Australian internet censorship now compulsory

[weemadando]

Fuck you Conroy. You will no longer be allowed to opt out of the censorship. And they're expanding it to now include sites on such topics as euthanasia. Fuck this.

[/b]VIVA![/b]
[img]http://medias.lemonde.fr/mmpub/edt/ill/ ... rc.jpg/img]

[quote="News.com.au
No opting out of Australian plan to censor websites
By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson

October 29, 2008 12:00am

THE Federal Government will make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced.

Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government's $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers - one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a "clean feed", censoring adult material.

Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block.

"We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material," he told a Senate Estimates Committee.

Previously the net nanny proposal was going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option to contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service.

Groups including the System Administrators Guild of Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia have slammed the proposal, saying it would unfairly restrict Australians' access to the World Wide Web, slow internet speeds and raise the price of internet access.

EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

"If the Government would actually come out and say we're only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate," he said. But the Australian Christian Lobby yesterday welcomed the Government's proposals.

Its managing director Jim Wallace said he expected resistance from the industry but the measures were needed.

"The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry's desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said. [/quote]

[weemadando]

Fuck you Conroy. You will no longer be allowed to opt out of the censorship. And they're expanding it to now include sites on such topics as euthanasia. Fuck this.

VIVA!

No opting out of Australian plan to censor websites
By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson

October 29, 2008 12:00am

THE Federal Government will make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced.

Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government's $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers - one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a "clean feed", censoring adult material.

Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block.

"We are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material," he told a Senate Estimates Committee.

Previously the net nanny proposal was going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option to contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service.

Groups including the System Administrators Guild of Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia have slammed the proposal, saying it would unfairly restrict Australians' access to the World Wide Web, slow internet speeds and raise the price of internet access.

EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

"If the Government would actually come out and say we're only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate," he said. But the Australian Christian Lobby yesterday welcomed the Government's proposals.

Its managing director Jim Wallace said he expected resistance from the industry but the measures were needed.

"The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry's desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said.

[Guardsman Bass]

Couldn't you get around it by using proxy servers and the like? Still, it's a pain in the ass.

[The Romulan Republic]

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?

Why aren't people fighting back against this shit?

[weemadando]

That's really the least of my issues with it. My big problem is that it's ISP level filtering and they're expecting the ISPs to wear the cost of implementation.

So, our already outrageously priced broadband just got will just get worse. To give you an idea of just how expensive, I just upgraded to an ADSL2+ 60g onpeak/60g offpeak plan for the bargain basement price of $120 a month - that's the fastest plan, with the biggest cap I could find. And it costs.

And of course, despite the fact that the proposed methods have decreased net speeds by up to 80% during trials, my ADSL2+ might as well just be fucking dial-up again.

What this is, is Luddite, draconian bullshit foisted on us by fundamentalists masquerading as politicians. And you can be damn sure that I'm writing some very, very angry letters about this.

[weemadando]

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?

Why aren't people fighting back against this shit?

In my case, I'm willing to write some letters and talk to MPs in person about this stuff when I can. But, thus far Australia is still faring much, much better than the US. Armed, violent struggle is not yet called for.

[Stark]

Let's all save our hysteria until anything actually happens, eh? This is pretty terrible, but it's pretty unlikely to be remotely practicable.

[weemadando]

Dude, I work in the Public Service, frequently the first we know of a new initiative is when a customer comes in having heard about it on the radio.

Impractical, insular and stupid is what our government (Labor or Liberal) does.

[The Romulan Republic]

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?

Why aren't people fighting back against this shit?

In my case, I'm willing to write some letters and talk to MPs in person about this stuff when I can. But, thus far Australia is still faring much, much better than the US. Armed, violent struggle is not yet called for.

I meant "fight" in a figurative sense, and not in the sense of a literal violent revolt. I can't speak for Australia, but armed revolt is certainly not yet justified in America either. Unless the GOP somehow pulls off a win this election, the legitimate political system is still at least partly functional.

[Flash]

Dude, I work in the Public Service, frequently the first we know of a new initiative is when a customer comes in having heard about it on the radio.

How is this statement relevant?

Anyway, until we get something a little more concrete than "Rar rar censorship rar!" i'm not going to get overly worked up about this. Fuck, Conroy can't even say what is going to be blocked specifically:

Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block.

To be blunt - it's a fucking stupid idea, and so horribly impractical that I doubt it will ever get off the ground.

[weemadando]

Dude, I work in the Public Service, frequently the first we know of a new initiative is when a customer comes in having heard about it on the radio.

How is this statement relevant?

Simply responding to Stark's statement that a politician making an announcement and it being impractical in no way stop it from being made into official policy.

[Darth Fanboy]

And you can be damn sure that I'm writing some very, very angry letters about this.

The way things are going down there, those letters would probably be faster than emails anyways.

[Stark]

It can be 'official' all it wants (and it's a terrible reflection on the minister and the cabinet) but whether it DOES five-eighths of FUCK ALL is quite separate. Since I can't find any detailed technical descriptions of what they're going to do - it's exclusively politician 'protecting' and 'clean' and shit - I really have very little reason to believe anything is going to happen whatever. When it does fail, this guy better lose his fucking job, though, he's clearly utterly incompetent to perform his job.

To be honest, the worst case I see is that they have a 'system' they plan on 'implementing' but it's stuck in development hell because of the obvious technical problems and nobody wants to wear the horrible fallout of both retarded censorship AND crippling performance problems nationwide. The politicos probably plan to sit on it until ti can be rolled out without a problem which will never happen. If someone sets a firm date (firmer than January) maybe they'll be forced to bite the bullet, fuck the net for the whole country, and then repeal it in utter discrace.

[Zac Naloen]

Hey Stark, look up something called Phorm a company that wants to implement it's "protection" in the UK (It's apparently illegal under European law though). Plenty of technical specs on that, and I suspect this is what they want to use.

[Stark]

Are they behind the old WebWise stuff? Heh, no wonder nobody wants to drop THAT name.

[Zac Naloen]

Yep, Webwise is the stuff. They want to put some hardware at the ISP's backbone that will filter everything to protect you from phishing and deliver targeted adds.

Oh and it means they can see everything you do on the web and will catalogue it. Anonymously... (by an entirely crackable method)

It gets more and more sinister the more we hear about it.

[Stark]

Yeah I followed the name into their plans for the UK, that's pretty crazy shit - even more so since it's just blatantly marketing related, no moral or political justification at all. It wouldn't surprise me if something similar was one of the options being tested here, since they're already doing deep packet inspection. It's interesting to note that because it's ISP-level 'product' there's already some backlash - with AU's federal-level system, it'll be very difficult for them to step back without ending Conroy's career. You'd think he'd have the balls to just say 'yeah four years ago we threw some ideas around, but it turns out the only solutions are more or less totalitarian and unworkable, sorry'.

[Archaic`]

To give you an idea of just how expensive, I just upgraded to an ADSL2+ 60g onpeak/60g offpeak plan for the bargain basement price of $120 a month - that's the fastest plan, with the biggest cap I could find. And it costs.

The state of broadband in this country is certainly disgraceful. TPG has a 200GB plan, but their "off peak" of 160GB is 4am to 9am, so it'd be difficult to use that anyway. Personally, I'm stuck with Telstra cable, since they fucked up the infrastructure for my suburb and won't increase the number of ADSL ports in the exchange, even though there's demonstrated room available. 25GB transfer a month (including both uploads and downloads), for the "special rate" of $79.95 a month.

[Edi]

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*

[apocolypse]

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*

I was thinking about that too. Aussies do definitely pay out the ass for internet. I won't be bitching as much about my plan now.

[Vympel]

The state of broadband in this country is certainly disgraceful. TPG has a 200GB plan, but their "off peak" of 160GB is 4am to 9am, so it'd be difficult to use that anyway. Personally, I'm stuck with Telstra cable, since they fucked up the infrastructure for my suburb and won't increase the number of ADSL ports in the exchange, even though there's demonstrated room available. 25GB transfer a month (including both uploads and downloads), for the "special rate" of $79.95 a month.

You too, huh? I pay the same. I only recently upgraded by plan from the absurd $59.95 for 12GB plan - you can just tell they're trying to get people to pay $20.00 more, since paying that much gives you over double the bandwidth.

This country's entire infrastructure is a disgrace.

[Darth Wong]

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.

[Uraniun235]

The real hilarity will be if they go through with it, and actually implement the part I've heard rumors about which involves compromising all HTTPS traffic with man-in-the-middle attacks, just to make extra-sure nobody's getting to illicit websites.

Like Stark said, it may not ever happen - but if I wasn't convinced before I certainly am now, Australia's government has an insane hatred for the Internet. The real question of interest is: why?

(Maybe a bunch of politicians got burned on the dot-com bubble?)

[Zac Naloen]

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.

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.

[Darth Wong]

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"?