Internet Filtering: Australia heads further towards totalitarianism

[awg]

Fair enough. But do you think this filter will make that less likely?

My bet is that it will not have a chance at stopping young kids looking at pr0n. Even more seriously someone in my immediate family who I recently spoke to who has young kids (8 - 14) thinks that the internet will be "safer" because of it!

Safer WTF!!

I dont know whether it will be an impediment to the casual pr0n user.

for the determined viewer, I very seriously doubt it.

I dont understand the technicalities, but I cant believe how it could be tried without huge increase in latency etc.

A serious user such as yourself TH may be forced to move OS?

My view is that the censorship and interference is worse than pr0n.

I can only assume they must believe the majority of voters think the opposite

I got my sex education from a stack of Ribald's retrieved from the local tip, and studied in our bush clubhouse, teenies get theirs of the internet:

 

[Calliope]

unfortunatly most people over 50 dont understand the internet and think a filter is a great idea.

Yeah? What's you source for this sweeping statement?

 

[schnootle]

Now he is trying to censor youtube. Will someone get this man un-elected please. The ignorance completely astounds me. Has a goverment ever been more out of touch with the people?.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/no-minister-google-rebuffs-censor-20100211-nv7g.html

The internet is a fast moving target that this blacklist will not be able to keep up with. I also wonder if the government plans on compensating people that have their website accidently banned and destroy their business?

All this is going to do is cost MONEY, cost money through taxes to pay for the damn thing and money to get around to problem. If people are finding that things are being blocked they will simply get an overseas proxy, costing more money.

If it becomes a problem for me I will rent a proxy server in the UK, and get access to BBB iPlayer as a perk!

 

[cornnfedd]

Yeah? What's you source for this sweeping statement?

I asked my parents.

 

[drillinto]

Must read article: "Google's Gatekeepers" by Jeffrey Rosen from NYTMagazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html

 

[Mr J]

although as a father of teenage sons, I must admit de-porning the portable hard drive that had been shared around their mates, was a very alarming experience indeed

I'd be worried if they hadn't watched pr0n.

My view is that the censorship and interference is worse than pr0n.

I completely agree with this (apart from the pr0n bit). It's not that I really care about most of what would be censored, but I care about the choice being taken away from me. Government knows best .

 

[Wysiwyg]

It's not that I really care about most of what would be censored, but I care about the choice being taken away from me. Government knows best .

Please remember. The internet is a privilege and not a right.

 

[Julia]

I cannot wait for this 'nanny state', bureaucrat led rabble to be voted out. Conroy and his web censorship, while well intentioned, is punishing the many for the inhumanity of the few. Why is this a viable model of governance given the attack on the liberalism that separates us from the rogue states?

Protect our freedom before it is gone.

From The Age web-site:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology...oys-call-to-censor-youtube-20100211-ntm0.html

This is going to be a law. The ISP's (and Google) will have no choice but to comply.

Of course there is now the very real chance that ASF will go onto the black list as I have posted info about getting around it.

And of course we will never know why because there is no way to check what is on it and why.

The fact that they will not be publishing what is being blocked is every bit as disgusting and obnoxious as the filter itself.

We have had plenty of discussions on this forum about euthanasia. We may in future not be able to continue with this.

Please remember. The internet is a privilege and not a right.

Oh, phooey! What nonsense. It's certainly not a 'privilege' to be conferred benevolently upon us by government.
The god bothering politicians have absolutely no right to dictate what we may or may not look at or discuss. For god's sake, they are hardly shining examples of all that's morally upright!

 

[roland]

China further tightens rules for domain name owners
Web sites must register with China's authorities with information including a photo of the owner
Owen Fletcher (IDG News Service) 23/02/2010 23:17:00
Tags: domain names, China

Web site owners in China will have to start submitting personal photos to register their sites with the government under new trial regulations, China's latest move in an Internet clampdown focused on pr0n.

The regulations, issued by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, are part of an ongoing effort by the ministry to create records for all Web sites in the country. They come amid a wide-ranging campaign against online pr0n in which China has also shut down thousands of Web sites and suspended registration of new Internet domain names by individuals. The campaign has even had an effect outside of China, where companies that sell domain names have been blocked from offering domains that end with the .cn country code.

Won't be long before Governments take control of the internet.

Above story here: http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/artic...s_domain_name_owners?fp=4&fpid=762456&eid=120

 

[donkeykong]

Lol Conroy busted censoring his own website,

http://www.news.com.au/technology/...rences-to-filter/story-e6frfro0-1225834474153

THE minister in charge of the Government's web censorship plan has been caught out censoring his own website.

The front page of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's official website displays a list of topics connected to his portfolio, along with links to more information about each one.

All the usual topics are there – cyber safety, the national broadband network, broadcasters ABC and SBS, digital television and so on.

All except one.

It was revealed today a script within the minister's homepage deliberately removes references to internet filtering from the list.

In the function that creates the list, or "tag cloud", there is a condition that if the words "ISP filtering" appear they should be skipped and not displayed.

The discovery is unlikely to do any favours for Senator Conroy's web filtering policy, which has been criticised for its secrecy.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
According to Google's cache records, the exception has been included on the minister's homepage since at least February 14.

A message on the page says it was last updated in October last year.

Melbourne web developer David Johnson told news.com.au the code was intended to remove references to internet filtering.

"The code is a quick fix," said Mr Johnson of creative agency Lemonade.

"If the developers of the minister’s site had wanted to do it properly they would have placed the 'ISP filtering' keyword exclusion on the server side where it is inaccessible to the public, instead of the front-end code which can be seen by anyone and understood by people with even a basic knowledge of scripting."

The function, written in web scripting language Javascript, appears to have been first discovered by a user on the Whirlpool broadband discussion forum.

Senator Conroy's office has been contacted for comment.

Why doesn’t the opposition make Conroy responsible for this long list of stuff ups and almost criminal behaviour?

 

[$20shoes]

This is absolutely not about censorship in the way that most Aussies think about it.

They are pushing the legislation through on fear, but the main agenda is to inspect packet flows through ISPs and make ISPs responsible for content.

They ran deep packet inspection during their trials but couldn't get the effectiveness they need to distinguish things like legal torrents versus illegal.

They are working on improving this ( still some years away) and are working with legislators and ISPs to find a way of immediately cancelling user accounts based on law.

Essentially they will get to a point where they know what you are sending and receiving and will put the onus on the ISP to make sure you're not doing anything illegal.

 

[Julia]

I've just had a look at Senator Conroy's website, and - although internet filtering doesn't appear as a header on the home page as far as I can see, typing the term into the search box quickly brought up several articles about it.

I'm not quite sure what Senator Conroy is being accused of?

(Not that I have any wish to defend the interfering, moralistic *****.)

 

[Trembling Hand]

I'm not quite sure what Senator Conroy is being accused of?

Not much Julia just that clouds are used by website owners/designers to show visitors quickly what other visitors have been looking for or how much of the info on the site relates to certain keywords/topics.

It seem Comrade Conroy has gone out of his way to make sure internet filtering does not show up as a popular topic on his site. Wonder why?

A bit of the usual controlling the info thats been found out by sloppy work. You know normal stuff for this gov.

 

[Julia]

OK, thanks, TH. Sounds like typical Conroy.

 

[phantomcamel]

The beauty about censorship, there will be eventually ways to circumvent it But serious, take childporn as an example - wouldn't the industry adapt & find other ways to distribute their material. Isn't it better that it is not filtered so Police can actually infiltrate the sick networks & take down the source?

 

[awg]

Please remember. The internet is a privilege and not a right.

I'm sure thats tongue in cheek..its as revolutionary as the olden day printing press.

My feeling is this Internet filtering is a precursor to enabling the technical possibility of ASIO type surveillance, for "anti-terrorism" purposes.

Not just in Australia either, (for all the conspiracy theorists)

There was a stink in the US after 911, they secretly installed interception technology in the ISPs and Telcos

Once its in, it would be hard to get rid of.

There has got to be more driving this than some anti-pr0n wowsers and record company whingers.

 

[Wysiwyg]

I'm sure thats tongue in cheek..its as revolutionary as the olden day printing press.

My feeling is this Internet filtering is a precursor to enabling the technical possibility of ASIO type surveillance, for "anti-terrorism" purposes.

Not just in Australia either, (for all the conspiracy theorists)

There was a stink in the US after 911, they secretly installed interception technology in the ISPs and Telcos

Once its in, it would be hard to get rid of.

There has got to be more driving this than some anti-pr0n wowsers and record company whingers.

The Internet Service Provider knows which sites you the customers are going to. Surveillance of fingered customers would be (is?) easy. Even e-mail sources are known by the ISP. Like a posty. No problems for the goodies and no secrets of where anyone surfs either.

As a matter of fact I want my ISP to shout to the world my internet surfing habits.

 

[Trembling Hand]

Media rights group puts Australia on internet watchlist

A top media rights watchdog has listed Australia along with Iran and North Korea in a report on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology...alia-on-internet-watchlist-20100312-q23p.html

Nice Company to be in.

"These countries are worrying us because they have measures that could have repercussions for freedom of expression on the internet," RSF secretary general Jean-Francois Julliard said at an internet rights award ceremony on Thursday.

 

[moXJO]

Nice Company to be in.

Woot Australia makes the 'Axis of evil'

 

[Trembling Hand]

Bit of news around today about a site that will be blocked by Conroys save the kids filter.

http://encyclopediadramatica.com

This is clear censorship. Sure there's some distasteful stuff on there dressed up as satire but Nothing to do with protecting kids and restricting pr0n. Clearly its about setting up infrastructure to manage information and our access to material as free thinking & voting citizen.

Sad sad times.