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Australian Censorship-client side filters
mikecheng writes "The Internet Industry Association in Australia has decided how it will implement the new censorship laws in this country - mandatory cliet-side filtering. Read here how you must use net-filtering software (NetNanny and the like) and you must supply to your ISP a "a guarantee [you] are using client-side filtering". Of course you have to be using one of the "approved" filtering programs, or else the ISP charges you $5 and filters for you. (Now all I need is an approved open source filter!) "
I have read through the posts and most of them talk about how dumb the Australian government is, or how pointlessly ineffective this legislation is. Personally, I'm of the opinion that whoever came up with this is a GENIUS! Think about this for a moment. This could have gone much much worse. They could have required ISP's to do filtering for you, they could have forced every connection through government proxy servers, etc. But no, they did an amazingly clever thing. All they did was say each ISP is required to ask you whether you are using filtering software, and you are required to answer "Yes". That's it. There's absolutely nothing there to enforce your usage of the software. There's no reason for you to tell the truth, and nobody is going to police it. So now, they've managed to shut up the right wingers by implementing a law that "protects the children", but have guaranteed that anybody who wants to surf porn sites all night long can do so at their leisure with no government interference. The existence of such regulation bothers me a bit, but all things considered, they dodged a bullet here.
You know, about once a day I can't believe the US government could be so unbelievably detached from reality to do the things they do. Then I try talking to people I know (that aren't the /. reading type) about such subjects and realize that most people really are completely ignorant and don't give a damn about freedom. They just want a comfortable standard of living for them and their kids. After I've spoken to enough such people, I start to desperately wish I could emigrate to another country where the average level of common sense is greater.
Right about then, an article like this comes along and convinces me that the only common denominator is human cultures is brute stupidity.
While you silly /.'s babble on about "freedom" and other bularky, you forget that the innocent and helpless children are finally safe! Over the years I have seen my family destroyed by this vile "internet" beast. It just tears a poor homemaker up! Why just the other day I caught my youngest daughter masturbating to the Starr Report with the family's brand new Microsoft Mouse! Needless to say my redneck husband took her to the back room and had a talk with her! And just this morning in my bastard son's backpack I found some marijuana and a receipt from Ebay! Thank god he was just "selling it to the other kids" and not using it himself. Anyway I am very happy that our strong and watchful government has passed this law which allows ultra-conservative, fat, and useless homemakers like myself more time to make bread and watch sitcoms.
If they start checking up (by checking mandatory blacklist download logs and subpoenaing ISP records in tax-audit-style swoops) and making examples of selected offenders with highly-publicised fines amd the odd jail term, the rest of the public will cave in. Or so the theory goes.
And this law's also useful for selectively getting rid of whistleblowers, civil libertarians and other troublemakers.
I was there. I even got up and spoke on top of the bus at the end of the march. I also saw Nick from Zeta and Vic from CIA. We were there. All of CIA's staff were on the march too. Antony Healey from healey.com.au (I'm going to stop the href's 8-) and his staff, um, a few guys from OzEmail (which surprised me), Scott Golby from ar.com.au and his staff. There were lots of us. I was the guy in the white Mazda 929 with the 'THEWWW' licence plates 8-)
I do agree that the hippy-bus was a bit lame 8-)
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!
Schlock Mercenary.
Does Australia have any form of Judicial Review? I mean, some sort of recourse if laws are passed that violate its constitution? I'm afraid I'm not really up on Australian governmental matters.
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
are u kidding? the LAST thing we want is
filtering software that _actually_works_!
:)
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Having the government censoring what you read, see and say is bad enough. Making you censor yourself according to their ideals is simply rubbing your nose in the stinky pile after you've done your business.
Next session of congress, I assure you that we'll see a host of idiots citing Australia as a role-model for net-censorship the way they idolized the Canadian health-care system a few years ago.
As soon as they start requiring us to fill out a diary and turn it into our assigned personal-government-counselors, these laws will be passe. You can just tell them when you've done something bad, read a dirty word, seen a naked woman, or gone down on your boyfriend in the back of your car and await 'personality alteration'. Orwell and his crystal ball . . .
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
www.junkbuster.com, I think it's opensource. Anyhoo, it was designed to filter banner adds and popup windows, but it could probally be used to filter said content.
-matt
MHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA..
i mean.. *snort* *snicker* um, i'm sure that it will be a very *giggles slightly* effective way of handling it. in all seriousness, i think we can all think that left to their own honor, we can trust the people to actually install software esigned to restrict their rights on their own computers without trying to circumven.. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
heh.. oh, GOd.. eeh.. never mind.. HAHAHA..
(P.S. so that covers the web. what about FTP? newsgroups? telnet? shells in foreign countries? lynx running under shells in foreign countries? There's more than one way to get pr0n, you know)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I am always one for self regulation but the emphasis on "self." Forcing someone to actually use the software is no different then Taiwan running their huge proxies keeping everyone from reading porn and such.
For those who haven't read it I would suggest one of my favorite books of all time Fahrenheit 451. F451 in its day was a great groundbreaker however it has become even more pertinent now then it was in 1954. The world is a very dangerous and not so nice place sometimes but we can't put kid gloves on every little thing so Junior doesnt see naked boobs, heck thats what Dad's old Playboys were for anyhow.
I urge everyone to help out our friends Down Under and just tell someone, get the word out. For those that read it for a book report or rented the movie take another look back at the book and tell how far we are from that society. Live by the quote.
Hangtime
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress. -- John Adams (1776)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
You have to remember the government put up this legislation to appease an old fart senator from Tasmania who happened to hold the balance of power in the Senate, so they could get his vote on a few other bits of contentious legislation.
Tasmania is physically separate from the rest of Australia, and it shows.
Australian foreplay: Nudge - "You awake?"
Tasmanian foreplay: Nudge - "You awake, mum?"
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Political leadership in all countries and especially in developing countries merely need a precedent to impose similiar or worse legistation in their own countries. In this regard, the Australian law open new, although unwanted, doors.
I agree with the posting by an Australian ISP: why was not enough noise made about the Australian net censorship bill?
The truth is, Internet or otherwise, we still think in terms of the physical boundaries of our countries; if it is'nt a legislation in our country why should we care?
Regards
Vinay
"It's only the shonks and cowboys who will have a problem." - IIA Executive Director Peter Coroneos
Well, that sure sounds complementary to libertarians. WTF is a "shonk" anyway?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
The entire censorship issue can be traced back to be a political maneuver on behalf of our liberal government in order to drum up enough support for their GST to get it passed. It's a load of fucking shit, excuse my french. If it were our governments GENUINE wish to protect the children, then good on them - but when all it is is a campaign to appeal to a couple of key senators who at the time held the balance of power, it makes me fucking sick to live in this country. The *only* thing I can see as being a possible upside is that now the senator in question is just another backbencher with as much say as anyone else, the law will just be "forgotten"... Or atleast not enforced. We wait and see.
I aggree that this is a bad law.
However, it is perfectly fine for the citizens
of Australia to decide what content they wish
to allow down their internet connections from
overseas. They aren't restricting your right
to speak, the majority are just choosing to
ignore you. Perfectly right and proper, and
most definitely in keeping with free speech.
You have the right to speak, just not the right
to force people to listen.
Several countries use local content legislation
to provide funds for local culture. This isn't
seen as a restriction on speech, so why should
saying "We don't want to see X?"
The way I read the proposal says that they have
to offer it to their customers, not that they
have to use it. You are still able to "yell"
about porn as much as you want (maybe not on
Aussie sites), you're just more likely to be ignored.
It most definitely isn't an act of war. If
it were an act of war to limit the presentation
of speech by people not in the country, everyone
would be at war with:
Canada - Canadian content broadcast legislation,
Kiddie porn laws.
USA - CDA and Cuban property appropriation laws.
Australia - Content legislation.
China, North Korea, and many many others.
I feel it is perfectly acceptable for people to
decide what they do and do not want to see. What
isn't acceptable is attempting to force your
views on other people. That you feel they are
correct/proper is generally irrelevent.
Jason
"Citizens of Australia, shortly you will all be supplied with a pair of scissors and a bulk amount of liquid paper. Under new laws, you are now forc... uh... required to use the liquid paper on all undesirable words in your dictionaries. The scissors must be used to remove any and all images of suspicious wizards who may be smoking unindentified herbs in works by JRR Tolkien.
If you choose not to comply with our dema... uh... restrictions, a government official will be at your residence momentarily to remove your eyeballs from their sockets lest you accidently find yourself gazing at some young girl's exposed ankles.
That is all, now return your usual, sheltered, naive lives."
Froz
joelesler@optusnet.com.au
ICQ: 532856
(Yes, I'm beating my own drum here, but I think it's a valid, if suboptimal, solution. And I'm going to need lots of mirrors if every single enlightened person in .au starts hitting my machine.)
[
Yup, what I thought. All the "decent" i.e. small, independant ISP's were there. The ISP's you name would collectivly hold less then 5% of the market, and that's being very generous.
Bigpond ? (200k users)
Ozemail ? (200k users)
Optus ? (Aiming for the @home broadband market)
IHUG ? (Actually, they were probably going, but it took 4 days to get there) [1]
If they cared about it, they would have included it in their weekly mailings to users, which I can't seem to unsubscribe myself from. And I can't recall *any* of them doing anything about it. Ditto on their homepages - I checked.
The attitude seemed to be "Oh, it won't pass, we won't worry" which leads me to believe that they think it will benefit them.
I have accounts with Bigpond, Ozemail, Optusnet/Magnadata and quite a few friends on Ihug/Tig. And they all let it slide right past. They didn't even inform their users, or if they did I missed all of it.
Oh, and if that was you up on the bus down at Darling Harbour, we have no idea what you said. We were in the front 1/2 of the crowd, just on the Monorail side of the center, and the sound system was completly crap.
Thinking back, of all of the speeches, only Danny Yee's speech in Hyde Park was audible. I came away from that march shaking my head at the low-tech low-impact effect. I mean, cardboard hand-painted hippie signs ? Only the banner was any good - kudos on that. I'm bloody suprised it made it to the news at all.
Let's not blame the US - It's the lack of activisim here in Australia that has landed us in it. And that apathy exists because little attempt was made to counter it, and that no-one wants to step out and risk being seen as pro-porn in the current political environment.
[1] Bandwith Speed Slam RE: Ihug
At least there's a hole: you can always lie to your ISP and tell them you're filtering it when you're not. So I suppose it could be worse then it is. But this is still a Very Bad Thing.
You know, there's a hole in the whole philosophy of this mandatory censorware thing. Consider: essentially censorware is a method of filtering out another's speech. The Australian government (indeed, most governments) have a legal right to do this to their own citizens, immoral censorship is. However, the Net is a global community. Governments have no right to do anything to people not under their jurisdiction. To attempt to do so is, if I'm not mistaken, an act of war.
In other words, Australia has just declared war on everyone else. I hope someone in their government figures this one out fast (no doubt they don't read Slashdot, seeing as it's too supportive of such "anarchistic" rights as free speech, so they'll never see this post). No doubt the boneheads who made this law up didn't think of it.
Here is the -exact- wording from the draft code of conduct - available at http://www.iia.net.au/Code5.html
12B.4 The preceding Clause shall have no application in respect of the supply of Internet access services by an ISP to the following classes of users:
(a) commercial users who already have in place some form of Content filtering or control, whether by means of firewall technology or otherwise, such as is likely to make the use of the measures listed in the Schedule unnecessary or redundant;
(b) schools, educational or other institutional users similarly protected; or
(c) any other user who has advised their ISP that he or she already has installed and has operational a Content filtering or other control measure listed in Schedule 1 of this Code.
Advised. Not 'proved'. Advised.
--Rob
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!
Schlock Mercenary.
I'll configure it to filter ...
Actually, I suppose if I were in Australia I might have to install the cheapest approved filter program. I'd install it by sticking its floppy in a broken floppy drive, taping the law around it, and scrawl "IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE: DO NOT REMOVE FLOPPY" on it. Then put it back on the shelf. Or maybe on a mobile.
I suppose I could just skip the extra hardware and install the filter floppy on a mobile. A web camera would allow checking that the filter was still properly installed.
The IIA has done something very interesting. The intent of the legislation was to put responsibility for filtering at the ISP level, making life difficult for them and easy for everyone else. This made it especially hard for small ISPs, while relatively easy for Telstra (which the govt owns a stake in, hmmm).
With this move, the IIA has squarely put the responsibility on the end users, who will either a) ignore it b) get up in arms about the fees, inconvenience, etc.
It's a brilliant way to put the pressure on the government by keeping it in the minds (and wallets) of the average AU consumer.
...and made as much noise as I could.
Moreover, I provided this.
[
Ah, yes, you are under no obligation to check. Now. But in the long view, its just delayed the inevitable.
6 months from now, the Telegraph or Today Tonight or A Current Affair will use it to take the next step :
"Your children can still see porn on the Internet - ISP's purposly bypassing the law in order to keep making profits"
"ISP's - Supposedly in the front line against smut on the internet, but a government report shows that not one of them enforces it"
"A child of 14, shown here getting all the naked pictures they want off the internet, simply by clicking on a box here, and using his mothers Visa card to sign up"
"Boy, 16, dies after building a pipebomb from information on the internet. Mother says 'Why wasn't this blocked under the Colston-Harradine laws like we were told it would be'"
Which means, the next law will be even tougher.
And we'll see the mandatory installation of filtering software that has to report it's installed before a download begins. Nothing like making the Users Pay for their own censorship.
Or Log checking and comparing, with questions asked "Why are you still getting 600 meg of naked pictures when you said here you have filtering software installed ? Please reply to this mail with the serial number & receipt number of the software you have installed or your account will be terminated"
Oh, yeah. This is great news.
Does your wonderful draft code of "pornographic content must not be hosted in Australia" address the concept of news and mail servers ? 'Cause I saw nothing about it in there, apart from 13.4
13.4 When an Internet Content Host is notified by the ABA that it is hosting on a web server or other content database within its control, material which is deemed by the ABA to be Prohibited Content or Potentially Prohibited Content
(a) the Internet Content Host must promptly remove that Content from the Web Site or database;
(b) upon doing so, the Internet Content Host must inform the customer that the customer's conduct
is a breach of the customer's service conditions and, if applicable, an offence under law, and further,that a repeat occurrence will result in the termination of the customer's account;
(c) in the case of a repeat occurrence of offending conduct by the customer, an Internet Content Host, having informed the customer that his or her conduct is a breach of the customer's service conditions and, if applicable, an offence under law, must terminate that customer's account.
OK. I'm on a Naked Penguin Pic of the day mailing list. Someone subscribes a wrong address to that mailing list, and a complaint is forwarded to the ABA.
Based on my reading, and of the original law, and of listening to the senate discussion on the radio, you then have to make sure that that picture is not hosted or mirrored anywhere. Which means you have to then go in and delete it from your mail spool so it isn't hosted in Australia. Which means you have to delete it from anyone else who receives it.
Which is *worse* then the original law, which purposly bypassed email. And, as I've said before, after you apply this law to Usenet, we can go back to flying in Usenet on a tape spool once a week, because by the time the Howard definition of Pornographic is applied Usenet News Servers in Australia will be 1/1000th of the size they are now.
And I should point out that the above article is -incorrect-. You do NOT have to guarantee that you're using a filter. You just have to tell us that you are. We're not under any obligation to check.
/., and that was about it.
The major bad thing with this document is that it requires us to ensure that all our customers are over 18 years old, or have parental approval.
Personally, I think that this isn't anywhere as bad as it could have been, thanks to the IIA's attempt to soothe this.
I, personally, am reasonably bitter towards the US in this. Whilst you were having grief with your CDA, people -all around the world- were turning their pages black, and protesting quite vocally. Yet, when our moronic government brought this legislation up, which is -much much- worse than the CDA, you quite happily ignored us. A total of 3 posts to
As far as what the IIA have done, I thank them. They've turned this legislation around, from something that would have totally destroyed the internet in australia, to something we're barely going to notice.
--Rob
Comics:
Sluggy.com - Poing!
Schlock Mercenary.