Internet Censorship In Australia

[HyBriD54 0]

Stephen Conroy, the federal communications minister, has stated that the Australian federal government will begin censoring internet connections on December 24, 2008, despite strong opposition from experts and civilians alike.

Despite the significant opposition, the Government is pressing ahead with live filtering trials, which it wants to launch by December 24. ISPs, which already offer free filters but on a voluntary basis, are reluctant to take part but fear they have no other way of showing the Government the deep flaws in its mandatory censorship plan.

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This is supposedly being done to eradicate child pornography and other illegal material, but the filters that will be used have been tested to be flawed, blocking several websites that do not contain illegal material.

Internet providers and the government's own tests have found that presently available filters are not capable of adequately distinguishing between legal and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86 per cent.

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These filters are not only inadequate in law enforcement, but can also easily be used by the government to silence its opponents, something which Stephen Conroys office has already attempted.

Documents obtained by us show the office of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, tried to bully ISP staff into suppressing their criticisms of the plan.

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This proposed move by the government has severe implications for freedom of speech and individual privacy, and would drastically hinder the progress of the information and communication technology revolution.

I personally think that Stephen Conroy isn't sincerely keen about wanting the Australian public to be subjected to this kind of censorship, but pressured by the various political ties that are present within the government.

It's still disgusting nonetheless. I really hope that this thing is stopped.

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

well you have freedom on speach on one side and keeping kids safe on the other. There needs to be better way to block out these sites, True there blockers but face it. the kids of today know how to get around them.

[ilzwalrus 0]

Not only will they know how to get around the filters, the whole idea is dangerous anyway. What if a blacklist were to be leaked? Someone would have a list of active child pornography websites. The entire idea is extremely poorly thought out and frankly, I wouldn't be too hesitant to move country if this were to happen.

[hertonsils 0]

I am an Australian and I strongly oppose these internet censorship laws. For so long we have criticized china for their internet censorship and now we will be no better! On top of that the filter is done dynamically meaning that there is plenty of room for error and perfectly legitimate websites may be banned by accident. But the thing that really annoys me is it is going to slow our internet connections down, they reckon on average by 30% and on some connections up to 80%.

 

Plus they are charging us for the privilege.

 

Urgh what is the world coming to.

[Plenoptic 0]

There are countries that already have tried to implement this but people will always find ways around it. They have created programs that connect to proxies automatically and you do not even have to install anything on your computer. Those who really wish to access or start a site like this will always find a way as that is called perseverance. The government can try all it wants I suppose but it sounds like it has major flaws already.

[Nabb 0]

The upcoming Great Firewall of Australia is going to be extremely annoying, not only for the delay being created, but also for other reasons such as false positives and cost. 30% alone is a lot for users on dial-up, but an 80% slow will be a huge impact on everyone. One in twelve false positives is a huge amount, and a lot of websites will lose out on potential traffic (even though Australia isn't that large population-wise) because of this. It is also likely to be bypassable, through proxy websites, or a script to 'translate' blocked webpages if the testing done is dynamic. I'm sure most Australians would remember that a student cracked the last filters the Australian Government tried in half an hour (but surely it doesn't take half an hour to find a proxy), I don't expect this filter to be much better. And for people who have their favourite websites as a false positive, a proxy service is going to increase the lag on accessing the webpage even more. The milions of dollars in the project will in the end be passed on to consumers, and smaller ISPs may be affected badly by the associated costs. On top of all that, the government could filter websites for political purposes, as the description was put as 'prohibited content [..] as well as filtering of other unwanted content'.

There is an online petition available to be signed here for Australians who don't want the feed (and being GetUp!, it could actually have an effect!). There's also a counter on the right with stick-figures that you can make do a mexican wave

[kobra500 1]

We have a websense block in school and the blacklist was just sitting on the school server, publicly to everyone. I doubt anyone used it but they could of.