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The Internet Your Rights Online

Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net 588

Posted by samzenpus from the think-of-the-children dept.
Paul writes "An Australian Senator wants Australians' internet connections to be automatically filtered by ISPs. Anyone who wants to view pornography or 'other adult material' (details not specified) must apply to their ISP to be given access to it. Another step towards becoming a nanny state."
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Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net More

Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net

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  • WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yuri benjamin ( 222127 ) <yuridg@gmail.com> on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:39AM (#14208590) Journal
    Anyone who's desparate to surf pr0n will find a way around it.

    • Re:WTF! (Score:5, Funny)

      by moro_666 ( 414422 ) <kulminaator@ g m a i l.com> on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:43AM (#14208613) Homepage
      I'd love to see how they manage to filter all the content on year 2005/2006, they have to add a massive park of machines for it. And even then they will be unable to do anything about encrypted connections around the internet.

        I can't imagine any possible way to do it. Unless they link all the lambs in australia into one massive quantum supermachine ...

      • Encryption (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nurb432 ( 527695 )
        That part is not an issue really. Just ban non-backdoored encryption.

        Then the content doesnt matter.
    • Just contact the ISP and sign up. Who cares if you look at porn, what's the big deal? It's naked women, how is it "wrong" for us to want to look at it?

      People care way to much about what others think of them. If you enjoy something, fuck what others think.

    • Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jessta ( 666101 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:00AM (#14208867) Homepage
      The main problem is that this is generally about preventing underage kids from accessing porn. The thing is that if kids are intent on acessing porn then this isn't going to stop them. If kids are just accidently coming in to contact with porn then a lot of the time it would be through spam email. Lets see them try to filter a ssl connection to hotmail.

      Some people don't understand the technology, but think they are qualified to make decisions about laws governing that technology. Some People are idiots.

      • Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @08:54AM (#14209771)
        Kids were accessing porn way before the internet came along. Whether it was stealing magazines from their parents bedside drawer, or renting foreign films from the local corner shop, kids have had access to porn. There's also 12 year olds having sex, so naturally they are seeing naked people. Shutting it out from the internet isn't going to have any effect on whether or not kids actually get to see "porn".

        • Re:WTF! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @10:52AM (#14210754) Homepage Journal
          Kids were accessing porn way before the internet came along. Whether it was stealing magazines

          When I was 14 I was doing some religion study homework (catholic highschool, it didn't stick) with a team, one of guys asked if we wanted to watch a bootleg porn tape, someone from the AV club had made him a copy. We said yes, off course.

          I could have done without the hardcore scripted shit, I just wanted to see nekkid wimmin, the money shots were weird and pointless.

          The lesson is: If you want to protect the children, STOP LUMPING HARDCORE PORN AND BOOBIES TOGETHER. And stop trying to stop 14 year olds from seeing boobies, it's doing much more harm than good.

    • Re:WTF! (Score:3, Informative)

      by abdulwahid ( 214915 )

      Anyone who's desparate to surf pr0n will find a way around it.

      I think you are missing the point. They are not trying to stop people in general from seeing porn. In fact, it says in the article that it is people's right to register for open access but the default will be restricted access. The point is about children unknowingly wondering into pornographic areas. For many parents, with myself included, this is a concern.

      If a kid is intelligent enough to work away around the controls and bypassing them, wh

      • Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nx ( 194271 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @05:32AM (#14209126)
        While I agree that children stumbling upon pornography is a concern, this is NOT a good solution. For instance, why is it an opt-out solution, instead of an opt-in solution? Or why not let the market deal with it: sooner or later, there will be a demand for this service. At that point, any ISP can take it up, and those who want their Internet censored can simply use that ISP.

        Those with a conspiratorial mind may see other uses for this. It's a first step towards general content control. Even though this almost certainly is not the intent, there will always be people who feel that such a great tool can always be used for many more things. Next step might perhaps be blocking (without the opt-out, of course) child pornography. That's not likely to garner much opposition. After that they'll go for snuff, or prostitution. After awhile they'll start finding things that aren't really illegal, just morally reprehensible (to most people). Pretty soon, censoring yet another thing won't be such a big deal.

        There are times when censorship might seem like a good idea. However, anything that might lead to a less free society is not a good solution. It might sound callous, but I'd rather have a few children messed up by seeing pornography accidentally (if that really is such a trauma) than live with a perpetual censoring filter, just waiting to be abused. Parents, find another way to protect your kids, please.

      • Re:WTF! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jacksonj04 ( 800021 ) <nick@nickjackson.me> on Thursday December 08, 2005 @06:31AM (#14209262) Homepage
        It's not the ISP's job to monitor your child's internet access. It's yours.

        Install Net Nanny or something like that, or as an even more outstanding idea just watch what your kids are doing.

      • Re:WTF! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by elgaard ( 81259 )
        >This would be inline with other content providers like television where there has to be some control over access to
        >pornoghapic content.

        There does not _have_ to be control. Some countries have more or less censorship af television.

        I am more worried about children getting exposed to Scientology and coke-snorting fashion models with eating disorders.

        Can I get a filter so that you have to sign up for Scientology, Fashion etc to access it on the internet.

  • wish in one hand... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shams42 ( 562402 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:39AM (#14208592)
    Well, I want monkeys to fly out of my ass. That doesn't mean it's likely to happen.

  • So? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tajgenie ( 932485 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:40AM (#14208597)
    So what? Isn't the government the same as my parents? The government gave birth to me, raised me, fed me, taught me right from wrong. Surely they should be allowed to censor me?

  • Internet != Web (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:40AM (#14208598) Homepage Journal

    The article talks about the Internet but my bet is that they are talking about content filtering on http traffic.

    Peer to peer is much harder to filter and readily available to the porn industry.

  • Nasties on the net (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paska ( 801395 ) * on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:41AM (#14208601) Homepage
    "Keeping kids from nasties on the net"

    Here, I have a much better suggestion - supervision your children while they use the internet!

    • Re:Nasties on the net (Score:4, Funny)

      by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:51AM (#14209006)
      supervision your children while they use the internet!

      Why would I want to watch them surf porn? What kind of sicko are you?

  • Um ok (Score:5, Funny)

    by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:42AM (#14208606) Journal
    Wildly unpopular, impossible to implement and very, very expensive to even attempt.

    Yup. Sounds like a winning proposal to me.
  • He forgets or never knew that there only appears to be a common stream to censor (http) because it was NOT being censored.
    As soon as he censor he fragments the web enough to make his censoring useless.
    Of course anyone using the non-censorable "technology" must be a criminule, right?
    I'm anti-porn, I think it damages peoples minds, but I don't like this either.

    Sam

    • Re:He forgets (Score:3, Funny)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      "I'm anti-porn, I think it damages peoples minds. . ."

      Well yeah, having your mind damaged by morality'll do that to ya.

      KFG

    • Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anubis350 ( 772791 )
      I'm anti-porn, I think it damages peoples minds, but I don't like this either.

      Interesting, as I've always felt that porn helps people relax and release tension. Like anything else, it can be addictive and too much can probably hurt you (though, like most things, too mcuh is dependant on the indivdual). It's also certainly good for couples when it's watched together (and is something both enjoy watching).

      There is also the old reality/VR argument. Like video games, there is a significant difference between p
    • [...] a criminule, right? I'm anti-porn, I think it damages peoples minds, but I don't like this either.

      Hmmm, but without pr0n, it looks like one develops quite bad spelling.

  • Nanny-ness of this isn't important compared to (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:43AM (#14208612)
    The privacy issues of such a rule are staggering. Suppose the police want to find out who all the pervs are on a city block. They just subpoena the local ISPs to find out who's applied for pr0n access. Not to mention what happens if the ISP gets hacked (electronically or socially) and someone manages to get a copy of the pr0n access list. I suspect a lot of legislators will eventually be exposed for their hairy palms if such a law ever got passed.

  • Redneck Senator (Score:5, Informative)

    by syousef ( 465911 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:45AM (#14208620) Journal
    This is a Tasmanian senator. Tasmania is an Island long associated with jokes about incest and redneck stupidity. For you Americans think West Virginia style jokes (except that Tasmania is a very cold place and it's population quite tiny).
    • (except that Tasmania is a very cold place and it's population quite tiny)

      To start making remarks in which you combine cold with tiny is just not nice. It is always like that when it is cold!

  • Does someone have a list of names? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:45AM (#14208622)
    Just a senator?

    From TFA:
    LAST month, 62 members of the federal Coalition signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a ban on access to pornographic, violent and other inappropriate material via the internet.

    The signatories believed the internet should be regulated in a similar way to other media. If adults wished to "opt in" to access the material then of course that would be their right, and they would have to apply for their right of access.


    Does someone have a list of names of these idiots, so our Australian friends know who to rail against and vote out of office ASAP?

    • There are two interesting points in the quote you presented that I think you missed. First, that the content is deemed inappropriate. That's a hard one to judge because the Internet is still very new and we are still hashing out exactly where it fits in our lives. Puting porn mags in with childrens comics in a news agent is inappropriate. I don't think the analogy holds for the Internet which is mostly aimed at adults (porn, shopping, news etc). Therefore it's difficult to argue that there is a social norm

    • This is the least of our worries... (Score:5, Informative)

      by GrahamCox ( 741991 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:27AM (#14208945) Homepage
      I wholeheartedly agree that the only sensible course ofg action is to vote them out of office ASAP. If only!

      Just yesterday, the Australian govt. passed two contentious laws - one that basically undoes hundreds of years of hard-won freedoms at a stroke in the name of "anti-terrorism" - you're not even allowed to makes jokes at the govt's expense now - in fact this posting breaks this new law. Free speech has gone. The other contentious law effectively removes hundreds of workers' rights in the name of 'streamlining the economy' and 'remaining competitive'. Basically it gives employers carte blanche to demand what the fuck they like of an employee, and if they don't like it, they can always leave. This is modern 'liberalism' though quite frankly it's a total abuse of that term that the current regime use it to describe themselves.

      This situation has come about because the Australian people were duped into voting for a totally unevenly balanced parliament, railroaded into this vote by a series of lies and distortions and scare tactics at the last election. (Don't vote for the other lot, they'll take away your right to SHOP!) The resulting majority means that they can currently pass whatever they like and no-one can really fight it. This is NOT what the Australian people thought they were voting for, as neither of these new laws were part of the election manifesto. Just like the USA, who our Prime Minister appears to be in thrall to, we are sleepwalking into a nightmare of Orwellian proportions.

      If they so choose, this porn bill (if it becomes one) could well pass, then they'll worry about implementation later, no matter howe impractical it might actually be. However, in the scheme of things, this is nothing compared to what they've ALREADY done.

      • Re:This is the least of our worries... (Score:5, Informative)

        by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @05:25AM (#14209101) Homepage
        Yesterday, in London, England, a woman was convicted of a crime. She had read out the names of each British soldier who has dies in Iraq since the invasion, at the Cenotaph in London.

        This was deemed to be a 'protest' and protests now have to be licensed within half a mile of our lawmakers, who complained that they didn't like them.

        I think the various 'western' governments around the world are having a 'who can get their head furthest up their arse' competition. I'm really not sure who's winning.

        Justin.

  • Pity my elected officials (Score:5, Informative)

    by fatboyslack ( 634391 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:51AM (#14208640) Journal
    As a term of reference for you delightful residents of the US of A, Tasmania is like the US 'south' (rednecks, interbreeding et al) and the 'Liberal' party isn't actually a liberal party, but a conservative party (similar to your Republican party).

    However, this motion/proposal is unlikely to gain legs as Howard (current Australian Prime Minister) would almost certainly leave it as a 'conscience vote' and I sincerely doubt that it will have the popularity to get through the lower house, let alone the upper house.

    And, as I understand it, this sort of 'filtering' would be quite difficult to do and the current upper echelons of politicians *and* public servants switched on enough to listen to those who would advise them on the viability of 'filtering'... so false alarm and ignore the political posturing. The guy is (most likely) in a marginal seat and is trying to buy some credit with the local religious conservatives.

    "while two in five boys had deliberately used the net to see sexually explicit material" ... and the other three were lying about it.

    • Re:Pity my elected officials (Score:4, Informative)

      by The OPTiCIAN ( 8190 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @06:23AM (#14209243)
      Tut tut - I'm frequently surprised by what qualifies as 'informative' on slashdot.

      > As a term of reference for you delightful residents of the US of A, Tasmania
      > is like the US 'south' (rednecks, interbreeding et al)

        ^- for instance - how does abuse like this qualify as being informative? How do people from the US South feel about this? Or Tasmanians. Why would anyone rate this up?

      Tasmania is nothing like the US South, in terms of people or electoral representation. More than half of the available federal seats in Tasmania are held by notional left-leaning representatives, including people who would identify themselves as very left such as Tas. Senator Bob Brown who is national leader of the Australian Greens. The incumband state government is Labor.

      > and the 'Liberal'
      > party isn't actually a liberal party, but a conservative party (similar to
      > your Republican party).

      The Liberal Party is from the tradition of Australian non-Labor parties, as is its support base. While it's similar to the republican party in terms of the fact that it's notionally the rightermost of the parties, its support base demonstrates a lack of consistency on traditional values. See http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/?p=212 [ozpolitics.info]. Contrast that to the Republicans which is widely held to have a very firm right-wing base in the area of 'traditional values' (I have no data available). The Liberal Party is more conservative than the ALP and minor parties. But if you asked all the federal Liberal MPs which US political party with which they most closely identified many would say the Democrats.

      The reason for the name is a source of some controversy, but one popular opinion is that the founder wanted the party to be an effective catch-all party and not be pigeon-holed in the way a 'Conservative' party would be. The most effective way to do that is to have a spread of opinions across the notional right. It's meaningless to try and pigeon hole mainstream parties as being 'this' or 'that' ideology though, because practical considerations will tend to override idealogical. They're a catch-all party.

      Of note, the major policies of the LPA are quite similar to many of those of the Blair Labor government (consider cost of education, war against Iraq, etc), and the policies of the Conservatives have in recent times mirrored those of the ALP. Comparisons with the US political scene are tenous. Their cleavages are too different.

  • Interesting /. effect . . . (Score:4, Funny)

    by erikharrison ( 633719 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:51AM (#14208641)
    The Slashdot effect seems to have left the server standing, but expired the content in their ad server, leaving only the weird animated "Default Banner" gif, which actually doesn't fit in the provided space.

    http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-0/Type- 0/Dbanner.gif [serving-sys.com]

  • Where do you get this stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:56AM (#14208660) Journal
    It used to be ozzies had the reputation for being self made, independant, and relatively free thinking individualists. I can sort of understand this stuff here in the US since we screwed up three hundred years ago by not putting those puritans back on the boat from which they came - but lately you people "down under" often make our own fascist government look like sodom in comparison.

    Far be it from me to tell the people of another country how to run their own show... I'm just grateful for the contrast. Every time I see another "we must filter porn to protect the children from carnal knowledge" or "me must outlaw cameras at school sports events to protect kids from the evil paedophiles" stories it reminds me just how much more fucked up things really could be here in the US.

  • Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quokkapox ( 847798 ) <quokkapox@gmail.com> on Thursday December 08, 2005 @02:57AM (#14208665)
    FTFA: I believe the system should default automatically in favour of protecting our children before we start considering the rights of adults.

    I believe the system should default automatically in favor of protecting our rights as adults before we start considering the children.

    Big difference...

    The adults who wish to protect the children in their custody can then opt-in (and pay for) whatever safe haven/playpen schemes they wish to create.

  • Getting Sick of This (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tymbow ( 725036 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:00AM (#14208674)
    I'm going to say this very clearly... because I am getting so very tired of "solutions" based on the "won't someone please think of the children" excuse (followed closely by the terrorism excuse) for every perceived I'll in our world. BE A FUCKING PARENT TO YOUR CHILDREN AND STOP TRYING TO BLAME EVERYONE ELSE! IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. It's that simple. Spend time with them, listen to them and stop the mindless quest for wealth and possessions.

  • Okay by me... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by narcc ( 412956 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:00AM (#14208676) Journal
    They can filter all the porn they want -- as soon as they can define it: http://www.spectacle.org/296/opt.html [spectacle.org] (Safe For Work)

    (Or, even better, tell me why it's immoral.)

    More seriously:

    There are some fine lines between art and porn...stuff like: http://konzababy.tripod.com/photography.htm [tripod.com]
    (?Not?Safe?For?work?) Click the tiny image to enlarge. -- Is this art or porn? (I say art 100%)

    Even closer still are things like http://www.domai.com [domai.com] (Not Safe For Work)

    See this interview [domai.com] (Not Safe For Work) on domai.com for an interesting dialog about nudes/art/porn. -- Is Domai Porn? Difficult to say (I lean more toward yes, but I have reservations)

    Any thoughts? What makes porn ... porn?

  • What the heck is going on down there? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:07AM (#14208689)
    I always thought of Australians as being a pretty loose bunch. Then "mate" becomes a no-no in parliament, there have been a bunch of nanny laws coming into effect, and all in all, it looks like the nuts that have made such a mockery of what the US Republican party used to pretend to stand for (small government, individual over the state) have been at work down under.

    What the heck is going on down there?

  • Deja vu (Score:5, Informative)

    by Woldry ( 928749 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:09AM (#14208692) Journal
    Libraries worldwide have been contending (with varying degrees of failure) with this sort of proposal for years now. In the U.S., many states now require library Internet computers to be filtered; the federal government has also made it a requirement for most of the federal funding available to libraries.

    Because of these restrictions, the library where I work is filtered. We staff have to immediately disable the filter for any adult patron who requests unfiltered access (and we're supposed to, but often, er, forget to) restore the filter as soon as that particular patron's session is over.

    You wouldn't believe the idiotic stuff that gets blocked -- innocuous, harmless, completely innocent stuff, right alongside the more questionable. One fellow from out of town couldn't log into his own business's web page with the filter on -- presumably because his first name, which appeared in the URL, began with a "D" and rhymed with "ick".

    Meanwhile, the patrons blithely find all the porn and violence and four-letter-word-headphone-breaking rap music they like. They learn very quickly which sites the filter isn't catching, and openly share them with one another.

    The staff terminals have the filtering turned off full-time (technically illegally, if I understand correctly). Although library policy says we are only to turn off the filter "as needed", it's dadblasted impossible to do our jobs with it on, so it stays off.

    So now these Australian senators want to impose this state of affairs on an entire country ... yeesh.

  • Rule #1 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:09AM (#14208695)
    Be very, very, very watchful when you hear someone saying "we need to protect the children". Those people are using an argument that can be used to defend almost anything. And it makes it hard to say "No".

  • Can we dump the /. rhetoric? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:17AM (#14208731) Homepage Journal

    You know, I'm tired of seeing comments like this in stories of this sort:

    Another step towards becoming a nanny state.

    You know what? Every democracy on the planet will have some representative somewhere who decides to take up some kooky cause. One of the strengths of a democracy is that the majority can prevent such idiotic ideas from becoming a reality.

    Should we be educated about when some moronic public representative decides to take up such a cause? Yes. But do we have to assume that just because one elected/appointed representative professes a bad idea that the entire state is about to go downhill?

    Last I checked, Austraila is a democracy, and there is a process that must be followed to go from an idea to a legislative act. The idea, however, is not the act.

    If and when an idea gets past the first step of legislation, then is when you have to worry, as it usually means that other elected representatives support the idea. But one bad idea hardly means the downfall of society -- chances are very good that this effort will go into the dustbin of history, like a variety of bad ideas elected officials have professed and later dropped due to lack of support.

    Yaz.

  • A lesson for Guy Barnett (Score:3, Informative)

    by itadaku ( 886782 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:18AM (#14208736)
    "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it". Marginal uber-conservative Guy Barnett should have taken a lesson from his prodige Senator Alston who too, tried to turn Australia's internet into the envy of China's. In 1999 an ultra conservative luddite independant Alston who had lucked his way into a crutial seat in the senate found both majority parties eagar to please the key swing vote. Riding the high wave of a power trip he tried to introduce similar internet censorship legislations which would see ISP's responsible for what is a parents job. Thankfully Alston lost his powerseat during following elections and this all failed dismally. Alston was exposed as the luddite nutjob he trully was and the sun once again shone.

    Australian's need to write to Guy Barnett and tell him stop the moral grandstanding.

  • not a big threat (yet) (Score:3, Informative)

    by danny ( 2658 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:25AM (#14208760) Homepage
    This guy has been mouthing off about this for some time. But unless he comes up with something new, he seems unlikely to sway his party. The anti-sedition laws have been rammed through, but they caused enough of a backbench backlash that I can't see Howard and co wanting to stir things up again. But please join Electronic Frontiers Australia [efa.org.au] and help us keep an eye on this kind of thing! Danny.

  • Law will have OPPOSITE effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heretic108 ( 454817 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:25AM (#14208764)
    This law would have the exact opposite of the desired effect:
    1. Parents are presently concerned about kids accessing unwholesome stuff - in the absence of government/isp-level censoring, many parents are actually doing the unthinkable - Spending Time With Their Kids
    2. Kids love breaking rules, so the possibility of accessing illicit material will become more attractive
    3. Two new words will be added to kids' vocabularies: CGI and proxy
    4. For every cgi web proxy the ISPs detect and block, two more will spring up in its place.
    5. Meanwhile, parents and teachers will doze off in a false sense of security that Big Nanny State is keeping their kids safe, while the kids meanwhile are actually seeing stuff that's as bad as ever, maybe worse, with much less parental oversight and guidance than before.

    The only, repeat only way to police what kids see on the net is to have a human in the loop in real time, for every kid. And we could be waiting a while for that to happen.

    Well, I guess the developers of Freenet [freenetproject.org], I2P [i2p.net] and other anonymising networks will be grateful, as support, userbase and donations surge.

  • Censoring Pr0n on the Net is impossible... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chaffar ( 670874 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:40AM (#14208807)
    Saudi Arabia has a special version of the internet, one that not only blocks you from accessing pr0n sites, but that also registers your name and IP if you attempt to access it. Urban legend says that if you attempt to access "illegal" sites too many times you get a phone call. According to this article [harvard.edu]:"the Saudi government maintains an active interest in filtering non-sexually explicit Web content for users within the Kingdom." Well guess what, Saudis can get their hands on pr0n all the time. It's harder, more time-consuming, but they end up with what they want. They started using "anonymizer" sites, and for a time it was a race between the pr0nsters looking for new unblocked anonymizers and the ISP (notice the use of the word "the") blocking them. Now you have P2P, and in the worst case you have a contact outside the kingdom who sends you "the goods".

    So if Australia wants to block pr0n, go ahead, adults won't give a sh*t they'll register their names to get access. However, the teenagers who'll be craving for pr0n will also find ways to access it through the internet, but in process will probably learn a lot more shady techniques than if they had access to it like they do now.

    Hell they might end up with the same situation as in the States, where adults buy beer for the teenagers who want to drink:

    Teenager: |-|3Y D0od C4N J0o 637 /\/\3 t3|h lAt3St J3N|\|4 J4m350|\| ?!??!111?
    Opportunistic adult: Jenna Jameson? It's gonna cost ya big...

  • He wants more (Score:5, Funny)

    by this great guy ( 922511 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @03:52AM (#14208842)

    Australian Senator Wants to Censor the Net

    In a separate announcement, he also reported he wanted to get a flying car, a magic wand, a six-leave clover to complete his collection, and an invisible pink unicorn.

  • I worry about my child and the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashedmydot ( 927745 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:23AM (#14208935) Homepage
    "I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"

    --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation

  • Speaking of Censorship (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tsiangkun ( 746511 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @04:25AM (#14208941) Homepage
    is "The Revolution Will not be Televised" being censored from the American public ?

    I've been googling for a place to buy a copy, and it's not coming up for me as a possible purchase item. I can find sound tracks, reviews, and books, but no movies.

    Was this never released for purchase ? I haven't seen it in a couple of years, when I caught it at a film festival in San Francisco. I was wanting to show it to some friends.

    I'm refering to a documentary movie on Hugo Chevez/Venezuela, a CIA staged coup, and the revolt of the people caught serendipidously by some Irish film makers. It's seemingly not available for purchase on the intraweb from the US.

    It is also is known as 'chavez inside the coup' according to google. Anyone ever seen this on DVD or VHS ?

  • Shhh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Thursday December 08, 2005 @08:31AM (#14209631) Homepage
    Everyone be quiet. We don't want W. to hear about this idea!

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