Conroy resolute: No opt-out for filter

By Brett Winterford on Mar 29, 2010 7:44 PM
Filed under Telco/ISP

Slams Google and opponents on ABC radio.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has rejected suggestions from ALP colleague Senator Kate Lundy that the Government offer an ''opt-out' for its plan for a mandatory ISP-level filter.

On the eve of the introduction of filtering legislation to parliament, Senator Conroy appeared on the 'Australia Talks' program on Radio National last night to battle an almost universal condemnation of the filtering scheme.

Conroy said Australian citizens should not be able to opt out of the filter as the Government does not allow the same liberties with other forms of media.

"We don't allow people to opt out of [not being able to buy] DVDs of child porn," Conroy said.

Conroy said that "some people want to elevate the internet to something special" - a medium outside the realm of Australian law. But in a pointed attack at critics within the internet industry, Conroy said they should not expect special treatment.

The Minister described Google, which has repeatedly opposed the filtering plan, of having a single agenda - the love of cash.

"When people say, shouldn't we leave it up to Google, I say, I'll back Parliament to stand fast on this issue better than Google," he said.

Denies US criticism

The Minister said he had received no official complaint from the US State Department about his plans to filter the Australian internet. The Australian newspaper reported that the State Department contacted the Australian Government to express its concerns over the filter.

"I've had no contact with them at all," he said. "My department has not been directly contacted. They [the US Government] may be talking to [the department of] Foreign Affairs and Trade, but was unaware until I saw news this morning."

Minister Conroy said he was yet to be briefed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the matter.

Opposition

Opponents of the filter interviewed on the program predicted it would be circumvented using proxies and other means and argued that there would be "controversial websites caught up in the edges" of Refused Classification content that were not necessarily "abhorrent".

A caller accused the Minister of only using examples of content that causes "moral outrage" - such as child pornography and beastiality - as examples of what would be blocked, which suggested to him a "political agenda."

But the Minister argued that trials of the filtering technology found it to be "100 percent accurate".

There would be "no overblocking or underblocking," he said. "It is 100 percent accurate, and blocks only an individual page within a network."

He said that pages providing detail on how to commit suicide would be blocked, while pages containing debate about euthanasia as an issue would be left unscathed.

Conroy said the Howard government's client filtering alternative was a "complete failure" because less than 30,000 Australians downloaded a filter at a cost to the Federal Government of $84 million.

He said it took a 16 year old "less than 30 minutes to unlock the filter".

"Unfortunately, parents don't have as good as understanding [of the internet] as their kids," he said.

"Savvy internet users can get around almost anything put in place. But the issue isn't about whether its 100 percent successful.

"Are speeding laws 100 percent complied with? No. So should we drop the laws? No."

58 comments in this discussion

"@ Brett - thanks for the answer. the reason I ask is that I would normally self-censor, and I almost did in my original comment here before posting, but then I decided that in this instance it was ..."

By Mordd

Tags

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Comments: 58

Sams Mar 29, 2010 8:10 PM	Conroy: "Are speeding laws 100 percent complied with? No. So should we drop the laws? No." Are the speeds of cars on Australian roads remotely controlled by the government. No.
jmiller Mar 29, 2010 9:12 PM	Conroy is sounding more and more like the Iraqi Information Minister every day. "No, there are no mistaken sites on the list! The ISPs will surrender!"
Mordd Mar 29, 2010 10:06 PM	Quote Conroy: "There would be "no overblocking or underblocking," he said. "It is 100 percent accurate, and blocks only an individual page within a network." The Minister argued, for example, that pages providing detail on how to commit suicide would be blocked, while pages containing debate about euthanasia as an issue would be left unscathed." There you have it in black and white. No underblocking, no overblocking, 100% guaranteed by the Minister, and an assurance that websites debating as opposed to promoting an issue won't be blocked. I have to call Bullsh*t on you Minister, but you have said it so I am going to hold you to it. Conroy says the filter will be essentially perfect, flawless if you like, therefore if he is not able to deliver on this then the filter should not go ahead at all. Edited by BrettWinterford: 30/3/2010 02:18:19 PM*
scontrol Mar 29, 2010 10:17 PM	"Australian Government Proposes Road Network Filter" "Stephen Control, Minister for the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Eekonomy, today outlined a new filtering proposal - this time for cars on Australian roads." ... http://nationalfilter.net.au/media-releases/10-roadnet.html
ralph42 Mar 29, 2010 10:26 PM	A question: how does a page get taken off the filter? If it's filtered then no one can check to see if it is ok. Does this mean the government has an unfiltered feed to check pages? Taking that a step further does this mean there is one internet for the government and one for everyone else?
sydneyla Mar 30, 2010 7:20 AM	Will be interesting to see how [Conroy] he goes against Obama. Edited by BrettWinterford: 30/3/2010 02:18:43 PM
Cham Mar 30, 2010 7:35 AM	For all that I hate what he is doing, I have to admire that he sticks to his ideals. I have to agree with you Mordd, claims of 100% accuracy are bulls*t. The only way to actually guarantee that would be to have every website checked and rated by a human. Maybe this is some kind of new "work for the dole" scheme, where you have to submit 4000 webpage ratings a week in order to keep your centrelink payments. I am wondering how the minister defines a website that "contains debate". If I put up a website about euthanasia, with just information about it (but no details on who to contact to get it done, or details on how to do it), then that webpage does not have an ongoing "debate" about it. It is just information, like a book. Will it be banned? I am forced to think back to my high-school days, where I did an assignment on euthanasia. Part of the purpose for the assignment was to teach us research skills, and the other part was to teach us about ethics. I find it amusing that an internet filter that is supposed to "protect the children" might make it impossible to do the same assignments I did to learn about ethics. Edited by BrettWinterford: 30/3/2010 02:19:10 PM*
damaxx Mar 30, 2010 7:38 AM	And once again, rather than working with this new media, the goverment will try to censor, ban and control the information. 100% accurate? That is a bold statment. If this is mainly about child porn, how about tracking the perverts that are logging into these government known sites and arresting them rather than just blocking the site? All this filtering will do is make money for paid private proxy services.
umbria Mar 30, 2010 7:56 AM	"an almost universal condemnation of the filtering scheme." You guys really should get out more. There is 80 per cent support in the electorate for this filter, and that is the only forum that matters in politics.
Res Mar 30, 2010 8:29 AM	umbria: how would you be knowing this 80%, no-one I know supports it, not even my parents who are not internet users. this seems almost as funny as the figure on that abc show with a weird namea few weeks back, forget its name only time ive watched it, seemed to be paneled by alp members.
Ace Mar 30, 2010 9:47 AM	@umbria: 'Universal condemnation' does not imply that most people understand, or will vote against the filter. It simply means that almost everyone who understands the filtering issue is against it. As such, it would seem prudent that the knowledgeable people attempt to educate the un-knowledgeable about the issue. This is really difficult when you have someone with the media clout of a government minister hell-bent against accepting criticism or advice from industry experts, and high-ranking officials from countries we commonly look to regarding cultural alignment. For example, I would argue that Australians would tend to align themselves more closely with American culture than Chinese.
btone Mar 30, 2010 9:49 AM	Unfortunately for the Minister, who last night gave one of the most amateurish, misleading and cringeworthy exhibitions of political claptrap I have ever heard on RN, the feds last night comprehensively destroyed his bleating rubbish about the 350 child porn 'earls', stating what any researcher has known for years, that those who still cling to the credit card ancient soft core reposts change domains within hours. The existence of anything but 'parked' or 'dead' domains on his famous list is impossible. The only western democracy to try a mandatory scheme, Clownroy...you stand with the leaders of Iran, Saudi Arabia and China...be proud, very proud...
listohan Mar 30, 2010 10:04 AM	Does the government guarantee no house with government funded insulation will burn to the ground? Or that no one will be killed installing it?
cobrasixtysix Mar 30, 2010 10:35 AM	"You guys really should get out more. There is 80 per cent support in the electorate for this filter, and that is the only forum that matters in politics." Please state your source of 80 percent support, so we may contact, alert and educate them to the realities of this devisive legislation.
funkyg Mar 30, 2010 10:42 AM	Hang on! Wasn't the idea of the filter to block abhorrent content such as child porn (nit that it will). The example he gave was then about how to commit suicide. That's a bit of scope creep before we've even started! As an example if you had a terminally sick relative in great pain wouldn't you want to see possible options. Yes this is euthanasia, but that is a POLITICAL issue. Some countries for instance allow euthanasia. We haven't even got going here and they are already moving from the abhorrent to the political!
17user Mar 30, 2010 10:56 AM	Anyone else notice that when he is talking about the number of CP sites that are on the black list that he does not make any claim that they are currently active? His claim is simply that they are addresses currently filtered by other black lists... When asked about the Howard-government provided filter he claims it was a monumental failure, which it was. The demand for filtering: 30,000 downloads. The cost: $84 million. Time to circumvent by a 16 year old: 30 mins. So the overwhelming conclusion from this: next to no one wants it and it's an expensive waste of money. And Conroy's plan is to make it worse and then force it upon everyone; explain that to me again? No longer is it as effective as a dynamic PC-based variable scope filter. In the proposed architecture it amounts to cencorship and opens us to the potential of the system being abused. It is easier for said 16 year old to circumvent. Conroy expects ISPs to absorb the cost of filtering. And it will slow the internet for everyone, from gamers to businesses who are already hindered by our archaic infrastructure. Sure the filter will be 100% accurate. But Conroy is misleading the public. His 100% accuracy claim refers simply to the fact that the URLs on the list will be blocked. And they will be. But that is not the issue. The problem is that there will be sites on the list that shouldn't be, and sites that are not on the list that should be. That is where there is concern. And when doubts are expressed to this end he does not answer those concerns, he instead answers with the 100% accuracy claim which IS NOT RELEVANT to the concerns. Furthermore any high traffic sites that would cause problems for the blocking are excluded from the list. And conroy dismisses any technical concerns with his misleading "100%". Conroy stubbornly ignores the real problems and diverts attention. Yes you technically can filter a static list of URLs, but the internet IS NOT STATIC! And dynamic blocking introduces serious issues of innaccuracy and speed degradation. How much more misleading can he be? He gets in an 'expert' (from a filter vendor) to tell us that the planned filter will work 100% with negligible speed impact (apparently - was it 17%? - is negligible) at 8mbps and will still work at speeds greater than 8mbps (note he doesn't make any assertions as to the speed impact past 8mbps). So, great, we have a filter that will 100% do what it is supposed to do. But what it is supposed to do is by definition ineffective. (I guess that makes it 100% ineffective...) Doing some basic arithmetic if you assume only 1 trillion web pages. And the filter is blocking up to 10,000 URLs: that's 0.00001% of the internet blocked. So the internet is 99.99999% ok for kids. Something doesn't add up. But this is what the non internet savvy parents will believe, that the internet is safe for their children thanks to that nice Mr. Conroy. As evidenced by the caller who caught his son looking at porn on youtube. Not only is this material that will not be blocked, it is on a high traffic website that will not be blocked. And that's not even starting on chatrooms and social networking, the real danger for kids on the internet. How many more children are going to be exposed to such given that their irresponsible parents now think the internet is safe. I'll wager the damage is far greater that that posed by the 0.00001% of the internet that will be blocked. Someone should do some research, maybe, oh, Conroy or someone?? But Conroy lauds it as part of a package of measures. Apparently the government is going to spend 49 million on extra police for these issues. Which is actually less than the 52 million planned by the previous government. Dedicate the money to education programs to inform the parents, the AFP to prosecute the monsters. Client side filters are more effective and available free.
anonymous Mar 30, 2010 11:01 AM	@funkyg, like his Chinese counterparts that he admires so much, the minister knows the value of the big lie to get undemocratic policies accepted. It appears that he sees himself as Mao-lite, with only politically correct thoughtspeak permitted to be available to the proles. What's next from the fearless team of Kruddman and Conboy - one child per family? And @Cham "For all that I hate what he is doing, I have to admire that he sticks to his ideals." Maybe he's just stubbornly sticking to some very grubby political scheming without any ideals at all? .
gerson Mar 30, 2010 11:06 AM	F@$#%ING DELUSION LAWYERS!! Stay out of politics!! Every F@!$%ING lawyers in this countries have excuses, even shooting someone let alone an internet filter!! VOTE FOR GREEN!!
opressionHater Mar 30, 2010 11:21 AM	Last time I saw someone have similar views to our communication's minister they were on the following list: Adolf Hitler Mao Zedong Josef Stalin just to name a few of his type of visionaries! Is this what people in this country want to live in? Then all those who support him please migrate to China - they will welcome you with open hands! The rest of us who wnat to still have some form of freedom left - we will stay behind! At the next federal election people will have a choice vote communist party or anyone else! I know that Labor will not get my vote!
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu) Mar 30, 2010 11:40 AM	Mordd is correct in claiming that Conroy's "100% accurate" is 100%. The elephant Conroy avoided was "appropriate controls" (say Judicial review) to provide assurances against political censorship by future governments. Without a rock-solid independent process, what the Minister has proposed is entirely inappropriate... and he will yet learn that lesson. Justice Kirby et al are right in pointing out the threat against democracy that this measure brings... yet Conroy appears too childish to even recognise this valid concern. Like Howard with WorkChoices, some pollies simply think that if they shout down their opponents, the greater public will come to their way of thinking. The fact that the opt-in filter was SUCH a failure should be taken as instructive. Few "working families" wanted it. The client-side filter's technical flaws could be addressed by allowing people to sign up with their ISP for a filtered or unfiltered internet feed, meaning that the opt-in filter CAN be at the ISP side, but should not be compulsory. Those with children in the household would presumably opt for the filtered version, but the availability of unfiltered internet for reporters, concerned citizens etc would ensure political opposition movements could not be shut-down by a government of the day. The only 'sure things' from the filter attempts are (a) Labour will get short-term support from Family First; and (b) there will be a boom in satellite phones, with data feed packages.
Graeme Harrison (prof at-symbol post.harvard.edu) Mar 30, 2010 11:43 AM	Sorry, the ITnews filter dropped an important word. My first sentence was actually: Mordd is correct in claiming that Conroy's "100% accurate" is 100% bull***t.
Simon900 Mar 30, 2010 12:02 PM	So who gets to decide what goes on the Black List, and who monitors it? After all that, how long would it take to get something off the list? I know he's a hardcore Christian with identifiable lists to the Christian lobbies. But I'm not Christian, so why does their morals effect me? This is from the description of Refused Classification that they used: gratuitous, exploitative or offensive sexual fetishes; and detailed instructions on or promotion of crime, violence or use of illegal drugs. What is the promotion of Crime and Drug use? Can they explain this? Does Mad Max promote speeding and therefore a crime? What is an offensive and not offensive Fetishes? Any examples? Once I considered it the pinnacle of Western block countries, now it's a Christian center, which will draw more attention from Hardline Terrorists from other religions, who will want to attack us for "OUR" views. I fear a religious War is coming and the Government is providing the reasons, one by one.
Bazwalt Mar 30, 2010 12:04 PM	Look, we all know that the minister cannot possibly claim the filter to be 100% accurate. My ISP claims to me that not even their own scanners are 100% accurate and can only learn from reputation and score values. As most of us come from the IT sector - we all know that the filter has not been tested in speeds above 8mbit. We also know that there are so many variances in the technical aspect but also the morality aspect - therefore it is expected that the whole filter will catastrophically fail and fall to the ground. But one thing I do know and can say with great certainty - is that the filter will either not work at all ...or it will be completely over reactive and block everything in its path. Both paths lead to failure. The government will not continue to allow a system to remain active if it is going to cripple our communications. And if they do, they're only hurting themselves in the process.
Simon900 Mar 30, 2010 12:09 PM	My anger is messing with my Grammar and construction of letters. The above is not very clear, my apologies. 1: Conroy is tied in with the Christian lobbies 2: Australia was once considered (in my opinion) the pinnacle of Western countries.
Bourkie Mar 30, 2010 12:32 PM	'He said that pages providing detail on how to commit suicide would be blocked' I always piss myself laughing that Conroy thinks suicide and 'self harm' is illegal! Suicide has been legal in all Australian juristictions for decades!
FrankJackson Mar 30, 2010 12:52 PM	Mr Conroy. If google have such a "love for cash" with NO moral compass then why did they just close their business in China? I am positive google.cn was not running at a loss. So where does that leave you on the 'finance is their only incentive' statement? Just in case anyone needs to know how easy it will be to bypass this filter, just browse over to: https://www.ultravpn.fr/ You can get an account without giving your details (no email required). Download the client and off you go bypassing the GREAT CENSORWAY OF OZ. (((Please pass information to all your friends and make everyone aware that bypassing the filter is trivial - at best.))) We dont need 20 mins to bypass your filter Mr. Conroy. Now sit down, shut up and resign before you get sacked.
Ace Mar 30, 2010 12:53 PM	In Conroy's defence, at least he is being consistent by attacking Google using out-of-context remarks by the Google CEO and by (basically) calling U.S. State Department spokesman Michael Tran a liar. It also shows how hell-bent he is on this ridiculous scheme, despite the fact he appears to be really struggling to find anyone other than the Christian Lobby Group to back him up on it. I'm not sure what his attack on Google privacy credentials has to do with the price of fish. Does anyone know? Is he simply unable to focus on the issue at hand?
Sams Mar 30, 2010 12:53 PM	umbria: "There is 80 per cent support in the electorate for this filter" No there certainly isn't that level of support for this filter. The stats you are probably referring to is the old one for an opt-in filter for filtering child porn only. Otherwise, provide references. Have a look at the submissions, even the few that were pro-filter, invariably wanted it to be opt in.
meski Mar 30, 2010 1:06 PM	Oh, Conroy, you're such a kidder. No opt-out? How are you going to stop me?
Rhino Mar 30, 2010 1:08 PM	Apparently it took a 16 year old less than 30 minutes to break the filter. It will take less than 5 to circumvent this abomination.
coreychch Mar 30, 2010 1:25 PM	It's a case of "right idea, wrong mechanism" - no one is going to disagree with stopping children (or anyone) accessing kiddy porn, but applying a filter to a dynamic medium like the internet will be like trying to stop burglars entering your home by locking the front door but leaving all the windows open. From everything I've read on this filter, there is a lot of opposition, and Mr. Conroy is being very arrogant and paying little attention to it - instead pressing ahead with a very expensive filter scheme to block a few hundred URLs, that can be bypassed by anyone who takes 5 minutes to figure out how. Not a good use of taxpayers money in my opinion. I wonder how long it will be before Google pull out of Australia too?
Ace Mar 30, 2010 1:30 PM	We will still be able to access Google in Hong Kong via proxies in NZ :)
Ace Mar 30, 2010 1:47 PM	Here's my filtering script. It may be a little buggy, but hey, that's software for you: [code] if (1==0) { if ($url == 'http://kiddyporn.com') doBlockPage(); } [code] I'm willing to open-source this for use by Australian ISP's. Any takers?
Simon900 Mar 30, 2010 2:02 PM	@ Ace. I don't know mat, it will problay slow down my Internet.
netizen Mar 30, 2010 2:04 PM	It’s not just about kiddy porn, is it. It’s about something bigger than that. It’s about secret affiliations, intrusive surveillance, dishonesty and secret Catholic fraternities. The last three Communication ministers had what in common?
BrettWinterford Mar 30, 2010 2:28 PM	@ Umbria - comments (and a poll) on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, which isn't a technical audience as iTnews is, would suggest that nowhere near 80 percent of Australians support this legislation. Those that do I would suggest agree with it only in spirit, not in reality. @ Graeme - an interesting topic of discussion for the future of this filter - who would you prefer to have deciding how we define RC (ie what is filtered) in the future - the Government, elected by the people, or the judiciary, not elected - but overwhelmingly less likely to be influenced by the populist 'moral outrage' tactics employed by the Minister? @ Everybody - please restrict your criticism of Senator Conroy to his policy choices and refrain from personal attacks. Whilst our pollies have thick skins, I just hate having to 'censor' you!!! And thanks all for your thoughts on the issue, methinks its going to explode in the coming weeks.
netizen Mar 30, 2010 3:30 PM	Okay that’s fair, but let’s be open about what we are trying to do and who we are doing for. It doesn’t need to be a secret list. Once the entries are restricted at border gateway the list is superfluous you can’t get at it anyway.
coreychch Mar 30, 2010 4:33 PM	A quote from another story: "Senator Conroy has conceded that greater transparency is needed in terms of how content ends up on the blacklist, but last night he again refused to make the blacklist itself public, saying it would provide people instant access to the banned material." Instant access? Hang on, won't the filter block it? In other words - the filter won't be effective. Which means the most obvious question is: why are we wasting MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars on something which doesn't work? Mr. Conroy has to have another agenda here to be persisting with this. I honestly don't know why they asked for public submissions on the filtering policy as it sounds like they're going to ignore any criticism of it anyway.
legless Mar 30, 2010 6:51 PM	So if only 30,000 people downloaded the free filter offered by the former government, what proof does Conroy have that more than these 30,000 want filtering of any kind? No one that I know thinks it is a good idea including people who are not up to speed on technical issues. Why not just filter those 30,000 people's feeds. Oh wait they already have a filter. So Mr Conroy, really no one wants or needs another filter. 100% efective? Stopping all internet access to and spread of child porn? NO! Stopping all internet access to information of any kind? NO! 100% effective at what then? I'm also wondering who exactly gets to be the arbiter of what is "exploitative or offensive" or even what would be considered a "fetish". I actually find a lot of what people in office do, quite offensive but seems to matter little. Suppose I do weird and "offensive fetish" things with Plasticene or create porn with an Etch-A-Sketch. Are they going to block access to the Flair Leisure Products website in the UK? There are several ways I can think of to put downloadable euthanasia how-tos on a webpage that a filter would not block, or say, the "Terrorist's Handbook". Not that I want to. I would hope that a new government would remove this filter but it won't happen. They'll blame the old (present) government for putting it in place, then say "well it's not our fault but it's there now". This would be especially true if Tony Abbott were in power. Oppositions in government are never brave enough to do it themselves.
HubertCumberdale Mar 30, 2010 7:10 PM	you people have missed the bucket on this one, conroy will go ahead with his filter and there is nothing you can do about it... except circumvent it, which everyone will do except those that "opt in" to keep it and that is the point it is designed to fail so later on the government can introduce dpi, oh and as a nice side effect you can scan for copyrighted dataz
DanielBrown Mar 30, 2010 8:06 PM	@HubertCumberdale not entirely true, just the paths which are now open to are rarely walked. I believe there are quite a few options open to us. Firstly appeal the GG/Queen to intervene. Should the Government still take this stance, we appeal for this dismissal. Failing that we hit up the courts to directly challenge them. Options, but have been rarely used.
zag Mar 31, 2010 12:37 AM	This is the exact reason why this labour government should be chucked out and I'm sure that will be the case. They don't do a vote it's a case of oh and we're just going to filter the net now. The school results website had a lot of people against it majorly, and the government said the media isn't allowed to use the site to judge schools, what happens everyone uses it to judge schools in the media. Shopwatch and all the other waste of money and time, ideas. All the while spending 40 billion dollars to wipe out Telstra and setup a government owned Telstra only to be sold off again. Kevin Rudd is a waste of time, this labour lot are only screwing this country majorly with everything they attempt to put forward. The ETS had a tax that took a % for your money, this new hospital thing has a tax that will come out of your money. All you can do is vote for the liberals to get rid of them, voting for the other parties will be a waste of a vote.
Mordd Mar 31, 2010 1:47 AM	@ Brett - i just find it interesting that they make you censor the word "st" in the comments, especially in a day when its perfectly legal to tell a Police Officer to "fk off" as long as you don't do it in a threatening manner etc.. and don't raise your voice, etc... Is our society really so sensitive about these words of expression that in an in-context "s**t" can't go uncensored? Is your website required to comply with ACMA rules on swear words like TV/Radio broadcasts are or is this a ITNews personaly censor policy?
coreychch Mar 31, 2010 8:40 AM	I wonder if Mr. Conroy has spoken to the AFP about this story: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/child-sex-abuse-websites-hard-to-track/story-e6frgakx-1225847161424 Or again - is he just ignoring anything which shows up his filter as being a waste of time? You CANNOT apply a static filter to a dynamic medium such as the internet and expect it to work. The only way you'll ever get rid of unwanted / illegal content such as child porn from the internet is to cut it off at the SOURCE, not try to filter it out at the target. Honestly, even though I know it would be almost an impossible task, the money for this would be better spent co-operating with international authorities to shut down these sites and bring the people responsible for them to justice. Why won't he listen to anyone? Who on earth is he getting his advice from? He's definitely not an I.T. expert, so it must be someone with a vested interest in seeing the filter going ahead.
BrettWinterford Mar 31, 2010 9:37 AM	@ Mordd - Just trying to keep it classy mate. There is so much intelligent discussion in these forums and I don't want it diluted. Nobody is asking me to do it, I just took in on myself. I'm happy to discuss it further though.
anonymous Mar 31, 2010 12:10 PM	Good point, Brett, though the use of the word bullsh-, I mean bulls**t, is now so common, particularly relating to anything to do with pollies, that it's probably OK. After all, we wouldn't want to give anybody ideas about totally unnecessary censorship, would we? ;-)
Rhino Mar 31, 2010 12:41 PM	The Government clearly lied about the opt in/out filter to get elected. Make no mistakes they will tell whatever lies they need to implement this.
Sams Mar 31, 2010 1:17 PM	@ Mordd: as I have discussed before, moderation amongst a group of people that have agreed to adhere to a set of forum rules as a prerequisite of joining the forum is not "censorship". Especially since you a free to communicate your exact words through other channels, such as your own blog (and even pointing people to it from here I suspect is fine). i have often though about such dilemma as I am mulling on a policy development web application idea I have had for ages. Anyway, to my original reason for posting: The Age poll "Do you support the government's internet filtering policy?" closed this morning with the final result: Yes - 3% No - 96% Indifferent - 1% Yes, not scientific - but in the absence of any real surveys on mandatory filtering of RC material, this is all we have.
Sams Mar 31, 2010 1:19 PM	Oh and N=45154 and the link is here: http://www.theage.com.au/polls/technology/technology-news/internetcensorship/20100330-r9ft.html
BrettWinterford Mar 31, 2010 1:40 PM	@ Digger11 - That's trolling, mate. Cheeky, but I can't let that one go.
jeff Mar 31, 2010 5:17 PM	Hi Everyone I was the caller that accused the minister of only citing examples of blocked content that caused the most moral outrage. The minister is trying to present himself as some kind of moral crusader to the public and it is clear that the motives for a mandatory filter are entirely political. The minister seems to concede that the filter will be ineffective at preventing access to blacklisted web pages but insists that the government must do something because something is better than nothing (even if that "something" is useless). Now I ask you. Why would the government do something that was ineffective? The answer is because politically it is better to be seen as doing something rather than nothing (at least that's the advice that the political advisors give). We saw a similar thing with all the states bringing in "anti-biker" legislation. To quote the minister from his appearance on the Australia Talk program. "If someone said "look, here is one these 355 websites that includes child abuse material. What are you going to do about it" and if the answer is nothing than I think that's a failure for a government" He has basically just conceded that the motives are political. Now this really struck me as a very strange response given that most of the time when the minister is being pressured to respond to the internet censorships many shortcomings he gives the response along the lines of "the government has always said there was no silver bullet when it came to cyber safety and that's why our policy includes a range of measures" So how strange that he would now claim that if they weren't introducing mandatory filtering then their other initiatives effectively amount to "nothing". Furthermore the number of 355 active child abuse websites that he cites is highly inflated because all secret blacklists are out of date as soon as they are distributed. We have seen when previous versions of the secret blacklist were leaked that sites remain on the list months after any traces of RC material have been removed. Are we just expected to accept the honourable ministers word? In address to these concerns the minister talks about so called "accountability measures". Even going so far as to put out a so called public consultation process to try and be seen as being engaging. The catch 22 for the minister is that had the list not been leaked (three times) by a person or persons to whom we should be extremely grateful, the talk of these so called "accountability measures" would never have arisen. Had the list not been previously leaked (three times I remind you) I believe the minister would still be pushing ahead to blacklist the entire ACMA blacklist of "unwanted" content and trying to convince us to "have faith in our elected officials" and that we don't need to know what is on the secret blacklist. Thank you for reading
anonymous Mar 31, 2010 6:31 PM	It seems Conboy is becoming increasingly weird as his megalomaniac obsession takes hold - "If someone said 'look, here is one these 355 websites that includes child abuse material. What are you going to do about it' and if the answer is nothing than I think that's a failure for a government." As Conboy knows very well, child abuse material has always been illegal and therefore subject to existing bans and interdictions. So the answer is that the govt should not do anything because it was covered long ago. Not that this will stop Conboy from attempting to use pedophile material as the primary justification for imposing secret political censorship if he can get away with it. .
Mark D Mar 31, 2010 10:00 PM	@ HubertCumberdale: You are spot on the dollar. This goes far beyond Child pornography and into the void of protecting copywrite holders while introducing a new very fast national broadband network. The wedge argument is by far the killer issue here. Once introduced the government can keep face by not disconnecting copywright violating internet customers and outright filter them "clean". The possibilities become endless.
Mark D Mar 31, 2010 10:01 PM	please excuse the spelling mistakes.
SidSpart Mar 31, 2010 11:14 PM	Mark Webber states something that is obvious to those of us in Australia. We are living in a nanny state Day by day, knee-jerk legislation by knee-jerk legislation commonsense and freedom are being eroded. Look at the child abuse case that the Queensland police took Against Chris Illingworth when he republished a training film for a Russian circus family Criminal activity, will that include graffiti painting? Philip Ruddock banned a game because of it. Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. How about Hollywood movies that show and demonstrate illegal activity. There will be prescriptive censorship creep. If we ban this - then we must ban that Australia our ideals: A safe, cotton-wool ideas free boring society Webber quote: It's a great country, but we've got to be responsible for our actions and it's certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do I think we've got to read an instruction book when we get out of bed - what we can do and what we can't do
Sams Mar 31, 2010 11:16 PM	@HubertCumberdale I disagree that people here have "missed the bucket". Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, but I think most here are aware of the other uses the filter could be put to . If you don't think there is anything you can do about it, why post at all? Widespread deep packet inspection I would think would be impractical due to the the computational demands, and the fact it is easily circumvented by HTTPS and other SSL-protected protocols.
sqij Apr 1, 2010 11:03 AM	Instead of wasting $80million (or whatever is best-guess) on something that simply won't work, why not put that money into a fed-gov department for hunting down and prosecuting the PUBLISHERS of child porn!?
Mordd Apr 1, 2010 4:31 PM	@ Brett - thanks for the answer. the reason I ask is that I would normally self-censor, and I almost did in my original comment here before posting, but then I decided that in this instance it was "in context" and thus decided to just print the full word. would it have been better if I used crap instead of s**t, as in full of .... ?