Hacktivists Force Pause in Australian Net Censorship

[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?

 

[DarkBlood626]

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.

Today child porn tomorrow your supported political party thats if the dam thing actually work witch looks unlikely.

Mr angry articulates it better then I could in the written word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j23gK2r525g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXSvzvQC5v0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Fo3KY4dB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dzyJuDaSXk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyw3tHX6G0k

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Hmm, These "hacktivists". Vigilantes. Secret identities. Scourge of governments and criminals alike. Driven by their own mysterious code of ideals. Act as individuals in loose association.

Superheroes and super-villains are not longer comic book fantasies.

Really how different is "Intentet Anonymity" from Peter Parker's "Secret Identity"

I wouldn't say these groups are super heroes. They are an underground resistance group a best, all secretly working for a goal through Sabatoge and guirilla tactics. This kind of movement is as old as dirt and is no way unique.

Real super heroes however do exist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7pB2gLZtlY

 

[marurder]

Its something they shouldn't enact anyway, it's a pity they are leaning this way for the WORNG reasons.

I am pleased anonymous supports this kind of ideal.

 

[SoulSalmon]

Well, Telstra might be out but most people I know (myself included) still use Optus :/

The "interpol approved" list of CP sites I could live with, since it would most likely JUST be CP sites, but a serverside filter is still a serverside filter, it will still raise costs and slow things down...

The main problem I have with the ACMA list is that ACMA do NOT want to stop Child pornography, they want to censor RC content, which is stupid...

 

[JET1971]

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.

There was allot more in the filter proposal than child porn. Telstra is using that as a defense just like the Au government was. If it was just about the child porn and nothing but the filter wouldve been passed a long time ago.

The blacklist list that was on wikileaks had some very interesting sites listed and had nothing to do with any kind of porn or anything illegal at all.

read up on it here:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-filter

 

[Damura]

Isn't this whole business to stop child porn sites? If so, what the flying fuck are people complaining about?

It doesn't work. It only hurts the good consumers. Besides, what would stopping people looking at child porn solve? It won't get rid of the content. Won't even slow down the production of the content. Child pornography is a problem because it harms children. Does this censorship do anything at all to prevent that harm? The answer is no. Not by a long shot. Besides, why would people actively seek out a service that blocks child porn? The people that don't look at that sort of stuff shouldn't be interested. For them, it doesn't matter whether it's censored or not. I mean I don't look at the stuff... would I choose a service that censors content (and inevitably it will censor 'legitimate' content) or would I go with the other company that minds it's own business?

Besides, anyone interested in child porn will just move to another ISP or they can just easily sidestep the filter altogether.

 

[AhumbleKnight]

The biggest problem with the filter and its claim to stop child porn on the internet is that it will, even if implemented by every ISP in Australia, not make any impact at all in reducing the access ability of child porn. As some people have already pointed out, it only blocks static websites. Child porn is transferred using online email accounts, hacked legit websites, and p2p services.

This is why most people are against it. It would work. It will block legit content. And there is zero accountability or any kind of public information on what is classified as blocked content. They shouldn't be blocking it anyway. They should monitor is and lock the sicko's up.

 

[Wintermoot]

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.

maybe but my point still stands it starts with child porn sites and the next step might be stuff like 4chan or wikileaks.

 

[Donners]

If it were restricted to child porn sites, I don't think most people would be at all bothered.

The issue is firstly that the original government proposal discussed a far wider variety of sites (including those relating to anorexia and euthanasia), secondly that the list of sites is kept secret - meaning that very few people actually know what is being blocked and thus cannot challenge anything wrongfully added to the list, thirdly that it would affect such a minute percentage of access to child porn that it serves no real practical purpose, thus bringing into question the motivation behind it.

 

[Filiecs]

One thing I'd like to point out is that if it's censored, how would you know your being wronged?

The Australian government could abuse this law freely and most Aussies would have no idea that their rights were being infringed upon.

Also, blocking CP sites isn't going to stop it from being made. It would just slow down the underground trafficking a bit before they found some way to go around it.

All in all this would bring more bad than good and the good of the community should NEVER go above the rights of the people without a 100% mass vote, and even then it's questionable.

 

[maxmanrules]

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.

But the thing is that these filters can easily be reappropriated to block other sites, such as whoever is in charge feels like blocking. It's basically censorship, like stopping the newspapers from running stories and the TV from playing news articles.
Blocking child porn is good, but it's a step on the road to the Chinese ways of total domination.

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

I'm rather conflicted in this.

For one, I absolutely hate the crazy amount of censorship being done by Australians.

But on another hand, this company seemed to only be out to block sites containing child pornography, something that is harmful to children.

Fucking grow a pair already.

Were you hacked or something? Because I've seen a few of your posts before, and they were at least semi-intelligent.

Right now you are completely for Australians losing their last bastion of freedom that is being uncontrolled by their rather dystopian like Government. Just realize that before you keep commenting on this shit.

You by yourself are making me think that there can be wrong opinions.

It's just the internet, which isn't the most important thing in the world might I add.

 

[Fasckira]

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 completely agree, I think this can only be a good thing but it is a step onto a slippery slope. Once the system is set up it becomes easier to start blocking other areas that they may not agree with.