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.
Uh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Ssh typically does compression and then encryption, so we might very well end up with a net savings in bandwidth.
Not very good blocking software (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uh. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It can "work" (Score:3, Interesting)
He mentioned adding it to the root certs to get around that. Just persuade Microsoft to add it as a "critical automatic update" and the majority of people won't notice a thing.
The internet is end to end (Score:1, Interesting)
It's time to enforce the dumb network model. Too many network operators aren't content with just moving data around for their customers. Port filtering, bandwidth shaping, transparent proxying and filtering are all violations of the dumb network [wikipedia.org] design and the current attempts at limiting the freedom to access public information prove that leaving the dumb network model is a slippery slope.
Misunderstanding (Score:5, Interesting)
The filter is there for people who don't want to bypass it.
The only reason there is no opt out planned for the "illegal material" filter is because a "reasonable person" should not want to opt out of it.
In other words: it's not malice, it's stupidity.
Re:Uh. (Score:2, Interesting)
I currently work for an unamed large geotechnical company with HQ in Holland. Their bonehead corporate ICT network routes all traffic through a global gateway in either Holland or the US. I work in Perth, Australia. To access a server on the floor below, the packets are going 1/2 way around the world and back. And its fscking slow.
Thank god for our hosting networks ;)
Or use OpenVPN! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's LZO compressed by default - not to mention encrypted and X509 authenticated - which probably means a net reduction in bandwidth. Go visit their site. [openvpn.org] It's truly excellent open source software.
But seriously. As a practical matter, anyone stuck behind state censorship can use a friend's OpenVPN and proxy in another country.
Somewhat relative: (Score:2, Interesting)
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
-- Adolf Hitler
Sorry for Godwin'ing this article but it is quite relative. Senator Conroy is trying to argue this like a Christian, any time someone speaks against him about the filter he just puts his fingers in his ears and says "la la la can't hear you, you're a pedophile because you oppose my filter"
Re:Advantages to Censorship (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that this whole thing looks to be a pander to Steve Fielding and Family First, I think the better solution will be to start blocking things they care about. That and downloading porn and asking them to grade it for me.
I've had just about enough of FF. Rigging Australian Idol didn't bother me, but now they're trying to shut down the web.
Re:Uh. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not convicts ... sheep. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh please! Australia's convict legacy, (along with Australia's image of itself located in the bush or the outback, the bushranger rebel etc) is just over-romanticised nonesense. The fact is only NSW and Van Diemens Land (as it then was) were founded as convict colonies. The other states were founded by free settlers. And even in NSW and Tasmania the contribution of convicts to the population is insignificant (say compared to the fossickers who came during the 1850s and 60s). Let's stop pulling our collective dicks about that one. The truth is that Australia is, and has always been, a highly urbanised country made up in the made of staid townsfolk.
There really is no need for 'repressive' authoritarianism. The Australian population are docile with not the least streak of the convict or the rebel in us. Freedom of speech, separation of church and state etc. as abstract civil liberties have no resonance for Australians as they do for people who actually had to fight to gain independence and liberty.
A few will jump up and down, but on the whole 'we' will simply sit back and let the govt get about its business do this. And then just quietly use proxy servers to get our pr0n. And the govt, having satisfied the "fundametalist luddites" (read: FamilyFirst(tm)) won't care (unless the fundies grow a brain and want anonymisers blacklisted too). Tell me it isn't so.
Sorry, but having to fight to keep my kids out of scripture classes at our local public school (NB: we have almost the same provision against establishing religion [austlii.edu.au] in our constitution that makes this illegal in the US ... but no one gives a shit) against the apathy of other "atheist" parents who can't see anything wrong with the school turning their kids over to evangelicals who employ "the latest developements in developmental and cognitive psychology" (from the course materials) to indoctrinate defenceless 5 year olds, has left me with no illusions that Australians actually care ... about anything other than sport that is. (Actually I've only been here since '71 so maybe it's just my crazy reffo way of thinking). I'll get off the soapbox now.
Re:Not convicts ... sheep. (Score:3, Interesting)
When deciding whether to allow them to have access to my first kid I bought their course materials. I have no problem at all with kids learning bible stories (I'm a amateur wannabe bible scholar myself), or being taught to be kind to one and other (in fact if the catholics we here I might let him go). But that is not what is being taught. The course has been cleverly designed to inculcate the kids with fear and an unshakeble belief in God as the evangelists see him (complete with creationism).
Hmm, I know the problem. I fixed that in my kids' school---I teach the Scripture lessons. Few of the kids in the classes I teach (11-12 year olds) had heard of evolution until I taught it to them last week.
It wasn't strictly in the curriculum, but it's nothing that's not (officially) in the school curriculum anyway, so I think I'll keep my job. If I stop posting on /. in the next week or two, though, send out a search party...