Govt to censor internet, bye bye porn

[calais404]

Considering that Australia has no X rating for porn then if this filter was to be implemented then Australians would be blocked from viewing any porn on the internet.

It will also slow down our already slow internet access, if you've ever been to the US, Europe or even alot of countries in Asia you'll realise how slow our internet is compared with the rest of the world, the last thing we need is something which according to the government own reports will slow the internet down by 78%

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...o-opt-out.html

Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.

The Australian government first revealed its filtering initiative in 2007, which it expected to cost AUS$189 million to implement. That money would go toward imposing filtering requirements on ISPs, who would have to use the Australian Communications and Media Authority's official blacklist, which is in turn based on the country's National Classification Scheme.

Australia moved forward with its plans despite widespread public outcry and began testing the system in Tasmania in February of this year. At the time, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that the filters would be enabled by default and that consumers would have to request unfiltered connectivity if they wished to opt-out of the program.

Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true. Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the "additional material" blacklist—which targets content inappropriate for children—but not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.

"That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out," Newton said. "Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked—end of story."

A spokesperson for the Australian Communications Minister seemed to confirm this revelation by saying that the filters would be required for all Australian citizens.

Assuming this is in fact the way the scheme is implemented in practice, it raises plenty of troubling questions. "Illegal" is a broad definition, leaving users wondering exactly what kinds of content will end up falling prey to the government's apparently mandatory filtering restrictions. Will Big Content be ringing up the Aussie government soon to have tracker sites added to the blacklist? What about sites that discuss topics like at-home bomb making, or something a little less explosive, like DVD decryption tools? And how about those sites that advise users on how to get around the filters? Will various Wikipedia pages be blocked?

Australia continues to ignore its own government-funded studies from 2006 that show ISP-level filtering to be ineffective and costly. The Australian government's disregard for those prior studies suggests that the driving force behind the current plan is more political than technical.

If you want to help do something about this take alook at the following websites

No Clean Feed - Home
No Clean Feed - Take Action
Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) - protecting and promoting online civil liberties

[minux]

I dont get it, since when does a democracy force censorships on its persons?

It is an absolute joke, we should be free to look at what we want to, sure some people go too far, but to have filtering liek this is just a joke. Where does it stop?

[CSP]

This will never get passed.

[BANKS]

well im ****ed lol

have to go and get a real girl friend now...AHHHH

[NORTI]

funny, I was just reading some of this over at WP.



SOME BITS OF INTEREST.....


The Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) passed in 2000 already defines illegal material.

It roughly divides the Internet into stuff that's inside Australia and stuff that's outside Australia.

Content within Australia is illegal if it has been or would be classified R, X or Refused Classification, or if it's MA15+ and not protected by an approved Age Verification System. That class of content is subject to Takedown Notices issued on the domestic Internet Content Hosts (ICH's).

Content outside Australia is illegal if it has been or would be classified R, X or Refused Classification. Such content must be handled according to the ministerially-approved Industry Code, unless there aren't any industry codes in force, in which case it becomes the subject of an Access Prevention Notice issued on ISPs.

The rating and classification guidelines in force are the ones used by the Office of Film and Literature Classification to classify films.

Currently the Industry Code approved by the Minister specifies certain actions that ISPs should take, such as providing access to end-user filtering systems; and certain actions ACMA should take, such as alerting International law enforcement agencies and filtering software vendors when illegal content is reported on overseas servers.

The situation is precarious because Senator Conroy, as the Minister, could decide tomorrow to revoke the Industry Code. He doesn't need parliamentary approval to do so. If he does, then the Access Prevention Notice regime instantly replaces the requirements of the Code, and ISPs who fail to prevent access to ACMA-specified content can be subjected to fines of $38,500 per day until they have complied.

It should be noted that the Access Prevention Notice regime is impossible to comply with, because the law is written such that the system is technology-neutral. So if an Access Prevention Notice says that a certain URL must be blocked, and the same or similar content is also available via a different URL or some kind of different technology such as P2P, then failing to block that is a breach of the law.

Since there's no way for an ISP to know of every possible content mirror or every possible transmission vector, every ISP in Australia will simultaneously be placed in breach of the law as soon as ACMA issues one Access Prevention Notice.

By way of example: Lets say the Australian Government did the same thing the Finnish Government did, and blocked w3c.org.

By issuing an Access Prevention Notice that instructs ISPs to block w3c.org, ISPs would also need to somehow know that all the content available at w3c.org is also available at the list of mirrors shown here, and they'd need to be blocked too, along with the same content hosted by any number of private mirrors that aren't listed there.

Do you know all the places on the Internet where w3c.org content is available? 'cos I don't. There's simply no way that any ISP can comply with an Access Prevention Notice.

The inevitable result will be extreme levels of overblocking, as ISPs take an overly conservative stance to avoid the possibility that they'll become inadvertent transgressors.

And that's even before considering the blowback when the Access Prevention Notices are leaked. How long will it take for some child molester to end up the front page after testifying that he sourced all his child porn from the Rudd Government's blacklist?

these are some of the reasons that ISPs fought so long and hard against the Broadcasting Services Act amendments in 1999: Both because the law was so flawed that it was impossible to comply with unless a cynical Minister gutted it by approving a workable Industry Code, and because any shortcomings addressed by an Industry Code could be undermined by the future, undetermined desires of a different Minister following a change of Government. At the time our objections were dismissed as shrill extremism, yet here we are, eight years later, vindicated. As usual, the shrill extremists in the censorship debate are right, and the slippery-slope arguments we mounted (which were dismissed as rhetorical hyperbole) are being proved correct. So now that we have a Government who wants to censor the Internet and who uses bizarre bogeyman rhetoric about child protection to justify his position, who, exactly is the real shrill extremist?

[CSP]

Lucky there's an X-Rating in the ACT

[TVR-190]

well guess ill have to buy my own proxy over in america that i can use

[minux]

Why the **** would you want w3c.org blocked lol?

[vlv8vic]

i'll sign up with you troy. lol.
I reckon there would be a stack of people who would cancel their internet account. I know people who only have the internet for porn...

[vlv8vic]

Why the **** would you want w3c.org blocked lol?

im on my work machine so im not about to check but what is that site?

[TVR-190]

world wide consortium, defines internet standards and stuff

[minux]

im on my work machine so im not about to check but what is that site?

Its worksafe mate, worth checking out, but basically, as troy said, it is like internet standards etc.

[Thomas1]

I know people who only have the internet for porn...

What, there's another reason for the internet?

[88GreenVN]

JC will get blocked cos some said porn in a thread.

[TVR-190]

i can see it already....

Just Commodores - Holden Commodore Discussion Forum

[50LTRv8]

Freedom is just an illusion guys

I am wating for the regulation that says what times I can take a leak

[pow3rslave]

THANK YOU MICHAEL ATKINSON (among others)

Attorney-general opposes R rating for games | NEWS.com.au

this is the guy who's one of the sole roadblocks to r18+ video games, because of this any game that can't pass as m15+ simply isn't released in australia.

as you can see in that article, he

"...doubts whether any safeguards could be put in place to deter young people, who after all (are) the most computer literate and savvy in our society, from being able to access material."

so these tech savvy young people can't buy a game (not that they could if it were released r18+ in stores) instead they pirate it. so getting the game free, and actually removing a check that would stop them getting it.

this is the very same guy who put this internet censorship bill to the SA state parliament that was passed in 2002.

[Tom_1569]

well im ****ed lol

have to go and get a real girl friend now...AHHHH

Wait till they ban mail order brides and prostitution, then you really will be ****ed haha.

On a serious note, I dont care if they block porn, as a 17yr old, I can confidently say i rarely download or watch porn. The only time I do is when someone sends me a comedy link to redtube or such.
BUT slowing the internet down anymore then it is, is plain ludicrous. We need faster internet, Australia's communications industry is that far behind other parts of the world its not funny. Just to try and filter for porn is stupid, if Australia is full of wankers, so be it. Porn is a way for people to relieve sexual tension, if it stops them from raping, molesting or even perving on someone, then how is it so wrong?

[levymetal]

waste of money, time, and my access speed. 95% of people who they are trying to block access to would know more than the people that are implementing the system. who here doesn't know what a proxy website is? there you go, full access again. so the only thing the government has done is made our internet slow and wasted a ****load of my my money. good on them

the whole idea is just to make the mummy and daddy who own a computer but forgot how to turn it on feel like their children are 100% protected on the internet. and when they feel safe, they vote for whoever brought it in.

[Evolution_Ends_Here]

as of this will work, waste of time/money to censor the internet is massive, its no 2 second job and they be people that will find away around it.

[stocky]

as of this will work, waste of time/money to censor the internet is massive, its no 2 second job and they be people that will find away around it.

another reason for rudd to form a new committee

[xlr8_87]

if anyone thinks this will happen they've got a screw loose somewhere!

[coolvxss]

No X rating? Come to canberra haha

[50LTRv8]

as of this will work, waste of time/money to censor the internet is massive, its no 2 second job and they be people that will find away around it.

They are simply putting pressure on the ISP's. They will do so then add more rules as to what can and can't happen. I don't think this will be avoided easily.

Pretty soon we won't be able to fart without paying for a licence, which will be used for carbon trading schemes.

[BANKS]

this just concludes that rudd is gay...

Like come on... what straight male wants to get rid of porn?

The upper house is having a massive orgy as we speak!