Australian Censorship Bypassed Before Live Trials 184
newt writes "The Australian Government is planning to conduct live trials of as-yet-unspecified censorship technology. But as every geek already knows, these systems can't possibly work in the presence of VPNs and proxy servers. PC Authority clues the punters in." Maybe the ISPs secretly like encouraging SSH tunneling — and making everyone pay for the extra bandwidth used. Not really; Australia's major ISPs, as mentioned a few days ago, think it's a bad idea.
The old saying still holds (Score:5, Insightful)
A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
(And if you don't know who, turn in your Slashdot account by tomorrow morning.)
=Smidge=
Positive aspect (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, We Take the Guns. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hrm, so 11 years after their Federal powergrab to start banning arms. Not as fast as some regimes, but fitting the pattern pretty well.
Remember what Paul Hogan says, "That's not a knife, this is a knife... that'll get you locked up for two years if you try carrying it in my country."
Australians used to be such bad-asses.
Disobedient (Score:3, Insightful)
you thought your actions were legal since there's a "foolproof" filtering system that should've properly protected you.
It's fool-proof, not criminal proof. Since you're reading material that's critical of the Australian government you've proven yourself a criminal.
Please come with us. *click-clack*
Google 'Nolan Chart' (Score:5, Insightful)
The US voted out the religious right yesterday. Pitty our religious right goverment isn't due for re-election for another couple of years...
It has little to do with being religious or right. The problem is statists, no matter their views on God, Gods, no Gods, or economics.
Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa (Score:3, Insightful)
1. http://www.google.com.au/ [google.com.au]
2. 'Australia internet filter bypass'
3. 95% of the population can bypass the filter.
Re:The old saying still holds (Score:5, Insightful)
A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
In fact, the original quote was that "Usenet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," although the saying is widely misquoted.
(Note how incredibly useful the uncensored usenet has become.)
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand SSH tunnels aren't amenable to caching. And no matter what, you're adding another hop.
Re:Uh. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm an Australian myself, and it saddens me to say that you might have a point there [convictcreations.com]. Australia's legendary convict streak [davewarner.com.au] has always been counterbalanced by a lurking streak of repressive authoritarianism [wikipedia.org] of a kind which, if permitted to fully express itself, would make the UK's big brother state look tame.
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Insightful)
.Until the Aussie government considers SSH, VPN's, and anonymizing proxies to be "hacking"(illegally circumventing a la DMCA) and takes steps to outlaw them.
While one can never account for the cluelessness and stupidity of so called "conservative" government, tools like SSH and general encryption are foundations of a lot of necessary infrastructure.
Re:Not very good blocking software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh. (Score:5, Insightful)
How many businesses rely on VPNs to connect their remote offices? How many sysadmins use SSH to remotely connect to their unix systems? If the government moved to outlaw VPNs and SSH, there is no point having an internet any more. If the government did this there would be a major backlash from the business community. It would be political suicide, if the current plan isn't already.
My internet connection is paid for by my current employer so I can (a) telecommute (VPN) (b) remote administer systems in case of problems (VPN, SSH). Its a home internet plan, so they could not simply limit this block to home internet users.
I repeat my point... if the Aussie government starts blocking every protocol that can be used to bypass their stupid filter, there is no point having an internet. Australia will be back to the stone age.
Re:The old saying still holds (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been said that prostitution is the oldest profession, but before they could be prostitutes they had to advertise their services.
Re:China! (Score:3, Insightful)
What American legislation? It seems that France, China, Australia, and the UK are the ones spearheading big-brother Internet censorship.
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Insightful)
I was going to say. It's nothing that a diamond head cement drill wouldn't solve. I'm just sorry you went for the easy invisible solution instead.
Nothing says "Fuck you HQ" like a bunch of cat wires dangling randomly from the ceiling.
Re:Not very good blocking software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The painful thing is (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, and the DMCA was a bi-partisan effort here in the States. Neither side cares much for digital rights.
Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? You might want to read up on California's newest constitutional amendment.
Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa (Score:4, Insightful)
Not if they block google.
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not very good blocking software (Score:4, Insightful)
It's becoming painfully obvious you're a highschooler trying to get around some stupid proxy. You don't "go find" hosts outside the firewall. You know what they are. They're your home computer, your home router (if you run ddwrt/tomato), your shell account provider (dreamhost for me). This isn't a proxy list, this isn't a list of proxies. It's a computer with OpenSSH running on it.
Everyone HAS told you how to do it, you're just so anxious about showing your l33t skills of haxoring to the Homecoming queen you aren't listening.
Re:Advantages to Censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
As an Australian who fervently opposes Chairman Rudd's censorship bill...
I'm Australian too and I'm getting increasingly annoyed with Rudd. I find the man to be less than genuine, and it doesn't stop with his pandering to China or fearlessly taking on a dictatorial line. He seems to remind me of that every time he's in the news. Like yesterday saying that Obama had fulfilled Martin Luther King's dream. Tell that to almost all the southern states - they all voted for McCain. I can't even think how I'd be feeling if I were a US secret service officer tasked with protecting the president (or family of one of these guys). How much did their life insurance just go up? That is NOT the dream MLK had. He was speaking about true equality and predjudice being a thing of the past. Way to go hijacking that dream to suck up to the president elect of the US. Idiot.
Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa (Score:3, Insightful)
Geeks are missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Misunderstanding (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm having a hard time if you're for or against it.
At the very least the "illegal material" filter will not block anything or will block too much, and at the same time it will increase costs to our already cost laden service, and decrease competition (as smaller ISPs won't be able to afford it).
This is without even considering the political consequences, who decides what's illegal? Is violence illegal? Is stupidity illegal? Is one mans definition of exploitation illegal?
For instance, Australia bans a lot of games and movies.
Additionally what about it being used to increase its power, Stephen Conroy and his team have already moved to silence critics from ISPs. What if he had a useful tool, say a filter, with which to silence his opponents?
It's a slippery fucking slope, starting with it being impractical and ruining our internet service industry and ending in us being even more at the whim of ficle political agendas.
Re:Not very good blocking software (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Discussing open network initiatives with members of '%' government? Inconceivable!