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Technical Specs Released For Aussie Net Filtering
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Dec 03, 2008 05:41 PM
from the for-a-limited-time-only dept.
from the for-a-limited-time-only dept.
smallkathryn writes "Technical specifications have just been released for the Australian net filtering trial. The trial, which aims to prove that ISP-level filtering is a viable way to stop 'unwanted content' from reaching users, will go live on 24 December. The trial will involve ISPs choosing a commercially available hardware filter from an internet content filter (ICF) vendor, adding it to their networks, then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites. Still no indication of how peer-to-peer information will be addressed."
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Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the time to invest in and bring to market an encryption product to the masses in Australia. What would stop a US company from selling cheap VPN tunnels to end users down under?
Re:Encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
What would stop a US company from selling cheap VPN tunnels to end users down under?
Not a damn thing. Which is one of the primary reasons why this whole thing is such a stupid pointless waste of time and money.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone who watches the success of botnets despite widespread efforts to blacklist trojan servers (by URL, IP, subnets...), I'd say when a group of zealous, dedicated and passionate people fighting malware can't even gain a foot, a group of underpaid, usually underfunded and undermotivated public officials won't really succeed either.
Parent
Dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not believe any government should censor speech. This sort of technology is ripe for abuse. There will probably be sites which "accidently" are filtered, maybe sites with unpopular political views, or legal material, such as adult pornography. As well, this sets dangerous precedents as well, that government has a right to censor things. It could set a dangerous precedent for censoring things we all agree should not be censored, like pornography of consenting adults and unpopular (communist, marxist, etc) political views.
Re:Dangerous (Score:5, Informative)
They're already adding otherwise legal sites to the blacklist. From the second link:
One of the more recent concerns over the blacklist is its extension from 1,300 sites to 11,300 sites containing "objectionable material", the content of which has not been made clear. The only details that have been divulged about them is that pro-euthanasia and pro-anorexia sites will be included on the blacklist.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You say this like it's a new thing. The Classification Board [classification.gov.au] has been censoring stuff for decades.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unwanted? (Score:5, Insightful)
then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites.
Obviously someone wants these sites, else there would be no need to blacklist them.
Re:Unwanted? (Score:4, Funny)
then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites.
Obviously someone wants these sites, else there would be no need to blacklist them.
What about the majority of the videos on Youtube?
Parent
Re:Unwanted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually. The government's assumption is that reasonable Australians don't want to see hard core porn and other "offensive" material. You disagree? Oh, you're just being unreasonable.
This is what decades of tolerating film and media classification has done to us.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Reasonable Australians don't want to see hard core porn (X-18+), yet the only two places where it can be legally sold is ACT (home of the federal government) and NT.
Re:Unwanted? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that it is illegal to sell a film in Australia without a classification, and that the Classification Board has the right, which it exercises often, to refuse classification. This effectively bans films which are considered "offensive".
My solution would be to make all films immediately R18+. You must be 18 years of age or older to purchase them. If the distributor wants to apply for a lesser rating, they can do so. Now all the "think of the children" morons are placated and the rest of us can watch a movie revolving around the abusive home lives of teenage skateboarders without the government getting involved.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the classification board does a great job but I disagree with outright bans on philosophical grounds. The current push for filtering is a storm in a tea-cup and is driven by the governments need to placate senator Fielding. After KRuddy has got what he wants out of Fielding the mandatory filtering legisla
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm fine with them having blacklists... but I want it to be OPT IN.
This making it mandatory, and the default starting point is TERRIBLE.
Allow households to opt in to blocking sites and at a number of different levels
[ ] Pornography
[ ] Hate literature
[ ] whatever...
That would be fine.
But making it the default, and you having to OPT OUT means that the vast majority will let this slide, the apathy will allow it to become the norm.
AND then the government is going to have to wear the shitstorm that will occur wh
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't care how unworkable it is, as long as they have the power to censor things on demand.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, there will be mandatory filtering on ILLEGAL material only. Child pornography, bestiality etc. And while, yes, X rated material is only available in the ACT and NT by law... that law is in NO way enforced. I can almost guarantee this mandatory blacklist will NOT block all hardcore sex.
They haven't actually stated what's in the list, but I would say it'll be:
Child Pornography
Rape (Or any non-consensual sexual stuff I would imagine)
Bestiality
I'm basing this on past Australian government things, and just t
Re:Unwanted? (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately that couldn't be further from the truth.
First of all, the filter's scope is definitely beyond illegal material. See here [defendingscoundrels.com] for a legal explanation of the terms - most RC and prohibited content is actually perfectly legal to possess.
Secondly, the minister has actually confirmed that sites such as pro-euthanasia websites will be banned. Drug use is also enough to get material put on the list. We're consistently told that the worst material on the list is child pornography, but that's beside the point - we need to know what the least harmful material on the blacklist is to make an informed decision. But we won't - the list is a government secret, and you will be jailed for revealing it.
And these "lobby groups" trying to add whatever the fuck they want to the filter? They hold the balance of power in the senate... in fact it seems that a major motivation behind the Government's plan is to buy their votes. Those lobby groups want all pornography banned outright, others want gambling websites blocked. The filter will in no way stop at "illegal" material.
Parent
Re:Unwanted? (Score:4, Interesting)
That link doesn't actually clarify anything they merely state 'It could be any number of things' and then go on to mention things that might be banned.
It's all conjecture.
Which is part of the problem, it should be completely transparent. Actually, it just shouldn't exist in the first place, but if it did it should be transparent.
Parent
Too sum up .... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
said Hanrahan, before the year is out.
Unethical (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unethical (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Unethical (Score:4, Insightful)
"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." - Adolph Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Parent
technical ramifications of network filtering (Score:5, Informative)
Putting aside the question of whether filtering is desirable in the first place ("think of the children!"), or issues regarding the potential for future abuse (e.g., censorship of unpopular speech, and who determines what needs to be filtered in the first place) at the technical level any halfway-reliable filtering technology that peeks into the transport layer [wikipedia.org] is going to add a huge amount of overhead that will increase costs and degrade performance. Good for the equipment companies, but bad for everyone who would prefer their Internet connection as dumb and fast as possible.
OTOH, OpenDNS [opendns.com] provides a free, opt-in filtering service [opendns.com] available to anyone who wants it. It's very easy to deploy, why not just use that?
And then of course... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then all we need to do is wait until the Aussies load so many obfuscated hosts into their border boxen that they all fry themselves and the silly idea it is will be really quite clear to anyone with opposable thumbs.
URL based to start with (Score:4, Funny)
Step 1: Get IP address of blocked site
Step 2: Enter that IP address
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The paper says that the filtering will be URL based (to start with, possibly moving to other methods later). With that in mind, I present my (patented..?) two step method to bypassing the filter:
Step 1: Get IP address of blocked site
Step 2: Enter that IP address
easier, one time version:
go to internet settings under DNS
enter non-aussie or independent DNS
Re:URL based to start with (Score:4, Informative)
You can use 4.2.2.1 through 4.2.2.5
If I recall correctly, they're provided by various tier-1 carriers and telecoms (Level 3, Verizon, etc.).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That'll work fine unless they're using Name Based Virtual Hosts. [apache.org]
Regardless, as (almost) all of us know there's a number of ways to bypass this bloody stupid [dbcde.gov.au] filter.
Disclaimer: I don't think Child Pornography should be legal. However, I very strongly disagree that the Government has the right to put in access-Level filtering, regardless of their case.
The ends DO NOT justify the means.
Sorry to go off topic (Score:3, Insightful)
A picture is information. A video is information. Sound is information. QED
Since no one could possibly believe that CP is just "information" (and I have a very low opinion of the intelligence of most people), the most likely explanation for your position on this is that you are a consumer and/or producer of child pornography yourself.
Just to be sure I'm understanding you, you
Re:Sorry to go off topic (Score:4, Insightful)
You say a picture or a video is just information. Ok, fair enough.
But just because information can be freely duplicted doesn't mean it isn't affected by the laws of supply and demand.
Some people will pay for this "information" (kiddie porn). Therefore other people will create child porn, for money.
The creation of child porn (your definition may vary)should be punished, in my opinion, by death. Commissioning of child porn is accessory to the crime and should also be punished. On the other hand those who have not commissioned the deed should not be punished even if they buy child porn because they did not have a hand in the act. Would you make it a crime to sell the 9/11 videos? Surely billions of dollars have been made from those crimes. Where is the divide between the newscaster hawking scenes of death (if it bleeds it leads) and the exploitive pornographer hawking his wares? Surely either both should be illegal or neither.
Unfortunately those people do unspeakable awful things to innocent children in order to create the information, in order to satisfy that demand.
Punish them! punish them harshly! You will have all the evidence you need.
By your logic I have done nothing wrong if I say I will provide $10,000,000 for a video of someone shooting you in the head, and someone follows through and I pay them. Or your children. Heck, your whole family. If all of you died horribly, simply because I paid for some "information" have I done anything wrong? By your logic, no.
By my logic you have done something horrible, in commissioning the crime. The newscaster who puts it on for the 8:00 news hour in return for commercial profits has not. If you had specified a computer-generated video of such then nothing wrong would have been done at all.
Parent
Re:URL based to start with (Score:5, Informative)
That won't work on the vast majority of sites out there which either use name-based virtual hosting or complicated load balancers, both of which depend on the correct hostname being in the URL.
In the old days, a common trick to get around URL filters was to put a '.' at the end of the TLD as in:
http://www.example.com./ [www.example.com]
The '.' is the root of the DNS hierarchy. It's optional when specifying an Internet hostname but all software which handles domain names is required to handle it properly. Programmers of early web filters didn't know this so if they put the following URL into their block list:
http://www.example.com/* [example.com]
Adding the dot meant the URL wouldn't match the entry in the blocklist. All the vendors patched this pretty quickly though and then the next workaround discovered was encoding the domain name as its hex equivalent. Took longer for the vendors to patch that, but they finally did. Most of the web filters out there have had plenty of time to come up to speed on all the workarounds by this point, though.
Parent
Umm "The trial, which aims to prove..." (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't trials test a hypothesis or design? If you set out to prove something with a trial, I'm fairly certain that you will carefully design it so that it does, indeed, prove it; as you have already decided you will do it and are now cynically producing evidence.
Trials should be neutral, investigating or testing or gathering data. The *RESULTS* of a trial will support or disprove a concept.
Ultimately, you cant really "prove" anything; just gain sufficient confidence that despite your best efforts, you cannot disprove it.
Perhaps the trial aims to check "the feasibility of" rather than "prove"... well, we can hope.
err!
jak.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They made the election promise without investigating whether or not it was possible. So the only result they will accept is one that confirms their beliefs.
Well actually, the election promise was to "provide" filtering, but not "mandate" it, but a censor-happy government with the need to satisfy fundamentalist third-parties wasn't going to stop there once the technology exists.
They did some preliminary testing back in June - the results showed an average speed reduction of 30% between filters (5/6 were over
How to Stop .torrents (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm fairly sure one of the first things added to the list will be torrent indexes. No more TPB or ISOHunt for Australians. This is exactly what Australian media companies want: they used to have it good, they would hold over US shows and movies for rating windows and screw over viewers that just wanted to watch stuff current.
The big problem is, Australian media holds a lot of sway with the scum that is an Australian politician.
Of course you'll be able to access them in a round-about fashion. Maybe it will eventually become illegal to bypass the filter, call it hacking. Aussie freedom will go, china style.
Re:Voluntary (Score:5, Informative)
Only the *testing* is voluntary.
When (if, hopefully) the real thing goes live, "Filtering will be mandatory in all homes and schools across the country".
See: http://nocleanfeed.com
Parent
Re:Voluntary (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry I'm having trouble understand you. Half of your post was filtered.
Parent
Re:Voluntary (Score:5, Interesting)
Did Bob Aussieman pirate a movie? Well, the ISP should have filtered that out. Did Steve Kiddyporn upload/download illegal pictures of children? The ISP should have stopped it.
By even doing token filtering, they're taking responsibility for everything that happens on their network.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Did Steve Kiddyporn upload/download illegal pictures of children? The ISP should have stopped it.
His name is Bryan Kiddyporn! Not everyone in Australia is called Bob or Steve!
Cheers
Bruce
Re:Voluntary (Score:4, Insightful)
Rest assured there will be a law that absolves them. Else the lights will go out pretty fast in the fiberoptic cables of Aussieland.
Because, as everyone here knows, there WILL be downloads and there WILL be illegal content, and you can filter however and whatever you like, it will get through. Now, ISPs are usually international companies, few are still single country. And when I am in constant danger of a lawsuit that threatens my very business in some country, I'll pull out. Providing internet services is a lossy business in Australia? Ok. Shut down the branch, we move the resources to some other country. It's done everywhere? Most ISPs are either also in telco or cable TV, so let's shut down the ISP biz and concentrate on the rest.
If ISPs become the new scapegoat of the sue happy industries, they will close their doors. Unlike real people, corporations can easily move, and they can easily "die" without anyone being hurt.
Parent
Re:Voluntary (Score:4, Informative)
Now, ISPs are usually international companies, few are still single country.
I don't know how it works in the US (or wherever you live) but the 2 of the top 3 ISPs in Australia (Telstra and iiNet) only serve within Australia, AFAIK. There headquarters are here too, meaning it would be difficult to move, especially since they own so much of the local infrastructure.
The reason for this is likely that Australia is geographically isolated from other countries, being a continent in its own right.
Most ISPs are either also in telco or cable TV, so let's shut down the ISP biz and concentrate on the rest.
Telstra is a telco, but iiNet is only an ISP. There's actually talk of them providing IPTV next year, but that would be over the internet.
Besides, at least one company will remain, and feel free to charge whatever they want (probably Telstra, due to their government given monopoly on the infrastructure). Isn't that the situation in the US - few people can choose an ISP other than Comcast?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The government panders to them only for a single reason, namely that it is in the interest of the government to pander to them. More precisely, they're the excuse because "see, at least SOME want that!"
Else it would have been easy. You want filtering? No problem, we make a law that your ISP has to provide it at your request, for free (i.e. everyone has to pay for it, because no provider will ever sit on expenses and not brush it off to its clients). If you're concerned that you don't want to see OMGWTF cont
Re:Voluntary (Score:5, Informative)
Australia already has that law. Free NetNanny for everyone that wants a "clean" connection.
Now ask me how many people have taken up this offer...
Parent
Re:Voluntary (Score:5, Funny)
That's actual people that took up the Netnanny offer before you start going on about some answer to life, the universe and everything.
Parent
Re:Voluntary (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm confused: as far as I can see, about the only people who want this implemented are Stephen Conroy and Family First. The Liberals don't want it, the Greens don't want it, citizens don't want it, child protection groups don't want it, and ISPs are only doing it to prove to the government that they're lying about the speed impact.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Australia has classification and censorship (aka banning) of film, tv, radio, video games, newspapers, magazines, advertisements.. why wouldn't we want classification and censorship of the Internet too? I, personally, think classification is a good thing, but it should be voluntary and banning/censorship is just draconian. But are my views in the majority? Who knows. The current policies of my government would not seem to indicate so.
Re:"Unwanted Content" (Score:4, Interesting)
Which after a little searching one finds completely untrue. He has been questioned by other members of parliament and skirted around the issue by feeding the "Unwanted Material" line.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't quote me on this, but as far as I'm aware, only iiNet and Optus are participating.
I wouldn't be in a rush to leave if you're with them, though. The head of iiNet said that Conroy was the worst Comms. minister in the 15 years the internet industry has existed, and is only participating because it's the only way to show the government how stupid it is.
If we don't show them how stupid it is, showing them exactly what sites are blocked by mistake, how much it will slow the internet, how easy it is to brea