Australia's Internet Filter Switches On In July

[archaicmalevolence]

Wouldn't it be better to remove the websites from the internet instead of just filtering them, yes i know it's not that simple but it sounds like we should avoid looking at the problem instead of trying to solve it in a certain perspective that is.
Though glad my internet provider doesn't agree to this. But the internet providers should really take into account what their customers want and not what they think is right.

 

[Forum_Name]

I hope this doesn't work, because it could effect or is affect world wide Net access.

"Could"?
This has been a cold war of attrition against freedom of information, and I see no end in sight.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/how-france-proved-that-the-internet-is-not-global.ars
IMO the use of Universal villains is merely incidental, convenient straw men to make otherwise distasteful legislation more palatable.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

Comparing Australia to China? Please. They are censoring a few child pornography sites to prevent people from stumbling upon them. They aren't going to start censoring whatever the fuck they want, and they aren't going to turn into crazy dictators. All of you are using the slippery slope argument.

You cannot accidentally stumble upon a site with child pornography. I honestly cannot believe you put that notion forth. Not only do those websites existed over encrypted dark-nets, one cannot simply stumble upon then using Google.

But hey, go to your local police station, ask to talk to the cyber crimes squad, then, with a straight face tell them "hey, why are you spending all this time and money looking for the sickos? All you have to do is surf around the net and you'll run upon their multi-million dollar crime rings".

-_-

 

[octafish]

This is private ISPs blocking sites to postpone the introduction of Internet Filter legislation for a year. It is not law. Postponing the legislation effectively kills it for four years because the Senate will not pass any bill introducing a Mandatory Internet Filter while the Greens hold the balance of power. The Australian Greens Party oppose the filter and would prefer any potential costs of the filter be spent instead on prosecution of child pornographers. Effectively what this deal has done is killed the internet filter, while providing Senator Conroy with a result he can call a win.

TLR This actual stops the filter from being made law. It is a GOOD thing.

 

[Autofaux]

And how will they magically gain the resources to keep this thing running? If the Government doesn't want anything to do with it, you'd best get a damn rich lobby behind it, or this filter will find itself full of unpatched holes.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

ADULT WOMEN SHOWING OFF SMALL TITS IS CONSIDERED KIDDY PORN as according to the advocates of this Internet censorship laws. Not joking. Look it up.

Fail.

Fail at researching.
Fail at believing a rumor on the internet.
Fail at reconvening said rumor.
Fail at suggesting others "look it up" when you yourself are entirely wrong.

Just fail.

What IS true, however, is that if a sexual image evokes anything related to under-18s, it is classed as child porn. This includes a thirty year old woman dressed in a school uniform, or something vaguely resembling a school uniform.

No. Not only are you wrong, your blind belief in propaganda and multinational stereotyping is worrying.

If you had researched the issue before commenting, not only would you realize how wrong you are, you may have saved face.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Australia, take your purse off. Its 2011, this "vulgarity" is now widely accepted, deal with it.

Since when? Child porn is still illegal in every other civilized country that?s the "vulgarity? that?s being blocked.

Yes and no.

Child porn in all forms is illegal (as it well should be), but the internet filter isn't necessarily targeting child porn, but targeting sites that contain "vulgar" material.

Who decides what is vulgar and what isn't? What sites are being blocked? What happens when people attempting to access the sites just up and move to new sites that aren't blocked? Why does the filter have to slow down Australia's already slow internet speed (among the lowest speeds in developed nations)? What happens if someone is linked to a site that has been blocked? Are they immediately placed on a pedophile database for eternity?

The Australian government recently proposed bans on pornography featuring small breasted women and female ejaculation. If these are the standards of vulgarity decided by the government, what's to stop the government extending the filter to other areas?

These are the sort of issues that are the cause of objection with the web filter, not child pornography. Nobody is launching mass petitions to legalise pedophilia.

The problem people face is that the government has really posed the question "who wants to stop child pornography?" and ignored alternatives including "who wants government censored internet access?" or (and I feel like a twat for saying this) "who wants an invasion of civil liberties?".

 

[uBert]

While I believe there is some merit to the idea of a government (or several crusading ISPs in this case) restricting access to websites that are already illegal to access within their country, I can't help but feel that it is incredibly naieve to think they will have any lasting success using this blacklisting approach. The Internet can adapt within seconds, and I imagine any organisation that tries to keep up with it will quickly become fatigued.

By my understanding, the only methods that would have any real chance of stopping the traffic of this kind of material would be incredibly invasive. However, since we are free to choose our ISP and they are free to name the conditions of the service they provide, the day may come where we will make a choice between a stable mainstream Internet provider that vastly comprimises our privacy, or a backwoods runner-up with no strings attached.

 

[monken8]

Hi an aussie here
just want to say that doing this is useless and it also opens the door to possible future website bans

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Also, if pornography was blocked completely, people would have to return to using their imagination, and I firmly believe what's in people's heads is approx. 17 times scarier than any '2 girls 1 cup' site.

No, no-one here who's anti the filter is pro paedophilia, it's just a dumb piece of reasoning designed to support handing over more control to the government.

I'd be amazed if there weren't massive loopholes allowing any aussie with a clue to access the whole internet after the wall was built anyways, however.

I'd like to know who's supporting the concept that women with small breasts equals child porn, the Australian Association of Plastic Surgeons by any chance? " Come buy some D cups, and no-one will mistake you for an eight year old".

I still am amazed that the 'special' episode of Brass Eye is still so relevant after all these years, the idea of those in power just going 'but the pedos! quick, ban things, in case pedos use them!'.

I remember Fox News making an amazing discovery that the Nintendo DS could send messages thru wifi, and so a child could send their name, address and when their parents would be away to a nearby a paedophile, therefore making Nintendo enablers of child rape. You know, a bit like a pencil would enable them to write the same message on a piece of paper.

Yes, child abuse is bad, and THAT is why we have LAWS against it. Same goes for internet piracy, shooting horses in the lungs with a nailgun and taking a shit in a library. We don't need new laws when it's already covered thanks very much.

Australia, the same country that's trying to ban swearing in public - have they MET an Australian? I'd offer my opinions on that, but it'd just get blocked...

 

[orangeapples]

wow, i must be thick >_> i kept reading 'child abuse websites' thinking 'there are websites dedicated to watching people beat up children? well, this is the internet...' only to scroll down a bit and see people commenting on child porn sites.

That makes more sense.

 

[MrStab]

snip

That's really a great tip and it's what I recommended to my girlfriend when she went to Dubai, but it does have problems with it.

It's actually traceable now, it's bloody hard and I think it was only proof of concept but someone ran a BitTorrent through TOR and tracked it in one end and out the other. I like TOR for bypassing what I think of as 'joke' restrictions; the kind no one seriously expects the moderately tech savvy to actually obey but I'd be leery about using it when your arse is on the line.

I guess it depends how seriously they take this filter, though with a name one letter away from 'ACME' I suspect the answer is 'not very'. But seriously this really sucks for our Australian users and the country at large. I can understand there's some scary shit online but if you feel the need to clean house then clean house, don't scoop the house up and push it into the sea!

Oh and for anyone considering TOR: it's a voluntary scheme set up for people to avoid real and unpleasant censorship and to get anonymous help. It's not designed to deal with large bandwidth stuff so they'd rather you didn't use it for anything like gaming or torrenting. There are alternative onion routing networks for that but TOR are very much against that.

It is stated on their site not to use it while using any form of BitTorrent because it screws with Tor and they are so easy to track. The funniest thing about this is the majority of CP comes from private networks, peer-peer and Tor so it will not stop any of it.

 

[Smeg_head]

And thus we are one step closer to our glorious People's Republic of Australia! /sarcasm

In all seriousness, people are going to hack their way right around this fairly quickly aren't they?

 

[ACman]

Australia, take your purse off. Its 2011, this "vulgarity" is now widely accepted, deal with it.

Since when? Child porn is still illegal in every other civilized country that?s the "vulgarity? that?s being blocked.

It's not actually child porn that is being blocked though.

The material being blocked is stuff that has been refused classification in Australia which includes: Adult women who look underage (Which seems to translate as any ladies who are under 23), BDSM, and watersports.

Distributing depictions of these things is against Australian Law and I can understand the government wanting to block stuff that legislation has banned. But they are trying to weasel it through by tying all of these acts to child pornography which I feel is underhanded and dishonest.

Some might find some of these acts distasteful. I find some distasteful. But they are nowhere near being in the league of child porn. (They're all legal to do for a start.)

For example, Abbywinters.com an Australian site featuring "natural" looking women is on the list to be blocked. I'm not sure on what criteria they chose as grounds for banning this particular website. I guess its the aforementioned ban on any girl who looks under 30, or perhaps because our pollies are scared that they might accidentally see their daughters with a face full of muff.

 

[SoulSalmon]

Why are people falling for the "blocking child porn" ruse again? this seems to be the "Clean Feed" all over again.
They aren't blocking "Child porn" they're blocking "RC content"... the new Mortal Kombat game is RC content...

Do you have any evidence of this?

That they're blocking RC content or that Mortal Kombat is RC over here?

To be fair I don't have current proof of RC content being blocked in this filter, but they did try to block RC content in the last filter ACMA was involved in [http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/cleanfeed] and this filter seems VERY VERY similar...

And Mortal Kombat is RC in Australia [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108045-Mortal-Kombat-Banned-in-Australia]

 

[Aedrial]

Mexican drug cartels have soldiers, should we just listen to them because we have a couple guns then?

Also, pornography is legal, what someone does with their own body is none of your business.

Edit: I know of course that the government has nothing to do with this filter.

Of course they should. They're powerful than we are. That's the way of things.

The people should never fear their goverment, the government should fear the people.

I believe you are just actively trying to incite a negative response to your strawman actions. If not, I fear that there are more like you and that makes me fear for humanity.

I hate it when people act entitled and think that they're more important than the government.

No, the people have every right to fear the Government. Guess who has the military? Guess who has the nuclear bombs? Guess who funds the police force? All the government. That's more than the people will ever have. And people have good reason to fear that.

Guess who elects the government? Who supplies the government with money? Who is in place to judge them and to make sure that they best represent the wishes of the majority? The people. The government is only there as long as the people wish it to be. The military is made up of the people, so is the police force and by election so is the government. They are no better than I, they are no more entitled to freedoms than I and they have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my life, within reason of course.

 

[Pyroguekenesis]

We have never been a democracy, it starts with the Internet.
Soon, we will become a Police State.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Giving the government more power in order to enable it to deal with a problem that it created in the first place is not the solution. Might as well hire a thief to guard your belongings.

Read my above post.

*scrolls up and up and up* WHAT above post? Do you mean the comment above this quote, which is PART OF THE SAME POST?!

If you actually bothered to do a little reading, you might have noted that I replied to two unrelated posts. Firstly, I made a point of explaining, at length, that there is a huge difference between censorship (which can only be performed by a government) and private firms refusing to carry certain kind of traffic, which they are entitled to do just as I'm entitled to refuse to let people write obscenities on my house if I choose to do so.

I then replied to someone who made a comment *encouraging actual government censorship*. Some people conflate the two because they fail to understand the essential difference between a private organization and a government. Private organizations cannot effect censorship. They simply don't have the ability to do it. (Most governments don't have the actual power to do it effectively, so they just make do with imprisoning/shooting anyone who says aloud what everyone knows.)

I'm not really in favor of or against this action. It's probably ill-advised, but hundreds of companies do ill-advised crap every day. I'm simply pointing out that ISP's have the right to decide what services they will and will not provide. If you don't like their offerings, go elsewhere. They can't stop you.

I do find it amusing that the Australian government decided there was no future in this blocking thing but the companies are going ahead with it anyway. Stupidity is not a monopoly of government, obviously.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Depends WHICH websites are banned, illegal, sick and morally wrong, i guess i could go with that, but something tells me their going to be right pricks about it.
A bit like my school, banning a website because it was under the category 'bad taste' and another for 'humour'.
Maybe they'll ban each others websites SO NOBODY CAN EVER SWITCH.

 

[Creator002]

Ah, damn it. I'm currently on ADSL2 with Optus. Not only does it go slow for about 5 weeks and fast for 1, now it's going to be filtered?
Great service, guys. Pity I'm locked into a contract until November.