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Comments: 129 +- Technology: Australian Net Filter Gets One Step Closer on Saturday July 25 2009, @01:09AM
Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday July 25 2009, @01:09AM
from the put-down-the-kangaroo-and-write-a-letter dept.
from the put-down-the-kangaroo-and-write-a-letter dept.
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internet
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censorship
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government
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news
Condobolin sends in an update to the Australian government's ongoing efforts to implement ISP-level filtering. One of the hurdles they had to overcome was to build a system that would allow them to filter content without impairing other internet usage. A trial of the system has just concluded, and the results are positive — at least, for the government. Quoting:
"More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems. Of the nine participating ISPs, iPrimus, Netforce, Webshield, Nelson Bay Online and OMNIconnect told ARN they had seen no slowdowns in Internet speeds or problems with the filtering solutions in place. Of the remaining four ISPs, Tech2U and Highway1 were unable to respond by time of publication while Unwired and Optus refused to comment. ... 'From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory Internet filter based on or around an Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist or subset thereof, then it can be done without any impact whatsoever to the speed of the Internet,' [said Webshield managing director Anthony Pillion]."
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Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but they have to actually implement it before they can find out whether it can withstand all the attacks that will be launched against it. That's where it's likely to really cost them. :)
I think the main attack is going to be the voter especially if the opposition groups can get a good logical argument going and definitely not any disobedience which will play into these peoples hands. The problem you have here in Australia is many people vote for a party (Liberal or Labour) not the man and even if you have a minister cultivate a small moustache, wears knee high boots and walks in a funny way many will vote for him because he is a member of the party that that person votes for.
This is the sort of action that slowly erodes basic human freedoms by effectively having the Government gradually take over thinking for you and you really have to be stupid or just plain lazy not to see this. I have seen and heard arguments from various Government ministers on the so called internet monitoring and they initially sound rational with quotes like "Think of the children" and "We are against child porn" but behind the faÃade you really do have to worry.
A very good quote comes to mind here. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Or an ISP that is not in league with the ruling Nazi party.
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Aus can sleep peacefully now... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah right.
Results of filtering - bearing in mind that the incumbent Labor federal government is largely ruled by the Catholic-dominated right wing faction:
This is a huge worry. The blacklist will not be subject to public oversight. As an Aussie expat, I'm glad to be residing across the ditch in New Zealand (where ISPs are allowed to opt out of the filtering).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm glad to be residing across the ditch in New Zealand (where ISPs are allowed to opt out of the filtering).
Can but ain't. They're all queuing up to opt-in; we've got Telecom's CEO saying the Internet needed this years ago. It's the fallback for John "The Internet is the Wild West" Key's three-strikes-filesharing-bill, I'll bet money if they can't pass that they'll just use the filter to block the likes of the The Pirate Bay. Hopefully we IPREDator before we get the filters.
Re:Aus can sleep peacefully now... (Score:4, Informative)
Some ISPs, including one of the market leaders Orcon [orcon.net.nz], have clearly stated they will opt out and instead offer voluntary filtering software to their subscribers.
Sorry, but IPREDator in recent discussion [itnews.com.au], has been flagged as not quite the knight in shining armour. Best we fall back on the likes of Tor [eff.org] or I2P [i2p2.de].
Parent
Isn't It AMAZING !!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The participants were all
And an the obvious (some would say FOREGONE) conslusion was "it works just fine".
.... brought to you by the department of No!Really?
Seriously folks, aside from all the dodgy (ie totally unscientific and statistically irrelevant) testing, this "internet filtering" is bad because CENSORSHIP IS EVIL!
Always, in every case, by definition and in principle.
Censorship is NEVER, ever, in any sense of the phrase, a good thing.
Australia already has censorship! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why aren't you protesting against existing censorship in Australia? Unlike America our ratings system is run by and enforced by the government. This is why our highest rating for video games is MA and we why we have no R rating ("because the nintendos is for kids right?").
Sad to say it but this internet filtering fits right in with general government and public belief that a minority should be able to control what material adults consume.
Fire up your proxies gentleman!
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Strange people in sun glasses and suits on street corners, teams on roofs with quality cameras.
Australia has very few legal protections. If you write a book, your computer HDs can be mirrored and then smashed in front of you if a minister makes a call.
Once you start the 'protest' path in Australia, life changes.
You make new fr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Like in the US, Australian protests are surrounded by clean faced people in strange clothing with cameras
I think you meant "clean shaven" and in any event you don't see much of that here in the U.S., not anymore. Generally the Feds don't give much of a damn about protests, because We the People no longer give a damn about protests. Besides, don't you know that it's terrorists that are the big threat here now, not protesters, and we're on the path towards a UK-style camera-State anyway. They'll have us all on camera, all the time, so no point in sending agents around to make home movies of us.
It was differen
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just remember - this is the senator who said that the previous trials were a success as well.
Those previous trials showed an average 30% slowdown (87% for the most accurate filter), and still managed to block about 1% of the internet by mistake.
The current trials are a farce - everyone knew they would be rigged from the start (one ISP - iiNet asked if they could perform a comprehensive double-blind test and Labor told them to go jump in a lake). We have an extremely tiny proportion of the population testing
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Thanks for clearing that up.
As is blind faith in a single sentence principle (irony duly noted and accommodated for).
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As is <censored> in a <censored> (<censored> duly <censored> and <censored>).
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny thing is, we have a guy at work signed up for Conroy's media releases. Spam Assassin keeps blocking them and for rules that look odd from a government mail server. I'll have to scrounge one up and see what triggers it. Maybe the whole department are idiots.
CENSORSHIP IS EVIL (Score:3, Insightful)
But its for the children.
Seriously tho, i'm afraid LOTS of people out there believe that some censorship in exchange for their 'safety' is a good thing. Which is sad. Actually most of the world is ok with giving up rights ( that most never really had ... ) to their governments.
Re:Isn't It AMAZING !!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Isn't It AMAZING !!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
The opt out will be the same list of min of ~10 000 sites minus 5 IPs/urls.
Just as slow, just as expensive, just as useless.
Also telling your ISP you opted out may be very unhealthy long term as that information would be shared with numerous state and federal agencies from day one or as mission creep.
Opt-out would light up your IP for a "random" net use log sample?
A few months later you become the 'example' of how a black list helps catch 'really really' bad people.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"It's not censorship, when it is implemented you can choose to opt-out of it."
Sorry, that's not even an opinion, it's a out and out lie.
Conroy and friends have stated several times and loudly that this will be mandatory and that opt-out is not an option.
Let me repeat the facts of the situation for clarity.
Government legislated mandatory internet filtering from a *secret* list which will *never* be published for public review and/or comment..
Surely that spells censorship to even the most illiterate person on the planet.
yeah but look at the isp's (Score:3, Interesting)
then again, you can't expect to talk sense with the labor party....
Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:5, Informative)
I hate this planned filter as much as the next guy, but don't think this is a labour-only special. The Coalition wanted to do the same thing during the late 90's.
Parent
Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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yet labour is STILL wasting money on trials and is STILL pushing this after protests in the streets and the 3 main ISP's rejecting it.
Re: (Score:2)
They wanted to implement central filtering/censorship, just as Conroy does. Yes, they dropped it eventually. My point isn't that labor is oh so much better, it's that people are all too quick to forget the wrongs of the opposition when they have a prob
Re: (Score:2)
Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:5, Informative)
I'm posting anonymously, as I work for an Australian ISP (and no, not the one indicated by my IP address).
The previous government did have a filtering plan. Which it had been investigating for around five years. Every time they needed Senator Harridine's balance-of-power vote, they'd announce another inquiry into Internet censorship. And having got his vote they'd shelve the report. For all Senator Alston's lack of understanding of the Internet, he was superb at politics and he knew how to create the illusion of progress whilst making sure the rubber never actually hit the road. Which Alston was clever enough to know would lead to a showdown between the liberal (Costello) and conservative (Howard) elements in the party. A showdown which would damage the government, and thus to be avoided.
Then Labor arrives. And hey, how inefficient was the previous government, making no progress on this for the past five years, despite all of that work? So the new minister tells the department that he want results this time. Without quite understanding what he is asking for. Again there's a rabid conservative religious nutter holding the balance of power. But the new minister lacks the political skills of the old, and has set the snowball rolling...
Technically, the report is a farce. I don't care what a group of hick ISPs say about filtering not having an impact. They aren't the ones with multiple 10Gbps links to the USA, links so fast that any PC-based filtering just doesn't cut it. Those hick ISPs don't have customers that need a robust network, because people die when those customers websites go down. It's just the government fishing for the results it wants. If it actually cared, it would only ask the top five ISPs. And they've all said that filtering will hurt performance somewhat and hurt robustness a lot. And since CPUs aren't getting faster at anything like the rate at which links are getting faster, the performance hit increases over the years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Try the 5 biggest. Telstra, Optus, iinet, internode and one other I cant remember. IPrimus is the 6th largest ISP but the other 5 make up 80-90% of Australia's ISP market.
Performance was the barrier? (Score:2)
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it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.
The whole point of censorship is to thwart opposing opinion, the ministers apparent asshattery should come as no surprise.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
minister ... commited to being a total idiot
Person in Government is a total idiot, more news at 11.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.
Yes. But you see what is happening don't you? He (Conroy or his department) is playing with dodgy statistics to put his argument/proposal in the best probable light. "More than half" of the ISPs he surveyed said the filtering was ok. What does that mean? Does that mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs were little players without many customers? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are in the government's pockets? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are OWNED by the
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, all the citizens need to do is search the internet for the results of the trial, and they only get results indicating everything went great.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goEEbsEDEM4 [youtube.com]
more about the ad
http://www.censordyne.com.au/ [censordyne.com.au]
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25781616-15306,00.html [news.com.au]
and how it was barred from airing on QANTAS flights to Canberra.
Re: (Score:2)
Australians must be relieved, the government's censorship software is working just fine. Personally, I wanted this experiment to be a complete failure. The fact that censoring the internet is technically feasible is hardly "good" news.
Good news everybody!
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately none of us realied that it was an experiment in shredding the last vestiges of our assumed "civil rights".
The right way to measure the filter (Score:2)
Would be to pick a trial region and see if the filtering with a statistical drop in the associated crime.
Are there any markers for success?
Well, let's look at hate crime. Most ISP sites already have TOS barring what they consider "hateful" content, and so theoretically, by blocking NAZI sites, you should see or should have seen a decrease in the amount of hate crimes out there. If you blocked web sites that hated white people, or hated black people, would crimes against either be reduced? I think that we
Time to (Score:4, Insightful)
move out of Chin..ahem.. Australia.
The thing that riles me most (Score:3, Insightful)
Are all my fellow countrymen who just don't care. Indeed, even my close family believe it to be a good idea, even after I've explained just why it isn't. They either think it'll stop them receiving spam, or think it'll stop some middle eastern type fellow from finding bomb plans on the internet and killing us (because we've had such a problem with that here).
I'm tired of explaining these things to people only to have them throw it back in my face and ignore everything I say. I've sort of gotten to the stage where I just think "Fuck em. Let them implement their filter and we'll see what happens." If it fails miserably, perhaps we can finally get some interest from the every day Australian.
Re: (Score:2)
Someday... (Score:2)
More than half (Score:4, Insightful)
More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems.
So, in other words, just less than half reported significant speed and technology problems. This entire situation pisses me off! I emailed the minister in charge of this and he didn't even have the decency to reply with a non-canned response. So, all the big ISPs are saying that this will result in big speed disruptions, but the other half (idiot home-run ISPs most likely) are saying it's fine. Gee, I wonder if it's because those ISPs have negligible traffic anyway!
Any iPrimus users out there? (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess the 15 users of Nelson Bay Online would be able to help, but iPrimus seems to be the only notable ISP taking part.
I'm interested in testing a few url combinations - so if you are using iPrimus, could you post the results for the following urls:
http://redtube.com/ [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/ [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/terms [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/contact [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/privacy [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/dmca [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/usc2257 [redtube.com]
http://www.redtube.com/?foo=bar [redtube.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= [wikipedia.org]
The Great Firewall of Australia (Score:4, Funny)
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. "We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's future," he said.
"Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we're still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia [today.com] Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won't go over your download cap."
The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.
"Not only are the contents of the list illegal," said Senator Stephen Conroy, "but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we're blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down."
Calling it the "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens' net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.
A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. "We're considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally," said Senator Conroy, "since he's the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it'll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon's bloody sane."
Re: (Score:2)
Might be "business as usual" in , say , Iran/Iraq, etc - but *such a shame* to see that being attempted in Australia.
Re: (Score:2)
Managing director of Nelson Bay Online, Patrick Sayer, said only 1 per cent of his entire customer base decided to opt-into the system, resulting in just 15 users.
Fifteen Users! And that's enough to be worthy of being hailed as "a successful test"?
(sigh) At least they've not actually had the nerve to claim this test was scientifically rigorous or statistically significant in any way.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)