Australian internet censorship now compulsory

[Vendetta]

You don't. But to the vast unthinking herd "protect the kiddies" completely drowns out the connotations of "censorship".

[Zac Naloen]

Seems more likely to me there is a majority who just don't know/understand what this technology means and buy into the "protecting your children" story.

If they knew what was really going on they'd probably hate it as much as the techies do.

What the fuck are you talking about? Since when do you need tech geek skills in order to understand the word "censorship"?

Because it's not being sold as censorship, it's being sold as protection.

The only people using the word censorship are the opposition.

[weemadando]

Is Australia trying to fulfill George W. Bush's dream for him or something? Why does shit like this happen?

PS. I have to suspect that there must be a large fraction of your population which supports this, otherwise it's hard to imagine why politicians would get behind it.

The main reason, is that it's flying so far under the radar here that you have to actively search for news on it. It might turn up on like page 6 in a little column with the latest info.

And even when it does hit the news, it's almost uniformly some fucking sound-bite about it being "for the protection of our children", not "censoring everything that we are offended by, whether it's illegal or not".

[bobalot]

They are using the "Protect the Children!" line. Labor needs the support of Family First to pass legislation in the senate. I'm assuming this is the payoff.

All someone has to do is use a proxy and their filter means absolutely jack shit.

[weemadando]

They are using the "Protect the Children!" line. Labor needs the support of Family First to pass legislation in the senate. I'm assuming this is the payoff.

All someone has to do is use a proxy and their filter means absolutely jack shit.

Again, that's ignoring the complications involved with it completely trashing our already shit net speeds. Not to mention the potential for such dubious behaviours as those discussed previously with the UK plan.

[Archaic`]

Those prices are something, I must say. You guys are getting assraped. 5M down, 1M up, no caps and €36 per month here. If that measure increases the costs even further... *shakes head*

There are some legitimate reasons for some of our bandwidth caps. Australia's connection to the rest of the world is pathetic. There's simply not enough capacity to have that much data flowing. Sadly, the companies are milking that for all they're worth, while holding back on the infrastructure development. Telstra is particular, being the former government monopoly, have stopped a number of developments. It's taken a third party consortium building its own pipe to get Telstra to start its own long delayed project there, but even then we're unlikely to see a change in regular pricing levels, simply because the market now considers those normal.

[NoXion]

What would be cheaper, laying additional cable or launching a dedicated satellite? The satellite idea sounds easier from a technical point of view, but that's pure conjecture on my part.

Anyone actually know about this sort of thing?

[Uraniun235]

Satellites don't offer nearly as much bandwidth as a big undersea fiber-optic line does. They also impose pretty harsh latency issues, and they have more or less fixed amounts of bandwidth available for the life of the satellite. Contrast with a fiber line where you can upgrade the equipment on both ends in the future and suddenly increase your speeds, all because you can pulse the laser a bit faster.


Also, a solar flare or errant space debris isn't as likely to knock out undersea fiber.

[Stark]

Is Australia trying to fulfill George W. Bush's dream for him or something? Why does shit like this happen?

PS. I have to suspect that there must be a large fraction of your population which supports this, otherwise it's hard to imagine why politicians would get behind it.

It's not just that it's so ignored in the media I have to refer to European news sources to find some facts about it, it's that recently christian right lunatics have become quite powerful in AU politics. I believe Family First (christian maniacs US style) hold the balance in the Senate, and their pressure is what started this ball rolling years ago. It'd only take one hurtful news story on some bogan source like Today Tonight or A Current Affair to totally destroy the support for this... which tends to suggest monolithic media dudes are in favour of it. [/tinfoil hat]

However, if bobalot thinks a simple proxy will get around some of the deep packet inspection the government is considering, he has gravely underestimated how invasive these methods are. There's a reason your latency can jump a factor of four when this shit is done... and for many Australians, that just make pings to the US two full seconds. There's a reason I'm not hugely worried about this happening, as much as it disgusts and scares me that it's even considered.

[The_Saint]

Not much seems to be happening any more with that downloadable filter that a 16yr old cracked in a half hour, as much as this stinks at least Conroy isn't Helen 'I-will-personally-destroy-Telstra' Coonan, I shudder to think how more mismanaged Australian telecommunications might be with her and the other Howardites still about...

As for internet dealings, Telstra's always commited to dragging it's heels in an effort to force the Government and ACCC to change the regulations surrounding wholesale pricing of access to resellers... it's not something I agree with but it's about the only option Telstra has to get anything to change... I'll be curious to hear what happens after the 26th which I believe is still the closing date for rfp's for the National Broadband Network.

[Twoyboy]

Is Australia trying to fulfill George W. Bush's dream for him or something? Why does shit like this happen?

PS. I have to suspect that there must be a large fraction of your population which supports this, otherwise it's hard to imagine why politicians would get behind it.

Actually, I suspect there's a large fraction of the population that don't give a fuck (or at least not enough of one to allow it to sway their vote), and the supporters marginally outweigh the non-supporters enough to make it worthwhile for the government.

In theory, it seems like a good idea - stop Aussies looking at child porn, etc. As usual, the government are already completely fucking up the execution though.

[Xon]

However, if bobalot thinks a simple proxy will get around some of the deep packet inspection the government is considering, he has gravely underestimated how invasive these methods are. There's a reason your latency can jump a factor of four when this shit is done... and for many Australians, that just make pings to the US two full seconds. There's a reason I'm not hugely worried about this happening, as much as it disgusts and scares me that it's even considered.

Nope. It is a simply http/https proxy/filter. Hopelessly crap, but it doesn't do deep packet inspection on anything but port 80/443 traffic

[Stark]

Oh, have they chosen one? While I was poking around I saw some quite serious proposals for actual systems with approachs that might even work. Clearly my Google-fu is not up to it.

[Saxtonite]

[quote="Zac Naloen""]
Oh and it means they can see everything you do on the web and will catalogue it. Anonymously... (by an entirely crackable method)[/quote]

IIRC if you use Tor the most they can get is you connecting to another Tor node, after that.... Tor uses around 6 proxies on the average. Though holy shit. I knew the UK had some fucked laws...

Is it just me, or does it seem like regardless of where you live, this last decade has been marked by a general retreat of democratic rights and freedoms?

regarding the internet, there has been decreased democratic rights and freedoms. Say decade ago, the internet was a lot more free than now.

Why aren't people fighting back against this shit?

they are. Have you heard of stuff like Tor, Freenet, I2P, etc? THOSE will likely see an increased use in Australia if this actually happens.

[Zac Naloen]

IIRC if you use Tor the most they can get is you connecting to another Tor node, after that.... Tor uses around 6 proxies on the average. Though holy shit. I knew the UK had some fucked laws...

By the letter of the law it is illegal.

The enforcement agencies are choosing some interesting interpretations that is making some wonder just who's side they're on.

Luckily when it comes to this subject EU law supersedes UK law so I don't think we have anything to worry about, if someone tries to implement this the EU law makers will rape them. At least that's impression campaigners are getting.