Slashdot Mirror
Australian Gov't Censors Censored
According to this
Wired article,
the
Australian Broadcasting Authority,
which has been working to censor its citizens
since 1995,
got its site defaced by a cracker on Friday. The site was taken down for half a day for repairs. Among the messages left: "People only now can get connectivity the USA has enjoyed for years. And now one of the greatest resources we have for free speech and free learning will be stifled by a vocal minority with no understanding of the underlying technology." For info on the situation, visit
Electronic Frontiers Australia.
... and the number one difference between Australia and the US - "we tell our citizens we're censoring them!"
You sure about that... uh... Ned?
If a cracker, who admitted also being a heavy drug user, is portrayed as the type of person that does not want censorship, I believe that it can only hurt the case of the others that are opposed to censorship.
I wonder how this censorship thing will turn out ? I believe that they have a similar system in Singapore. Does anybody know how well it works down there ?
As has been said multiple times, it is impossible to censor the internet and block someone who knows what he's doing. I'd expect the ISPs to comply, but anybody with basic technical expertise would probably get an offshore shell account and run a proxy there. It might actually be an incentive for the young to learn about tunneling technologies that would allow them to bypass censorship. What do you think ? Will people even bother to learn, or will we see Australian-Censorship-Bypass-HOWTO along with a full range of new software to help in the process ?
However, if means to bypass censorship became too widespread, the governement could take action by limiting access to the ressources using to bypass censorship. Imagine if they placed Australia behind a filtering proxy that only let HTTP connections through, and required a permit to open any other port ?
But most likely the governement will just realise that censorship is not enforceable, and either just let the law in place, without a major effect (anyone who wants access to censored things will get access, one way or another) or they will simply notice that and repell the law..
It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Attrition mirror of the site.
Also, an article on this incident from Australia ZDNet.
witold.org
The Australian government has announced the composition of the board of NetAlert, a "community advisory" body responsible for researching filtering tools and educating parents about Internet access.
Ironically, this is (IMO) just what's needed. Imagine a world where informed parents used filtering software that they controlled. The EFA call this "another example of the paternalism exhibited by the current government", but if implemented correctly -- with the emphasis on education -- then this could very well be a Good Thing.
. . .It's amazing how little hackers have to say after working so hard to say it.
You have to wonder if the only reason the Australian Broadcasting Authority is trying to promote censorship is just to stay around and "be usefull" All goverment organizations need to have a reason to be around, even if the reason is flimsy. Maybe censorship will be the "next big thing" for the ABA.
This is kind of like how businesses look for new markets to expand into don't you think?
I can't decide how I feel about this sort of protest. Of course I think its funny, and on some level I think the ABA or whatever they're called deserve a taste of their own medicine. And it generates good publicity, but it is an inherently destructive practice. There is something to be said for a good old fashion mob carrying signs and shouting slogans. Of course the people who really care about internet censorship would never get of their collective asses an organize a protest. That shit is for hippies. right? wrong. cracking government websights won't generate sympathy with the general population. Getting shot with rubber bullets and tear gas will. So everybody get your pitch forks and torches. "We're here we're queer, we dont' want anymore bears" -Homer Simpson
YOU CANT FUCKING CENSOR ME... if a message wants to get out..it will..leave it up to the au gov to make sure we stay in te dark ages... people only now can get connectivity USA has enjoyed for years ...and now one of te greatest resources we gave for free speech and afree learning will be stifled by a vocal minority with no understanding of the underlying technology stand up now..and fight for your rights..if you want to be able to decide for YOURSELF what you can and cant read... i say once again.. ...LOUD and clear.. the internet is NOT a babysitter.. wou wouldnt let them roam the streets... dont let them roam the world... dont let your bad parenting spoil it for others... go buy a fucking clue.. ------ greetz and respect to the usuals.kat.etc.analognet. and barry heh... and a big FUCK YOU CNUTSUCKING SMEGWHORES to au gov.. clueless fucks... i digress.. adios... Ned R ----- p.s. admin.. dont bother.. you wont trace me... and im not coming back here.. my point is made.. if i get time one day ill secure it for you...luv and kisses.. Ned R ---pp.s My spelling sucked real bad cos i was high on methyldioxymethamphetamines and crack...
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
I've been following this whole Australian censorship thing here on slashdot and from other news sources and I'm concerned to say the least. I do not know very much about Australian law, but the question is how did it get to this? It's certainly not something I would expect from a country like Australia. Here in the US we've been enjoying our relative freedom on the internet with few government regulations but if this can happen in Australia, who knows what they can pull over us . Most people only hear on the news about internet porn, tie ins to columbine, and bomb recepies, and in the name of protecting the children they will agree to anything. There have been some boneheaded rulings by the US courts as well as some sane ones so it's hard to say where this is going.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"
I saw this yesterday, and the first thing I thought was "How in the hell did he manage to spell methyldioxymethamphetamines while on them?"
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
As has been said multiple times, it is impossible to censor the internet and block someone who knows what
he's doing. I'd expect the ISPs to comply, but anybody with basic technical expertise would probably get an
offshore shell account and run a proxy there. It might actually be an incentive for the young to learn about
tunneling technologies that would allow them to bypass censorship. What do you think ? Will people even
bother to learn, or will we see Australian-Censorship-Bypass-HOWTO along with a full range of new
software to help in the process ?
Censorship bypassing information is available at 2600 Australia
On the other hand, REGARDLESS of whether the Australian Government has any right to do this (rights are culturally-based and what may be a truism in the US may be a pathetic joke elsewhere), I'm not sure I'd trust a censor to be competent if they can't even manage a website.
In fact, it sounds like they farmed out most of the work. A bit like the British Government, with Group 4. That turned into a bit of a fiasco, too. If you can't do the work, you shouldn't be taking it on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"You can't [Censored] censor me" the cracker wrote
Looking at the history of any frontier we have breached in the past yeilds some possibly interesting insight into what is one of the current hot topics: regulation of the internet.
I see a couple of things that are distinguishing the internet from other frontiers we (as the human race) have settled... the first and foremost being the very nature of the internet. It is still very much in the process of defining itself. Kinda hard to regulate what doesn't yet exist. It is also an intangible territory. You can't physically go to a place on the internet to arrest someone.
I think that at best, this ordeal with Australia is a horrible botch job by the government. But at the same time, I do not hold any illusions about any government's ability (or lack thereof) to regulate and/or censor the internet.
The frontier is as of yet untamed. The thing that is making this situation so attention getting is the amount of access the general populace has to an untamed frontier. Please don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of any type of regulation that I have seen or heard of yet. Not even close. But the reality is that it is coming, whether we want it or not.
We will always have outlaws, vigilantes, g-men, consumers, tourists, celebrities, etc... in any environment. And as the majority of the population moves in, they are going to want to feel secure as they are fascinated by this new media.
The fun has only just begun.
There are two big reasons why such actions are totally ethically wrong, here they are.
1. (scholarly) The Australian government is violating their side of the social contract. They are taking away the liberties of citizens. Only citizens have the ability to surrender their individual liberties, that is the basis of the American Constitution and most modern democracies.
2. (personal) The internet is about exchanging infromation and ideas. The Australian government is denying people outside their country the ability to access information. This is because by denying people the freedom to display information, you also prevent people from reading that information because it is not displayed for them to access. In the end information is stored and processed the same way. There is no practicle diffrence between porn in Australia or online human rights protests in China.
SilverFate
Who are the Brain Police? - Frank Zappa
It seems to me that every time I see a cracker take down a webpage and put up in its place a political statement of his/her own, it's littered with swearing, and poor grammar. More likely than not, an attack like this isn't going to affect anyone. People straddling the fence on this issue before will take one look at the website and say "This kind of thing should be censored!" -- which is exactly what we don't want.
What's the point in cracking something if you're going to do more harm than good?
-Denor
Please don't say the constitution, because a lot of people would end up in jails and censored before it got to the courts.
The First Amendment is very strongly worded.
Censorship before publication is called prior restraint, and it is VERY difficult to get a US court to issue such an order. You have to prove that irreperable harm will occur on publication.
There have been innumerable attempts to get newspaper stories surpressed. Very few have been successful.
Be a bit easy on them. They are overreacting in reguard to the petrified posters. After that story, a lot of people probably will try to moderate down anything that remotely looks asinine or inflammotory. That's no excuse, I know, but maybe they will calm down in a couple of days.
Saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way. None of you will stand so tall, pink moon is gonna get ye al
It seems that the Australians cannot get past their ancestry no matter how they try. Australia's current inhabitants (the white one's at least) are descended from prisoners that were deemed too unsatisfactory to reside in English jails and were shipped to Australia. Considering that the continent was one big penal colony mainly populated by prisoners and their wardens, it is very interesting to note that the current population accepts (they do if not the government would be infringing on their privacy every other week...) almost any level of censorship or privacy invasion from their government.
This is not meant as flame bait but instead is my personal observation. Please respond intelligently.
PS: Wasn't it sad the way the cracker started his rant with such inspirational material only to end it with by the way I'm high on some crack. **sigh** He probably has reinvigorated the censorship board/committe??? and now they have a mental image of the kind of foul mouthed, drug addicts they want to "protect" the people of Australia from. They'll probably be handing his little rant out in leaflets with bold letters saying...This is the enemy... Save our children from him...
Bad Command Or File Name
Well the second time it WAS hacked.
/ 01/tfcnews.com/ / 02/tfcnews.com/
The first time a TFC clan called Hate, Inc. pulled the site (which was a Team Fortress Classic news site) because they got upset about stuff posted about them. So they threw a tantrum and pulled it.
First (non-hack): http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/12
Second (hack): http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/12
Isn't politics fun?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I am glad to see the hack (though he could have used a spell checker). I doubt it will make a dent in the clueless moralists who want to rule the hearts and minds of Australia though.
Control freaks are everywhere. Right now, they are just looking for an excuse. In Australia, the excuse in porn. Now how they figure that pictures of nekid people having sex is "harmful" is beyond me. Maybe if you believe that it will cause you to burn in Hell from the threats of an Angry God. (Personaly I believe that that God is more of an overactive imagination and neurotic pychosis than any actual being.) But those who confuse their religion with reality will take it at face value and go along with it, no matter how absurd the rule set.
What it comes down to it that the "problem" of porn gives them an excuse to control the views of others. Directly by requiring preapproval of what they can and cannot say, or indirectly by hiding other viewpoints from them. (Note that this excuse could be "bomb making materials", "drug information", or "crush videos". It does not matter. It just has to be a threat that people react emotionally to. (Because when emotion is involved, people stop thinking rationally.))
It is too bad that the average person in Australia does not see through this smoke screen. Just goes to show how passive people have become.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Well, no, but I have an argument for him.
1) He did not kill the main page entirely, just appended his message. No business lost, no *REAL* damages. Like protestsers in front of a store. They'll distract you, slow you down, maybe stop you, but they haven't physically damaged anything. And they can't be sued for *damages* from lost sales.
2) It isn't tresspassing because it's THEIR fault he got in. Their site was insecure, and he found a way in. Like having a fence, but having a HUGE hole in it, and trying to sue for tresspass after finding someone inside. They really have no case. Now if said fence was solid, and had concertina wire on top, that's another story.
He's not a problem, 'cept for the fact he admitted he was high as hell while doing it...
Lets be clear about this, cracking webpages is legally wrong, and under Australian law, unauthorised access to a government computer system is punishable by 25 years in the pokey, BUT if you feel strongly enough about an issue, that's a risk you'ld have to take.
;)
Ideally, the government would have listened to the people, but they didn't, so the people's next step has to be civil disobediance. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are usually the ones who do
Yea, I did it. No I wasnt high on crack or MDMA, I only had 1min to do the defacement once on the box. I scanned over the mispelled doc and though 'fuck it' That day I was cold tired and angry, and didnt particularly care if I made a few typos (which I do often) The first time I did that site, IIRC I didnt swear (or kept it to a minimum) and linked to other writers (EFA,2600au,Danny Yee, etc) that are far better writers than myself. My point was made, EFA,ISOCAU,2600AU all went down the legal pathway with this, and got exactly nowhere, they dont have the size to be taken seriously. Their efforts were well studied, and delivered flawlessly, the powers that be, were ignorant and foolish. The au gov has slowly been restricting the rights of its people. This current situation affects me DIRECTLY, and so I did the only thing I know how to do really well, I broke them. If you think what I did was wrong... thats fine by me, I didnt do it for you.
I DID however get it into the public eye again, it has been on radio/tv/papers... even slashdot!@! heh. If i could do anything better/bigger/nicer I would. This _so_ isn't a fame hack, I am well known in the int underground, and for good reason did not use my handle or associate myself with anyone that knows me.. The name was made up on the fly.. For all i care 'Randalf splitzer' hacked the damn thing.
Noone would give me a voice, so I made one for myself.
And to the people who reply to this post flaming/napalming me, dont write me off in a sentence, be constructive... im constantly trying to improve myself, heh.
amd ficksing my spelling wood be goud
Adios,
Ned Rubenschlachen
You know, that has got to be one of the most stupid arguments that I've ever seen.
... almost any level of censorship or privacy invasion from their government"
First load of crap: the convicts sent to Australia were not "deemed too unsatisfactory to reside in English jails". The reason they were transported was because there simply wasn't enough space in those English jails. The selection process was probably almost random.
Second load of crap: The _vast_ majority of the current population of this country does not have ancestry that goes back to the convicts. For a start, something like one in seven were actually born overseas, and a vastly larger number would be second or third generation Australians. There was a massive push for immigration after the second world war, driven by the slogan "Populate or Perish" - we had a population of only about seven million at the time, and we were considered vulnerable to invasion because of that.
In any case, trying to argue that because Australia started out as a penal colony it's obviously still made up of people who think like convicts is completely stupid. Hell, there were free settlers on the First Fleet! (if my memory serves me)
And yes, I _can_ trace my ancestry back to a convict on the first fleet - I'm rather proud of it. It makes for a more interesting history in many respects than "My parents came out from England after the war".
Third load of crap: "it is very interesting to note that the current population accepts
Australia is not the US. We do not have the same set of values as you people in the US have. One of the differences is that we are not as paranoid about our privacy as you are (though we don't accept absolutely anything). As an example of this, in Australia there were, at one point, more police wiretaps in one of our states in one year than there were in the whole of the US - in Australia we are prepared to accept things like wiretaps when they're used to protect more important freedoms, that we do care about. Freedoms like the right to not get shot.
The idea that the police can listen in on our phone conversations does not frighten us. We think it's a reasonable price to pay for the much more effective policing that it enables. The case is similar with other forms of `privacy invasion'.
Censorship is similar - we'll accept it if we think it's justified. As a case in point, one of those nuts who go around making a big thing out of saying that the holocaust didn't happen was refused a visa not that long ago. The vast majority of people thought this was perfectly reasonable.
On the other hand, films very rarely get banned outright here, despite frequent protests by some people. For example, last year's version of Lolita wasn't banned, despite rather large outcry - it was a flop, because it wasn't a particularly good film, but it wasn't banned.
It's the same with books and radio and television and so forth. Things have to be really bad, by the majority's standard, before it'll be censored.
This internet censorship bill is an anomaly, one that's been allowed to continue so far largely because it doesn't affect many people yet. When it does, then people will complain, and the law will either be repealed or simply ignored (most likely the latter). The thing about this bill is that it reflects the wishes of only a small part of the population, and goes actively against the wishes of a considerably larger part (the largest group, those who don't have Internet access at the moment, probably couldn't give a damn either way). This bill's position is not tenable in this country - it lacks the majority/large minority support that is needed for something of it's nature to survive.
To recap: your post is a load of crap. The moderator who moderated it up is a moron. You are possibly even worse. You know almost nothing about Australian history, the Australian people, Australian culture, and Australian politics - please, don't inflict your idiotic ideas on us any more.
And finally, please refrain from assuming that because something wouldn't be accepted in the US, it is obviously fundamentally wrong, immoral, what have you. That's the kind of thinking that makes the rest of the world utterly loath the US and it's people.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
A society that needs guns to get rid of their government is not democratic. Australia is democratic, ergo your argument is crap.
Please, just because you lot in the US needed to fight a war against the British to gain your freedom doesn't mean that that's the only way to go about it. Australia didn't need a war - we just had to ask them nicely.
Further, just about everyone in this country supported the new gun laws. Hmmm, majority support of a proposal . . . doesn't that sound like `Democracy' to you? And yet you find it easy to condemn it . . .
Persoanally, I'll just vote aginst the idiots who came up with this legislation at the next election.
Oh, and I hope I never meet you, because you're obviously some completely sick bastard. Anyone who laughs when they're killing someone goes down in my book as a dangerous maniac.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
HELLO!
Ok, this one fellow showed us the text the cracker had on the site, then some strange agenda pushing moderators (there are a few out there) mark it all over the board. So another person explains that it was from the original page, and another agenda pushing moderator takes him down.
If you don't MetaModerate, please do and STOP these agenda pushing moderators.
This is offtopic, but it is important.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
In theory this law is a great violation of our freedom of speach, and when I heard about it I was totally against it.
A law such as this should never have been made.
However.
In practice, the law has been made, and if you read it you will find it is totally unenforcable.
I don't expect my internet usage to be changed at all by it. In practice it means your ISP has to offer a program like NetNanny to you, and any site that gives kiddie porn without authentication that is found by an ABA member when he's trying to get to his farm animal porn can be forcibly taken down if it is in australia.
I'm thinking we should just let the AU government do what they want in their little pseudo world they make for themselves because as John Howard (our current prime minister who was voted in even though over 50% of the country didn't like him [due to our fucked up method of voting it does matter where you live]) demonstrated the other day when he rushed authorisation for ASIO to look at and alter any information they see fit on my computer so they can forge enough evidance to make me guilty of any crime they like; THERE ISN"T A GOD DAMNED THING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT.
It's where and how it is said that matters. May be now you understand?
This being true it should also be pointed out that the how was by vandalising someones website and the where is a target audence who would only use it to ferther the agenda the speaker seens to be against.
In communicating an idea you need to carely pick your message method and audence. Only one or two of thies items will not do the job you need all three. A bad message falls on deff ears no matter what, a good message communication to deff ears dose nothing, a receptive audence lissening to a good message delivered badly will also get negitive results.
In this example however the message, medium and audence were all a patheticly poor choice and as pointed out it took a great deal of effort to get the message in place. That effort could have been better spent picking a better message a better audence and a better platform.
Instead he chouse this tactic and thats pathetic.
If he had run for office (for example) he could have communicated his message to a very receptive audence on a podium. Even by losing he has made his feelings known and those that support the message may scare opponents into changing there toon.
But this person opted for cracking into a server and puking... bad choice...
I don't actually exist.
I wonder what we will see in the US in 20 years time? I mean 70% of all black males have been in prison - or something like that anyway.
Here.. some people have ancestors who were deported from England 200 years ago. I think we're over it by now - we just go and whip the Pom at cricket every couple of years and call it even.
However, to say we accept censorship is like saying the USA accepted the Vietnam war. We don't - unfortunatly it doesn't effect enough people (yet) for it to be protested in large numbers.
Believe me, this hack will be the first of many. If protests against the Vietnam war were on the street, then protests against Net censorship will be on the Net.
Some things are illegal. Some things are illegal while a large portion of the population thinks they should be. Some things are illegal while a small group of well informed persons thinks they should be. Some things are illegal while a small group of uneducated bastards thinks they should be. Which of the reasons do you prefere?
But still, until it is illegal to talk about changing the law, it is better to shange the law than to break it.
Why? Because, now the censors have an ultimate argument -- "Just look at what they've done. Those are the evil 'hackers', and we must protect our children from them!".
Do never give politicians such arguments for free! You will allways regret it.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
The Internet is about exchanging information and ideas
The thing you don't get is that the "information and ideas" that 90% of the people want are various forms of entertainment! That's why download.com gets a few more hits than, say, iww.org. That's why sex.com is just a leetle more popular than aynrand.org. Taking away the entertainment, and what do you have? ARPANET.
Screw e-commerce. Let the moneygrubbers build their OWN e-commerce network.
They are. It's called the Internet. Without those "money-grubbers", how much infrastructure do you think we'd have? Who'd know or even care what the Internet was?
The Internet is an information resource and a "low barrier to entry" publishing medium that almost anybody can make use of
Including anyone who wants to make a buck or two, but doesn't have the $$$ to put up a store front, or even advertise in the local paper. A "Money-Grubber".
"Let them turn something else into a vast wasteland of advertising and product hawking like television has become."
On my cable package, there are three "home shopping" channels, and three "artsy" channels (PBS, local access, and one from the local Univ.). I don't have to watch Home Shopping. Again, do you think that without commercialization, local access cable would exist? Hell, let's go back the the first broadcast medium, radio. One of the first radio programs was "The Westinghouse Radio Hour". You see, Westinghouse made radios, but there was no programming. So they gave people something to listen to on their new Westinghouse radios. Without "moneygrubbers", radio wouldn't taken off. Without radio (and the vast radio audience), no TV. So, where's your PBS now?
What value does something have if it doesn't have value?
Answer: None, obviously.
What good is something if you can't get something from it?
Answer: See above.
"Value" is essentially "what this thing will get me". Nothing more. The Internet is obviously valuable, because many people have gotten many things from it. Some people get their message out. Some people show pictures of their dog. Some people get...something from it, even if nobody else gets it!
Just because some people have gotten money from it, doesn't exclude you from getting what you want from it.
The Internet is an infinitely renewable resource. No one has to be exposed to advertising and commercialisim if they don't want to be. You can rant and rail against commercialisim and share some human knowledge on your own web site, and it won't bother me a bit.
Me, I'm gonna go to www.lickinlesbos.com.
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
A society that needs guns to get rid of their government is not democratic. Australia is democratic, ergo your argument is crap.
:)
As a mild correction... I'm taking an implication here that you think the American populace needs guns to get rid of our government. We don't. Every four years we have a revolution; we see if the current Chief Executive has been responsive to the needs of the people, and if not, we throw him out.
The American protection of firearms dates back to Revolutionary times, when it was felt that the best way to ensure that the government responded to the people's needs was to make sure the government would be too terrified of the people to not respond to their needs. Depending on what your political alignment is, this principle is either (a) an anachronism of a bygone time which permits barbarism in the present day, or (b) just as important today as it was in 1789.
If the American people ever firmly and steadfastly believe that the answer is (a), the American people have the ability to amend the Constitution and cut out the Second Amendment. This has not happened yet, which makes me think that many more Americans feel (b) than the Gallup Polls suggest.
Gun ownership in America is not a cut-and-dried legal issue. People who attempt to turn it into a black-and-white issue, without a proper appreciation of the historical, legal and political-philosophy principles involved, are dooming themselves to failure.
Disclosure: I own firearms myself, and I believe (b). I hope that you'll agree that it hasn't addled my brain too badly.
If anyone would like to talk further about this, my EMail address is up top and I encourage you to use it.
Highly censored forum? Give me a break. The way that Slashdot moderation works is far from censorship. If you set your threshold properly, you can read everything, even trolls and first posters.
There exist people willing to give their lives to such a cause, you know.