just respond with a "forbidden" instead of establishing the tunnel.

Of course it was already demonstrated in the filter trials that the system can be bypassed trivially.

Re:430?

[divisionbyzero]

I wonder why there is such a disconnect between the ALP and its constituents? I wonder if they understand that their position on this issue may have cost them their majority (among other things like the refusal to follow-up on environmental promises)? Conroy should have been sacked with Rudd (or re-assigned as the case may be since he's now Minister of Foreign Affairs). How do you get it through their thick heads that they are losing votes? We have the same problem in 'America. All of these Attorneys General think that they are gaining votes for shutting down Craigslist's Adult Section but really they are losing votes. I certainly won't vote to re-elect my Attorney General based on this one issue. Her opponent could be a stuffed doll and I still wouldn't vote for her.

Re:430?

[commodore64_love]

Never ascribe to religion that which can be explained by avarice and ambition (love of money and love of power). Religion is a convenient tool but if it did not exist, leaders would use something else instead (like race, color, or creed).

Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear child porn is the big boogyman to control the internet just as 911 was the big fear monger event to justify totally immoral wars against countries that had nothing to do with the event....

Re:Total control

[phantomfive]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing. 9/11 was a bad thing. There are real terrorists out there who want to kill Americans. Whenever there is a threat, or a serious problem, there will always be hucksters and power-seekers trying to take advantage of other's misery for their own benefit, or to push their own agenda. That's what happened during the McCarthy era: there were actually Russian spies, and McCarthy played on that fear.

That's why it's so important to not believe every person who can describe the problem, but rather look at their proposed solutions and see if they actually help, or will take you somewhere you don't want to go. Because for any given problem, someone who is offering a solution is trying to twist it for their own benefit.

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing.

It isn't a real problem. Child porn isn't bad -- child molestation/abuse is. The porn itself are just images/videos, and trying to filter it will change nothing.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing.

While child porn is extremely bad, preventing access to it will not protect Australian families from pedophiles at all - infact, with one method of release denied to them (and no, thats not me condoning access to child porn), they could become more dangerous toward Australian families.

Re:Total control

[Schadrach]

More specifically, the production of child porn is bad.

I've always wondered on this topic, why the law is the way it is. It seems to me that child porn is evidence of a crime being committed. Why not simply render production, sale, purchase, and distribution illegal but not possession and actually encourage anyone that ends up with it in their possession to provide it to police, in order to help identify and rescue the victims thereof? It just seems like the manpower/funds freed up by doing that might allow some actual good to be done.

Make the economic side of child porn as difficult as possible and see what happens. I know back when it was legal there were only a handful of companies that did it even then, Color Climax being the most notorious. Even they barely sold anything that was entirely kiddy porn because it wouldn't sell, so their more common scenario was to add in an underage actor into an otherwise mostly vanilla scene -- and even that wasn't *that* common.

It makes me think there's not a huge economic incentive to kiddy porn, so the question becomes why does it get created? After all, explicitly filming evidence of your crimes seems like an unbelievably stupid thing to do, then turning around and distributing it on the internet seems even dumber.

Re:Total control

[commodore64_love]

>>>It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing. 9/11 was a bad thing. There are real terrorists out there who want to kill Americans.

I am more likely to get hit be a meteorite, than to encounter a terrorist or child pornographer. These are NOT real problems. Real problems are how to pay the bills, or navigate to work without a car accident, or how to keep the boss happy.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

My evidence is history itself - you really think there were no pedophiles before the internet came into existence? How do you think they operated then?

I have also assumed no 'causality' - you miss the fact that you are *not* removing consumers from the market, you are simply segmenting them in the market from their suppliers. What that does to the Thai suppliers is outside the discussion here, its what those 'consumers' do after their supply is removed - do they simply give up on the whole child porn aspect? In a perfect world, yes, but then again in a perfect world they wouldn't exist in the first place.

Some casual 'consumers' may certainly give up their hobby, but equally there will be those that go elsewhere for their fix - where do you think that their new supply will come from, when they can no longer go outside the country on the internet for their porn? Certainly there will be other channels, and domestically made child porn is one of them.

I also find it amusing that, while we are discussing the harm that comes to Australian children here, you assume that I care not a bit for non-Australian children - nothing further from the truth could be had. And I also resent your implication that I prefer any child to be harmed.

Once again, we come back to what this discussion is all about - whether the filter protects the Australian family. It doesn't, and all of my posts demonstrate that.

In the first case, it doesn't remove any suppliers from the market place - they exist outside of the remit of this filter and thus have a larger market. The argument that if you remove the customer base you reduce the suppliers market is false - many times this has been tried with prostitution and it has failed in every country thus far. They existed before the internet, and they were world wide then.

In the second case, it doesn't necessarily remove any consumers from the market place - it simply restricts their supply. What they do after that is of question.

Thirdly, it may indeed foist more harm on the Australian family as those consumers that cannot get their fix from external sources now have to turn to internal sources to fulfill their desires. Some of that internal supply may be smuggled in as before, but equally some may be domestically produced material that would never have been produced otherwise.

Re:Total control

[alexo]

More specifically, the production of child porn is bad.

I would not have taken issue with this statement if stick-figure drawings could not be (legally!) classified as CP.

Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally in Australia, party discipline and solidarity is such that any member going against the party line on a vote is taboo and noteworthy - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_floor#Voting_against_party_lines . If the party allows a conscience vote, then they don't lay down a policy on how they expect members to vote - so they can vote whichever way they want.

Re:Conscience votes

[Nursie]

In a parliamentary democracy, non-conscience votes are an abomination, IMHO.

You vote for your local representative, they are supposed to represent the needs of their constituents to parliament. In the UK there's the Whip, in Aus a similar party line thing. what this means is that a few people at the top decide policy and it then gets pushed through on the threat of kicking dissenters out of the party.

It's so anti-democratic it hurts.

Re:Conscience votes

[Slotty]

Worst part is policy isn't even dictated by representatives. It's dictated by media frenzy or party hollowmen. The ABC's hollowmen is actually a very realistic representation of governance.... Just not as funny

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I agree with non-conscience voting but the parties expect your reasoning for choosing your local member is different to what you say.

People, in general, vote for one party or another. Not for the personal beliefs of their local member. Most people have never met or even seen significant campaigning from their local member. Therefore, if a person is voting for a party, they expect their member to believe and vote the same as their party (rather than the other way around).

If you truly want someone in parliament to vote based on local issues, you should vote for an independent. This is the key difference an independent holds over party-aligned politicians.

Re:Conscience votes

[Zumbs]

Where I live, people most often vote for a party, not a person. It is quite seldom that they know that much about the personal beliefs of the local members on the party list. It should also be noted that the only thing stopping someone from breaking party line is that they can be excluded from their party. Depending on the situation their career in politics may also end at the next exection, but they do not lose their seat until a new parliament is elected. Indeed, since the last parliamentary election 3 years ago, 3% of the elected representatives have left their party for another (or for being independent).

Re:Conscience votes

[kingturkey]

So there's no official sanctions, e.g. removal of positions or expulsion from the party, but surely an MP with ambition (almost all) would strongly consider the unofficial penalties before crossing the floor. Surely when the ministerial positions are being handed out, being a "team player" would be a strong factor in the decisions.

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just another reasons why FPTP is completely broken in the UK.

What's the point in a system where you vote for a local representive if:

- The local representative doesn't have support of even close to the majority of their constituency

- The local representative doesn't closely represent the views of their constituency

- Even if the local representative is representative of their constituency, they follow the party line which may go against the will of the constituency

Yet the argument of having a local representative is the mainstay of the argument to maintain the hardly democratic FPTP system.

All ours (and presumably the Australian system) does is is hand effective 100% of power to the party elite in the ruling party most the time. It means that the entire country's policy is being dictated by the 10 - 20 people in cabinet and the PM regardless of what the vast majority of the country want. It's only by some freak twist of public opinion at a set point in time that the UK (and again, Australia too now presumably) isn't living under a dictatorial clique again right now like it has been for the last few decades thanks to the checks and balances a coalition inherently brings.

I prefer

[agendi]

Internet still hell bent on filtering Conroy.

Not really unexpected

[glowworm]

It has always been the case where Senator Conroy has desired this filter, he has long been a pawn of the Australian Christian Lobby. Before the recent elections the party he belongs to, Labor (a middle left party), could have passed it on their numbers alone, however the recent election puts Labor into a minority government position. Even with the Labor parties internal rules saying that all members must vote to the party line they are simply outnumbered, everyone else in government is on record as being against the plan. Now there is nothing to say that Labor can't strike a deal with the opposition party and the independents who make up the majority of the government, say tie it being passed to not putting a price on carbon, but I think the chances of that are slim. A minority government is a very tenuous hold on power. As far as a conscience vote, all other parties are free to vote how they like, members of the Labor party are the only ones tied to the official party line, however for things like Gay Adoption (recently passed) and Abortion (passed quite a few years ago) those rules are relaxed.

Re:Not really unexpected

[glowworm]

Yes tries, but Labor is the only one where the members need to agree to always support the caucus decision upon joining.

The Liberals and Greens and of course the independents are able to step outside the party line if they really need to, when they do this it is called crossing the floor.

Quite recently Liberals have been crossing the floor to vote for climate change laws.

http://www.google.com.au/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=liberal+cross+the+floor

No matter matter what the issue a Labor MP is not allowed to cross the floor unless he has been given a conscience vote. He must vote as caucus directs or lose membership.

Re:Not really unexpected

[TapeCutter]

"Before the recent elections the party he belongs to, Labor (a middle left party), could have passed it on their numbers alone"

No, before the election the libs + greens had the numbers and the inclination to block it in the senate, that situation has not changed. When the libs were in power they were the ones pushing for a mandatory filter and labor + greens were blocking it in the senate. It's never really been a serious proposal, it's a political distraction aimed at certain independent senators, an endless "Yes Minister" style inquiry that has been going on now for a decade with the libs and labor occasionally changing roles from good cop to bad cop.

There is no chance in hell the inquires will ever come to a conclusion since that would mean both major parties would have to give up the carrot/stick they use to placate the christian right and their nutjob senator(s).

I'm actually looking forward to Downer's answer, he's more than a match for Conroy.

Re:Not really unexpected

[dbIII]

Conscience votes from the Liberals and Nationals are very rare. While they can in theory cross the floor on any issue, in practice they get disendorsed so that somebody else will take their seat next time or they get thrown out of the party entirely. Consider how many ex-coalition independants there are in both State and Federal Australian politics. Don't you think they would have stayed in a party that let them speak their mind?
It's ironic that the only other conscience vote I remember in the last decade was to tell Tony Abbott to stop playing pretend Catholic games to raise his profile with religious voters and instead do his job as health minister.

Scare Mongering

[muphin]

Child Porn is the new "terrorist" if you dont attack them you support them.
considering the ISPS are VOLUNTARILY blocking these sites, there is no reason for the filter.
Filter is just an excuse for a hidden agenda for slow and gradual control of information, if its there people will abuse it, ask any psychologist.

No Conscience?

[Crypto Gnome]

Senator Conroy is a religious fanatic, according to any modern definition of the term. This is POLITICS BY FAITH, and if that's what I want well there are OTHER countries for that.

This policy is ABSOLUTE INSANITY, and if I wanted a country run by a religious NUTBAG then there are also other countries for that.

His policy of deliberate insanity *almost* lost his party THE ENTIRE ELECTION, and now we have a government balanced on a knife-edge (ie more than likely, crippled beyond your worst nightmares).

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

Re:No Conscience?

[dangitman]

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

In the USA everybody has (or is able to have) guns, yet we have much more rampant lunacy going on among our politicians. I've yet to see guns stop any of it.

Re:No Conscience?

[internettoughguy]

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

What the fuck has that got to do with anything? Unless you would resort martyrdom to stop this filter; in which case need to redo your cost benefit analysis :).

Re:No Conscience?

[dangitman]

Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians [wikipedia.org]

And how did that stop any of the lunacy in politics? Many of the assassinations are the direct result of lunatics.

Re:No Conscience?

[TapeCutter]

"His policy of deliberate insanity *almost* lost his party THE ENTIRE ELECTION"

No, this issue wasn't even on the radar of mainstream voters. Those people who know anything about the politics behind it know that it has been going on for over a decade now and will never be passed into law. It's rhetoric just like every US president since Nixon has called for "independence from foriegn oil" but has done jack shit about it, every Aussie PM since Keating has called for "cleaning up the net" but has done jack shit about it. If there was any political will behind the rhetoric then we would have had a mandatory filter back in the 90's when the libs first proposed it.

"This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns."

Yeah right, guns have definitely prevented rampant lunacy from taking over US politics. /sarcasm

Re:No Conscience?

[TapeCutter]

AFAIK Australia has had one politician assasinated and that was over some petty personal dispute. Our politicans are not affraid to walk the streets or go for a morning jog on their own and that's exactly how most Aussies want to keep it. When a democratically elected politcian needs a small army to go out in public and do their job then as far as I'm concerned that country has serious problems.

Re:No Conscience?

[WillDraven]

In the USA everybody has (or is able to have) guns,

Not legally. I'm banned from owning guns for my entire life because I was convicted for giving a friend of mine a nickel bag of pot when I was 16. Anybody convicted of a felony (and almost everything is a felony these days) is banned from owning a gun.

Why not shut the sites down instead?

[pesc]

'According to the latest information I have here from the [Australian Communications and Media Authority], there are 430 child pornography sites on the [World Wide Web] ... that are accessible to anyone...[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added.

Maybe Conroy could explain to Australian families why hanging a blanket in front of the sites is better than shutting the sites down and prosecute the operators? Especially since it is so easy to peer behind the blanket by using a proxy, or alternate DNS resolver, etc, etc.

Are all those sites operating from countries where child pornography is legal? Which countries and sits are we talking about?

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[MichaelSmith]

Because the sites are not in Australia. Having said that free webmail services seem to be major channels for hosting porn so maybe a filter will have to block billions of yahoo mail URLs.

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[pesc]

I think that "430 child pornography sites" is a bluff. I'm calling it. What sites? Which countries? Did the Australian authorities contact the police in those countries? What happened? Did they give up and are calling for blankets?

It needs to be asked since international lobbying groups are exploiting "child pornography" to establish censorship as being normal on the internet.

Read this:
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/ifpis-child-porn-strategy/

Do these lobbying groups operate in Australia?

What do Australian families think about commercial entities exploiting child pornography?

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[koiransuklaa]

It's still a lousy excuse for not doing the actual work.

When the Finnish block list leaked (for the first time) it turned out a lot of the sites were actually hosted in countries where child porn is illegal (and where you could actually assume the police might act on it). Guess what the Finnish police did? They just slapped the sites on their secret list, and did not inform the police in the countries where the crime was being committed.

Fix it, don't hide it!

[freman]

He's hell bent on hiding sites that contain child abuse material...

That doesn't prevent a child getting abused.
That doesn't help the child already abused to create the content.

Who the fk knows what these sites are anyway?

Sick bastards are going to work around his filter quicker than he can think.

How about, policing, work within the international community to have these sites removed and keep up the pressure.

If he put half the budget and pressure on law enforcement as he is putting on stringing a tarp over the crime scene he'd actually have a hope of getting somewhere!

FIX IT! DO NOT HIDE IT!

Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what he still thinks? He hasn't got the numbers in either House of Parliament to get any Bill passed.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[SJ2000]

Neither the Greens or all of the Independents support the filter. He does not have the numbers.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Techman83]

And the opposition are busy "opposing", so they aren't going to support anything the government wants to do.

Re:Don't filter

[AHuxley]

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/fight-to-filter-out-evil-leaves-bad-guys-to-do-their-worst-20100514-v4cq.html
They cut funding to the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team, a unit of the Australian Federal Police.
The filter is pure faith based pay back.

Just to put things into perspective

[Netshroud]

430 out of >1,000,000,000,000

Classification IS Censorship

[atomicstrawberry]

"'I'm not sure that the censorship claim stacks up. This is about classification systems."

The Australian Classification system is a system of government-run censorship. Media which is refused classification is not allowed to be sold in the country.

The debate is fundamentally about censorship.

It is legal to possess and view unclassified and refused-classification material in most of Australia, provided that it is not material which is actually illegal (child porn, for example). What Conroy wants to do is circumvent the ability for adults to decide what they can view. To make it illegal to view online things which are legal to possess in reality. It is censorship. To argue otherwise is completely dishonest.

Re:Classification IS Censorship

[Namarrgon]

Different debate. Most governments censor their citizens; that debate is only over how much.

The debate going on here in Australia is about how to implement that censorship. Currently it's done at a legal and retail level. Conroy wants to extend that to ISPs too, by means of a URL blacklist.

The problem is, any attempt to explain that it'll only block < 0.001% of the RC content on the net, or that it's trivially bypassed by altering the URL (e.g. adding a "?" to the end), or that it's far too open for errors/abuse, gets either ignored or re-framed as "against filter == pro child porn".

Re:Classification IS Censorship

[MichaelSmith]

The debate is fundamentally about censorship.

Yeah but I think the actual agenda is the National Broadband Network. Basically the TV network owners don't want competing, free content bypassing their networks and going directly into the home. The idea behind filtering is that reasons will be found to block this content, thus preserving a revenue stream for the TV networks. Its just a way to encourage them to keep paying their license fees to the federal government.

Re:No speed impact

[MichaelSmith]

I think this came up before and I believe that in those countries the blocked site returns a page saying that it has been blocked, just like bluecoat in my workplace. You can use information on that page to find out why the page has been blocked.

The proposed Australian system seems to be set up to pretend that the blocked page doesn't exist. This makes it hard to distinguish between bitrot and censorship, so nobody really knows what is censored.

what a useless bastard

[kiddygrinder]

[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites

Conroy has to admit that he's not prepared to do anything to prosecute the creators or help the children being abused in the creation of this material, but really just wants to pretend it doesn't exist.

Re:No speed impact

[koiransuklaa]

For Finland:

"No impact on speed": true, there's no effect (it's usually just a simple DNS blocklist at ISP, or sometimes a http proxy).

"80-95% of citizens are censored": False, as far as I know. Some large ISPs did start enthusiasticly but it seems most have now gone back to not censoring, or offer both censored and uncensored access. The three large ISPs I am in contact with (Elisa, Sonera and Welho) all offer uncensored DNS.

"Accuracy is 100%": True if you define accuracy as "how many sites on the block list get blocked when using a blocking DNS server". No-one knows how many false positives the list contains or what percentage of all child porn sites are on the list -- there's no possibility of knowing this for sure as the only time citizens get to see the list is when it happens to leak (check wikileaks for the most recent ones). There have been some fairly high profile false posititives though: www.w3.org was blocked for a time -- and the police had no other explanation than "human error".

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a copy of netbsd over a gun any day. The gun will just get you killed.

Tell it to Peter Lalor. It's deplorable how many Australians are so ignorant of our history. While armed conflict is something sane people prefer to avoid, it ought not be avoided at any cost. From time to time in our history ("our" being people with common law justice systems) we have found it necessary to resist the government with force. We tend to keep the (newly constrained) government rather than overthrow them, which is what gives us the continuity of common law. Our legal rights such as Habeas Corpus and our Constitutional monarchy with Westminster parliament was won by force of arms. Hopefully we've come far enough to never need to resort to that again, but it seems foolish to bet your life on it.

David Hicks was held for 5 years without trial with the approval of our government. Conroy wants to censor the internet. The ABCC has overturned the right to not incriminate yourself so you can be punished for silence. The "anti-biker" legislation is destroying the right to freely associate and also to know the evidence used against you and the right to face your accuser. With these legal changes in place it seems to me that some future government may very well use them to implement tyranny, regardless of any good intentions current politicians may have. Some time in the future it may very well require armed force to address this problem although the vast majority wouldn't say we are at that point now.

Overreacting maybe?

[devent]

430 child pornography sites. You got to be kidding me. That like what, 0.000000000000001% of the websites worldwide? And for a hand full of sites they have to filter 100% of the traffic and spend millions of Australian $ for it?

How about a total filter on the catholic church, after all there are 10% of Catholic Priests Were Pedophiles. How about spend more money to protect real children in Australia? There was 5,591 sexual abuse and 11,789 physical abuse in 2008. There were 339,454 notifications but only 162,259 investigations, that's only 48% coverage. How about dropping this stupid filter and spend more money on protecting real children, living in Australia right now?

But what will happened is that Australia is going to spend millions to block 430 child pornography sites but then they have to cut spending on education and on child protection services.

But it does help

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you censor the entire net, then you DO shutdown the pedo sites. If you lock up everyone who isn't a right wing american KKK card carrier, then you do lock up the traitors. If you ban all Muslims and Muslim symphatizers from the US, you ban the Muslim terrorists as well (you still keep the abortion clinic bombers and seperatists and other home grown nutters).

THAT is the problem. The holocaust and WW2 did solve the German unemployment problem.

The REAL question is NOT to ask wether a measure will solve the problem but at what cost it comes.

Simply put. More kids are killed in traffic then by pedo's. Solution, ban cars. Why doesn't this get proposed? Because nobody wants to surrender their SUV with cattle bar for those hellish suburban roads.

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids? Yes? Then hand in your cars keys today... AH, thought so. You want to save a handful of kids from predators but not thousands from car accidents.

Same with 9/11 and the war against terror. We CAN stop the terrorists, but is it worth the total collapse of privacy and ruining internation trade and exchange of ideas?

Is the war on drugs worth Mexico being the latest country to slide into civil war? Locking up people who are just addicted enough to risk life in jail for smoking a joint for the 3rd time?

With extreme measures, we can solve all the worlds problems. But is it worth it?

So "That's why it's so important to not believe every person who can describe the problem, but rather look at their proposed solutions and see if they actually help, or will take you somewhere you don't want to go."

It is that last bit that is the important thing. Not wether it will help. That is easy enough. But do we want to life in that kind of world.

And that is hard. It requires people who value freedom of speech to defend smut peddlers like Larry Flynt. Not because they are pro-porn but because you either stand for freedom of speech for all or for none. Because if you allow stuff to be banned because it upsets people, you end up banning everything because everything upsets someone.

But that is VERY hard to sell. It is like argueing about the evils of various religious institutions in a religious country. Once a mere questioning of religious practices could get you in serious trouble. Thank god the Catholic and other churces have lost a lot of power and you can't simply be put to death for questioning the pope.

Right now you can just be cast out for daring to question the wrongness of child porn crusaders. Question this minister and you are automatically pro-pedo. A brave man/woman who dares to risk that. And so he gets away with it.

Re:But it does help

[bsDaemon]

Terrorism thrives on the ability of a small incident to provoke a grossly asymmetric over-reaction, thus swaying general public opinion against the larger party. A few cases in point:

- Bloody Sunday of 1920, when the IRA killed 14 British intelligence officers in Dublin. In response, the British Auxilliary units (Black and Tans) shot up Croke Park during a GAA football match, killing 14 civilians, and then executed 3 prisoners of war. This solidified support on the Irish side for the Republicans, and also caused a great deal of distress in England. There were mass demonstrations in London against continued occupation of Ireland at the price of gunning down civilians.

- Hamas lobs unguided rockets in the general direction of Israel, and usually they land in vacant lots and no one is hurt. Eventually, the IDF rolls into Gaza with tanks and helicopter gunships and starts wrecking shop, then puts up a blockade to try and starve civilians into compliance. This then gets Israel a bad rap in the international press and court of public opinion. Do you really think Likud would be willing to go to peace talks, even with Fatteh, if not for the recent scandal with the murder of civilian aid workers on board the Turkish ships attempting to run the Gaza blockade?

I could go on. There are more examples, these are just fairly big examples of where the reaction provoked was grossly out of line with the original offense. Frankly, I think that the only way to really defeat the terrorist tactic is to not let them provoke the reaction they're looking for. Basically just ignore them. Eventually they'll do something that really needs to be dealt with, but you don't occupy a country in response to a building. This is why we have a CIA and special forces. Targeted assassinations are a proportionate response. The marines are there to fight countries, not terrorists.

If we had dropped a bunch of Green Berets into Afghanistan to take out Bin Laden rather than waiting for a month wagging a stick at the Taliban hoping for extradition, then this whole thing would have been over and no one would have said we did the wrong thing. As it stands, the US looks like a bunch of bullies going around stepping on ant hills because the new kid in town didn't know we were supposed to be the toughest kid in the school.

Re:But it does help

[rotide]

The solution is easy, because there is none. There simply is _no_ solution to "terrorism" besides the total and utter collapse of any and all freedoms.

Why? Because tomorrow I can be a terrorist. My mother too. How about a random guy out in Montana? Yes, he can be a terrorist tomorrow. Hell, you can turn into a Terrorist in 30 seconds if you want to. All you have to do is start plotting to cause harm with the intent on moving someones political goals/agendas/views.

See, terrorists aren't armies. They aren't, as a whole, organized. Sure, you get groups of "terrorists", but frankly, ignoring funding, they are probably weaker than the lone McVeigh since they probably communicate and that chatter can be monitored.

The major problem with the "War on Terror" is that there will _never_ by definition, be an end to it. There will _always_ be another person willing to die, or at least kill, to make a political point. Take the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building months ago. He's a terrorist. If he really wanted to make an Al Qaeda type bang, he just had to fill his aircraft with something that would go !BOOM! on impact.

Again, these people aren't part of a standing army with x soldiers. It would be great if you could ask them to all line up in an old school skirmish line and just take them all out in an afternoon. But that will not happen, it can't, because the best part of Terrorism is that they rarely have the same agenda or goals. Terrorists in Somalia will have a different view than Terrorists in the old Soviet Republic or Ireland, etc. They will each attack different targets at different times while truly remaining entirely autonomous. Hell, they don't even care what the other guy is doing as it has _no_ bearing on their goals.

What is the solution? There isn't one. We need to step back and realize that they will keep coming just as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. Destroying everything we hold sacred to "defeat" the Terrorists only gives them more purpose. Hell, that's half of what they want in the first place. The war can't and will never be won.

My solution?

Go back to pre-9/11 security. Keep enough security to hold the crazies at bay as much as you can but otherwise ignore the "Terrorists". Stop throwing away everything we care about for "security" and "safety". Live your life and enjoy it. Or, you can keep buying into the propaganda and help feed the machine that profits from the fear. Seriously, the war can't be won and the only purpose for the huge industry that is trying to "stop" it is pure, utter, profit and power.

Stop drinking the koolaid.

Re:But it does help

[MightyMartian]

The solution is easy, because there is none. There simply is _no_ solution to "terrorism" besides the total and utter collapse of any and all freedoms.

Not even that cannot guarantee safety from terrorist attacks. Anybody sufficiently motivated to cause death and mayhem will find a way. In totalitarian states, of course, they don't need to become terrorists, they just become leaders.

Re:But it does help

[Lonewolf666]

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids?

Are you honestly claiming that if you don't have the freedom to distribute child porn, you don't have freedom of speech ?

The way some governments want to implement blocking child porn (with secret blacklists) is indeed a danger to free speech. Because it makes it easy to put stuff on the list The Government Party Does Not Like. I certainly don't trust the politicians in my country with the power to do so.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a US citizen, I'm sure glad our founding fathers weren't such bleeding whiners.

Fix the murders problem by banning news on murders

[Aceticon]

Would forbidding the press to report on murders stop people being murdered?

'Cause that's equivalent to what Conroy is suggesting: hide the problem not solve the problem.

It seems to me that if he is so concerned about the problem of sexual abuse of children he should support going after those that do the abuse, not hiding it.

This angle could be used to pry open his argument.

minister for who?

[enter to exit]

This man is nothing but a fool. Why can't he see that no one _wants_ the filter and that it is simply useless. He has said himself that the "tech savvy" can easily get around what they are proposing. What does "tech savvy" mean to him? - it's all relative.

Does he honestly think that an undesirable is going to be deterred by a filter that can be worked around? The same man goes around and threatens to filter google because it's videos are RC - it' nothing short of surreal.

Every possible form of protest has been exercised and they still persist. What else can we do? What ever happened to the idea that laws should reflect the values of the community? The vast majority of AU is apposed to this. Who exactly are they trying to please with this filter? The 'religious nut' demographic can not be that big.

If this goes ahead we're going to have is an extra government layer to get through to use the internet and we all know how good the government is with technology. We can expect delays and failures that no one will take responsibility for.

If people want a filter they should buy one, the government can even subsidise it if they want - it'll be more effective anyway (not to mention cheaper). I don't want my tax dollars being spent on censorship policies like this.

It's ironic that the same government that can be so forward thinking with things like the NBN (regardless of how wasteful you think it is) can be so incompetently backward with it's filtering plan.

I'm sensing that this is increasingly a matter of ego for him and that is very dangerous.

Australia would have non of it's current problems

[MRe_nl]

If the Aboriginals had just implemented stricter immigration control.
It's the bloody immigrants i tell you, stealing all our jobs an bushmeat.

Re:I'm curious

[srjh]

Not sure about Abbott, but both the Libs and Nats officially rejected it, and appointing the even more anti-filter Turnbull as Communications minister suggests that they're sticking to that opposition.

Abbott did make it a difficult choice, and the Libs didn't get my first preference, but the filter is worrying enough to be the most important issue for me (although it was a pretty uninspiring campaign overall from both sides, so that might have had something to do with it). I know the filter is very unlikely to go through now, and I'd have circumvented it anyway, but a government that shows that much contempt for freedom of expression and government transparency needs to be opposed on principle.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[MichaelSmith]

US civil wars were fought at a time when small arms were pretty much all there were. Seriously, try it against nukes and UAVs. See how far you get.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we shall fight in the shade of a thousand suns.

lol conroy

[A3gis]

I refer you to http://www.lolconroy.com/

Re:big deal

[MrNaz]

"[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites"

Is that so eh. Perhaps instead Malcolm Turnbull could explain to Steven Conroy what the Internet is, how it works, and why we all wish Conroy would just fuck off.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[u17]

Nowadays governments are much more powerful, in terms of military might, access to information and control over a citizen. It might have become infeasible to try to forcefully overthrow one. The next step that empowers citizens might just as well be total nuclear war.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

In an armed conflict with out own Government the very best we could hope for is a disaster like Afghanistan.

For you to say such a thing is a fine example of my statement: "It's deplorable how many Australians are so ignorant of our history.

Did you not recognise the name Peter Lalor? Could it be that you don't know what the Eureka Stockade was? A small group of poorly armed men took on the government and lost quickly and decisively and were acquitted at trial by jury nullification. Shortly after, Peter Lalor was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council. What we could expect from armed conflict with the government depends on the amount of popular support for our cause. Right now, if you tried it you'd be reported in the media as a terrorist and remembered as such. Given enough popular support the government wouldn't take you on, except it may take a minor conflict for the level of support to be clear to them.

I believe an armed conflict is the worst possible outcome.

A lot of people think perpetual servitude is worse than armed conflict. In fact a great deal of our cultural identity is related to that ideal. I respect your right to express your opinion but your view is not representative of the Australian population in general.

Conscience Vote

[Maclir]

In most Westminster democratic systems - of which the UK parliament is the original, and convention in Australia follows closely, members of parliament are elected on the basis of a political party. The party system is much stronger in those countries that in the US, in many ways:

1) The party organization chooses who will stand for a particular seat as that party's representative in a process known as "preselection". This can be a combination of votes by paid up party members in local branches, with "head office" votes as well. By the way, in those countries, to be a member of a political party, you pay a membership fee and join a branch - and there may be an acceptance process. In the US, you simply say that you are a member of the democratic or republican party - and in some states, mark that preference when you enroll to vote.

2) Because there is no popular election for head of state / executive members, formation of government is done of the basis of which party can command a majority of votes on the floor of parliament. This is generally a no-brainer, but as we have seen in the last few weeks following the Australian federal election, can take a lot of negotiation. The party forming government determines who the Prime minister and other cabinet ministers are, and they can change their mind on who fills these positions at any time. The general population don't elect the Prime Minister directly.

3) Votes in both chambers are along party lines. If an individual member votes against the their party's policy, that is a big deal - known as "crossing the floor". The argument is that since you were elected as a member of the party, based on the party's platform, you support the party's vote.

4) There are some limited number of issues that are seen as having very personal implications - for example, abortion, matters affection religious beliefs, things like that. So the parties allow a "conscience vote" - where there is no binding party position, and each person may cast their vote according to their own beliefs.

Nothing to do with faith.

[the_raptor]

Most of the "faith based" groups barking loudly for the filter DO NOT SUPPORT the Australian Labour Party*. The filter is getting pushed not to pay back the support of whining Christian groups (because this support doesn't exist) but for pure "Think of the Children!" politicking. And because all bureaucracies reach a life stage where instead of performing their function they instead focus on holding onto or acquiring more power.

Many Christian groups are against the filter because with the way Australian society is going it wouldn't be long until ACMA started censoring Christian web sites (as they were already going to filter abortion and euthanasia content).

* At least since the ALP went right wing on immigration policy. Australia does not have a large "Christian right" like America. We have a small Christian right and a slightly larger Christian left. The larger part of society is only religious in a "no atheists in a foxhole" way.

It depends...

[BenEnglishAtHome]

More fundamentally, for child porn to be made, children have to be sexually abused.

Depends on the jurisdiction. In the United States, for example, there are people sitting in jail for child porn, directly related crimes, or derivative prosecutions for making or possessing pictures or videos where one or all the following conditions are true:

***The actors are kids but are never naked and no sex acts take place.

***The actors are verified adults portraying underage characters.

***The actors are nonexistent, animated characters.

Re:It depends...

[SleazyRidr]

Australian legislators define it in much the same way. Even if a girl's tits aren't big enough you can get into trouble.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[blackraven14250]

Speaking as a US citizen, I'm sure glad our founding fathers weren't such bleeding whiners.

Well, he has a point. The US military would walk all over any armed opposition in any sort of typical battle.

What they wouldn't do is win a political war, since that's obviously their Achilles heel.

Re:big deal

[deek]

"[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites"

I am outraged that Stephen Conroy knows about these child pornography websites, and apparently has not reported it to police. It is the police that can organise to shut these websites down, since they are illegal in every country that I know of.

I can only assume that Stephen Conroy wants these websites kept available, to push his agenda of a compulsory internet filter. If I were of a conspiratorial persuasion, I may even secretly believe that Stephen Conroy had a hand in creating some of these websites. Now wouldn't that be a sensational news article.

Cars aren't intended for "twisted action"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Simply put. More kids are killed in traffic then by pedo's. Solution, ban cars. Why doesn't this get proposed? Because nobody wants to surrender their SUV with cattle bar for those hellish suburban roads.

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids? Yes? Then hand in your cars keys today... AH, thought so. You want to save a handful of kids from predators but not thousands from car accidents" - by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Friday September 17, @04:57AM (#33608674)

THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR SO-CALLED "ARGUMENT":

Your foundation of your argument tries to make apples = oranges, and is therefore weak and fools only easily suggestable idiots who cannot see the diff. in what you are TRYING to "compare" and "make equal in intention" here.

E.G.-> Cars aren't trying to stuff their tailpipe up a kid's exhaust port, Freaks/twistos/pedophiles, are... get it? (by way of comparison & intent)!

Fact is, to myself? You actually come off like some pedo trying to defend his "twistedness" in fact, as do others here that tried to use your line of argument! I hope you're not such a person, and if you are not, my apologies on this note, but think about what I just said, BECAUSE of what YOU SAID! Drink that in, & digest it...

I mean, I.E.-> You appear so "vehemently" against this measure of filtering!

(Filtering, that yes, can work (for most folks vs. techno jocks that know how to use diff. IP addresses, or proxy servers, or DNS servers for example to beat a filter) vs. kids being exposed to this type of "twisted-ness" in the first place (hopefully that is))

How do I know this? Well... I use filtering (of a form), via HOSTS files here!

I use it for better online speed and security too, from a single file, for all of my webbound apps and it works... it works for better speed and security online, and for myself, my workplace, and my friends and family too as well as people that download mine from me, and not a single one of us has had a malware or malscripted website take advantage of us in years/decades (in my case on the latter) because I practice a form of filtering via a HOSTS file (with security information on the known bad sites/servers from reputable reliable sources, and against known bad websites &/or servers + ad banner servers too, because they have been found with malscripted code in some of them, and they cut my speed online to hell and I pay for it (no thanks/bye bye adbanners)).

Even more hilarious vs. this filter were the replies that said "fix it" or "stop the websites that do it".

(Good luck on that because all the laws on the planet don't stop malware bearing sites either, and if they do manage to take down one or a botnet? More come up to take that one's place. It's a lot bigger undertaking to entirely (good luck on that especially) trying to take out what SOME 'freaks' want or will make, money involved or not - because of this? It can't ever really be FULLY stopped, as it is like a hydra: Cut off 1 head, another will take its place. You can only do as I do, & that is filter... I am not against bad websites or servers being shut down, but not a lot of effort seems to go into that, so the community online "takes care of itself" and its own, by creating filters like kill files in HOSTS files, ISP/BSP or DNS level filtering, etc./et al instead... and yes, it works!).

Freedom can be a good thing (OR it can be a bad thing. Especially the freedom to act irresponsibly). Freedom of any kind., and judging by what you're saying, well hey - let's not do anything at all then, let's be that blatantly/grossly irresponsible then!

Uh, no thanks. I am for filtering personally, because I know it does work for the good in both speed and security online per my example above using HOSTS files to do so here.

APK

P.S.=> Personally, I think this ought to be tried i

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[couchslug]

"Seriously, try it against nukes and UAVs. See how far you get."

Nukes aren't on the table.

UAVs? Go tell the Taliban they have lost and it's time to go home. :)

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

I imagine (hope) there are a LOT of US soldiers who would disobey a direct order to deploy a nuclear weapon against a civilian target in the United States, judging it to not be a lawful order.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Wyatt Earp]

The US Civil War was the first "modern" war with the might of industrialization and machines pushing the destruction and casualty rates.

Machine guns, repeating rifles, giant mortars, spotting aircraft, submarines, armored warships, siege warfare, total war, concentration camps for prisoners, the Civil War had it all.

Were there to be an uprising in the US, nuclear weapons would never be used, like in the Civil War the large segments of the military would splinter off into the rebelling faction and the nuclear sites would simply be sat on by forces loyal to the Federal Government or Pentagon.

UAVs would be less effective in a US civil war now than they are in Iraq or Afghanistan, simply put the revolting faction knows where the UAVs are and could strike at their basing airfields. The UAV airfields are all in "Red" states (North Dakota, Arizona, Texas and Nevada) and the US is big, theres alot more territory with terrain less conductive to recon from the air.