Hacktivists Force Pause in Australian Net Censorship

[lacktheknack]

Because attempting to enforce longstanding law is such a terrible slippery slope.

Yeah, blocking those nasty sites is one thing, next bulletproof vests as a solution for gun crime...

Strikes me as a wonderful way to say "We can't be arsed dealing with the problem, so lets sweep it under the interwebs rug and pretend it's gone away"...

This is somehow worse then TRULY ignoring it by... ignoring it?

You act like they have options. THEY DON'T. Their options are "block it" or "don't block it". If they're extremely lucky, they can backtrace one of them or fool one into a trap, but most pedophiles are way smarter then that.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

In conclusion, thank fuck I'm with iinet, who, while not being for child pornography, are against censorship of the internet, especially really bad censorship.

iiNet have gotten more and more anti-regulation of the net ever since those seppo movie companies tried to sue fuck out of them.

And for those locked into Telstra: Say thanks to Anon and clap quietly please

Not until they scare Telstra into providing decent customer service.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Honestly, while I hate the thought of Australia going the way of china, what probably isn't apparent is that the UK already does this, and nobody really notices.

Seriously, if you try and find child porn sites (like the kind the list they're talking about here probably contains) from the UK, it's as if they don't exist, because they're being filtered out.

So... When I look at this issue I don't know what to make of it.
Because of what China has done, and the obvious lack of accountability in what is being proposed, there's certainly valid concerns about Austalia's attempts to filter the internet.

On the other hand, I've heard no mention of anyone being too concerned about the sites being filtered out in the UK, and it's not like you notice it anyway...
I've come across so much extreme content even with this supposed filtering that it's pretty obvious that what is being filtered must be very limited (and pretty messed up indeed considering what isn't being blocked.)

 

[5t3v0]

It won't only blacklist child porn sites. It has a whole list of things that by normal standards are just NSFW (including small breasted porn... because of its proximity to child pornography...) and even then, if a legitimately safe site gets filtered, such as a dentistry (that happened in England with their web filtering trials) the appeal process is little to none.

They are trying to filter something that is feasibly and logistically impossible, and child porn sites aren't even public, so blocking those ones is also impossible unless you know more than you should (as in, you ARE a user of said sites)

I did a legal studies presentation on internet censorship. I could go on.

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

You know what's funny?Instead of tracking people who visit these sites and checking on their activities and I mean really checking on their activities not arresting them on the spot(there are people who visit by accident/curiosity and there are sexual deviants like that who wouldn't touch a child and keep their thing in check) the government censures sites because it's easier.I also think that they won't stop at just that.I have a whole lot of videos on Youtube blocked off especially ones uploaded by corporations because apparently I belong to a country of pirates and I'm not entitled to watching what the rest of the world does.

 

[Spygon]

well you have to be on one side or the other a free internet or everything filtered.I still prefer the free internet and freedom of choice but disagree with child porn.

But its one of the other so i will stand for a free internet and still support most of Anonymous ideals

 

[Treblaine]

I'm not saying that countries shouldn't have the power to block websites, but just that that power should be extremely limited and with many checks and balances.

For example each site blocked on a site-by-site basis by a court, with a full appeals processes and NO POLITICAL INFLUENCE! A lot of people poo-poo America's bill-of-rights (usually the liberal gun-hating types who dislike the 2nd amendment) but this is enshrined in the 5th Amendment that guarantees Due Process. In other words the leaders cannot be a tyrant ruling by whim, but rule by law.

At the moment this "blacklist" clearly has a LOT of political meddling and even if it doesn't at the moment it will in the future. It doesn't matter if this blacklist is enforced by law or if the government abuses it's position of controlling taxations/licensing to force ISPs to enforce the blacklist.

If there is child abuse online, then the police and the courts deal with that. NOT legislators with special interests, NOT executives (Premier/President) on a vendetta. The courts should go through all the motions of valuing pros and cons of the censorship, and keep front and foremost their aim is to PROTECT CHILDREN, not act as morality police. A good measure would be if they aren't going to prosecute people for owning the content on the site, what justification is there for blocking the site?

What we are seeing in Australia is terribly bad governance, the way they slap-dash these measures together, they do nothing to satisfy the concerns of their critics.

 

[The Random One]

So the one time Anonymous got real change done is the one time they didn't actually do anything?

I... wow.

 

[Canid117]

So wait....Stopping people from looking up child porn is bad? Now i may not be a genius but last i checked child porn is a horrible thing and if that is what they are blocking i am all for it.

I think it,s more the principle and fear they might censor more sites in the future (torrent sites or 4chan for example).
if they can do this what,s their next step going to be? blocking Wikileaks or 4chan?
I,m going to use a quote here:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Godwins law strikes again. Maybe choosing something other than a poem about the Holocaust would be a better idea the next time you want to support a free net.

 

[octafish]

Ok I think I may have to do this in caps to get the message across. God help me.

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED AT MAKING THE MANDATORY INTERNET FILTER INTO LAW.

THE AUSTRALIAN MANDATORY INTERNET FILTER IS DEAD IN THE WATER.

THE AUSTRALIAN GREENS HOLD POWER IN THE SENATE UNTIL THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION AND WILL BLOCK ANY ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE FILTER LAW.

These companies agreed to implement a reduced blacklist on their customer base in order to postpone the introduction of any internet filter legislation until the July 2011 after which the Government lose the balance of power in the senate.

Telstra has a monopoly on wholesale ADSL, but are not forcing their wholesale customers to adopt the filter.

If your ISP decided to filter your internet what would you do? Find another ISP? That is the option for the majority of Australians. It is more problematic in country areas because not many companies are competing out there.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

So wait....Stopping people from looking up child porn is bad? Now i may not be a genius but last i checked child porn is a horrible thing and if that is what they are blocking i am all for it.

In itself no. But it's a form of censorship forced onto you by a company/government, and is not only limited to child pornography. As time progresses they might put filters on other stuff as well and you, as end user, will have no say in that. It never should be in ISPs or governmetns power to filter what you can and cannot access through internet.

Exactly because by that time they have filtered everything they will think they are doing good when in fact all they are doing is abusing power to censor anything on the internet which in my case is always bad.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I really don't see the issue, and I'm Australian. It's opt-in, who gives a fuck?

 

[Raptorace18]

The problem with blocking Child porn with this filter is that from what I have read in some computer magazines, pedophiles don't share child porn over the regular internet, but rather on private P2P networks. That or they use programs like Freenet or TOR.

I may be wrong about that, but it seems logical. Given that Google and others can track all your web searches why would anyone risk looking up such stuff on the regular internet if it could be traced to them?

 

[Therumancer]

So wait....Stopping people from looking up child porn is bad? Now i may not be a genius but last i checked child porn is a horrible thing and if that is what they are blocking i am all for it.

"stopping child porn" is simply the usual "b-b-but think of the children" political excuse for putting draconian law enforcement into place. What they are basically trying to do is create a national firewall to stop pretty much whatever the people in goverment think
should be stopped. There has been a lot said about it over a period of time, with everything from stopping child porn, to cultural preservation from outside ideas, being mentioned at one time or another... with various degrees of sanity.

The thing is that by trying to tie the issue to things like Kiddie Porn it becomes hard for people to say "well I think it's okay for people to see that" and oppose the law, but in this case a lot of people have looked past that and despite the supporters harping on that one aspect, the issue is pretty much one where nobody wants anyone, even a goverment, to have that kind of control over free speech and expression.

Hence why this company is talking about walking on eggshells and is afraid of groups like Anonymous if they go forward with this in any way, shape, or form.

If they can find some way of targeting kiddie porn sites without infringing on other forms of free speech (even those they might not care for), I doubt many people would have an objection.

But then again I'm a big belief in free speech, bring free speech. See, I'd argue that it's king of pathetic that they are trying to target things like child pornography by making it harder to purchuse/view and thus unprofitable... in my opinion they should be taking all of this time and effort to you know... go after the actual pornographers.

See, right now there are all kinds of civil liberties and due process laws that make going after the people doing these crimes difficult. To my way of thinking, if the goverment is going to start stepping on rights, why not start by making it harder for people like this to hide behind the legal barriers the goverment has otherwise put into place. Loosen up on whatever passes for search and seizure laws when connected to certain crimes like kiddie
porn or whatever. Take the sickos out directly.

Of course the reason why you won't see that is because the endgame is less appealing to a politician, the goverment getting it's fingers into free speech is a big deal, loosening up search and seizure laws or whatever annoys people and doesn't carry with it the same degree of power that the goverment actually wants.

At any rate Encyclopedia Dramatica has returned so:

http://encyclopediadramatica.ch/Operation_Titstorm

That's coverage on Anonymous Vs. Australian censorship, and lays down Australia's position in it's own way, along with some of the more outlandish things it's tried to censor... like porn of small breasted women (in general) which is where the operation took it's name.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

HOLY f**k! Anon's plan worked?! WOOOAAAAAH!!!

Faith in humanity: +69.

 

[Awexsome]

Ugh... A slippery slope on both sides here... Yeah the internet companies or the government eventually may get out of control with their restrictions if left unchecked... But is the real solution to back cyber terrorism?