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Censorship The Internet Your Rights Online

Dismal Failure of Internet Filters In Australia 282

Posted by timothy from the no-surprise-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), the department responsible for implementing the insane Internet regulatory framework put in place by the current government, is about to drop a number of Internet Filtering packages due to their ineffectiveness. The full article is available here. There is also news that the Minister for Communications, Senator Richard Alston (whom The Register has labeled the Worlds Biggest Luddite :) ) is awaiting a review of the law with possible changes to follow. Be afraid Australia, be very afraid!"
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Dismal Failure of Internet Filters In Australia More

Dismal Failure of Internet Filters In Australia

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  • On one hand, they have horrible broadband companies that limit you to asinine amounts of data transfering. On the other, they have made it illegal to sell region-coded DVD players. However, this is a step in the right direction.

    • Re:Australia is a funny country... (Score:4, Informative)

      by muzzmac ( 554127 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:37AM (#5431127)
      And we have the best gun laws. :-)

      Seriously, the censorship laws do nothing.

      The data caps are the biggest issue with Internet access in Aus at the moment.

      ISP's are almost defined based on the amount of data available.

    • Re:Australia is a funny country... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ghostrider_one ( 182445 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:44AM (#5431312)
      On the other, they have made it illegal to sell region-coded DVD players.

      I beg to differ! The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [accc.gov.au] is against reigon-coding DVDs because of the anti-compeditive aspects of it, but walk into any place selling DVD players in Australia and I guarentee you that better than %95 of them are reigon-coded. Because of ambiguity regarding the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act [law.gov.au] (Australia's version of the DMCA) and whether this makes reigon-free DVD players illegal "circumvention devices", most places will not stock (or admit to stocking) reigon-free DVD players.

    • Re:Australia is a funny country... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Tyro ( 247333 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:20AM (#5431402)
      Filtering is a good idea, but mandatory filtering is not. Let people filter what they want to filter; any other route is doomed to failure.

      As a parent myself, I think any parent who gives their child unfettered, unsupervised access to the internet is a fool; you might end up raising a kid who's a combination of Benny Hill and Ted Bundy. Kids too young to understand the difference between good/bad, normal/abnormal, etc don't need to be downloading hard-core pr0n, and faces-of-death pics.

      HOWEVER... there's nothing to stop a parent from being that kind of fool, and I'm not entirely certain that you can legislate that anyway. If somebody wants their kid to think sex with goats is OK, and attend his high-school graduation in a Gimp suit, have at it... (but I'll tell you what, their kid will only date one of my kids over my slowly-cooling, twitching corpse).

      Leave the filtering to the parents, if they so choose. As long as it's in the privacy of their own home, and as long as it's not kiddie pr0n, I'd say let adults download what they want.

      • Re:Australia is a funny country... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:34AM (#5431435) Homepage Journal

        As a parent myself, I think any parent who gives their child unfettered, unsupervised access to the internet is a fool; you might end up raising a kid who's a combination of Benny Hill and Ted Bundy. Kids too young to understand the difference between good/bad, normal/abnormal, etc don't need to be downloading hard-core pr0n, and faces-of-death pics.

        As a parent myself, I have to disagree completely with you on this point. I think that education is the key to raising health kids capable of adjusting to their environment. Censorship is not education. It is, in fact, anti-education. I do not censor the internet from my kids (of course, neither of them are old enough to read, quite yet, so they don't use the computer anyway) and I have no intention of doing so. I've gone out and looked at the stuff on the internet that you would censor, and I'll admit that I don't want them to see it. However, consider this: Kid downloads kiddie porn. Says "Daddy, what's this?" I say "That's why you don't talk to strangers." Easy enough, right?

        Sure, I make it sound easy, but as with all parenting issues, it's a lot more complex than that. The point, though, is that you never get to talk about the hard stuff if it never comes up. My parents practiced censorship on me, and I found myself at 18 ready to take on the world, but unprepared for the world as it really is.

        Leave the filtering to the parents, if they so choose. As long as it's in the privacy of their own home, and as long as it's not kiddie pr0n, I'd say let adults download what they want.

        Luckily, I agree very strongly with this. :) So you won't hear me trying to actually legislate my ideas of parenting. :)

        • I think we're saying the same thing here... Note I said "unfettered, unsupervised" access. Without an adult there to provide context, interpretation, and moral clarity, their pliable young mind might that that it's normal to perform some unspeakable act on a neighborhood cat. Like you, I think you cannot completely shield children from the world, but they should only be exposed at the time and age of the PARENT'S choosing... ie. when they are mature enough to learn the necessary lesson.

          You are absolutely correct; kids will come across this kind of stuff... it just shouldn't be left to them to try understanding/interpreting on their own.

          • I think we're saying the same thing here... Note I said "unfettered, unsupervised" access. Without an adult there to provide context, interpretation, and moral clarity, their pliable young mind might that that it's normal to perform some unspeakable act on a neighborhood cat. Like you, I think you cannot completely shield children from the world, but they should only be exposed at the time and age of the PARENT'S choosing... ie. when they are mature enough to learn the necessary lesson.

            I think I got the impression from your other post that you were in favor of an automated method of censorship.

            One of my basic problems is that I don't know that I'm qualified to determine when my kid is mature enough for something. As an example, I'm certain that I was mature enough for the typical sex talk when I was 10 or 11, but my parents didn't think it was an issue unless I actually had a girlfriend, which didn't happen until I was 17. So for 6-7 years I sputtered around in a great deal of confusion in the worst part of puberty. Now, I'm not laying claim to any lingering scars from the period. :) However, when the time comes, how will I know when my kids are mature enough for the discussion? Typically I base it on how well they understand related concepts. Obviously, at 4, my daughter who's playing "I'm getting married to my brother!" isn't quite ready. I have tried to talk to her about DNA, recessive genes, and so forth and the dangers of inbreeding. She just gets real confused.

            The basic problem I have with automated methods of dealing with human problems is that I've seen quite a few parents use similar techniques (and the old-school copouts, like "they should learn that in school, it's not my fault if the school didn't teach it", or "The school should've kept their mouth shut, because I don't wanna deal with this problem, it'll never happen to *my* kid") as an excuse to not raise their kids. It's too easy. "Oh honey, we don't have to talk to them about sex, they just don't have to know about it. Look, we've got filtering in place for the internet, the tv, the windows on the house, and even the windows on the car! We don't ever have to mention it to them, and they'll learn about it in school."

            OTOH, an automated tool like the ones the article is about might be a good parenting tool, as long as it's not leaned on. Kind of like the windows administrator installing his event log monitor, and then he immediately quits reading his event logs. Why? He's still gotta look at them every now and then, doesn't he?

            You are absolutely correct; kids will come across this kind of stuff... it just shouldn't be left to them to try understanding/interpreting on their own

            When it comes down to it, I think we're more or less on the same page. :) You're right about that. :)

            • As a parent of two teenagers, I have to say that you two guys have started OK but ended up this dialogue in a very disturbing way:

              You are absolutely correct; kids will come across this kind of stuff... it just shouldn't be left to them to try understanding/interpreting on their own

              When it comes down to it, I think we're more or less on the same page. :) You're right about that. :)

              What exactly is that page you're talking about? Not that one with .cx in url, I hope.

              • What exactly is that page you're talking about? Not that one with .cx in url, I hope.

                Lol. I'm wanting to GIMP that one and close the hole with my guitar embedded "to the hilt".

                Also, I'd like to point out that anything with a .cx isn't automatically evil. Check out ecasound [www.eca.cx]. If you setup your filter to filter out domains with .cx in it, then your musically-inclined kid might well miss out on the leading open source audio application.

                • Actually, I never did and never would filter out anything. There are two reasons for this - one is that they would eventually find out about any filtered content anyway and be forced to view it elsewhere. The other one is that all that crap is unfortunatelly part of the world we live in and hiding it artificially from children would hurt them in a way that they didn't have information on time. This way they are better equipped to protect themselves - don't forget we, as parents, are not going to be here forever. I figure much better way of fighting something you don't approve is to build awareness, rather than hide in ignorance - we completely agree here. I also have to say that my wife and I have really been blessed with two amazing children and it was never a problem talking about anything with them.

                  BTW, check http://oralse.cx - someone on /. had it the other day in a sig. It's a clever one and has quite a few funny images on a 'contrib' page.

                  • BTW, check http://oralse.cx - someone on /. had it the other day in a sig. It's a clever one and has quite a few funny images on a 'contrib' page.

                    I've seen it. :) it definitely rocks. Heh. A buddy of mine told me that seeing goatse will leave scars, and I sent him that link and he said it did a good job of repairing the damage caused by initially seeing goatse.

                    I figure much better way of fighting something you don't approve is to build awareness, rather than hide in ignorance - we completely agree here.

                    Lucky for us. :) There are plenty of foundations in recent american history to demonstrate that we're actually right. :)

                    Let's see, sex education in schools. More kids use condoms as a result, since they understand the risks better. AIDS education really helped for awhile to bring down the spread of the virus, but I understand it's been neglected a lot for awhile, and the spread of AIDS is increasing again. Drugs. As much as I hate to say it, Nancy Reagan did a good job getting kids to know about drugs and what they did. "Just Say No" as such wound up being a failure, at least in my generation, but I think that a lot of people my age haven't gone to the extremes of drug use because they know more about the long-term affects.

                    I'm sure there are other numerous examples.

                    Also, as much as I hate to say it, I tend to use the Metallica song Dyers' Eve as a bit of a guide, personally. My interpretation (and I think it's a correct one, but I could be wrong) of that song is right along the lines of this discussion.

                    The subject has come up quite a bit with my wife, who was raised in a much more "protective" fashion than I was. As a result of her "protection", at a very early age she sought out all the things that she was "protected" from, and through ignorance got hurt a lot as a result. Still, she clings to her upbringing a bit. I'm a die-hard metalhead with the hair and guitar to prove it :) (and some recorded music, check out my sig). She was once concerned about the effects of heavy metal on a child and didn't want the kids to hear my music. After some "tense discussion" she saw things my way, a bit. She still has problems with some of it (King Diamond, mostly), but good reasons for that. (The kids have nightmares from watching LOTR, I can see them having nightmares about getting possessed by demons and drinking tea with their grandma as a result of listening to King Diamond)

                    Anyway, some time recently I came up with a definition of adulthood that I like. :) Adulthood is a state you reach when you have completely evaluated every aspect of your upbringing and can state in all honesty that your thoughts, beliefs, and prejudices are your own. Since this is almost an impossible state to reach, I figure if you hit 70% you're probably doing pretty well. As a result of this definition, I feel that my job as a parent is to teach my kids the skills they need to be able to evaluate everything they learn (from me and from other people) to come up with their own thoughts on the matter. So, I figure that analytical reasoning and logic are more important than morality, in fact. Problem solving will do them a lot more good than just teaching them what is "right".

                    So, any ideas on a methodology that will accurately come up with "the right thing" most of the time? Keeping in mind, of course, that the actual "right thing" varies greately from person to person and culture to culture....

                    • I got hit with a definition of adulthood recently that I'm finding hard to shake: I got a promotion from hourly to salaried (go me!) and with that came paperwork. Fine. But one of the forms was a mandatory life insurance form. They wanted to know who my beneficiaries are.

                      I'm 21 years old. The last thing I was worrying about was who would get the 4% of my paycheck they hold in case I die within the next however many moons.

                      So, the definition: being an adult is having to seriously think about the wellbeing of someone other than yourself.

                      (having said that, even with those forms, I'm still fighting back adulthood) :)

                      Triv
      • As a parent myself, I think any parent who gives their child unfettered, unsupervised access to the internet is a fool; you might end up raising a kid who's a combination of Benny Hill and Ted Bundy. Kids too young to understand the difference between good/bad, normal/abnormal, etc don't need to be downloading hard-core pr0n, and faces-of-death pics.

        When my mother was 12, she asked my Grandmother about something she did not understand in a mildly racy novel. My Grandmother threw a fit over what she was reading. My mother learned never to share what she was reading with her Mom.

        When I was growing up, our next door neighbors had a lockout of some kind (pre v-chip) on their cable system to prevent their 12 year old daughter from seeing movies that they deemed too racy. When she wanted to see one that was locked, she came over to our house and watched it with my sister.

        Bottom line: If you censor your kids viewing/reading/internet, they will find a way around it and you will lose the ability to discuss with them the ideas that they are picking up from those very sources that you are trying to control.

        PS. Now that I am the parent of a 3 year old daughter, I do find myself censoring what she watches. Her favorite film is LOTR. But I've gotten tired of having to get up at 0300 in order to calm her down from a nightmare after she has watched it before going to bed. I am having a bit of a problem reconciling my liberal ideals with my need for undisturbed sleep.
      • Filtering is a good idea, but mandatory filtering is not. Let people filter what they want to filter...As a parent myself

        So, it's OK to be a filterer but not a filteree?

        What do your kids think about this? Plan on doing this until they're 18?
        • Oh hell yes.

          As a parent, I think it's not just OK to filter, it's incumbent upon you to do so.

          When a child is a minor and unable to understand and/or consent to the viewing of questionable materials, you'd better filter stuff for them.

          I am interested in what my kids want to do (and will want to do), but under my own roof, and in my own home, I have veto power. Once they are of legal age, and living on their own, they can do whatever they want (as I did), and deal with all the consequences of those actions.

          While they are a minor, the parent bears responsibility for them in all kinds of ways. You can be sure I'm not taking the responsibility without the power to enforce it.

          So to answer your question: Yes, I plan to filter as long as they live in my home, and I honesty don't care whether they like it or not. Seems harsh, uncool, and authoritarian, doesn't it? Well, somebody has to be the adult, and somebody has to make the rules, and as long as I'm paying the bills, that's me. Nobody likes being the "heavy," but it IS your parental duty.

          This is one of those situations where that whole "be your child's friend" philosophy breaks down.

  • He's not a total luddite (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:30AM (#5431087) Journal
    For example, he'll happily accept a freebie high end digital plasma screen TV [smh.com.au] for vital research.

    Perhaps Saddam should also try chucking our Prime Minister a similar gift [australianit.com.au] in return for more favourable consideration.

  • Potentially more effective strategies (Score:3, Funny)

    by joelhayhurst ( 655022 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:33AM (#5431096)
    What would really be more effective in assuring the Australian people don't think impure thoughts would be to implement the Orwellian idea of removing certain words from their vocabulary, such as "freedom," "liberty," etc. Hey, it worked with "Fosters."
    • What would really be more effective in assuring the Australian people don't think impure thoughts would be to implement the Orwellian idea of removing certain words from their vocabulary, such as "freedom," "liberty," etc. Hey, it worked with "Fosters."

      That is a great idea. Here in the United States, we did the same thing with "greffidale", "mezawat", and "Jiokilb". Thanks to their absence, (and a little help from the airborne LSD virus) no one except us remembers the great Dreflord rebellion of 1941.

  • What a novel idea! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:33AM (#5431097)
    The head of the Internet Industry Association, Peter Coroneos, said mandatory filtering had been ruled out because "...We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents."

    Seems too obvious. Parents responsible for their kids. Anyone in the US government listening?

    • Re:What a novel idea! (Score:5, Funny)

      by talis9 ( 166451 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:50AM (#5431173)
      Woah. Just hold on a minute there boy. What you are suggesting could bring down society as we know it.

      I suppose next you'll be suggesting we take responsibility for our actions.

      These laws (if they get passed) will be treated the same way we do most laws here in OZ. We'll just ignore them and carry on business as usual.

      I always find it hilarious that these things come from Canberra, the distribution centre for pr0n in Australia.

      • Re:What a novel idea! (Score:4, Funny)

        by EverDense ( 575518 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:44AM (#5431589) Homepage
        I always find it hilarious that these things come from Canberra, the distribution
        centre for pr0n in Australia.

        But that is why this legislation IS coming from Canberra.

        Many a federal politician's mail order pr0n business has gone bust due to the
        availability of "free" online pr0n.

      • Re:What a novel idea! (Score:5, Informative)

        by mabinogi ( 74033 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:47AM (#5431791) Homepage
        Just a note from a Canberran.

        There are two governments in the ACT.

        The Federal government...those on the hill under the giant lump of aluminium, and the ACT Legislative assemibly, the people that make decisions on behalf of the Canberra people.

        Please don't say that decisions coming from the former are from Canberra, as they are not.
        The federal government has shown that it doesn't give a shit about Canberra (The lodge is a big, expensive, empty house ever since little johnny got elected), and we, definitely don't want anything to do with them, and hate it when those in other states say 'Canberra said....'. Because we, as Canberrans definitely did not say.
      • Despite the parent being moderated Funny, his/her statement about how stupid laws get treated (ignored) in Australia is Informative.

    • Difficulties with supervising your child (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MyNameIsFred ( 543994 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:49AM (#5431801)
      I do not believe in mandatory filtering, but as a parent of a small child I have major problems with the current situation and with those who argue "just monitor your child."

      We monitor what our child does, in fact the computer is in our living room so we know what she is doing. At the same time, all it takes is a trivial error to expose her to pornographic material. For example, type whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov. This bit me the other day. She wanted to buy something for her "American Girl" doll. So we sat down at the computer. Unfortunately, I typed americangirls.com instead of americangirl.com.

      Frankly I don't care if people have access to pornography. More power to them. BUT I do wish there was some simple way to separate pornography from everything else. E.g., a XXX domain. That way anyone who wants it can get it. At the same time, I just install a simple filter and I don't have to worry about trivial errors like I had with americangirl.

      Frankly, I don't believe this is too much to ask. For example, I go to the book store and they put the porno mags on the top shelf, where my child is unlikely to make a trivial error and pick one up. In essence, that is all I'm asking of the internet.

      • There is a simple and free solution to this. Instead of typing in an URL in your address bar, goto www.google.com click on preferences, and set it to use a strict filter. Now run a search on where you wanted to go. American Girls gives you www.americangirl.com not a pr0n site.
      • there's a reason sites like whitehouse.com exist. and it's not because people associate porn with the executive branch of the federal government. these domains exist BECAUSE their owners hope you make a typing mistake.

        not all porn sites behave in this fashion, just as not all people are immoral. But enough are so that even if there were a XXX domain (which is IMHO a good idea. it's three letters after all)it would not prevent these sorts of problems.

        After all, these are the same type of people that blindly send pornographic spam to each and every AOL address they can get their grimy little hands on.

        But just like SPAM, the internet is too unruly to be lassoed into proper behavior. As long as there's money in it there's always going to be people out there ready and willing to be devious.
      • This bit me the other day. She wanted to buy something for her "American Girl" doll. So we sat down at the computer. Unfortunately, I typed americangirls.com instead of americangirl.com.

        And americangirls.com pulls up ... nothing.
      • Sex and human bodies are natural and beautiful... I don't understand what there is to hide. People feeling that their own bodies are something to be ashamed of probably has something to do with rediculously high suicide rates and whatnot, common in occidental society.

      • More lies (Score:3, Informative)

        by Python ( 1141 )
        "Unfortunately, I typed americangirls.com instead of americangirl.com."
        Yeah, SURE this happened. You story just doesn't check out "Fred". Ya see, both americangirl.com and americangirls.com are registered to the SAME people, and neither one of them are porn sites:

        Registrant:
        Pleasant Company (AMERICANGIRL3-DOM)
        8400 Fairway Place
        null
        US

        Domain Name: AMERICANGIRL.COM

        Administrative Contact:
        ACKER, BOB-WN-CADA (BA5375) bob_acker@PLEASANTCO.COM
        PLEASANT COMPANY
        8400 fairway place
        MIDDLETON, WI 53562
        608 836 4848 (FAX) 608 828 4777
        Technical Contact:
        Schneider, Rick (RS16264) rick_schneider@PLEASANTCO.COM
        Pleasant Company
        8400 Fairway Place
        Middleton , WI 53562
        608-836-4848

        Record expires on 26-Mar-2004.
        Record created on 25-Mar-1997.
        Database last updated on 4-Mar-2003 18:20:43 EST.

        Domain servers in listed order:

        GLACIER.BINC.NET 205.173.176.10
        SMOKIES.BINC.NET 205.173.176.11

        Registrant:
        Pleasant Company (AMERICANGIRLS9-DOM)
        8400 Fairway Place
        Middletown
        WI,53562-0998
        US

        Domain Name: AMERICANGIRLS.COM

        Administrative Contact:
        ACKER, BOB-WN-CADA (BA5375) bob_acker@PLEASANTCO.COM
        PLEASANT COMPANY
        8400 fairway place
        MIDDLETON, WI 53562
        608 836 4848 (FAX) 608 828 4777
        Technical Contact:
        Schneider, Rick (RS16264) rick_schneider@PLEASANTCO.COM
        Pleasant Company
        8400 Fairway Place
        Middleton , WI 53562
        608-836-4848

        Record expires on 24-May-2004.
        Record created on 24-May-2001.
        Database last updated on 4-Mar-2003 18:21:05 EST.

        Domain servers in listed order:

        GLACIER.BINC.NET 205.173.176.10
        SMOKIES.BINC.NET 205.173.176.11

  • Preview of the review... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rjch ( 544288 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:35AM (#5431108) Homepage
    No doubt the review of the "Internet Decency" laws will include a clause that you may not be naked whilst your computer is connected to the Internet. It'd be on par with their past [slashdot.org] efforts [slashdot.org].

  • If Australia is anything like China... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:36AM (#5431115) Homepage Journal
    The reason why Australia's filters are failing would be that: any computer saavy college student knows where all the latest proxy servers are, and soon disseminate them all over. There are many web sites that have lists of working proxies located overseas, outside the government's control, and new ones are found far faster than the government can block them.

    Let's hope (probably dimly) that China will soon follow Australia's suit in dropping them.

    • Re:If Australia is anything like China... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is no large scale filtering. All that's required is that
      A) ISPs offer Net Nanny style software for sale
      B) Illegal content hosted in Australia is taken down.

    • Re:If Australia is anything like China... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:30AM (#5431279)
      Unfortunately, what was being implied by the parent post is absolutely wrong. The internet censoring down here is NOTHING like the "great firewall of China" since this censoring effort is merely an attempt to black-list sites of questionable and illegal nature eg: online casinos, REALLY offensive pr0n etc...

      Proxies have never been required to bypass such a system because, only some 11 or so sites (as of a year or two's count, and I seriously doubt this number has increased all that much) have been censored by this 'law', and may I add, at quite a considerable expense for each site (at least AUD$10k+ each IIRC)

      As for the impact this filtering system has had on AUS net users? None whatsoever. The sooner it is out of operation, the better. The money would be better spent elsewhere

  • Karma Whoring - EFA Press Release (Score:5, Informative)

    by thedji ( 561789 ) <dotslasl@wiCOUGARcked.dj minus cat> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:37AM (#5431124) Homepage
    Press release from the EFA (Australia's version of the EFF):

    --------
    Media Release: 3 March 2003

    Censorship laws contribute to youth access to violent pornography

    Australian censorship laws contribute to the problem of youth access to
    pornographic material of the violent and extreme kind, Electronic Frontiers
    Australia (EFA) said today.

    The Australia Institute recently surveyed 200 youths 16-17 years old and
    found that "teenagers view X-rated videos more than Internet sex sites",
    although the sale of X-rated videos is illegal in all States.

    "Apparently, Australian laws prohibiting sale of X-rated videos have failed
    to prevent youth access to this type of video. It's even less likely that
    government attempts to prevent access to content on the world-wide Internet
    can be successful," said Irene Graham, EFA's Executive Director.
    "Australian laws already empower the Australian Broadcasting Authority to
    enforce deletion of any X-rated material found on Australian hosted
    Internet sites and The Australia Institute's report does not suggest that
    the laws have failed in this regard."

    The Australia Institute said a "distinction needs to be drawn between
    'mainstream' pornography (in commercially available X-rated videos) and the
    proliferation of violent and extreme material on the Internet".

    "Australian Internet censorship laws go far beyond the realms of community
    standards and practicality," said Graham. "Mainstream pornography
    containing sexually explicit X-rated material without the slightest
    indication of violence, coercion or demeaning depictions, and also R rated
    material that is not sexually explicit, is banned in the same way as
    depictions of rape, bestiality and so on. Mere nudity, like a Playboy
    magazine centre-fold, is banned. As a result, adults and teenagers seeking
    mainstream pornography online, visit overseas sites where they are very
    likely to be exposed to violent and extreme pornography."

    EFA said relaxation of Australian Internet censorship laws would be more
    successful in minimising access to violent and extreme kinds of pornography
    than would more restrictive legislation.

    "The laws should be changed to permit on-line provision of Australian
    X-rated material, a category that has long prohibited violent and extreme
    pornography," said Graham. "This would allow the small proportion of
    Internet users who seek pornographic material online, whether adult or
    teenage, to access strictly regulated Australian sites. At present, they
    have no option other than to visit overseas sites that also contain
    horrific material and that are not, and never will be, subject to
    Australia's censorship laws."

    EFA considers that minors' access to pornography online is a matter of
    serious concern. However, given the global nature of the Internet, more
    restrictive Australian laws would be no more effective than current laws.

  • ISPs Choice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:38AM (#5431128)
    At the ISP I used to work for in Perth, Australia we decided the best solution was to provide a page or two on our website explaining how software filtering works, then provide all the alternatives and let the clients decide, so I wrote:

    http://www.iinet.net.au/support/softwarefilters. ht ml

    it fulfilled the requirements of the legislation and explained the limitations of each type of flitering quite clearly - without affecting our customers or business.

  • She'll be right (Score:4, Funny)

    by Aussie ( 10167 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:38AM (#5431132) Journal
    Our government is way too incompetent to implement any effective forms of censorship. Just look at their recent record on things like refugees, Iraq and the like. They can't even lie very well :)

  • As a youth of Australia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Playboy3k ( 552242 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:42AM (#5431151)
    As a youth of Australia i am getting more and more appaled by my own country, it seems like where turning into china but at least there not going to war. I am scared of the day when i wake up and go to google.com to see it blocked. I think its time australia wakes up and realise that we have to make our own decisions. I just hope they do this soon.

    • Re:As a youth of Australia (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:51AM (#5431182)

      Were I you, I'd be more worried about the fact that the Australian education system seems to have failed you miserably. The only website you need to worry about reaching is this one [dictionary.com].

    • Re:As a youth of Australia (Score:4, Informative)

      by vandan ( 151516 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:02AM (#5431497) Homepage
      Go to http://www.abc.net.au/news/multipoll3/vote/ [abc.net.au]
      and vote against the war.
      It's not like fucking Howard will listen to us, but at least we can make personal attacks based on his arrogance when we know the number of people against him.
    • At least they're not going to war.

      Aussie Commandos 'in Iraq'
      By staff writers


      AUSTRALIAN and US special forces have already entered Iraq to lay the groundwork for any invasion, a US newspaper has reported.

      The Boston Globe article suggests US troops have been joined by CIA agents, Australian, British and Jordanian commandos in Iraq.

      It claims about 100 US Special Forces members and more than 50 Central Intelligence Agency officers have been operating in the country in small groups for at least four months.

      The report is said to be based on information from "intelligence officials and military analysts who have talked with people on the teams".

      Their role in Iraq is said to include hunting down Scud missile launchers and mapping minefields.

      "The operations, which also have included small numbers of Jordanian, British, and Australian commandos, are considered by many analysts to be part of the opening phase of a war against Iraq," the report says.

      Meanwhile, in Iraq a people's militia has carried out a war game designed to confront an enemy force attacking from several directions, according to another newspaper report.

      The official daily Al-Iraq says the civilian militia of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party practised operations in Babil province.

      Militiamen tried deceiving an attacking enemy and fighting in urban and rural areas, the report says.

      The brief article did not say how many troops took part, nor did it include photographs of the exercise.

      It quoted a senior Baath party member, Fadhil Mahmoud al-Mishiykhi, as praising the fighters' efficiency and morale in battling a campaign against Iraq launched by the United States and "its Zionist ally" - meaning Israel

      http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_pag e/0,5936,5802552%255E15574,00.html

  • 100% Success? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:46AM (#5431157) Homepage Journal
    Network manager Chris Robinson said the system has been almost 100 per cent successful in filtering out unwanted content, but there have been some problems with over-filtering - blocking desired content.

    Well jeesh. If they want to be completely 100% successful in filtering out the unwanted content, they could just unplug the whole bloody thing ;-). Thank goodness they are revisiting this issue, and will hopefully just get rid of it 100% completely.

    I'll even bet that the system was really only 85-90% successful. There is just simply no way possible to even be 99% successful (unless you brainwash all the citizens and start witch hunts for the bad people, etc).

  • Tinfoil caps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mlush ( 620447 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:46AM (#5431160)

    From the article:"ISPs don't want people using very effective filters," he said. "They want people to be downloading as much information as possible - that's how they make their money."

    ....which is why they cap the bandwidth avalable to their customers

  • From the article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Karl_Hungus ( 180893 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:47AM (#5431165)
    "We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents." He said the opt-out clause "could work" but feared routine filtering could seriously slow down the internet.

    They should go with an opt-in policy instead. Those willing to stick their heads in the sand and let others make decisions about what they can and can not read should stand up and ask for it by name instead of forcing the everyone else to bail out of such a scheme.

  • dont expect 100% success out of filters (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dilvish_the_damned ( 167205 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @03:58AM (#5431200) Journal
    In fact, dont expect them to work more than about 1/2 the time, in that way you might be pleasantly suprised.
    I base this claim on the observation that no one has been able to block spam to a severe degree. It would seem that most of the filtering for both spam and the netnanny type filtering would work on the same princibles.( except for that skin tone filtering, but thats just pure evil, though cool).
    When I can block 90% of the spam in my mailbox then I will become concerened for the ausies.
    On a serious note: I will become concerned for everyone the day that a governing entity becomes satisfied with its censorship practices.
  • from the article...

    But product developers claim the technology works where there is a real financial incentive to make it work, as in corporations.

    also from the article...

    "ISPs don't want people using very effective filters," he said. "They want people to be downloading as much information as possible - that's how they make their money."

    it seems to me as if they're targeting the wrong corporations, heh. i mean, considering the past actions of the RIAA, MPAA, IDSA, and the BSA, they seem to think they have all the incintive in the world to do this... so... if Australlia wants censorship, they should have the copyright mongers of America do it - not ISP's! i mean, sheesh, Australlia - what were you thinking!?

  • Sheep (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:01AM (#5431211)
    Be afraid Australia, be very afraid!

    Now they won't be able to see the vids of their New Zealand neighbors with their sheep.

  • I don't know how filters could possibly work. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:13AM (#5431233) Homepage Journal
    'Filtering' the Internet is an almost textbook example of the idiom "Shovelling shit against the tide."

    For months people got around the filters by changing the way they entered the web addresses (use IP addresses instead of domain names until that ceased to work; use the integer encoding of the IP address until THAT ceased to work, etc.) They fixed that. Then they went through well-known proxies like anonymizer.com and made proxies out of well-known services like babelfish.altavista.com. They fixed that. Eventually proxy access on well-known ports will probably be blocked at the border to stave off the unknown proxy usage, but that doesn't do anything about the ports that are unknown. Then they can start filtering things that look like web traffic on non-standard ports, but SSL gateways and VPN software can always get past that until they decide to block encryption.

    My point: there will always be ways around filters on the Internet, because at any point there aren't, we've no longer got an Internet. There are sufficient business interests in maintaining the Internet as a useful tool to keep the book-burning impulses of even the most ardent censorship advocates in check.

  • Pathetic... utterly pathetic... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:18AM (#5431245)
    Thankfully those of us lucky enough to live in Australia don't need the Internet, 'cause Telstra and other broadband carriers certainly won't let us have it!

    Filtering the Internet is unnecessary. All we need are a few more users, and the tiny bandwidth available to the entire nation will be spread so thinly that it'll be like the good old days of 9600 baud modems. Sure, pornography will get through, but by the time a download has finished, even young teens will then be old enough to vote.

    The World's Biggest Luddite is barely worthy of being called a moron (well, only if you were comparing him to a particularly stupid moron), so no doubt he'll implement another completely unworkable solution which will win him votes with people who think "Something must be done!" and the rest of us will long for the next election so that we can vote this peanut out.

    Still, we only have to give him some sort of bribe, like the digital television he accepted for research purposes (as did the PM). It's so much easier when the top pollies are on the take. All we have to do is work out the right size bribe...

  • ISPs making money ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DZign ( 200479 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .ehreva.> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:23AM (#5431256) Homepage
    "ISPs don't want people using very effective filters," he said. "They want people to be downloading as much information as possible - that's how they make their money."

    Weird, I always thought internet providers made money from people who pay their monthly fees but don't download a lot, and they actually loose money on those who download gigabytes a month..

    Anyone care to explain how an ISP makes money because their users download a lot ??

    • Re:ISPs making money ? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:47AM (#5431327) Journal
      Anyone care to explain how an ISP makes money because their users download a lot ??

      When they charge 15 cents per megabyte for people who download more than their (300MB/1GB/3GB - choose your poison) cap.\

      And then have the gall to define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes , a-la hard disk manufacturers.

      Ka-Ching!!

  • Did you know (Score:3, Informative)

    by obi-1-kenobi ( 547975 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:48AM (#5431328) Homepage
    That Australia filters all printed media. If you want a copy of the NY Times or internation herald tribune it takes an extra 48 hours for them read it and send it off. On a side note: In Malaysia they do sensor the information that is writen about Malaysia however it only takes them 6 hours after the paper is released. So you get the morning paper that afternoon. (paper printer in Singapore)

    • Re:Did you know (Score:3, Informative)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
      "That Australia filters all printed media. If you want a copy of the NY Times or internation herald tribune it takes an extra 48 hours for them read it and send it off."

      Gee... they get yesterday's New York paper today... Could that possibly have something to do with, say, the International Date Line?

      "In Malaysia they do sensor the information that is writen about Malaysia however it only takes them 6 hours after the paper is released. So you get the morning paper that afternoon."

      New York's afternoon or Malaysia's afternoon? Hell, I don't think the sun is ever shining on both places at the same time...

      But, hey, it got modded up so it must be true...

  • This all started because... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ghostrider_one ( 182445 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:58AM (#5431347)
    ... some "think tank" calling themselves the "Australia Institute" published a rather sensationally written teaser of a pro-Internet-censorship report saying that the existing Internet censorship legislation was a complete failure (which it is) and to Save The Children the answer was legislating to force ISPs to filter peoples Internet access (which is horse excrement of the highest order). They then expect people to pay AU$21 to have a hard-copy of the full report mailed to them. Of course, someone published [webprophets.net.au] a PDF file of it online ;)

    The media obligingly jumped on the Save The Children bandwagon (as is their want), the politicians followed along, and the result is the current mess, where instead of pulling the plug on the current abomination of a scheme, the politicians are openly contemplating making it even worse. All because of a rather shabby report from a group of publicity-hounds (personal opinion).

    • Re:This all started because... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ghostrider_one ( 182445 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:01AM (#5431352)
      Oh, and Electronic Frontiers Australia [efa.org.au] has issued a Press Release [efa.org.au] about this..
    • This has quickly moved from a Teaser to policy [news.com.au].

      THE federal Government will move to tighten control over the internet to reduce the accessibility of hardcore pornography from personal computers.

      One of the options being considered by Communications Minister Richard Alston is a central system to filter all local and overseas internet traffic through a proxy server.

      But Senator Alston fears that could slow down overall internet speeds. He favours an approach that would toughen regulations on internet service providers, which are already obliged to filter out offensive material.


      This is mind-bogglingly stupid. How they plan on sniffing p2p and SSL encrypted stuff is beyond me. We will get broken web services while all the pr0n fiends will move to IRC and p2p (and even UseNet!).

      A friend's first thought was that maybe this is actually about making surveilance of Internet activity easier.

      Xix.

  • Clueless technophobics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SystematicPsycho ( 456042 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @04:59AM (#5431351)
    What some people don't realize, and it is probably due to their lack of understanding of technology is that in the case of internet filtering you can only limit access to certain sites but not prevent _all access to everything that is deemed inappropriate on a moral scale. Just like crime, you can prevent some but not all.

  • Some FUD here (Score:3, Informative)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:28AM (#5431424) Homepage Journal

    From Article: It wants mandatory filtering by internet service providers (ISPs), but with those aged over 18 able to opt out.

    It seems they want to regulate content mainly for minors and people who want regulation.... Nothing really wrong with that.

    The head of the Internet Industry Association, Peter Coroneos, said mandatory filtering had been ruled out because "some families just don't have an issue with it".
    "We feel the decision is best left in the hands of parents." He said the opt-out clause "could work" but feared routine filtering could seriously slow down the internet.

    Dosent seem doomsday here.......
    "Be very afraid. huh"
    Classic example of sensationalism... where it is not required

  • I'm glad I jumped ship for a while ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nosfucious ( 157958 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @05:40AM (#5431454)
    I jumped ship on a temporary basis and it's articles like this that make me glad I'm in Switzerland and not oz.

    Pros:
    - Great wads of legal cash at obscenely low tax rates
    - No Alston, Howard the Coward and team.
    - 1.5 hours flight to Amsterdam
    - Good quality, high potency nearly-legal mull
    - No Eddie McGuire
    - Unlimited-download (but speed capped) ASDL

    Cons:
    - Howard the Coward doing his best to ruin Australia's reputation
    - No MCG, PoW, Espy, ABC cricket broadcasts
    - 7 Franks (~$Au 7.5) for a can of VB.

    It's pornography and gaming (gambling and games) that have driven the use of the Web and the uptake of broadband. Email, USENET, ftp and even various chat protocols have been side attractions.

    Alston is single-handedly driving away any hope of Australia being a content provider (and earning $$$) instead of being a content consumer (and watching the $$$ flow overseas).

    Get a clue Alston, being a consumer of technology does not earn you any real $$$, not does it drive innovation. Anyone can be a consumer. Time has not only stood still under your stewardship, but gone backwards.

    My fiance couldn't get any broadband in a middle sized city (for Australia), Ballarat. This was 3 years ago. She recently moved back there for our son's schooling and guess what .... she still can't get ASDL. No cable either. Not even cable TV. Cable duopoly that has limited reach in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which has stalled to a crawl?

    Here's a policy you can use for free: Local cable cooperatives with content providers paying for access. Oh ... News LTD won't get all the $$$, so forget it. You are a disgrace Alston, Howard the Coward and the whole damn Liberal party. Wankers.

    OK, I wandered off-topic for a while. But this guy wouldn't have a clue about the internet if it walked up to him, whacked him on the head with a clue-by-four, presented a business card and said: "Hi, I'm a clue". (Clue number 2: Free (as in speach) internet, increased parental supervision to stop nasty porn sites for youngsters) Of course, making people do hard work, actually raising their own kids, will never win votes.

  • Goes something like this... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:08AM (#5431506)
    Remember, the Internet interprets these kinds of hurdles (blocks/gates/filters etc.) as defects, and routes around them. Always has.....always will.

    You can stand me up at the Gates of Hell and I... won't...back...down. T.Petty.

  • Dumb Aussie laws (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slyall ( 190056 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @06:25AM (#5431550) Homepage
    I work for an Australian ISP. Filtering of p0rn is a pain since it involves ISPs supplying to customers and supporting software which is (as the reports says) unreliable and not very effective. Not to mention that it can be very expensive. The current regulation is fairly simple in that the ISP just has to provide a link to download filtering software and customers can decide if they want to use it.

    However the suggestion that porn would only be available to customers who were over 18 and opted out is pretty easy to handle.

    Due to credit laws most ISPs only accept customers if they are 18 years or older so all an ISP has to do is make sure every customer opts to have unblocked Internet.

    To get around this rule an ISP could just have as part of their signup a couple of boxes that say:

    [ ] - I am 18 years old or over
    [ ] - I wish to have unfiltered access to the Internet

    People who don't accept the unfiltered part will have no access to the Internet at large. Instead when they login they would be presented with a online version of the above form which would convert their account to normal.

    Existing users can be handled the same way, their Internet access is completely blocked until they fill out the option.

    Obviously this is a bit of work for the ISP and will cause some expense but it's 100 times easier than implimenting real filteing for all customers, let alone dealing with the flack when some "filtered" custome r manages to access porn or is unable to get to a site they like.
  • 1. Make insane, unenforceable Internet filtering laws.


    2. People ignore insane laws and follow reasonable courses of action.


    3. Hem and haw about changing moronic legislation.


    4. ......


    5. Oh come on, you know what comes last.

  • Filter is OK (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When a filter would be offered that blocks annoying mail from Korea, mail about penis enlargments, pop-up advertisements about such things, and access to counter sites etc, I would immediately opt-in.

    It seems that the Australians are obsessed with filtering X-rated material, but often such authorities have no problem with violence, spam, fraud etc.
    When they go through the trouble of installing filters, at least allow some more filtering criteria so that everyone can make his own choice.

  • A Total Dick (Score:2, Insightful)

    by _wintermute ( 90672 )
    And I, for one, am sick of his dickotry.

    He denies that there is an unemployment problem in IT in Australia, which is a total joke because everyone I know in the industry has been feeling the pinch for over 12 months now. I work in tertiary education and enrolments are ~way~ down across all of our computing programs, IS, software engineering, everything, entrance scores (as in ratings of those coming straight from high school) have declined dramtically because of lack of demand. I have friends out of work ... etc etc

    but NO, there is no downturn in IT at all.
  • It's Linux based - and they guy in the article is right it does occasionally get some false positives - curiously the smh site is one of the ones it gets =).

    Mind you I much prefer we do the filtering rather that the gov'ment.

  • Up front (Score:5, Funny)

    by rendle ( 152846 ) on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @07:38AM (#5431762)
    My favourite bit is the "opt out" of filtering for over-18s - as much an admission of the intent to masturbate as calling down to the front desk of the Hilton and saying "Yeah, hi, how do I get porn on this TV?"
  • Hmm - and here I was thinking of going to Australia for grad school (at UNSW in Sydney) ... If I can't easily download pr0n in the lab while waiting for a gel to run, I may have to reconsider ...
  • Even if the government proposes more restrictive laws, this more than likely won't get through the Senate.

    Labor, the main opposition party, has already announced that they will block this. Neither the Democrats or Greens are likely to support it either. If so, it's dead in the water.

    Not to mention the fact that there's a whole lot of Australians who like their net pr0n, and they won't be happy if the government actually implements something that stops them getting it.

    Oh, and Alston is a complete fuckwad. I know a staffer for another minister, and even he thinks Alston is a dickhead and that his staff don't have a clue about their portfolio.

  • Squid is effective... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SwedishChef ( 69313 ) <craig@networkessentials . n et> on Tuesday March 04, 2003 @10:34AM (#5432521) Homepage Journal
    We used squid as a filter on our local school district's 'Net connection for years. In order to make it work right we set the Cisco border router to not allow any connections to port 80 from any machine other than the squid box. Then we set up the squid box as the default gw for all the machines, set the squid box to port forward port 80 to port 3128 and "viola!".

    For the first few weeks we just looked through the logs of what the middle school boys were trying to access and added them to the filter list. It was simply amazing how these kids could find porn! But after a few months we got most of it into the filter list (a *long* list). Then we set squid up to notify one of the teachers whenever anyone went to a denied site. The teacher could just saunter over to the offending computer (every computer in the school is reverse DNS'ed) and tap the kid on the shoulder. Zero tolerance for porn in the classroom meant that even middle schoolers finally learned.

    Of course, a school district is not the same as an ISP much less an entire country. Filtering out a 12-year-old's access to porn is important (IMHO). Filtering out an adult's access to anything is Orwellian.

    But since squid *does* work, I'm just glad no one in Oz has noticed.

    • Re:Squid is effective... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BJZQ8 ( 644168 )
      Take a look at Dansguardian. It's a supplement to Squid that allows keyword filtering and weighting. I use it in the district I'm working for and it's wonderful. For all of the people that hate censorship in any way, shape, or form, I agree to a large extent. But then again, as the previous poster said, once the kids figure out that pr0n is available, they will get little real work done. Words are given weights. "Sex" may be weighted with a 20, for instance. So an article talking about worm reproduction might get through, especially since the word "reproduction" can be assigned a negative weight. But "SEX SEX SEX" might not. I have my limit set at 50...so if the total on the page goes over that, it is blocked. At the same time, DG allows whitelists of sites that may have lots of "questionable" words, but need to be unblocked anyway. I find this last feature useful to un-block webmail sites, where various employees may get otherwise blocked because of inappropriate spam. I have found all of the "commercial" products to be overpriced and underperforming.
      • Words are given weights. "Sex" may be weighted with a 20, for instance. So an article talking about worm reproduction might get through, especially since the word "reproduction" can be assigned a negative weight.

        Do that for a school district, and it'll work. If the majority of the porn site's target audience was behind the same filter, you'd put SEX in neon colors, and "reproduction reproduction reproduction" in white on white.

        Oh and if your pupils have email accounts, and get that kind of spam, do you whitelist your email server? If so they can just sign up for any one of a kazillion "get pr0n right in your mailbox" lists...

        Kjella
  • Maybe they will just illegalize the whole internet this time and force all ISP's to close down completely. That way no one will ever hear a different opinion than what the Australian government approves of. Right?

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