Uproar In Australia Over Plan To Block Web Sites (AP)

[WillyT]

<snip>

SYDNEY, Australia - A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

Consumers, civil-rights activists, engineers, Internet providers and politicians from opposition parties are among the critics of a mandatory Internet filter that would block at least 1,300 Web sites prohibited by the government — mostly child pornography, excessive violence, instructions in crime or drug use and advocacy of terrorism.

Hundreds protested in state capitals earlier this month.

"This is obviously censorship," said Justin Pearson Smith, 29, organizer of protests in Melbourne and an officer of one of a dozen Facebook groups against the filter.

The list of prohibited sites, which the government isn't making public, is arbitrary and not subject to legal scrutiny, Smith said, leaving it to the government or lawmakers to pursue their own online agendas.

"I think the money would be better spent in investing in law enforcement and targeting producers of child porn," he said.

Internet providers say a filter could slow browsing speeds, and many question whether it would achieve its intended goals. Illegal material such as child pornography is often traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would not be covered by the filter.

"People don't openly post child porn, the same way you can't walk into a store in Sydney and buy a machine gun," said Geordie Guy, spokesman for Electronic Frontiers Australia, an Internet advocacy organization. "A filter of this nature only blocks material on public Web sites. But illicit material ... is traded on the black market, through secret channels."

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy proposed the filter earlier this year, following up on a promise of the year-old Labor Party government to make the Internet cleaner and safer.

"This is not an argument about free speech," he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We have laws about the sort of material that is acceptable across all mediums and the Internet is no different. Currently, some material is banned and we are simply seeking to use technology to ensure those bans are working."

Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, welcomed the proposed filter as "an important safeguard for families worried about their children inadvertently coming across this material on the Net."

Conroy's office said a peer-to-peer filter could be considered. Most of today's filters are unable to do that, though companies are developing the technology.

The plan, which would have to be approved by Parliament, has two tiers. A mandatory filter would block sites on an existing blacklist determined by the Australian Communications Media Authority. An optional filter would block adult content.

The latter could use keywords to determine which sites to block, a technology that critics say is problematic.

"Filtering technology is not capable of realizing that when we say breasts we're talking about breast cancer, or when we type in sex we may be looking for sexual education," Guy said. "The filter will accidentally block things it's not meant to block."

A laboratory test of six filters for the Australian Communications Media Authority found they missed 3 percent to 12 percent of material they should have barred and wrongly blocked access to 1 percent to 8 percent of Web sites. The most accurate filters slowed browsing speeds up to 86 percent.

The government has invited Internet providers to participate in a live test expected to be completed by the end of June.

The country's largest Internet provider, Telstra BigPond, has declined, but others will take part. Provider iiNet signed on to prove the filter won't work. Managing director Michael Malone said he would collect data to show the government "how stupid it is."

<snip>

Link: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081226/ap_on_hi_te/tec_australia_internet_filter

Go Michael Malone !!!

:toast:

:banghead:

OTOH - This might be just the thing to finish off the conservative movement in Australia.

:shrug:

[conspirator]

1. As long as they don't block internet gambling fine with me nt

[aldo]

2. Another fake democracy, eom

nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. How many minutes until G.Britain and Bush follow suit?

This is not about "pornography"..it is about control.
Always.

and when they have the internet speeds slowed down enought, then an ISP will come up with an
"enhanced speed" for an "enhanced" fee.

I wish someone would invented lawns that worked as wireless routers....

[Posteritatis]

6. Australia's waaaaaaaay ahead of the rest of the west on censorship

It'd take Britain or the US or Canada or whatever quite some time to catch up with how ridiculous they've gotten.

[RandomThoughts]

4. Most of this article sounds like it is to protect the public good

What person would not want filtering of such illegal, dangerous, demented stuff.

Until you read one line in the post.

The list of prohibited sites, which the government isn't making public, is arbitrary and not subject to legal scrutiny, Smith said, leaving it to the government or lawmakers to pursue their own online agendas.

So what thinking person believes the government won't abuse this, and soon anyone with views against the current people in power, will be censored.

This is more then censorship, this is a major salvo fired at the free people of the world.

If this was done with open, non secretive, methods, then it would be possible to believe they actually had the good of society in mind. This is pure information control, and can not happen.

If this is done by private sector industry, it is just as bad. Secrecy is the crime here, because with that, the actual use of the program is covered by its claimed PR reasons. PR reasons wrapped around a program so officials can smear those that protest it.

This has a technique that is not new.

[WillyT]

5. Yep... Sort Of Like Warrantless Wiretapping, No ???

Being for the public good and all...

:shrug:

:hi:

[lovuian]

7. they will just go underground

Filters don't work but go ahead and try

Fools of censorship