Internet Censorship - again

[JDNSW]

Nothing concrete has happened with the government's planned internet censorship, but there has been a development with the current "system" that may be of interest.

As you may be aware, commercial offerings of material rated at MA15+ or higher, and not behind an approved age verification system, is prohibited content on the internet under the Broadcasting Services Act. Accordingly, seven months after receiving a complaint about iTunes Australia offering a MA15+ movie, ACMA has determined that this is legal if you buy it (presumably because you need a credit card) but not legal if you buy it as a gift. As a result, iTunes Australia can no longer offer the facility to make gifts of any movies. Of course, you can log into 76 other iTunes and make a gift of a movie.........

If this sort of farce is happening now, can you imagine what will happen if the planned scheme is introduced? Note the speed of dealing with complaints - I see one person contributing to the Whirlpool forum on the subject claims to have 300,000 complaints ready to go! All of them perfectly legitimate under the BSA.

John

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Australia is a great country. However I fear we are loosing it. We allow governments to take away our rights and if you question them you're a bad person. Hmmm.... :(

As to the "clean feed" it's going to be a complete mess.

[Sprint]

time for an armed rebellion...... oh wait..... they took our guns off us.....

[123rover50]

Not all of them.

[Crackerjack]

I cannot believe that a country such as Australia would even consider such censorship, this is the sort of thing they do in communist countries like China, I already believe you have "gates" on your internet as it enters Australia, and from someone outside the country, your web sites are very slow.
What happened to the easy lifestyle and laid back attitude of Australia, it is being eroded by the do good and PC brigade.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

The thing that annoys me is that even after they introduce this, the internet will still be (more or less) just as unsafe a place for my kids to spend time as it ever was. So what are they hoping to achieve by this? The thin end of the wedge so that they can in future control what we can see?

[JDNSW]

The thing that annoys me is that even after they introduce this, the internet will still be (more or less) just as unsafe a place for my kids to spend time as it ever was. So what are they hoping to achieve by this? The thin end of the wedge so that they can in future control what we can see?

While the avowed intention of the scheme is to prevent access for anyone to any material on the internet that is unsuitable for those under fifteen, it is quite clear that it will not do that - for a start it will be trivial to bypass (and even primary students having hones their skills bypassing school systems will have no trouble), but with over a trillion URLs increasing at a billion a day, no blacklist of a few thousand can have any significant effect - I know of one person who has listed 300,000 pages to lodge complaints about. At seven months per complaint.....

The government must know it won't do anything to "make the internet safe for kids", so you have to ask why they are pushing ahead with it in the face off this? They aren't stupid? Are they?

I can think of several reasons, all pretty grubby. As someone says - follow the money. Filterware vendors (same lot who sell filters to Iran for example) stand to make a fortune, and, for example, during the Insight programme, Conroy had one sitting next to him advising him. Media copyright owners are big contributors to the ALP - with a secret blacklist, they can get pirate sites added. Or perhaps they are simply under pressure from minority lobby groups, such as Australian Christian Lobby, a secretive organisation with no published membership or financial details (and which boasts of the PM doing the keynote address at their next conference - this seems to be a first for a democratic country; the head of government as keynote speaker for a lobby organisation). The only real use for the filter will be to hide from naive internet users those web pages embarrassing to or offensive to the government of the day. While this government denies it will be used for this (would you expect them to admit it?) the blacklist already contains political material such as anti-abortion propaganda. And can they really expect no future government would use it for this? History says that if the facility exists, it will be used, as it has in other countries, where blacklists introduced to block pornography are found when the lists leak (as seems to be inevitable) to contain political material.

If this scheme manages to get implemented, it will be because the vast majority of Australians are not interested, or perhaps do not really believe that an Australian government would really do something so undemocratic.

If it concerns you - write (or email or phone) to your local federal member saying so. Remember, in a few years this could be used to suppress discussion on subjects you might be really interested in - for example, restrictions on four wheel drives to help meet emissions targets.

John

[Lotz-A-Landies]

... I already believe you have "gates" on your internet as it enters Australia, and from someone outside the country, your web sites are very slow.
...
I think you will find that the "gates being slow" as you suggest is more a function of too many users in Oz using up the bandwidth of the available links to the outside world. This seems to be the habit of Oz based ISP being happy to oversell their infrastructure but not so happy to build new infrastructure to handle the customers need for bandwidth. This is particularly relevant with the downloading and streaming of video and audio.

I was one of the very earliest customers on the Optus@Home cable broadband and the speed was fantastic, over the years I have noticed a market degradation of the cable speed as millions of users came onto the system without a appropriate and corresponding increase in infrastructure particularly international fibre-optic links.

Diana

[JDNSW]

I think you will find that the "gates being slow" as you suggest is more a function of too many users in Oz using up the bandwidth of the available links to the outside world. This seems to be the habit of Oz based ISP being happy to oversell their infrastructure but not so happy to build new infrastructure to handle the customers need for bandwidth. This is particularly relevant with the downloading and streaming of video and audio.

I was one of the very earliest customers on the Optus@Home cable broadband and the speed was fantastic, over the years I have noticed a market degradation of the cable speed as millions of users came onto the system without a appropriate and corresponding increase in infrastructure particularly international fibre-optic links.

Diana

That is a pretty accurate picture, although to be fair, laying additional cables is almost certainly beyond the resources of any except perhaps the largest ISPs, and even there it is unlikely that any except Telstra would have the capital resources to consider it - and they seem to regard other things as more important.

[incisor]

I cannot believe that a country such as Australia would even consider such censorship, this is the sort of thing they do in communist countries like China, I already believe you have "gates" on your internet as it enters Australia, and from someone outside the country, your web sites are very slow.
What happened to the easy lifestyle and laid back attitude of Australia, it is being eroded by the do good and PC brigade.

since it's inception AU has been one on the most heavily censored entities in the world, whether by law or by social premise.

she'll be right mate is the norm unfortunately;)

[incisor]

the blacklist already contains political material such as anti-abortion propaganda. And can they really expect no future government would use it for this? History says that if the facility exists, it will be used,

one just has to look at the records for what has been deemed R rated or totally banned in AU over the last few years to see that is how it is... only a small portion was sex related....

[p38arover]

That is a pretty accurate picture, although to be fair, laying additional cables is almost certainly beyond the resources of any except perhaps the largest ISPs, and even there it is unlikely that any except Telstra would have the capital resources to consider it - and they seem to regard other things as more important.

I can assure you that cable planning is an ongoing thing.

The problem is that there is little money in transporting internet traffic.

[JDNSW]

I can assure you that cable planning is an ongoing thing.

The problem is that there is little money in transporting internet traffic.

As I said, Telstra has better things to spend money on! As with many areas where Australia is contrasted adversely with overseas countries, it comes down to geography - in this case the distance to the rest of the world compared to the amount of traffic.

John

[disco2hse]

It has nothing to do with protecting the kiddies and everything to do with exercising control over all of you.

Anyway, attached is an interesting article from a conference I was at last month in San Francisco.

Alan

[JDNSW]

It has nothing to do with protecting the kiddies and everything to do with exercising control over all of you.

Anyway, attached is an interesting article from a conference I was at last month in San Francisco.

Alan

Interesting article, nothing new in it though. It does, however, fall into the same error that the politicians seem to have - it regards the internet as a "medium" like television, books, movies etc, whereas in fact it is more akin to Australia Post - and I don't see any move to censor everything that arrives in your mailbox.

John

[disco2hse]

Interesting article, nothing new in it though. It does, however, fall into the same error that the politicians seem to have - it regards the internet as a "medium" like television, books, movies etc, whereas in fact it is more akin to Australia Post - and I don't see any move to censor everything that arrives in your mailbox.

John

True, but he does put it together in a more or less coherent form.

About the medium, do you not think that if they could censor your mail they would?

And as it is you do have customs who look for contraband, so in a way there are already searches done on it. Slunnie sent me some stuff and it had been opened in Australia.

Alan

[JDNSW]

True, but he does put it together in a more or less coherent form.

About the medium, do you not think that if they could censor your mail they would?

And as it is you do have customs who look for contraband, so in a way there are already searches done on it. Slunnie sent me some stuff and it had been opened in Australia.

Alan

There is a slight difference - they don't open and read your letters (yet) (that I know of!); the internet is information only.

John

[disco2hse]

There is a slight difference - they don't open and read your letters (yet) (that I know of!); the internet is information only.

John

Ah yes, but again, if they could censor your mail they would, wouldn't they?

[Captain_Rightfoot]

That's one of the things that annoys me about Australia. We just let them do this to us! Aaaargh.

That is one good thing about the US (and I know there are many bad things). If the citizens don't want something done to them by way of restrictions it doesn't happen. They have a constitutional right to freedom where all we seem to have is "privileges" which governments take away at their will. They just try and do it at the start of their term in the knowledge that it will be forgotten by re-election.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

If it concerns you - write (or email or phone) to your local federal member saying so. Remember, in a few years this could be used to suppress discussion on subjects you might be really interested in - for example, restrictions on four wheel drives to help meet emissions targets.

John

Are there any members in particular that are more involved in this than others?

[JDNSW]

Are there any members in particular that are more involved in this than others?

Not really - only if you are Victorian, Minister Conroy is one of your senators, so you can write to him as your representative. Apart from that it is important that as many members and senators as possible from both opposition and government are told that the voters oppose it. They may be able to influence their party's caucus in private, although the ALP maintains such strict discipline that no ALP members are likely to vote against it unless caucus can scrap it. Failing this, it will pass in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the only cross bench senator who is likely to vote for it is Fielding - Xenephon and the Greens are on record as opposing it.

The opposition has made no stance clear, although their spokesman Minchin has opposed it, so writing to opposition members and senators is most important. The problem is that the opposition discipline is nowhere near as good as the government's and there is a real possibility that even if it is opposed by official opposition line, enough opposition senators will cross the floor for it to get through.

Fears have been expressed that it will get bundled with the Telstra split-up legislation as a package, and with the Telstra legislation having overwhelming public support, they may get it through that way.

For full details of the scheme, and fully referenced discussion, see libertus.net and look for "censorship system", "Internet".

John

[lro11]

I cannot believe that a country such as Australia would even consider such censorship, this is the sort of thing they do in communist countries like China, I already believe you have "gates" on your internet as it enters Australia, and from someone outside the country, your web sites are very slow.
What happened to the easy lifestyle and laid back attitude of Australia, it is being eroded by the do good and PC brigade.

I am in China now and you are not kidding about the internet censorship I can't get some of the photos on this forum or pictures on google not even my own land rover wesite is available here.

[p38arover]

See YouTube - Censordyne - GetUp!

[JDNSW]

As some of you may have noted, yesterday Senator Conroy released the long awaited filtering test report - and announced that internet censorship is going ahead.

The report (which I urge you to read yourself - see Home | Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (http://www.dbcde.gov.au)) is a pretty sorry document for something that is supposed to be a scientific report. It is lacking a lot of the data that is needed to justify its conclusions (no information on number of proportion of ISP customers used in the trial for example), contains almost straight out incorrect facts about matters of public record such as legislation, and the tests appear not to have tested IPv6, already available from some ISPs, and tested a maximum speed of only about 10% of the benchmark speed for the NBN. Also of interest is that despite the fact that Conroy told the Senate in early October that he already had the report, according to the PDF properties of the document released, the underlying Word document was last revised a couple of days ago. I am sure there is an innocent explanation, but a cynic might think that the last two months were spent massaging the report to present the desired result.

The proposed censorship will now be exclusively of material that is Refused Classification (or is "probably Refused Classification"). This category covers a vast range of material which is legal for most Australians to view or possess (but not to sell). The blacklist will be based on complaints. Considering that there are over a trillion URLs, and the department's current time taken to assess a complaint seems to be about two months, it seems unlikely that it will make any significant impact on what you can find on the web. (Presumably, unless you publish something that will embarrass the government, when it will accidentally end up on the list due to a "caching error"). And of course, amendments to increase the scope are much easier than new legislation - how long before advocating use of polluting four wheel drives will be refused classification?

Since the censorship now proposed will do nothing to protect children from unsuitable material, and will, in any case, be ineffective (both because of the numbers and because it is trivial to bypass), you have to ask what purpose does it fulfil? It will put Australia in breach of articles 18 and 19 of the UN declaration on human rights, which Australia helped to formulate, but has never implemented.

If you don't like this idea, I suggest you write to your Federal MP, or do as I have done, write to Senator Conroy and copy to your MP. Of course, if you do like the idea, do the same!

John

[Captain_Rightfoot]

It's all about thin end of the wedge and getting control of the internet, isn't it?

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Australia is a great country. However I fear we are loosing it. We allow governments to take away our rights and if you question them you're a bad person. Hmmm.... :(

As to the "clean feed" it's going to be a complete mess.What rights?

We don't actually have any in Australia. There is no "bill of rights" we are governed by legislation and regulation. Our freedom is only what's left after all the prohibitions and legislation are taken out.

[incisor]

I think you will find that the "gates being slow" as you suggest is more a function of too many users in Oz using up the bandwidth of the available links to the outside world. This seems to be the habit of Oz based ISP being happy to oversell their infrastructure but not so happy to build new infrastructure to handle the customers need for bandwidth. This is particularly relevant with the downloading and streaming of video and audio.


geez i get sick of hearing this drivel

having been a sysop / isp since 1989 i think i am safe in saying that the biggest reason australian isp's sell their connections the way they do was / has more to do with the fact that internet connectivity was wholesaled by volume of data not by pipe size as is common in most other countries.

the imbalance of data pulled from US versus data put back out of AU meant AU isp's always had no bargaining power.

add to that, mr howard did whatever he could to ensure that continued as it inflated the price of those telstra shares i bet you own...

a lot of boutique isp's offered a way around it but were bought out by bigger players when the AU dollar fell to 55c in the US$ a few years ago.

until the start of the afghan war when the yanks took over the satellitte i was using, i was myself bringing in data direct from the american backbone to my little 1000+ userbase in caboolture to get around it but you could only do it on a small scale because as soon as anyone got a whiff that you were AU based, they slapped you with data charges not pipe size charges...

the effects of this still remain today... the mindset is now part of the issue.

but, the major issue is the tyranny of distance and by world standards, very low population densities

very hard to buy an unlimited data connection to this day for this very reason, and i dont mean telstra's version of unlimited.

[JDNSW]

It's all about thin end of the wedge and getting control of the internet, isn't it?

I'm not sure what it is about. It is sold either to "stop the distribution of child pornography" - which it won't do because virtually none is on web pages, which are all it affects - or to "protect children from unsuitable material" which it won't do because it will only block Refused Classification; most parents would be unhappy about their children accessing X18+ material, for example!

John

[Disco44]

I cannot believe that a country such as Australia would even consider such censorship, this is the sort of thing they do in communist countries like China, I already believe you have "gates" on your internet as it enters Australia, and from someone outside the country, your web sites are very slow.
What happened to the easy lifestyle and laid back attitude of Australia, it is being eroded by the do good and PC brigade.


Mate you can fit the British Isles 7 and one half times in my state Queensland.When I lived in Runcorn UK if I travelled the distance across Australia ..4500K's I finished up in Egypt.Hence the problem here re broadband distance.Australia is a big country and it appears Telstra is the only ISP able to update to very fast broadband.This has all been held up since its sale as it is now just like Woolies and Coles ..answerable to it's shareholders and making their return as large as possible much to chagrin ( higher costs etc) of their users ( or customers)
Cheers,
John ( disco 44 )

[D-Fender]

The whole Australian idea of 'A Fair Go' has gone, right out the window.

[cartm58]

i had the pleasure of knowing Senator Conroy in the 1990's when he was just the ALP factional numbers boy waiting to be elevated to the Senate on a safe number on the ballot paper. Let's say he ran up a $1500 per month mobile phone number when based in Melbourne Victoria supposedly working for the benefit of Victorian TWU members but funnily over 90% of his monthly phone bill were ACT and NSW phone numbers and a limited number of numbers at that.

The internet censorship is a scam to attract votes from so called family values voters in politics we would label them DLP in 1950's or 60's parlance and their votes are important funnily in determining the Senate composition, strange isn't it.

[JDNSW]

.........

The internet censorship is a scam to attract votes from so called family values voters in politics we would label them DLP in 1950's or 60's parlance and their votes are important funnily in determining the Senate composition, strange isn't it.


That is one of the least unsavoury explanations for the government's insistence on it - but it is difficult to see these people being satisfied with only blocking Refused Classification; worth noting that they are already baying for it to be extended.

John

[Dmmos]

Without doing any research myself, does anybody know of Abbott's position on this? I hate to say it - but he couldn't be too much better could he?

I agree whole-heartedly to the reference above comparing the internet to Australia Post (JDNSW)...

[JDNSW]

Without doing any research myself, does anybody know of Abbott's position on this? I hate to say it - but he couldn't be too much better could he?
....

He has not replied to the email I sent him on the subject the day he became leader, and as far as I can tell has said nothing since the announcement yesterday.

While I am sure his own philosophy would favour censorship, he is a politician, and may take the opposite seeing that the government id going down the censorship route. I expect he is currently trying to see which way will garner the most votes before committing himself.

John

[flagg]

Obliviously this isn't going to work (in terms of what it is being sold as doing) for a number of reasons.

The really sad thing about all this is that it will take money away from the AFP and other resources that are actually going to stop child pornography and all the bad things that this horrific waste of money is being sold as doing.

Once this assault on free speech is implemented I will write open letters of complaint to the newspapers complaining that it isn't working.

I mean, once this is in place, it should work, right? I shouldn't be able to see anything bad on the internet anymore? Uncle Conroy has saved the internet!

Would be good if I could them legally liable for what got through.....

[Sprint]

i dont know what the government thinks theyre going to achieve......

the pentagon was hacked by a couple of 15yo's in estonia...... i'm betting the censorship program isnt even a billionth as secure.....

[flagg]

GetUp! Campaign Actions (http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet&id=892)

email the .................person himself and tell him what you think.

[Ferret]

Internet Censorship Poll (http://www.smh.com.au/polls/politics/form.html)

Seems like the average Joe Bloggs is not impressed with the idea either judging by this SMH poll. ~ 18000 votes and 96% vote "No, it impinges on my freedom"

So much for politicians "listening to the community".

[HangOver]

hey guys unless we the unwashed dregs speak up then it will happen,
just sent:

Dear Sir
I implore you to visit this website that has had over 18 thousand votes regarding the internet filtering you are trying to implement, 96% of which are against the idea.
The Sydney Morning Herald: national, world, business, entertainment, sport and technology news from Australia's leading newspaper. (http://www.smh.com.au/polls/politics/results.html)
May I also draw your attention to article 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
As a father myself I absolutely applaud your attempt to protect children but not in this fashion; that protection lies firmly in the hands of the guardians.
How can we as a free people have forced upon us “filtering “, the slope is slippery and mirrors censorship in countries such as China, North Korea, Burma et al.
Please note that until this point in time I have never felt the need to contact any person in government, I am not a crackpot or freedom fighter, just a concerned citizen of Australia; a country which I love and would dearly like to see remain uncensored and free.

[juddy]

This is just another reason to control what the public do, its got very little to do with X rated web-sites, its a stepping stone to other things.......

[flagg]

Well here is our 'public consultation'..

hidden deep on their website:

Measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material | Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (http://www.dbcde.gov.au/funding_and_programs/cybersafety_plan/transparency_measures)

Remember that submissions are published and consisdered public record untiless you specify otherwise. This is what makes it official, the emails can be easily ignored....

[JDNSW]

I attended a public forum in Dubbo today on telecommunications with Senator Conroy present and speaking.

In it he agreed to answer questions on internet censorship, but when I did so he launched into his usual spiel about those who oppose it supporting child pornography.

He did admit that he was copping a lot of flak about it, but claimed that it was supported by the vast majority of Australians (seems to be ignoring the SMH poll). What he either does not realise or is also ignoring is that it is not him that is mostly copping the flak from overseas, but Australia as a whole.

John

[Disco44]

I attended a public forum in Dubbo today on telecommunications with Senator Conroy present and speaking.

In it he agreed to answer questions on internet censorship, but when I did so he launched into his usual spiel about those who oppose it supporting child pornography.

He did admit that he was copping a lot of flak about it, but claimed that it was supported by the vast majority of Australians (seems to be ignoring the SMH poll). What he either does not realise or is also ignoring is that it is not him that is mostly copping the flak from overseas, but Australia as a whole.



John

Political "speak" John .Doesn't it crap ya? they never answer any question that you ask. Maybe we need some more like " Dad Rudd MP Remember Steele Rudd ?:D
Cheers,
John ( disco )

[JDNSW]

............ Maybe we need some more like " Dad Rudd MP Remember Steele Rudd ?:D
Cheers,
John ( disco )

Yes

John

[Craig]

I found this article the other day and I think the analogy works beautifully.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conroy abandons speed hump plans for Australia's freeways
aturner | December 21, 2009

In the face of a significant public backlash, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has backed down on plans to install speed humps on every Australian freeway.

Last week Senator Conroy said he was confident that placing speed humps every 100 metres on all Australian freeways would protect children - reducing accidents by 100 percent with a "negligible" impact on traffic congestion and travel times. The plan was supported by traffic management trials which had only been conducted in suburban back streets.

The plan to throttle Australia's road transport system was slammed by critics as flawed, unworkable, easily bypassed, politically motivated and open to abuse, as reported in the media on Friday.

After listening to public concern over the mandatory speed hump plan, Senator Conroy today abandoned the concept in favour of public education campaigns and better policing.

"Over the weekend I've realised that I don't actually know that much about traffic management and it might be best to listen to the experts," Senator Conroy said.

"I realise that certain segments of the community were keen on the idea of mandatory speed humps, using them as a tool to control everywhere Australians go and everything they see. Such a plan is not acceptable in a democratic country and would make Australia an international laughing stock."

Rather than waste the time and money already invested in the mandatory speed hump plan, Senator Conroy has decided to apply the exact same concept to Australia's internet access - introducing mandatory ISP-level internet content filtering for all Australians. He has ignored criticisms from networking experts and consumer advocacy groups that the mandatory internet filtering plan is just as unworkable as speed humps on the freeways.

"There are a lot of analogies between Australia's road system and its broadband internet network," Senator Conroy said. "Both are critical infrastructure, vital to the nation's economy. Both require significant investment and long-term planning, driven by experts in the field. Neither should be manipulated for short-term political gain at the expense of the nation's future."

"The difference is that your average man on the street can understand how foolish the speed hump idea is, but if we apply the same concept to Australia's internet access most people will blindly accept it because they don't understand how ill-conceived and unworkable the idea is."

"People might have thought we were joking about speed humps on the freeway, but I can assure you the plan to do the same to the internet is completely real. It's been all over the news. That's fine, because anyone who opposes mandatory internet filtering obviously loves kiddie porn."

"We know the filtering plan will work, because a website opposing mandatory filtering was taken offline in record time last week. Australia's domain authority body pulled the plug on stephenconroy.com.au in three hours, even though the process generally takes days. That clearly proves that we can eliminate unsavoury websites, although once the web filtering is in place you won't even know that we've done it."

More details of Senator Conroy's mandatory ISP-level internet filtering can be found at nocleanfeed.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I think that this censorship idea has to be one of the least thought out policies, written by people that have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. it has had bugger all testing, and all the ISP's who trailed it say it wont work. It doesn't even touch binaries and P2P and if you speak out against it then you are obviously into "kiddy porn".

GRRRRRR I feel a rant coming on but I will stop before I get upset.


Craig

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Now I'm getting concerned...

Australian Government asks google to get-censoring. (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/11/google-refuses-to-ce.html)

[dmdigital]

Now I'm getting concerned...

Australian Government asks google to get-censoring. (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/11/google-refuses-to-ce.html)

Google's told Conroy to go jump from what I read as he allegedly said they can do it because they already censor Google in China. Someone should censor Conroy.

[JDNSW]

Google's told Conroy to go jump from what I read as he allegedly said they can do it because they already censor Google in China. Someone should censor Conroy.

He said that on television, I believe. (See ABC Hungry Beast show last Tuesday).

He does not appear to understand the difference between what Google does in China, which is filter search results, and what he wants them to do for Australia, which is to filter Youtube requests - which is a whole different ball game. Google has pointed out that the request would mean filtering material which is not only legal to view everywhere else in the developed world, but which is likely to be of significant political importance in Australia; and have basically told him to get lost.

For anyone who has any doubt whether the filtering proposal is a good idea, just ponder for a moment the meaning of the Minister speaking approvingly of how China censors the net. After all, this is the same government that criticised China for internet censorship during the Olympics.

John

[HangOver]

just another nail in the coffin of free speech and expression.
I mean, censorship in Australia, a modern developed country it's just a joke.

You know I don't even know what political party this idiot bats for but i'll damn sure find out come next election

[Armadillo]

"Responsibility: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

As a ten year old I was naive in my knowledge of drugs, bomb-assembly, hard-core porn, fetishes and the like. I benefitted from a pre-Rudd filter called Mum and Dad. They taught me right from wrong, responsibility/consequences, stranger danger, common sense and how to survive and flourish in the big, bad world. They were the gatekeepers at the front door of our home, nurturing, protecting and educating me.

Fast forward 40 odd years in Australia and what do we find? Mum and Dad either unable or unwilling to perform this very gatekeeper role. On one hand we have the civil liberties of responsible, informed adults being stifled by increasing external regulation (government, lobby groups, experts etc) and on the other, irresponsible, incapable parents thriving despite the ever-increasing list of rules, regulation and intervention.

Have the bad eggs destroyed the social pavlova? You bet.

As a parent, I have very specific guidelines for internet use by my 10 year old. Her computer is in plain view. I monitor the sights she visits, am aware of her passwords and have taught her not only to never give personal information online but also to notify me of “weird” stuff she encounters. Alas, I am adult, parent and filter all in one. Just as I wouldn’t let her get into a stranger's car, I wouldn’t let a stranger into her room through the internet.

Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. “It’s your room/ I’m busy/It won’t happen here/I don’t understand it myself/Great, computer as babysitter”, are all examples of this approach. This is the approach which has grown the monster which is the government’s current social reform agenda. We are now in a position where the government sees its’ role to gate-keep on our behalf. Be it your child’s education, computer, diet, access arrangements, alcohol consumption or driving privileges, the government has a say.

This is the growing shame of modern parenting.

We have allowed legislation to encroach on our civil liberties because we have forgotten that hand in hand with our rights and freedom comes individual responsibility.

[JDNSW]

Over the weekend there was a very significant development on the internet censorship front .

The National Party has passed a motion opposing any mandatory internet censorship.

It is worth pausing to consider this for a moment - the most conservative mainstream political party in Australia has decided that this is not a policy they should support.

It is now up to the Liberal party - or perhaps a backbench revolt in Labor - but certainly it does put pressure on the Liberals to make clear their stance on the subject. The result from the Nationals almost certainly reflects their constituents writing clear and well reasoned letters to their representatives. If your member is Labor or Liberal ..........

John

[Pedro_The_Swift]

more here--
Australian firewall wobbles under pressure from all sides ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/21/oz_firewall/)

[rick130]

more here--
Australian firewall wobbles under pressure from all sides ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/21/oz_firewall/)

I hope that's the case Pedro.

Which reminds me, I must write a letter to my Federal member ;)

BTW, have a read of this Aussies face 10 year browsing lock-up ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/11/australia_data_retention/)
and this
Oz Attorney-General wants ISPs to hold data for 2 years ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/australia_leaked_minutes/)

[feral]

This government has gone nuts.:twisted:

Here is two further articles which just shows how out of touch they are.

No anti-virus software? No internet connection | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/technology/no-anti-virus-software-no-internet-connection/story-e6frfro0-1225882656490)

Labor elusive on web history collection | The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/labor-elusive-on-web-history-collection/story-e6frgakx-1225882673730)

[disco2hse]

Any use for you guys - works in most communist territories?

openDNS (http://www.opendns.com/)

[sheerluck]

Any use for you guys - works in most communist territories?

openDNS (http://www.opendns.com/)

Think yourself lucky. I really am in a "less liberal" country (3 weeks working in China again :() and the most bizarre websites are unavailable.

The funniest blocked page so far has to be Yellow Pages. I mean, why??
I can almost understand blocking sites that are related to political or anti-government protests, but I only wanted to find a phone number!

[JDNSW]

Of course, what the situation is now with a new PM is quite unclear. I suppose it all depends on to what extent the whole scheme was a Rudd idea, which has never been at all clear. Some indication may come with the cabinet reshuffle, when we see who the new Minister for BCDE is. Conroy has taken most of the heat on this but it is really unknown to whether it is his idea, Rudd's or the party as a whole.

And remember - many people said it was impossible to get a worse Communications Minister than Alston - Conroy showed just how unfounded this assumption was. So don't assume that because things are so bad at present the they can't get worse. Or stay the same - Conroy is the chief Victorian Right head kicker in the ALP, and presumably the new PM owes him something. This may be a freer reign or perhaps a more senior ministry (in which case heaven help whichever Department gets him!).

John

[Pedro_The_Swift]

It seems the "policy" has been put on hold---

someone must have told conroy just how many people signed that petition!:p

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Well it would appear that it's not just enough for them to want to censor it.. now they want to monitor everything you do as well. (http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/no-minister-90-of-web-snoop-document-censored-to-stop--premature-unnecessary-debate-20100722-10mxo.html?autostart=1)

I'm not sure why they are pushing all this. I don't have anything to hide but none the less I do feel somewhat uneasy about it...

[JDNSW]

As most are probably aware, the internet censorship plan has been put on hold until after the election and pending a review of the "refused classification" classification. It is worth noting that last time classification was reviewed, there were exactly 147 submissions made to the process. More than a third of these submissions were may by two fundamentalist letter writing groups in two NSW country towns. And the changes made then to the classification rules bore no relation to the recommendations coming out of the review, being significantly more restrictive.

Also, announced at the same time was that three of the largest ISPs Telstra, Optus, iPrimus) have agreed to voluntarily censor their customers using a list of child pornography web pages supplied by the government. According to a statement by one of the other ISPs which has declined to join this group, they do not expect it to happen soon, due to the fact that the mechanism to either filter or to supply the list does not exist and the cost of equipment, estimated to run into millions. A further problem is that Telstra has specified that they will need legal protection before starting to do this. This protection probably would include amendments to the Telecommunication Interception Act, and it seems very unlikely that the required amendments would pass the Senate.

It seems likely that the announcement was only a bit of pro-Labor electioneering by the companies in response to some sort of secret deal. In any case, it should be noted that blocking CP web pages is supporting CP. They should be referred to the police who, liaising with international colleagues, can get the material removed quite quickly, and possibly even manage some arrests. Most informed observers believe that there is a vanishingly small amount of CP on the web anyway, and its lifetime before being removed is in most cases shorter than the time taken to get onto the list.

(This of course excludes "CP" which is only identified as such in Australia).

John

[Dmmos]

I came across this thread again recently - does Wikileaks work in Australia again? That was a sorry saga (when they claimed to possess the ACMA blacklist, and were then blacklisted themselves)...

[JDNSW]

I came across this thread again recently - does Wikileaks work in Australia again? That was a sorry saga (when they claimed to possess the ACMA blacklist, and were then blacklisted themselves)...

Without the filter in place, the blacklist is ineffective unless you have a PC filter approved by the IIA and hence supplied with the blacklist. It does prevent them from being mirrored or linked to locally. Not sure where they are at present, they were in Sweden, but I seem to remember hearing they were planning to move to Iceland.

Wikileaks suffers from working on a shoestring, and whenever there is something on there that gets a lot of publicity their server falls over under the load. With this recent information (wardiary) this is likely to be the case. Just keep trying.

John

[Dmmos]

Without the filter in place, the blacklist is ineffective unless you have a PC filter approved by the IIA and hence supplied with the blacklist. It does prevent them from being mirrored or linked to locally. Not sure where they are at present, they were in Sweden, but I seem to remember hearing they were planning to move to Iceland.

Wikileaks suffers from working on a shoestring, and whenever there is something on there that gets a lot of publicity their server falls over under the load. With this recent information (wardiary) this is likely to be the case. Just keep trying.

John

John - I was referring to early last year (when this was all throught the press);

Australia Censors Wikileaks Page | Threat Level | Wired.com (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/australia-censo/)

When people read about the blacklist they wanted to see it - myself included. Certainly not for the reasons we were alleged to want it (which do not need to be discussed). Wikileaks was blocked for weeks, and when it returned was around the time it voluntarily (globally I believed) took itself offline as part of a fundraising drive.

I'm in the US at the moment and the list is freely available here on Wikileaks - I was wondering if it was in Australia also.

The biggest issue for me so far has been the discussion regarding the inclusion of anti-abortion sites, which I would find very troubling.

[JDNSW]

Wikileaks has never been offline except as the result of insufficient funds or insufficient capacity for the number of queries, which amounts to the same thing. And if it is online, it can be reached by Australians just as easily as Americans, unless the user's PC has a filter on it that uses the blacklist.

However, it is worth noting that if a link to Wikileaks were to be placed on this forum, it would make Incisor's hosting company (if in Australia) liable to a fine of $11,000/day if someone lodged a complaint and it was upheld (which would be pretty much certain if it was a valid link).

This is one of the concerns with the proposed filter - it could quite easily , at least in theory, make large slabs of the web inaccessible by this linking making other pages blacklisted. Of course, in practice it would not be that bad, as with the process of blacklisting taking as long as eight months, and new URLs appearing at over a billion a day, it is impossible for a complaints based system to ever affect anything other than a vanishingly small proportion of the web.

The problem is, that since the list will be secret (it needs to be only because it will not work!) it is obvious that the only real use for the system is political censorship, or as the inception of a far reaching scheme to change the internet from its present status as a communications channel to a media service controlled by governments and corporations. Consider for example, that one of the problems with the filter legislation is that it appears to require changes to the Telecommunications Interception Act - and it is probably going to be difficult to word these in a way that will not raise widespread alarm, as was shown when recent changes were made to it to allow network engineers to intercept communications in the course of their work.

John

[Dmmos]

...The problem is, that since the list will be secret (it needs to be only because it will not work!) it is obvious that the only real use for the system is political censorship, or as the inception of a far reaching scheme to change the internet from its present status as a communications channel to a media service controlled by governments and corporations...

John

I knew DiCaprio was on to something! Aaagh! By the way for those of you who haven't seen it yet, go and see Inception - it's definitely one of the best Hollywood 'blockbuster' films you'll ever see.

I was certain (from personal experience) that Wikileaks had public access barred, as is suggested in the linked article above, however I may have been mistaken.

Another major issue of the proposed filter (I'm unsure if it's been described here, especially as it is not popular with many people) is that according to the SMH (17 March 2009) of the 1370 sites on the list 506 of them are (R18+) & (X18+). This means that a large number of the sites are actually perfectly legal pornographic websites. I am certainly not making any assertion that I visit these sites, or those like them, however if true this would represent a significant over-reach of the government. It's obvious why nobody would defend this point too much, but I feel it's important.

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day - Technology - smh.com.au (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/17/1237054787635.html)

I also have a quick question, primarily for you John - if the filter works as well as it's proponents claim it will, isn't a secret list then made redundant? Can it be argued that if the information (i.e. the website) is unable to be viewed by the public, the list should be viewed by the public? Although a URL is by no means even a reasonable indication of the content of a website, over half of the websites on the proposed blacklist are a little obviously-named. Furthermore, couldn't these sites then be viewed by a larger group of individuals than the ACMA in order to verify their content?

Also (please excuse my lack of IT understanding), what is the state of tracking software at the moment? I assume it's possible for an ISP or the government to merely track an individual's web presence, and determine easily enough whether they have engaged in (exceptionally) nefarious activity? Don't they just see who goes to these sites and investigate from there?

Dave

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Dave

The Government under the UK & US Security Agreement (UK & USA Security Agreement - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93USA_Security_Agreement)) have had the ability to intercept and "packet interrogate" transmissions for decades. Furthermore while in most of the five signatory countries to the agreement it would be illegal to intercept and monitor it's own citizen's transmissions without a court order. In practice he governments don't intercept it's own citizens communications, it has a partner country intercept the transmission and then pass the information back. In fact one of the monitoring sites straddles the US-Canadian border and the Canadian site routinely monitors US traffic while the US side monitors Canadian traffic.

You only have to look at the number of individuals who are being arrested and sucessfully prosecuted for child pornography and paedophilia offences to know that it's happening. And don't be misled into believing that it just happened because some police officer happened upon the information by random luck in a chat room, it happens firstly by signals intelligence identifying an individual computer and then targetted investigation. Usually by a foreign Police investigator so that no local "wire tapping" laws are broken.

It's 1984 26 years late!

"Don't tell anyone that I said that or I'd have to kill you!" (as the saying goes)

[JDNSW]

.........
I was certain (from personal experience) that Wikileaks had public access barred, as is suggested in the linked article above, however I may have been mistaken.

No, as I explained, while it was added to the blacklist, this had no direct effect for most users, but does stop any Australian site from linking to it. But they have suffered from too many trying to access them a lot of the time!

......... This means that a large number of the sites are actually perfectly legal pornographic websites. I am certainly not making any assertion that I visit these sites, or those like them, however if true this would represent a significant over-reach of the government. It's obvious why nobody would defend this point too much, but I feel it's important.

According to informants who claim to have systematically gone through the leaked list, none of the URLs listed would probably have been illegal. A number of them are dead URLs, heaven knows what was originally on them. It is worth noting two points - IWF say that the average life of CP pages is less than 50 days, and a German group, using a leaked copy of the IWF list found that the majority of the pages were removed (not blocked!) within 24 hours by simply emailing the hosting company.
...........
Can it be argued that if the information (i.e. the website) is unable to be viewed by the public, the list should be viewed by the public?

This is precisely what I, and many others, said in submissions to the government on transparency measures for the filter. There is, in fact no reason at all why the list should not be made public if, in fact, the filter worked. The fact that this is not even considered by the government is a clear indication that they know it will not work (and possibly that they know that at least some of the decisions will raise controversy, such as when they blacklisted a dentist and photographs that were already classified PG.)

Although a URL is by no means even a reasonable indication of the content of a website, over half of the websites on the proposed blacklist are a little obviously-named.

Most of these names are probably deliberately misleading links to legal pornography.

Furthermore, couldn't these sites then be viewed by a larger group of individuals than the ACMA in order to verify their content?

Something like this is what the government is proposing, although what they want is a retired judge or similar.

Also (please excuse my lack of IT understanding), what is the state of tracking software at the moment? I assume it's possible for an ISP or the government to merely track an individual's web presence, and determine easily enough whether they have engaged in (exceptionally) nefarious activity? Don't they just see who goes to these sites and investigate from there?

This is barely possible subject to some limitations - for example, most users do not have a static IP address (there aren't enough) and records of who is using what address at any time are not routinely kept for very long. And certainly this cannot be done legally without a court order.

Dave

There are a couple of points to bear in mind. Firstly, there is almost no material on the open web at any one time which are actually illegal in most countries. The range of illegal material in Australia is significantly larger because of the wider definition of child pornography here.

Even with this in mind the current Australian blacklist is claimed by ACMA to contain 355 URLs of CP. In the perspective of a web containing close to two trillion URLs, increasing at over a billion a day, this means that what would be blocked by the filter is vanishingly small - the filter is claimed to be to reduce the chances of accidentally encountering them, but with the chance of doing so being around once in ten thousand years without the filter, it does seem to be a bit of overkill.

John

[JDNSW]

Dave

The Government under the UK & US Security Agreement (UKUSA Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%E2%80%93USA_Security_Agreement)) have had the ability to intercept and "packet interrogate" transmissions for decades. Furthermore while in most of the 5 signatory companies to the agreement it would be illegal to intercept and monitor it's citizens without a court order, in practice the governments don't intercept it's own citizens communications it has a partner country intercept the transmission and then pass the information back. In fact one of the monitoring sites straddles the US-Canadian border and the Canadian site routinely monitors US traffic while the US side monitors Canadian traffic.

You only have to look at the number of individuals who are being arrested and sucessfully prosecuted for child pornography and paedophilia offences to know that it's happening. And don't be misled into believing that it just happened because some police officer happened upon the information by random luck in a chat room, it happens firstly by signals intelligence identifying an individual computer and then targetted investigation. Usually by a foreign Police investigator so that no local "wire tapping" laws are broken.

It's 1984 26 years late!

"Don't tell anyone that I said that or I'd have to kill you!" (as the saying goes)

I would be very surprised if many such prosecutions for "paedophilia" were the result of signals intelligence. The military intelligence services are not about to risk revealing their operations by letting them be used for mere criminal cases, certainly not ones as insignificant as "moral panics".

Apparently quite a few recently come not from signals intelligence but from providing p2p seed boxes with known CP images - and tracking what IPs download them, but most result from long term and deliberate infiltration operations by police, mostly in international operations. These generally do use court orders to help in the tracking. In addition, probably most commonly, someone in an image sharing group shows something to somone who informs police - who then seize the computer, which often leads them to a number of other suspects, as these images are most commonly exchanged by email or some form of P2P, and the computer often has a list of contacts. And you get one of these and it may lead to dozens more before the trail peters out.

But the bottom line is that anyone who assumes that anything they do on line is untraceable is just as much in error as anyone who assumes that their phones are not tapped and their private conversations unrecorded. Might be illegal, but it can and does happen, and even if it cannot be used in evidence against you, it can be used to target further investigations!

John

[JDNSW]

Joe Hockey officially announced that the coalition is against Labor's planned filter.
See
Coalition to dump flawed internet filter (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/coalition-to-dump-flawed-internet-filter-20100805-11kmv.html)

This means that with the Greens and Xenephon opposed, and a likely increased green representation in the Senate from the middle of next year, the legislation cannot pass.

It also gives a conundrum for the ALP. If they continue to support the plan, the opposition will use it to campaign against them - and Labor's action in deferring it till after the election shows that they know it is bad news if it gets publicity. But changing policy in response to what the opposition announces is never a good idea - and besides, nobody would believe them.

John

[JDNSW]

Further to this thread. If you want to have your say, the Australian Law Reform Commission has just issued a call for submissions on classification and regulation (as they refer to censorship) , and have produced an issues paper (National Classification Scheme Review (IP 40) | ALRC (http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/national-classification-scheme-review-ip-40)). Submission date is 15th July.

John