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Telstra Starts Implementing Australian Censorship Scheme
daria42 writes "After four long years of debate about whether Australia will receive a mandatory Internet filter, finally some action has been taken. Yesterday the country's largest ISP, Telstra, started filtering all customers' connections for child pornography. The filter is DNS-based, meaning it's easy to circumvent, but you can't opt out of it — if you sign up to a plan with Telstra, your connection will be filtered for certain web addresses whether you like it or not. "
Even if you could opt out of this, the Australian government would just know who to put on their watch list.
We don't have a walled garden, we just have a BigPond(TM)!
If it's only retail and not wholesale then there is plenty of other options available. Let's just hope it stays that way.
Domain Name System servers must conform to the standards. If Telstra is unable or unwilling to comply, they can be removed. Sure, they're popular in Australia... but you want to be ON the Internet, you have to work WITH the Internet.
DNS is specified in RFC 1034, RFC 1035, covered further in the Hosts Requirements RFCs (1122, 1123).
Telstra, if you can't be standards compliant, you will be worked around.
Australian users: use any public DNS server that is standards compliant. You'll avoid the censorship, and you won't lose connectivity.
Telstra -- Australian for "Censorship"
E
First of all, since it is voluntary, there will still be ISPs like iiNet and Internode that will refuse to implement it. Secondly, since it's DNS-based, it pretty much only takes a working pulse to circumvent and a lot of people use alternate DNS services for perfectly legitimate reasons so it's not exactly suspicious for your DNS requests to go elsewhere. Thirdly, it's the Interpol blacklist which is practically guaranteed to be more reasonable than blocking all RC content, which would cover almost all porn for example.
Uh oh, I bet there's going to be a lot of pissed off 4channers. Who wants to bed Telstra gets DDOSed soon? :P
What the fuck? They have the addresses, why can't they track down the servers and their owners? Isn't that more useful (and easier) than doing all this theatre?
Just another reason to sign up with one of the better ISPs anyway. iiNet, Internode, TPG and so on. They are all good.
As a gentle reminder to anyone who doesn't already have these IPs on a sticky note, the OpenDNS IPs are:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Google DNS OpenDNS
Google public DNS servers. Nice and easy to remember:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
Child porn will be blocked first. However, the problem with internet censorship is that other material (such as political material, eg. WikiLeaks) could also be blocked eventually. The first rule of censorship is to not talk about it; it's ironic that we don't know what websites are going to be blocked. Bad stuff has already been done because of the filter anyway. Look at Bulletproof Networks - they were threatened fines of $11,000 per day for linking to a leak of the blacklist.
I've started visiting and scraping as much as I can of the websites they put on their filter lists, just to spite them.
Hold on, it's knocking really loudly at my door, I'll go check what's going on...
Germany has the exact same thing....at least we aussies let you opt out.
Nice try, but you obviously haven't been keeping up with the local news.
The current government (The Australian Labor Party) has been trying to push through this form of censorship, to gain support from the religious zealots in the country. They need the religious zealots support, because they do not have a large enough majority to ram through what they want. This censorship plan was developed by minister Stephen Conroy, and at the previous election they had to ditch this plan, because it was so amazingly un-popular.
At the same time the Australian Labor Party has decided to "nationalize" (debatable as to whether the National Broadband Network is really nationalized or not) the internal internet infrastructure of Australia, by laying down billions of dollars, buying up a fuck load of fiber, and handing out a lot of contracts to roll out more fiber. This plan is being setup and run by minister Stephen Conroy, the exact same man who came up with the original legislative censorship plans, has now been given a fuck load of money, and authority. Telstra owns MOST of the infrastructure the government is looking to buy, as it was Australia's first (I think it was the first) telephony provider, which used to be nationalized, but was privatized in the late 90s.
At the same time Telstra started to censor the internet, they were awarded a very large favourable contract, from the government, to purchase this infrastructure from them. Both of these were announced in THE SAME WEEK. This is a mighty fine coincidence.
Now, you might say, but that's just a coincidence and doesn't mean anything. The company is just voluntarily deciding to censor the internet.
Well, in the same week another company, Optus, which is Australia's second largest telephony provider, was awarded a very large favourable contract for the purchase of their infrastructure handed to them, and in the same week, that company also decided to announce that they would voluntarily censor the internet with this same list, under a similar time frame.
So...
There are 2 companies, selling a large amount of equipment to the government, for very large amounts of money, with very favourable terms, and they both decided to announce, in the same week that these contracts were handed out, that they will voluntarily censor the internet.
That is FAR too great a coincidence.
Additionally, ISPs like Internode, which are the nerds choice of ISP, who also own a significant amount of infrastructure, and were active in dissenting against the prior censorship plans, have been told flat out that they will not be offered such favourable contracts for their infrastructure, in the same week these were awarded.
So yes, "technically", you're correct, but we all know that the government would have had a hand in this, especially because these plans were so wildly unpopular with the public, that any ISP that implements censorship of any kind, knows they will get backlash over it. In fact, Telstra knows it was going to get this backlash, and actually put off implementing it specifically because they were afraid of reprisals from LulzSec, AnonSec, Anonymous, and similar.
What ISP do you know, that voluntarily does things like this, which don't improve its profitability, which expose it to reprisal, and targeted attacks, without being forced to by government?
Not to mention, two of them at the same time.
The Australian Government, and their currently "unlimited" spending account, has EVERYTHING to do with this.
I have links for all the above, but there's too many, and I'm too lazy. Instead, just read Delimiter which has some of the best coverage on this.
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I understand being opposed to child porn, hey, I'm opposed to it to. But if I knew of a child porn website, the first thing on my mind would be, "whose website is that, and how can we stop them?" and secondly, "who is hosting that website, and how can we get through them to the ones who are actually hurting the children?"
Censoring websites does absolutely nothing for the victims of child porn, and does absolutely nothing to stop the ones who are participating in it. This is true even if the censorship mechanism worked. What are you Australians thinking? How do you let your politicians get this kind of power?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And as far as the list goes, it is actually very conservative in its definition of child pornography, only classifying sites depicting minors under 13, not under 18.
Can you link me to somewhere I can download the list? As it stands, I've no idea what's on the list, and whether it accurately actually truly only limits itself to those things. Historically, these lists have NOT limited themselves to only these things. Even the list that the Australia Government previously wanted to use, was found to have A LOT of material which was far outside of these bounds, when it was leaked.
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That'll sure show all the pedophiles on P2P, freenet & TOR!
How on earth are the people using Government computers supposed to "research" all of the dangers and issues associated with Child Pornography if they can't find it?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/christian-mp-fred-nile-engulfed-in-net-porn-scandal/story-e6frf7l6-1225913110721
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/nsw-mp-fred-nile-denies-porn-has-been-viewed-on-computers-in-his-office/story-e6frg6nf-1225913267507
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/03/nsw-parliament%E2%80%99s-flawed-prn-hunt/
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/370016/child_porn_alarm_nsw_parliament/
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/09/02/Antigay_NSW_MP_Blames_Porn_on_Research/
Let's get this out of the way first: I agree that child pornography sites should be "blocked" (censored). Better still, nuke them off the internet. No argument from me in that regard.
Ok, now that's out of the way, let's consider something else. Suppose someone accidentally clicks on a link (in a spam email, for example) that leads to a known child pornography site. Yes, people shouldn't click on unknown links in emails, but they do. So, they click on the link and are presented with the "this domain/link is blacklisted" message (or whatever that happens to be). That's fine. The user has been protected from viewing material they don't accidentally want to see. But, is the attempt by the user to resolve the address (or their attempt to visit the site) logged? Could it be logged (yes)? So an innocent, albeit naive (or not so naive person, just interested in legal porn), person be then flagged and reported as someone trying to access child pornography sites? How can you tell if someone was intentionally or not intentionally trying to access the site? Once you're "flagged" how could you defend yourself?
If you're concerned about privacy, why would you want to switch DNS resolvers to ones controlled or located offshore? Wouldn't you lose all privacy and legal (relating to admissible evidence) protection as soon as the traffic leaves Australia? Who says that the data isn't being collected offshore and reported back, minus any of the protections you'd usually be granted by Australian law?
The Database is maintained by Interpol, and is available to any ISP upon request, not just in Australia.
All Interpol member countries have given this project a green light and like "The Cube" is saying above, it is very strict in what constitutes a "Child Porn", i.e. age of 13, and the images have to show abuse.
The ICPO database in already implemented in a lot of countries, they have just done it without telling anyone, so only those that are actively seeking Child porn on the Internet are aware of the blocking.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Connect to google DNS/open DNS etc and resolve domain
Connect to ISP DNS and resolve domain
Compare 2 results, if 2 do not match, flag up censorship.
Not 100% foolproof yet...but probably simple enough to create a shell script to automatically go through domains checking.
Obviously it will take time, but DNS queries are small, have lots going at a time, bit more programming and suddenly the blacklist is very secret anymore....
Additionally, ISPs like Internode, which are the nerds choice of ISP, who also own a significant amount of infrastructure, and were active in dissenting against the prior censorship plans, have been told flat out that they will not be offered such favourable contracts for their infrastructure, in the same week these were awarded.
Uh, I loves the Internode, but they don't own the kind of infrastructure that's important here -- last-mile.
Yeah, I know they don't own last mile, except in a few places (their research places, etc), they do also own some interstate infrastructure, and some wireless infrastructure. The point was that, while Optus does own other more necessary infrastructure, their deal included the purchase of infrastructure similar to Internode's. However, Internode wouldn't be offered as favourable a contract.
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The title and summary are a little misleading. They imply that this is related to the Australian government's proposed mandatory censorship scheme. It is not the same scheme and it is not being done in the same way. If there is any relation, it is that this scheme is intended to pre-empt any effort by the government to pursue mandatory censorship.
This scheme being implemented by Telstra is the exact same scheme already implemented by UK ISPs BT, O2 and Virgin.
Unlike the Australian government's mandatory scheme, this is *not* a hidden secret blacklist with no opportunity for objection. Multiple law enforcement bodies must agree before anything is censored. There is an appeal process in place. They are only censoring illegal child pornography and only where the victims are clearly underage (guideline is: under 13 years old).
In summary: nobody wants censorship but if this optional, industry managed, minimalist effort dissuades the Australian government from introducing a mandatory, heavy-handed, secretive, broader than "illegal", no-appeal censorship scheme, then it might actually be a good thing.
If you've gone to the trouble of compiling a list IP addresses that contain Child Pornography to block the surely the correct action would to shut the sites down.
Censoring them still leaves the sites up and accessible.
The point is our tax dollars should be directed to closing these sites down, not not hiding them and putting them 'out of site out of mind'.
So yes, "technically", you're correct
That's the best kind of correct.
Some people'd be pretty surprised how messed up Australia is. They teach Creationism in Queensland which has famously been described as "Alabama but with nicer beaches" although I forget by who and can't be bothered looking it up. You get the gist.
Google DNS is quite easier to remember
8.8.8.8
Telstra has always marketed itself as a family-oriented ISP. Look at its ads. They're all squeaky-clean family scenes where everyone smiles and has fun, the kids text friends and engage in wholesome activities, and everyone gathers around the television in the end.
Telstra panders to the conservatives and religious zealots. If there's one ISP who would benefit from censoring the internet, it would be Telstra.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Child porn is bad, internet censorship is worse.
Perhaps that is my idea since I have zero interest in child porn and don't know anyone who does, but 89.99% of my friends and family dislike censorship (there's always 10% that want someone else to take control).
Thomas Paine used the version of the internet back then to create interest in overthrowing the status quo. He printed pamphlets. Today, a blog, facebook page, twitter feed are similar to that Thomas Paine did.
I can't think of any effective way to block any specific topic or images over the internet. People with interest in child porn have already moved to dark-nets with private VPNs unless they are just stupid.
These are the same private VPNs used by Chinese dissidents, Egyptian activists, and the Iranian underground. I'm pretty sure other unpopular groups are using them too.
Instead of focusing on filtering sites (not effective at all), why not spend the money on tracking down and prosecuting porn hackers who alter web sites and otherwise 'cheat & steal' on the Net? Censorship never works, never has and never will. Total Internet Freedom and individual filtering software (tools, the DEL key, etc.) are the best way to 'protect' individuals or your family; NOT unasked for invasion of privacy. Freedom of speech and expression are the only way to protect Global Freedoms and to expand them. Open Internet and Freedom to exercise your choice it critical. Who decides what is porn and what is art. Yes, track down obvious child abuse, slavery etc. Web and Internet filtering is NOT the way to do this. It is all just for 'show' and more political correctness. Garbage features like this make bureaucrats 'feel good' but do little to really protect children!
Skip Stein Free Agent Management Systems Consulting, Inc. http://www.msc-inc.net www.linkedin.com/in/skipstein
Need to keep the rabbits out!
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no sig for you. come back one year.
Does it help if you point your DNS client at alternate DNS servers that don't cooperate with the Australian government (or anyone else, except maybe each other)?
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make install -not war
So, the authorities came up with stupid plan to deal with child pornographer''s websites - arrest the owners of the child pornography websites instead you fucking hopeless bastards
You mean Conroy, not the Labor party. Deputy comms minister Kate Lundy has been an outspoken critic of filtering and this keeps failing on Labor's back bench, not on the opposition or the Greens (In other words, the filter failed in the house when Labor had a majority, it didn't even make it to the senate where the Greens would have blocked it).
Uh, no.
Telstra owns 100% of the pits and ducts used for the copper (they own all of that too) that currently makes up our broadband infrastructure. The contract was to buy that. Please keep up.
This is because they own 0% of the pits and ducts (or copper) that make up the last mile which is where the NBN is operating.
They have nothing NBNco needs to buy. Further more, they have the same ability to become RSP's as Telstra. Nothing is actually being denied to Internode, iinet, Optus or anyone else.
You dont actually understand what's going on here and should never have been modded up.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Yes, it has always marketed itself this way. However, if this was their true driving force...
Then why didn't they do this YEARS ago?
Why did Optus simultaneously also do it?
Why haven't they started to market this previously wildly unpopular feature?
Taking into account that, I think a reasonable person would agree, that this isn't a sudden realization that they could appeal more that way.
Also, Telstra don't specifically target religious zealots, there are other ISPs for that. Telstra is trying to target average people. The largest demographic. That's all.
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Ahh, I see you're not good at reading, let me help you out.
You mean Conroy, not the Labor party.
Completely wrong. The beginnings of these policies started with Kim Beazley. Additionally, if it's not a Labor party policy, then you need to tell the Prime Minister that, and you might ask them to update their pages. While you can say the most recent ones are crafted and pushed by Conroy, it does have the support of "the party", where its leader and strategists speak for what the party supports.
Deputy comms minister Kate Lundy has been an outspoken critic of filtering
Partially wrong. She's been an outspoken critic of... THIS type of filter. She wants it to be an opt-out filter. She was however an outspoken critic of ISP level filtering... when LIBERAL was in power.
The contract was to buy that.
This is where the reading comprehension comes in. Even with the single line you quoted, in no way, can it be taken to mean 'they were paid to censor the internet'. Please re-read it. What it says is 'They censored the internet, at the same time as they were awarded a contract', not a contract for censoring the internet, but a contract for buying the infrastructure.
Please, keep up.
This is because they own 0% of the pits and ducts (or copper) that make up the last mile which is where the NBN is operating.
Now this is reasonably true, except that Agile (Internodes infrastructure company) does supply last mile connections for many rural communities. On top of this, they own a significant amount of interstate fiber, which is something the NBN also had in its deal, though to a lesser extent at this stage.
You dont actually understand what's going on here and should never have been modded up.
The thing I like about your post, is the arrogance it has, while being exceptionally wrong. It's almost like you're trolling me. Not sure if you're retarded, or trolling. I'm erring on the former.
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I don't know. Perhaps there were technological and budgetary concerns. Perhaps the debate over the nationwide filter brought the issue to the forefront of people's minds, resulting in more demand from their target demographic. I'm not Telstra, so I can't really say anything for sure. (But that's just me; don't let it stop you from sounding so enlightened.)
Probably for similar reasons to Telstra's.
There's a bit of a misconception that, in sensible business strategy, there's a dichotomy between hush-hush actions that never get publicised, and actions that are followed full-blown advertisement campaigns. It's perfectly possible Telstra is relying on a word-of-mouth response, or maybe they're working on a campaign as we speak.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps bringing up the point of child pornography on television, radio, newspapers, or any other public media, might piss off their customer bases. These people clearly like their taboos.
If a reasonable person asks three perfectly answerable questions, ignores the response, draws conclusions from a vacuum of information, and (in the same vacuum of information) attempts to insult those who don't agree with said conclusions, then frankly, I don't want to be rational. I think any irrational person would agree with me.
Simple game theory tells us that going for the juiciest target in a saturated market is rarely the best thing to do. So, assuming you rationally came to this conclusion, I conclude you have something other than the usual fallacy to support this claim. I would like to hear what it is.
Also, before you attempt to distort my words further, I want to say that I never claimed that they targeted religious zealots exclusively (and I acknowledge that you didn't either, directly). I meant that they targeted a more conservative demographic than, say, Internode. Religious zealots are just an (extreme) example of the people they target, specifically the ones who are most likely to support what Telstra is doing.
Mandatory education. Do I have to name only one, or am I allowed to name more?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Telstra isn't implementing any amazing technological changes or budgetary changes. Also, they've had this tech for a while now. On one of the other responses I posted about 30 minutes ago, I linked to an article from 2003 which discussed Telstra implementing this tech.
Either way, you've essentially gone 'I've no particular idea why this was implemented, just that there's a possibility it isn't related', I assume you believe it's more likely it isn't, where is I believe it's more likely it is.
Sorry, I should have clarified, a "reasonable person" is a technical term meaning an objective view point, such that an objective person, on the balance of probabilities, would arrive at this result. It wasn't meant as an insult.
Simple game theory tells us that going for the juiciest target in a saturated market is rarely the best thing to do.
I study game theory, can you explain how it applies in this instance. From my cursory searches, Bigponds market share is between 40% to 50%, making it the dominant player. Additionally, due to its position in provisioning the lines, it has the ability to move first. As such, it would want to appeal to as many people as possible, to capture their business on that first try. What type of game, and what conditions are you imposing? I've a feeling that this was said in jest, but just in case it wasn't, I am actually interested. (When I read this back, this also comes off sarcastic, but it isn't)
Either way, what we've got here is, you're saying these 2 things, happening at the same time, is more likely to NOT be quid pro quo, and I'm saying that it is more likely. I feel like there's more evidence to support my theory, but everyone always does. Since we won't know, maybe ever, unless there is a leak, it comes down to a "feeling" for both of us.
Mandatory education. Do I have to name only one, or am I allowed to name more?
I really got to change my signature, because I get this way too much, and these days, I'm sick of arguing about it. I spend all day working and studying economics/politics, that I just can't bare to argue it after hours. However, if you delve into my posts from about, over a year and a half ago, which is when I first stopped responding to these (given you're actually interested in this, which I think you might be, since you brought up game theory, then again this could all be an elaborate flamebait, as your nick suggests), you can find a LOT of very long, very in depth debates on:
Okay, just changed my sig. Problem solvered.
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This is NOT about child porn or whatever. Underground networks exist via P2P networks and other encrypted and otherwise secured areas. You cannot simply "stumble upon" them easily. And you cannot block these by simply blocking some domain resolution.
Child porn, or even normal porn, is used as an excuse to implement the blacklist - a list that is censored too. Sooner or later, you will find wikileaks on the list, or foreign news sites that are not sympathetic to the local government at the time. What is the difference between this censorship and China's Great Firewall? Nothing much. The latter is just a little more comprehensive.
The blacklist is about control. And as always, it is very difficult to prevent these schemes from being implemented as one ends up looking like they are defending all the whack jobs, criminals and general slime of society.
While I think child molesters should be dealt with appropriately (eg. castration/sterilization, like we already do with cats/dogs), censorship is not the way of dealing with it. It is time to deal with the root cause, not the symptoms!
Snooping everyone's packets requires money. Even for a company with lots of it, they wouldn't spend it if they thought it was likely to bite them in the ass. There are plenty of reasons to hold off on a project like this, as well as many reasons to start it.
Yes, but you've mostly missed my point. You have no evidence to support your case. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you have presented so far that indicates the scenario you believe to be more likely than any one of them, let alone all other cases as a whole. I'm all for calling a difference of opinion when I believe there is one, but I simply don't think that's the case here.
You need to think about it from a logical perspective to understand exactly what is wrong. All of your arguments stem from the one fallacy, the
fallacy of affirming the consequent. It's one of the most simple, common, and fallacious arguments there is. It goes simply like this:
Q
P ---> Q
--------
P
For example:
Jones was in Sydney
If Jones committed the murder, then he would be in Sydney
---------
Jones committed the murder
Similarly:
If the government made secret deals simultaneously with Telstra and Optus about censorship, then Telstra and Optus would announce their censorship in the same week
Telstra and Optus announced their censorship in the same week
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The government made secret deals simultaneously with Telstra and Optus about censorship
It's a well-established fallacy, whose problems logically most commonly stem from the fact that it ignores other possibilities, failing to eliminate them as viable possibilities. For example, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that Jones wasn't in Sydney because he's lived there since he was born, or that he came as a tourist from Taiwan, or that aliens beamed him down to insert anal probes into the local politicians' rectums. Similarly, well, everything I said about Optus and Telstra.
I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions. Well, I suppose it wasn't the least understandable conclusion to jump to, but still, my insults were an unnecessarily hostile response. However, now that I know what it means, I would have to fervently disagree. A rational person, in the sense you used, would weigh up competing alternatives as well as the conclusion you put forward, and weigh up exactly what your argument says about the probabilities of each possibility being correct. For that reason, it's not possible to convince a rational person without somehow, directly or indirectly, addressing the other possible conclusions, which, from what I can tell, your argument fails to do.
I concede that I neglected to take Bigpond's size into account. Certainly it is in a position where it could simply look to corner the largest possible market. On the other hand, I still don't see the conclusion that Bigpond actually is targeting the biggest market as being necessarily true, or even significantly more likely than the alternative
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Shouldn't it be:
Telstra Starts Implementing Australian JEWISH Censorship Scheme
because after all, that's who's behind it, and that's who it's there to 'protect' (or keep in power, more like) - the precious Jews...
We can't have people questioning the 'holocaust', can we! Put them in prison! The Jews have nothing to hide!
White people advocating for their own rights, and wanting their OWN countries to live in? Whatever next! The Jew will make sure that you aren't allowed to do so.
Come back and tell me how that's going when 90% of the population of your country are non-white...
It is a gross overstatement to say Agile has many rurual networks. I know of 2 wireless rural networks currently running only, according to a friend who happens to run Agile! Your very arrogant for someone so repeatedly wrong in your posts!
The last religious senator, Steve Fielding is no longer in the senate as of Friday. Do try to keep up.
Actually, the EFF pointing out the ineffectiveness of this filter is one of the things that sells it to me. An ineffective filter that can be easily circumvented, based on a list provided by international law enforcement, with no legislative changes to erode citizens rights further, helps to preserve the status quo much better than Conroy getting what he really wanted. When you consider that with any filter around, especially one that genuinely focusses on internationally recognised threats to children, then the "think of the children" can be countered with "we've done that".
Against a backdrop of "but we are doing something for the children", we have to shift the debate to why we would want to do something further with no easily understood benefit. Emphasis on "easily understood", because the arguments for wanting a filter operate at the level of "child abuse is bad", so making the arguments have to get more technical is a win in my mind.
Similarly, we might have to focus on what is actually technically effective and what isn't. And a debate that actually had to consider the technical implementation might start to show people the futility of technical solutions to this kind of crime.
OK all of you.. lets face it.. if the gov'ts of the day applied for permission to inspect, and block, if it wanted, every citizen's internet communication..they'd never get away with it. .. But apply for permission to di it 'to catch perverts' , and lets face it, who would *DARE* oppose snooping on and blocking diddlers.
Now, with the approval of the masses yelling "protect us from the great unwashed hordes" .. thy have what they want.
It may even, in fact, catch a few pervs too, as a bonus.
This trick is the oldest one in the book and people STILL fall for it...
Freedoms arent taken away by rifles, but by sickly promises and quiet whisperings of 'the bogeyman will get you' ..a student of history..
This is only an excuse for censorship. From today internet freedom in Australia = internet freedom in China.
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
When I hear they're implementing a filter on DNS, my thought is not that the servers they provide will somehow refuse to serve up numbers for blacklisted names, but rather that they will be filtering DNS requests for those names. Running your own caching server isn't going to circumvent anything on its own, as its requests to resolve will have to traverse the same filtering. Tunneling out is the only thing that can get past traffic filters, although it might indeed be more efficient to limit tunnel traffic to a caching DNS server's lookups or even all DNS lookups rather than all traffic.
How's this stopping child porn. The hard core predators will simply go out and find a kid, or change their DNS settings. Maybe this impresses the think of the children demographic but it doesn't do anything.
A bunch of cases recently have seen some people let off because it can't be proven that they didn't stumble across the child porn accidentally. Now apart from pictures of girls that looked like they might not have been quite 18 i've never stumbled across anything like child porn by accident so I find that a bit hard to believe, but if there is evidence that the person took steps to circumvent the filter it is harder for them to argue that they stumbled across it by accident.
But you're right, there was child porn before the internet and there will be child porn after the filter is implemented. And while it might stop a few brainless idiots obtaining pictures, it won't stop anyone who is seriously motivated to find them and it definitely won't stop the images being produced in the first place, which is the real crime.
Question work-a-rounds are too easy. Maybe its rule of their law which prevents circumvention.
and maybe the purpose of filtering is not be limited? This type of technology fits to filter
information for propaganda purposes?
intercept original http request, send intercepted request to a hidden second server. Hidden second
server re initiates the original request, and on receipt, the requested file is searched; its contents
filtered of materials that contra- inform the object of a propaganda agenda, the removed contents re
purposed to fit the propaganda agenda and forwarded to serve the intercepted original httpd request
all without the knowledge of the person using a browser to get his news and information.
In other words, the web offers a most efficient propaganda technology, because of access to
everything everything can be content filtered, information denied, re purposed, and redirected, and
delivered to keep more in the dark than already exist the mass audience.