Interner Filter (passed)

[Nafone]

EFA has received many queries from overseas in the last few days asking: What on earth is going on down there? Well, we hoped that sense would prevail; that more important policies would get in the way, or that the Minister would get seated on a plane next to somebody who actually understood how the Internet works. Instead, at a sudden press conference it was announced that Australia will next year join the ranks of countries who censor the net.

It’s hard for any government to resist pursuing a policy when children are involved, or are seen to be involved. The censorship push started its life as a cyber-safety policy, where ISPs would be required to provide a filtered solution to families, but has since morphed into something at once less useful and more sinister. An announcement on Tuesday confirms it: next year, all Australian ISPs will be required to filter access to a government-supplied blacklist containing “refused classification” (RC) web content. That would include nasty stuff like child pornography, but also a broader range of content: fetishy sex, instruction in crime (such as euthanasia), any computer game not suitable for under 18s. The list will be partly generated by complaints from the public, and may include lists imported from overseas police departments.

While this is sold as a kid-friendly measure, to “improve safety of the internet for families”, it’s clearly nothing of the sort. A few thousand URLs hardly constitutes a national net nanny. The list would almost be laughable if it was not only mandatory but secret – unlike censorship decisions made in other media, blocked URLs will remain secret and expressly excluded from freedom of information requests. Just as worrying is the fact that once this list is in, a conga-line of special interests will be approaching the government to have their pet peeves added to the list. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) clamouring to have bittorrent trackers added, and several parliamentarians are on record calling for a ban on pro-anorexia sites and pornography in general.

It looks like the Australian blogosphere and twitterverse are in an uproar, and the media have not been very kind. What remains to be seen is how much this issue can crossover into the mainstream public consciousness. If the policy is seen as a vote-loser rather than a crowd pleaser, the Government might be a little readier to see reason.

So is Australia the new Iran? Should you encrypt your hard drive or install a VPN before visiting Australia next year? Well, it’s not the law of the land yet, but unless the political winds change, Australia is set to join a club with some rather unsavoury members.

| 8 comments

December 17th, 2009 by Colin Jacobs

The government’s announcement yesterday that it would press ahead with its mandatory ISP filtering scheme is as unsurprising as it is disappointing. Many people with concerns about the plan had hoped that the Minister would finally get some good advice, get distracted with other things, or otherwise come to his senses and take a face-saving out. Sadly for Australia that was not to be. Yesterday, the Minister released the report detailing the technical results of the trial, and at the same time announced the Government was pushing ahead with the filter, with legislation to be introduced next year. (Continue reading at ABC’s Unleashed.)

| 3 comments

December 17th, 2009 by Colin Jacobs

Electronic Frontiers Australia today welcomed the release of the Government’s Internet filtering report but predicted that the debate is far from over.

“There are few surprises in this document,” said EFA spokesperson Colin Jacobs. “Given the pilot’s modest goals, it was designed from the beginning to pass. Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important – exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place?”

The report found that generally, ISPs were able to block a government-provided blacklist of several thousand web sites without a major impact on service levels. It also found that circumvention was trivial for motivated users, calling the effectiveness of the proposal into question.

The report indicated that there were costs associated with filtering, which would hit smaller ISPs the hardest. The expected costs for Australian Internet users were not addressed in the report, nor were other alternatives such as increasing support for home-based filters. Although several ISPs also tested filtering beyond the government blacklist, the report finds they were only 84% accurate in the best case.

It’s not unexpected that the censorship proved technically possible. EFA notes that, since the election, the government’s “cyber-safety” plan has shifted away from providing tools to shield minors on the web to a black list of “almost exclusively RC (Refused Classification)” content aimed at adults.

“The Government knows this plan will not help Australian kids, nor will it aid in the policing of prohibited material. Given the problems in maintaining a secret blacklist and deciding what goes on it, we’re at a loss to explain the Minister’s enthusiasm for this proposal,” said Jacobs.

“We’ll be interested to see how the Internet service providers respond. We know they are critical of having such intrusive Government interference in their networks,” he added.

Although the minister has hailed the pilot a success, many concerns about the proposal remain ignored. Neither draft legislation nor a comprehensive policy document have yet been released to the Australian public, though legislation is expected in 2010.

“Successful technology isn’t necessarily successful policy. We’re yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help, and why it is worth spending so much taxpayers’ money on.”

– Ends –

I cannot believe I am saying this, but if the Liberals promised to give our internet back (I would vote for them!). Bye Bye perceived freedom bye bye SAB, I loved you while you lasted! And some others I visit, will be dearly missed. Funny how they are blocking adult content, and as an adult I will only be able to view content fit for under 16 year olds. They are blocking any games classified for people over 16, so as an adult your government is only letting you play games made for people 16 and under any other adult games you will not be allowed to play.

Please do not let our Government strip us of the freedom of speech, or allow them to impinge upon our freedoms. Please support the EFA and NoCleanFeed, at the very least vote against it at the ballots, once gone you dont get these things back. It is disgusting how overnight they can decide they are going to do this.

http://www.efa.org.au/

http://nocleanfeed.com/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2772467.htm

[mauve]

[Chiral]

So now the children will not be able to view peer to peer pedophile pages/networks and unclassified material...whew I feel so safe now. Moreover I am lost for words really because this has just gone on without so much as a single request to the public if they are in favour of such a move. using the childporn thing is a stroke of genius though isn't it...I mean anyone seen to be openly opposing the filter is tarred with "oh so you support pedophilia and bestiality" ...well i mean come on it's brilliant isn't it.

I look forward to hearing that minister Conroy has had an unfortunate accident in the not too distant future, I mean seriously he must surely know that he is now a mark and will have to watch his back every second of every day...no single person has the right to push an agenda such as this or in the way he pushed it, tested it and implemented it.

it's a very disappointing time to be an Australian if you call yourself one, because this country has had an opportunity to showcase liberty, freedom, cultural awareness and a strong economy...though now who would have ever expected this country to go down the tubes at the hand of a couple of bible bashing tossers so quickly.

there are no words to describe how this makes me feel...pointless and at the same time frightening...adios oztralia, land of the fools.

[The Dude]

The political tactic of threatening your childrens welfare is one of the most effective at creating a hysteria and its accompanying lack of judgement.

[tripsis]

It's a bitter joke that Australia is considered a democracy. Seems more akin to a dictatorship to me. Since the tyrannical rule of Howard, this country has been steadily losing it freedoms and rights that once made it such a good country to be in.

[Hendry]

This is a national disgrace. With regards to censorship Australia is the laughingstock of democratic countries.

[luciddreamer]

LMFAO Hendry.

Yep this is ridiculous. I'm telling this to all the drug info forums I visit, download hotspot shield RIGHT NOW. If this censorship comes in, they will probably block the website to download it.

It is a free VPN service. Ads pop up every now and again, but it's free so....

Anyway, here's a pic I found lol

[Nafone]

These are the countries that currently use pervasive censorship (internet filters);

Burma

Cuba

Egypt

Iran

North Korea

Syria

Tunisia

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Vietnam

Australia was defined as 'Under Surveillance' which I still think is an invasion of privacy to say the least. Now not only under surveillance by our government while surfing the web, it will be censored by them also(using a secret list of sites) so you can only see what they want you to see! If there was probable cause for surveillance on someone, fair enough present your evidnce to a judge and if he thinks it is worth while he gives a subpoena and then you can spy.

I dont know if everyone is aware but a big Telco in the US has recently come under fire, by admitting openly they have set up web portals so any law enforcement personnel could log on. They could type any phone number connected to that network, and they would instantly receive GPS coordinations of where that phone was and other intrusive details. They claim it is in the terms and service agreement, but being subject to pervasive surveillance by law enforcement without consent, knowledge, probable cause, warrants or anything is not right. And this would be commonplace for telephone companies they just would not admit it. They served 8 million request to law enforcement in the year, all unwarranted invasions of privacy (commonplace nowadays)

Surveillance Shocker: Sprint Received 8 MILLION Law Enforcement Requests for GPS Location Data in the Past Year

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/surveillance-shocker-sprint-received-8-million-law

I totally agree with Chiral, and he is not exaggerating when he says they are trying to push there own agenda and are bible bashers (this is who will decide what we see, religious propaganda and not much else, and I bet the australian muslims get left out too!). This is really sickening;

Christian Lobby thank Conroy for filtering update

http://www.efa.org.au/2009/12/01/christian-lobby-thank-conroy-for-filtering-update/#more-751

Christian Lobby buoyant on filtering after meeting Conroy

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/161533,christian-lobby-buoyant-on-filtering-after-meeting-conroy.aspx

They would not be so happy, if there was a logical decision to censor the religious material also. On the grounds that it offends some, to an extent that wars have been fought over it(thats violent), and most of there material is carefully selected to indoctrinate young, less fortunate and people generally susceptible to such BS.

[Hendry]

LMFAO Thats priceless Luciddreamer!

I use Xerobank VPN it is overpriced but you can choose the two countries that double hop (ie France then Netherlands)to which is good because I temp change to a U.S. IP as many in the states wont stream content internationally.

[luciddreamer]

These are the countries that currently use pervasive censorship (internet filters);

Burma

Cuba

Egypt

Iran

North Korea

Syria

Tunisia

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Vietnam

 

I don't we all just LOVE to join those countries on anything!

That Telco thing is despicable. As you said, it's probably happened so many times before and is happening now too. Telco just got caught.

LMFAO Thats priceless Luciddreamer!

I use Xerobank VPN it is overpriced but you can choose the two countries that double hop (ie France then Netherlands)to which is good because I temp change to a U.S. IP as many in the states wont stream content internationally.

 

That's interesting. Might have to save up some money. Given the just-pointed-out insecurity of the U.S. Hotspot Shield goes only through the U.S, so might not be a good thing. I use it for watching non international content too lol

Oh yeah I was talking to my mum yesterday about this (she's a computer technician). I had an idea, of basically doing a DDOS attack. Since this will most likely be a central agency/hub that filters all Australian internet or a filter at the ISP level. All one would have to do is pay for the Russians (there's websites to do this) to make a DDOS attack, basically sending hundreds of thousands of computers to a certain restricted site at the same time. This would crash the filter for an unknown number of hours. If people were to do this all the time, the government would HAVE to get rid of it.

This is if it's implemented anyway, hopefully we can fight it off before that happens.

[ergoamide]

Oh I do like that last idea, that is a very good one. While we're paying the Russian's we might as well use some of there other services and get some polonium-210 to do a Litvinenko style job on Sen. Conroy. Then the government should hopefully then blame the Russian's for the lot and suspicion will be thrown of all the internet users who stood to benefit.

[Hendry]

Conroy is an asshole. Let him live that's even more of a punishment sometimes lol.

Edited December 25, 2009 by Hendry

[luciddreamer]

Oh I do like that last idea, that is a very good one. While we're paying the Russian's we might as well use some of there other services and get some polonium-210 to do a Litvinenko style job on Sen. Conroy. Then the government should hopefully then blame the Russian's for the lot and suspicion will be thrown of all the internet users who stood to benefit.

 

lol, You don't have to deal with any Russians. There's tons of websites to perform a DDOS attack. Anyway, that's a last resort. My guess is someone else will do it anyway, and that's IF this thing gets through, which I don't think it will.

[rogdog]

Nice one guys, posts like those above will make sure that the corroboree is on the hit list

[gilligan]

Mate, it was on the list before the above, pull ur head out of the sand...

The gist of the content would have been enough to sinbin it from the start - anything even remotely referencing altered states will be hit, and hard. They wouldn't give a fuck about the comments above.

This is the start of the end, unless people start speaking up.

They control us, cos we're too fucking apathetic a nation to do anything. They were meant to be our voice. Conroy has gotten out of control.

Send a letter to your local member and pass this on to all you know, for them to do the same. If enough letters are received, then they have to make some call on whether it is to proceed or not... If enough people say that it will change the way they vote, then they will need to make the call to go against it...

Or we can just sit here and say, seeya SAB, AE, Redtube, Keezmovies, a couple of random blacklisted sites, anyhting to do with paganism, evolution (sorry Darwin, Biblebashers taking control) and anything other than mainstream bullshit.

Anyone for an australian ID card, so we can keep all our private info on? The Government will take good care of the info...

Fucksticks.

[bℓσωηG]

The petition link http://www.getup.org.../SaveTheNet/442

[Auxin]

The thing that gets me is that internet filtering is distinctly PRO-child pornography!

Think about it, the dudes in australia that are into child porn will still want their child porn and they will still seek it out and share it, but with a filter in place they will know to do so they will need to learn more about security, evasion, and encryption. Thus you have just bred tens of thousands of net savvy pedophiles more resistant to being caught and more interconnected with eachother that can spread kid porn across the globe. Sounds a bit counterproductive to me.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Auxin

[Nafone]

From what I have read pedophiles get there porn via private encrypted sharing and and other very private means, there are no real child porn websites (to my knowledge they dont exist). Not one www.childporn.com type of site were you go and browse child porn, despite the ultimate freedom we had until now not one person has been distasteful and fucked up enough to do that. And the filter is specifically to block websites because of child porn but not one child porn website exists???

So really the pedophiles are not going to change a damn thing, because they dont have to. As long as the government can sell the idea that the net will be free of child porn and safe for families it can do what it wants. K.Rudd said when commentating the cricket over christmas, that he owned all Australian's, may have been a joke but I did not find it at all funny. As stated he is meant to be our voice, not our dictator! Dont get me started on Conroy

Stephen Michael Conroy (born 18 January 1963 in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, near Norwich) is an Australian politician and the current Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in the Rudd Labor Government. Seen here chuckling with fellow christians at the passing the infamous internet filter in 2009. The Australian peoples television was already heavily censored by wowsers and church going folk, so this was the last big strike the dictatorship needed before total control was taken!

As the book burning started (sorry internet filtering), all un-christian material was quickly banished from the internet. A good christian soul can be seen tossing versions of the Koran and Asian devil worshipping canons into the fire. Harm reduction websites, that contained anything to do with drugs were burned, anything considered by the christians to be slightly rude was burned, any website that did not fit christian beliefs in general was burned (just as the Nazi book burning did, anything considered un-German, sorry un-christian will be put onto a secret list and burned!

The words of a dark past come back to haunt us!

Where they have burned books, they will in the end burn people.(Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.)

— Heinrich Heine , Almansor (1821)