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Aussies Hit the Streets Over Gov't Internet Filters
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Dec 03, 2008 09:43 AM
from the thinking-of-the-children dept.
from the thinking-of-the-children dept.
mask.of.sanity writes "Outraged aussies will hold simultaneous protests across Australia in opposition to the government's plans for mandatory ISP internet content filtering. The plan will introduce nation-wide filtered internet using blacklists operated by a government agency, away from public scrutiny. Politicians and ISPs will join protesters in the streets to voice their opposition to the government's plan, which has ploughed ahead, despite intense criticism that the technology will crippled internet speeds and infringe on free speech. Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block up to 10,000 Web pages out of 1 million."
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If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists win! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Insightful)
Any widespread filtering of the internet at large will result in a massive tech 'arms war' that will make the cold war look like a Sunday picnic. Splinter cryptoed internets on both the current and eventually new internets will occur. Won't be pretty.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
have you heard of darknets?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Interesting)
big business and lobbyists for the music/movie/software studios who want to block torrent sites.
These issues are also a smoke screen, just like child porn and terrorists. The _real_ problem is free speech, that is what is under threat.
This was all planned. In "Between Two Ages" by Zbigniew Brzezinski he predicted the internet and the rise in free speech. This take down of the free internet is just the next step. Get us all hooked, get the world using it, then transform it into the greatest propaganda tool ever invented.
First they caught us in the "net". Now we are getting moved into the "grid".
We _must_ keep hold of the internet in its present form, this is very important.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that THEY are actually Cardassians? child porn is a smokescreen for music torrents which are a smokescreen for free speech.
"a plan within a plan within a plan leading to a trap" [wikipedia.org] seems very in-line with what you're describing. Hmm, this situation is alternatively terrifying and awesome, not sure how I'm supposed to feel as an old trek nerd and current music nerd.
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Insightful)
if they do this in the USA, there will be blood. end of story.
I didn't see any blood over the USA PATRIOT Act, did you?
Parent
Re:If we don't stop thepiratebay, the terrorists w (Score:5, Insightful)
No, in fact, I've seen outright approval of the PATRIOT Act. Too many people have the attitude "It doesn't hurt me in an obvious and immediate way and it just might help catch a terrorist, so it's a good thing!" A trivial application of critical thinking shows how it hurts EVERYBODY in subtle and long-term ways. It is one of many popular laws that exists because we base our decisions more on worst-case-scenarios than on rational cost-benefit analysis.
Parent
The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block up to 10,000 Web pages out of 1 million.
Uh, why didn't they use the metric of 10^4:10^6 or 1:100? Sounds like somebody wanted that statement to be heard as much more impacting than it is. The thing that worries me is that if we look at other technologies designed to "protect the people from themselves," a false positive rate of 1% really isn't that bad--especially on a fully automated system. A high false positive rate is--in my opinion--what's holding back facial recognition but I fear that 1% blockage of websites is completely acceptable to most folks. Maybe a better analogy is that of the FCC in America and the words you can't say on TV ... even though there is no research showing how these words negatively affect people, this small percent of our language and expression is blocked. This analogy (like all) is flawed, however, as you might never know what was on that website that caused the super happy and helpful animated kangaroo to appear on your computer and gently chide you that this site is not for Aussies.
Hopefully (and I'm betting on this) it will turn out to be a lot like prohibition. The outlawing of these sites and data cause their value to skyrocket, the government is made to look a mockery, your average citizen (I've heard talk of simple SSL encryption stopping this) knows how to reach them, in so doing they inadvertently supply criminals with capital and the very stupid law is repealed. Twenty years later, everyone is joking about "the Grand Experiment" and how pathetically futile it was to begin with.
Lastly, how is this any different than what China is doing? I'm surprised nobody has made this connection and accused the government of being no better than anti-free-speech China.
After reading a bit of the plan [dbcde.gov.au] on Australia's Cyber-Safety, it's evident this quickly degrades into a "think of the children" mentality:
While the internet has created substantial benefits for children, it has also exposed them to a number of dangers, including exposure to illegal and prohibited content. Parents rightly expect the Australian Government to play its part in helping protect children online.
So why isn't there an "opt-out" plan for those Aussie adults who like our interwebs a little dirty (and are over 18 years of age)?
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the whole "think of the children" issue. There are child protection software packages available. Parents need to start taking responsibility for their offspring and stop expecting everyone else to bend over backwards for them. You brought them into this world, not me. You take care of their well-being. I'm all for "thinking of the children" when it doesn't adversely affect anyone else but this does. Therefore, it is unacceptable.
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem; since it's automated, that 1% blocked could be anything. cnn/bbc/etc could be blocked for talking about a child porn news item. That would seem unacceptable to me.
Well, according to the last part of one of the articles
The trial is expected to use a blacklist of 10,000 banned Web pages, using the rumoured 1300-page blacklist held by the ACMA mixed with dummy data.
If that's true, they are simply going to blacklist a bunch of websites. I heavily doubt cnn/bbc/etc will ever negligently be put on that list. I know little to nothing about this scheme but if it's a blacklist, you probably have little worry about with major news sites. A lot more to worry about things labeled as "counter-culture" or "low brow humor."
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
What you doubt, is not reality.
Remember the whole "5 9's" philosophy of uptime?
Well what if you reduce that back to 2 9's of uptime, which was like ....8 hours a year I believe. I think you know how big of a deal that even 1/10th of a percent can make, in that regards.
Now lets take this to an ineffective bloated government mandated filter, and you think it's going to work? Yeah, right. "we're only blocking 1% of the internet, and it happens to be every torrent sites (including linux ISOs) , and 0 child porn websites. I'm proud that the other 80% of the sites we filter are very effective".
Watch an almost identical quote to that come out of government mouthes if this is implemented.
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Interesting)
If that's true, they are simply going to blacklist a bunch of websites. I heavily doubt cnn/bbc/etc will ever negligently be put on that list.
They are doing something very similar in Finland. The biggest difference is that ISPs aren't required to filter based on the blocklist, yet.
An unnamed police officer (yes, apparently a single person) is in charge of what goes on the list and what comes off the list.
They recently put w3c.org on the list.
Obviously it was a mistake, but nevertheless it quite nicely demonstrated that any site can end up on the list.
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
They can block anyone's free speech and blame the whole thing on a mistake.
From what I've seen over the years, the incompetence defense works every single time. Officials can do something they want to do and blame it on a mistake and the public accepts it unquestioningly every single time. It's one of the most perfect propaganda techniques ever engineered.
Parent
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be interested too see if sites which report negatively about this new adventure suddenly find themselves on the list.
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we need to back up and examine that statement in itself. Why should the govt. be involved at all in technology or laws that protect people from themselves?!?!
Isn't part of being free, the freedom to fuck up?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1 in a million is 1 too many.
Re:The Grand Tube Experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
Lastly, how is this any different than what China is doing? I'm surprised nobody has made this connection and accused the government of being no better than anti-free-speech China.
It has before been alluded that it is just like what China have implemented, even in the senate. To quote Senator Conroy (the nut in charge of the department for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy).
I was wondering if I could get the questions without being accused of being the Great Wall of China.
From http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S11346.pdf [aph.gov.au].
No, you great twat, you can't, not when what you're proposing is so damn much like it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
a false positive rate of 1% really isn't that bad--especially on a fully automated system
Well, I'd say that a technology with that failure ratio isn't ready for production. Just try dropping every 100th page you load into your browser. I concede that maybe a
1% blockage of websites is completely acceptable to most folks
but a 1:100 false positive rate is unacceptable. Unless the opposition to the filters wins, I'll remove Australia from my list of countries I'd like to live in. Too bad, I remember it as a great country when I've been there on vacation years ago.
Good On 'Em (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes some amount of courage to stand up to laws like this. Basically they have to publicly oppose the guise of 'Safety' and 'For The Children'. For politicians and normal people alike it can be difficult to come out sand say you oppose anything that is 'supposed to protect children'.
Good luck to them I say, and lets hope this kills this insane filtering plan.
Re:Good On 'Em (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course in the long run government will win, as they always do. The business of government is simply too lucrative to resist. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're sitting at the top of a trillion-dollar power pyramid.
There's a reason why no government in history (democracy or otherwise) has ever significant, permanently, and willingly reduced its revenue or power over the people. The reason is simple, although not many are willing to accept it (or admit it): more government benefits the people who make their fortunes in the business of government.
Make no mistake, governments only expand in power and revenue throughout their lifetimes. We ought to sit down and think long and hard about this reality, because it is a perfect window into the true motives of government.
Parent
Re:Good On 'Em (Score:4, Informative)
I'm inclined to take a cynical view of government too, but how do you explain King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan [wikipedia.org] who oversaw reforms to transform his country from an absolute monarchy to a democracy?
Parent
Re:Good On 'Em (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that pretty much covers it.
Parent
Expect Government Response (Score:5, Insightful)
They will label the protesters pedophile sympathizers. Insinuations will fly. Motives will be questioned. Fingers will be pointed. Dissent will disintegrate.
Newspapers will be sold.
These protesters are only protesting the symptoms and not the root causes of modern censorship. That is why they will fail.
Re:Expect Government Response (Score:5, Insightful)
They will label the protesters pedophile sympathizers.
That will depend on how many people really show up and how clear the protester's leaders get the message through. If they convince the average Aussie the real reasons they are protesting, the 'bad' people can say anything they want. Just like people calling Obama a terrorist (and here I'm only making an analogy) - he got the message through.
These protesters are only protesting the symptoms and not the root causes of modern censorship. That is why they will fail.
To get people on the streets, you need the symptoms. And, when they are already there, you tell them about the theory behind that, and the root causes. But you need facts and impact on people's lives to make them care.
Parent
Re:Expect Government Response (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't you precious? Go ahead, hunker down, keep your mouth closed, mind your own business, and refuse to participate until someone--ANYONE--makes a protest that rises to your standard of approval against those so-called "root causes". Meanwhile, teh pwers that be will take your pathetic silence as acquiescence and will heap even more restrictive control over your life.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Censorship only works while the public remains silent. The media is not at fault, it's our corrupt political system. We are resisting with words, with public protest which will come to blows. We will prevail.
Vox Populi (Score:3, Insightful)
"Think of the children! Won't somebody PLEEEEEEASE think of the CHILDREN!" - Helen Lovejoy
While this is a great start, perhaps they can also lift the bans on games? I'm pretty sure that aussies will want to play F.E.A.R. 2 and Silent Hill Homecoming. Okay, maybe not so much Silent Hill, but they'll want to give this one a miss by choice, not by rating board decree or royal edict.
The clbuttic error! (Score:5, Funny)
"We have buttiduously canvbutted the industry [today.com], buttessed what is available and buttembled the finest selection of PFI contractors for this buttignment. The filters will buttociatively clbuttify all communications and filter then, I can butture you, rebuttemble them with surpbutting exacbreastude in any quanbreasty. Consbreastuents can be rebuttured that a mulbreastude of industry compebreastors will butture quality and keep our clbuttrooms safe. EDS Capita Goatse will not embarbutt us."
The first filtering offices will be set up in Arsenal, Penistone and Scunthorpe.
(Inspiration: The Daily WTF [thedailywtf.com].)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Even Save the Children don't want the filters (Score:5, Interesting)
"Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.
She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently block legitimate resources."
Curious (Score:3, Interesting)
What else can Aussies DO? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I don not see anything else Aussies can do. I don't think their constitution is strong enough to carry a challenge against parlementary primacy. Naturally, they can vote the b#ms out, but that happens anyways as a matter of control.
Unfortunately, many "democracies", especially UK-style parlements, functionally are elected dictatorships.
10,000 out of 1 million (Score:5, Informative)
Allow me to fix that for them .. (Score:5, Insightful)
The opponents are doing themselves a disservice by analyzing percentages. By doing so it takes the focus from "should we or shouldn't we filter", to "how much should we filter?" Government should never filter Internet access, and the US should put pressure on them however they can, though I concede that is unlikely to happen since so many politicians are too busy trying to figure out ways to convince the proles that the US Government should filter the net to slap the hands of others for doing the same
(admit it; you were in desperate need of a good run-on sentence and I filled it.)
You got the ratio wrong! (Score:5, Funny)
will incorrectly block up to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Web pages out of 1 decillion.
There, fixed that for you.
The best internet filter (Score:5, Insightful)
Et tu Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
So Australia, you voted in a Labour government, thinking you were going to get a moderate, left of centre government? A change from the Neo-Liberal (see Thatcher and Reagan) fiscal policies of the right.
But what you got is a bunch of socially right-wing, authoritarian cock-wads, who think the solution to any social problem is making new laws. As a Brit, I have to say this sounds disturbingly [labour.org.uk] familiar [wordpress.com].
If it's not Stephane Dion [thisisdion.ca] declaring that he's "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime [google.com]," Australians electing a Tony Blair clone, or the Canadian Prime Minister ripping-off speeches [www.cbc.ca] from John Howard; it continues to amaze me how the Commonwealth leaders copy each other.
Not In The Streets (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not In The Streets (Score:4, Interesting)
No, not in the "voting booth".
The reason is simple -- a government that is elected sets up an organization. Typically, the organization is created without an "exit strategy". After which, future governments end up feeding it anyway.
So, we end up with a "internet monitoring" or "media monitoring" organization. It may live on a LONG time.
As an example: Ontario, Canada, created a censorship tribunal in 1911. By the 80's, very few people could tell much about it, although it was still active. Indeed, it existed until 2004, when it was declared "unconstitional" (in the Canadian sense). See: http://www.ccla.org/news/winter04-05_10.html [ccla.org]
However, the Ontario Film Review Board still exists (http://www.ofrb.gov.on.ca/english/page4.h) but I find it interesting that the events of 2004 are not mentioned in its "self-history".
That is what happens to these initiatives. Leading to the only solution possible. "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." (Aliens).
Parent
Censorship is wrong. Period. (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether by the Chinese government, the Aussies, the US, wherever, censoring public communication is the ultimate expression of disrespect for the public, and seriously undermines the validity of the offending government.
Simple, really (Score:3, Insightful)
Parents have not exercised proper control over their children. Obvious on the face of it.
Government has recognized this lacking and is preparing to step up to the plate, at least in some minimal aspect.
This removes the need for any "parenting" in that specific area. Of course, since "parenting" is an obsolete concept that seems to have gone out of favor with June Cleaver we can expect further government action.
It is an obvious step. The government can't legislate "parenting" so they are going to (ineffectively) step into that role. The people have spoken, by not doing any parenting themselves. I believe we can expect similar action in the US sometime soon. The nanny state expands to fill all voids.
The way to stop this (Score:4, Insightful)
Write to your local MP and senators (especially write to those who hold the ballance of power in the senate).
The greens have already said they will oppose this in its current form (Whether they would accept it if it was 100% opt-in and voluntary I dont know)
If we can get enough people to oppose it (especially those on the liberal/national opposition in the senate) Kevin wont be able to pass the law necessary to implement the filtering.
Re:With Rudd comes censorship (Score:5, Funny)
No doubt those at the mercy's of company's such as Telstra and Westnet...
No doubt those at the mercy is of company is such as Telstra and Westnet...
There....fixed that for you. :/
Parent
Re:Wow, taking to the streets huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pornography has "no socially redeeming aspect"?
Can you tell me what the "socially redeeming aspect" of reading Slashdot is? And why I should allow you to continue doing so?
"This level of censorship will have zero practical effect on political speech."
On what basis do you make that assertion? And why are you limiting it to only "political" speech? And in what circumstances do limits on free speech (political or not) "often" make sense?
Parent