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Australian ISPs To Start Filtering the Internet
daria42 writes "Australia's controversial mandatory internet filtering scheme may be on the backburner for now, but that doesn't mean it's gone entirely. In the next month, the country's two largest ISPs, Telstra and Optus, will start voluntarily filtering users' connections for a list of URLs containing child pornography. The only thing is, the users themselves don't seem to have much choice in the matter — and as the Electronic Freedom Foundation points out — there are no avenues for appeal for those websites which may feel they've been unfairly blocked."
Like seriously it's almost on the same page WTF Editors!
Maybe the editors are in Australia and the previous story was censored there ?
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
"The only thing is, the users themselves don't seem to have much choice in the matter"
They could switch to a different ISP if they had any sense. Though anyone still on Telstra these days is demonstrably lacking in that.
Electronic FRONTIER Foundation. Way to be slashdot
That it will be child pornography?
Competitors, political dissidents, sites who pay to block opponents etc. Sounds like a fabulous opportunity to me.
Deleted
"sites with child pornography" are the new witches.
So they filter a URL. The same service can be accessed from different host names, some of them obtained from public domain name servers, some of then not. The users could use an alternate DNS root with a totally different idea of the names given to web sites, as long as the servers are configured appropriately. So say Telstra thinks a particular site is called a.cp.com but my DNS which sits between me and the internet calls it b.pc.com and the server knows this name as well. Telstra never heard of it so they won't filter it. Eventually authorities will access the feed of alternate host names but by then the market will have moved on.
I can't see this accomplishing anything.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Why is it that everybody seems to concentrate on filtering it?
Since when there is some place in the world where absolutely anything can be hosted with impunity to the point that the only recourse is blocking access to it? And wouldn't blocking it be exactly the wrong thing to do?
Is this coincidence that the same 2 ISPs just made significant deals with government to further the NBN? Sounds like a condition of the deal to me, and the government gets to keep their hands clean.
SERIOUSLY! HOW?
Here is what I am seeing. Austrailia blocks these sites and what happens:
Now you will notice that nowhere on that list does the terms "kiddie porn sites go away" or "kids stop being exploited" appear. It will continue to happen at places around the world, I honestly think response will go 1-2-3-4 in Australia, and the intended purpose will never happen. Want a better option one that is even more sinister? Honeypot em. Dont filter. Trap em. Watch the sites you Blacklist, observe the people going, trace and trap the network and strike hard.
Block sites. Everthing ventured, nothing gained.
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
Nice trick. Of course, would he do so, his moderation would be undone (and all other moderations which he did on any other post on this story, too). Thus Slashdot actively discourages anyone explaining his moderation (unless he actually wants to undo it because it was an accident, but then even then he is discouraged from doing so if he's moderated any other post under the same story, because that one would be undone, too).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
While here in the UK, our anti-child-porn filter replaces blocked pages with a fake 404 error, thus removing the need for an appeals process: Even the blocked sites won't realise they are blocked unless they notice the strange complains of missing files or the irregularity in client IP addresses.