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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!) "
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.