Australia's 2 Largest ISP's Start Censorsing the Web 133
unreadepitaph writes "Looks like after Stephen Conroy's web filter went down in flames he went quietly behind the backs of Australians and struck a deal with Telstra and Optus to start filtering an undisclosed blacklist of sites from organization within and external to Australia. From the article: 'Electronic Frontiers Association board member Colin Jacobs also expressed concern at the scheme, saying the Government and internet providers needed to be more upfront about websites being blocked and offer an appeals process for website owners who felt URLs had been blocked unfairly. "There is a question about where the links are coming from and I'd like to know the answer to that," Mr Jacobs said."
Re:I wouldn't be too worried... (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't matter if they win or not. The Greens, who will have the balance of power in the Senate, have said they're opposed to any mandatory filtering, so the government would be unable to pass any filtering bills anyway.
Wait until the list is leaked. (Score:5, Insightful)
WikiLeaks will show them the stupidity of this.
In the meantime, time to fire up Tor and change ISPs.
Re:I wouldn't be too worried... (Score:2, Insightful)
...because the current government is utterly doomed at the next election, and all their half-baked ideas will be junked, like they should be.
Unfortunately for us, the Liberal opposition to filtering schemes is that Labor don't go far enough. When I last discussed it with my local Lib candidate, he said that Labor were missing the boat by not including gambling, abortion, and other such sites on the black list. And that I should vote for him to make sure we get a proper family-friendly internet in Australia, instead of the dangerous and scary half-assed Labor internet. Both sides are playing the family-fear card here. They've got Today Tonight viewers convinced that overseas pedos can crawl up your phone line and out of your computer to rape your kids! (Maybe we should start a campaign to glue your USB ports shut to prevent the pedos getting out. :-)
Currently, anyone who wants a free internet has to hope for the Greens. We're fucked.
Related to the NBN deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gizmondo recently wrote that Optus and Telstra have just signed [gizmodo.com.au] a lucrative NBN deal. Coincidence?
Can't force it through parliament, so get the major ISPs to voluntarily do it via an offer they can't refuse?
You ain't seen nufin yet - NBN will be the end (Score:4, Insightful)
This is only the start of it.
The NBN will kill the Internets as Australians know it.
The current plans to force everyone to connect to the NBN weather they want to or not gives the Grubbermint instant control over all net traffic.
FWIW, the biggest winners from NBN will be Foxtel and other media providers who will simply suck up as much bandwidth as they can get. The current cable TV networks will be shut down and everything will be moved to the NBN. Where do you think the bandwidth is going to go then?
All telephone lines including POTs will be routed though the NBN.
The people who actually believed the garbage about 100Mb to their homes were only dreaming. They never had a hope of getting those sort of speeds as it was never in the game-plan.
The NBN is going to make Telstras Bigpond look like a good deal. All of the current ISP's will simply be relegated to be billing companies. In one swoop the Grubbermint get the control they want and their friends in big corporations that will hire them when they get thrown out of office will have somewhere cushy for htem to sit while they continue to suck on the public tit with their pensions.
Australia, is having a lemon shoved down it's throat, while the vocal kiddies who dream of 100Mb porn to their screens are being flashed a pair of titties to tease them.
Re:You ain't seen nufin yet - NBN will be the dawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, to put it more rationally:
The NBN takes the aging copper network out of private hands where Telstra was using it to restrict competition, and replaces it with an open-access high speed network open to full competition.
Just to be clear: almost everyone being forced to switch to the NBN is currently using Telstra infrastructure. If you're on iiNet, Internode, TGP, Optus ADSL etc then you're using Telstra copper. The only people being forced to switch to the NBN who aren't using Telstra infrastructure now are the relatively small number of people on Optus Cable Broadband. After the switch to the NBN, you'll still be using iiNet, Internode, etc for your internet access (if you want to) but instead of using Telstra's infrastructure you'll be using NBNCo's infrastructure. And it will be damn fast and more reliable. And it won't be Telstra... which in itself is simply wonderful.
Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
The act of censorship is always more obscene than the material being censored. My personal opinion.
Re:I wouldn't be too worried... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see them removing existing bills, though. This is the standard operating procedure: an unpopular law goes in, then after the election everyone mysteriously "forgets" about it.
Re:I wouldn't be too worried... (Score:4, Insightful)
always
Use of that word is (almost) always inappropriate.
Re:I wouldn't be too worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
why do people say things like this?
"Voluntary compliance" with a government is never necessarily voluntary, considering the weight behind government suggestions. If the government wants people to do it, it should be a law. It's not a law because it's invasive and improper. This doesn't mean the government can lean on businesses to get what it wants extralegally, because it can be indistinguishable from a threat.