New Zealand Introduces Internet Filtering 215
Thomas Beagle writes "The New Zealand government has been stealthily introducing a centralised internet child-pornography specific filtering system. Voluntary for ISPs but not for their users, ISPs representing over 94% of the market are already intending to join. Read the general FAQ and technical FAQ about the proposed Netclean Whitebox implementation."
Governments love crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Where would your government be without childporn? If it didn't exist, the government would surely invent it.
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What would fearmongers all around the globe be without terrorism, child porn or government conspiracies (depending on the side they're on and their interests)?
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I'm not even going to bother quoting Benjamin Franklin or George Orwell. All I can say is democracy is being taken over by people who despise liberty and fundamentally are terrified of the average citizen. Why precisely any of us tolerate such people in any such position of power is quite beyond me, but somehow or legislatures and bureaucracies have been populated by a pack of Robespierres.
Re:Governments love crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the thing.
The kind of people who push for this crap genuinely believe that child porn is a big issue, that it's worth losing all those nice freedoms we have to get rid of it (or at least try as you might as well piss into the wind for all the good it will do) and that anyone who objects is some kind of pervert who is afraid of losing their child porn.
There are people who genuinely believe that a police state is a good thing because "only criminals have anything to fear from a police state"
There are people who genuinely believe that censorship is a good thing because they certainly don't want to be seeing... well just about anything since these are the kinds of nutters who write letters to the editor of your local newspaper.
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Re:Governments love crime (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an American, so I doubt very much my approval or disapproval of the Second Amendment means all that much. I will say that, at the end of the day, the State (whatever state you're living under, unless it's a failed state) has a far larger number of very lethal firearms and advanced weaponry than you'll ever manage to accumulate. So while you may have some false sense of security about building your private army in Oregon, the United States government has at its disposal weapons capable of turning countries into radioactive wastelands, so you're right to bear arms shouldn't make you feel all that secure.
The 2nd Amendment was written when a reasonably equipped militia with some decent leadership could take on an army of the time. That hasn't reasonably applied since the Civil War. The best you can hope for if the government is really out to get you is a tragedy like Waco, and I don't really consider taking a bunch of children with you a reasonable example of holding the torch of freedom high.
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I think you've missed the point. Regardless of the feasibility of overthrowing a modern government by force of arms the GP quoted text that said "democracy is being taken over by people who despise liberty and fundamentally are terrified of the average citizen." If you aren't terrified of the average citizen than what argument can you come up with for disarming him?
I would also say that the fact that the government has nuclear weapons is largely irrelevant. If the shit ever hit the fan to the point that
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New definition of irony:
Government-backed anti-pedo creates a censorship list of all known pedo sites so they can be blocked by participating ISPs.
Pedo gets a copy, signs up for non-filtered ISP, imports list --> bookmarks. Thanks gubermint!
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Why?
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Sigh... not sure if you're trolling there or just making a bitter point - but a point you have, there. It never ceases to amaze me how many people believe, after centuries and centuries of contrary evidence, that more government will make their lives better. It's the same on both sides (and there really are only two sides, since we libertarians seem to represent a statistically insignificant sliver of the population)
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Sigh... not sure if you're trolling there or just making a bitter point - but a point you have, there. It never ceases to amaze me how many people believe, after centuries and centuries of contrary evidence, that more government will make their lives better.
Yeah! Because things are just great in here in Somalia...
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Yep, I say "more government", you read "any government - down with the police! down with the fire department! bring on the anarchy!". Like I said, never ceases to amaze me.
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I rather think our (German) minister of families and youth did invent child porn on the net.
She seems to be the only one who ever saw any, even the police say child porn in distributed mainly via other channels. Still we are getting the same kind of filters on August 1st; nevermind they are not constitutional and there was a massive backlash in parts of the press and people, as well a record-breaking petition with for than 100k signatures.
Funny thing, she got some extremely ugly images of child porn from th
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There's always drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. YMMV, many countries are far less nanny states than mine (USA).
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There's always drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. YMMV, many countries are far less nanny states than mine (USA).
Yeah, but in most of those countries you can't legally own firearms and you don't have true free speech. Take a look at the firearms laws in the UK and the "hate speech" laws in France/Germany and on balance the US doesn't look so bad.
That isn't to say we can't do better mind you, but I'm hard pressed to think of someplace else I'd rather live.
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Where would your government be without childporn? If it didn't exist, the government would surely invent it. ... in Germany, "Zensursula" von der Leyen has come up with statistics about the amount of commercial Childporn distributed via Internet, none of which she to date has been able to actually back with any facts. Additionally, the "large number of countries" without legislation against c
What do you mean, "would surely invent it"? They are inventing it, at least as far as numbers and facts are concerned
Writing the geek out of the political equation. (Score:2)
Where would your government be without childporn? If it didn't exist, the government would surely invent it
But it does exist - as part of the sex trade in children - and it is not an invention of the government:
UNICEF - Convention of the Rights of the Child - Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography [unicef.org]
Ratified 2002. By New Zealand in 2000.
To provide some perspective: the "Optional Protocol" also forbids the use of children in combat: In plain English, the Conventio
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Where would your government be without childporn?
hopefully not giving taxpayer-funded houses to 15 year-old mothers...
Good to hear (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially as these filters are never misused [wikileaks.org] for other things than child pornography for convenience, when they're in place and all.
How about spending the resources on busting pedophiles and exposing pedophile rings instead? Or was that too straightforward and precise?
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How about spending the resources on busting pedophiles and exposing pedophile rings instead? Or was that too straightforward and precise?
That would involve time, money and intelligence. Something that governments, by definition, are always in short supply of. Politicians ALWAYS take the easy way and most Press friendly route. They will do what looks good now, even if they know it will be a failure later. Hopefully during the next administration.
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How about spending the resources on busting pedophiles and exposing pedophile rings instead? Or was that too straightforward and precise?
But that might drop the arrest numbers down considerably, which means cutting funding, which means less sweet desk jobs for law enforcement officials.
Think about it. You can bust a guy who is molesting a child and taking photos of it, and that's one arrest. But if you bust all the people who download, trade, or look at those photos, you can potentially makes thousands of arrests! That's thousands of arrests based off of one sexual abuse incident. Best of all, you can keep arresting people who look at
Re:Good to hear (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, it's best that these photos and videos continue to be produced. At least until everyone finally agrees to make stories and drawings just as illegal.
stories and drawings are just as illegal in Canada.
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How about spending the resources on busting pedophiles and exposing pedophile rings instead? Or was that too straightforward
first rule of government: make laws such that anyone can be 'guilty' of something. keep the population in fear and control.
they do not WANT to fix certain social evils. they LIKE it, that they have this ever-present boogeyman around.
remember when saddam was the central boogeyman? we got rid of him and we need an new one.
'child pedos' are the universally hated boogeyman. the law lo
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US law now reads something like:
Innocent until proven guilty*
*unless accused of rape, copyright infringement, drunk driving, pedophilia, terrorism, racism, discrimination, or breaking of of the laws you're not legally allowed to know about.
(followed by millions of pages of law, case law, court rulings, 'popular law', and FUD)
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How about spending the resources on busting pedophiles and exposing pedophile rings instead? Or was that too straightforward and precise?
"It's always slower to do things fast, more complicated to do things simple and more expensive to do things cheap." - Humphrey from Yes Minister, answering the minister on why government can't work more efficiently.
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Re:I've never understood (Score:5, Insightful)
Why normal people support laws like this.
They hear the word child pornography. Then they stop thinking. And if you question the sense, you are a pedophile, or support them.
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Hate to point out the obvious, but they have to be thinking first in order to stop.
The two minute hate, and choosing between various advertised products doesn't count.
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I've heard debates about this sort of thing, and I've never heard this sentiment be expressed or even remotely implied by supporters of filtering. Most (vocal) supporters are quite aware that paedophilia is not supported among the community, and that there are other reasons to oppose filtering.
In fact, it's almost like you're saying, "if you support filtering, then you jump to conclusions and you don't think critically."
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I've had it happen to me more than once, both here and on Fark, and it's not just just about filtering. Any time you don't advocate 100% nuclear option law enforcement against child porn, the crazies come out of the woodwork and all critical thinking / actual *discussion* in the conversation evaporates in a matter of minutes (or span of a few posts).
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I bet it has happened to you, especially on internet forums. It gives the crazies a chance to mouth off about their opinions, and suddenly it becomes all partisan politics, and no genuine consideration for other people's opinions.
But, on the same token, it would be unfair and grossly inaccurate to characterise a viewpoint by those who express them anonymously on the internet. For example, I just read the OP's post, who opposes internet filtering, and who accuses, in a sweeping statement, people with the opp
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Er... "almost like"? I can't speak for the OP, but that's exactly what I'm saying. Seeing as how it's true and all.
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That's close, but not quite broad enough: For a lot of voters the word "child" is enough to shut down the rational part of their brain.
It's basically an appeal to parents' base instinct to protect their children. An instinct that gave mammals a significant evolutionary advantage (due to the relative difficulty of mammals bearing young), but not one that engages the rational part of the brain. That's why any organization trying to get an otherwise rational adult to part with their money or give political sup
Re:I've never understood (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just that it shuts down the rational part of their brain, but they wind up expecting someone *else* to do the protecting. Because, you know, being a parent yourself is too tough.
I happen to be a father to two little boys (age 5 and 2) and I'll agree that being a parent is tough work. It's not all hugs and smiles with kids. There are temper tantrums. They *WILL* test boundaries to see how far they can go. Repeatedly. They *will* try to get away with things they shouldn't be doing. Keeping up with what is happening and keeping your kids in line (e.g. "No yelling in the store") and safe (e.g. "No running away from Mommy and Daddy in the parking lot") isn't always easy. Too many parents just let their kids run rampant because they don't want to exert the effort to set and enforce boundaries. Many people seem to want someone else to do the work for them. So they whine for the government to step in and "child proof" life. The problem is, you can't child proof life. Life has a lot of sharp edges to it. The trick is to teach your child to avoid the sharp edges *and* what to do if they accidentally hit upon one of them. That takes work and effort that too many parents just seem to not want to invest.
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Why normal people support laws like this. I completely understand why statist politicians, apparatchiks and lobbyists do, but not ordinary people. It's so incredibly obvious that if you know that a site focuses on this trash, just coordinate with the country where the servers are based. If the country is poor, it would be easy for New Zealand police to offer their police a modest "finder's fee" for allowing NZ police to tag along on a raid to take over the server, get the logs and go after the distributors. Hell, if we started offering bounties for people like this and the Nigerian scammers, third world governments would be falling all over themselves to help the first world countries fight internet crime.
yeah right. like the corrupt cops in the third world are going to arrest themselves for a finders fee. LOL
Somebody's getting paid to look at child porn (Score:4, Interesting)
Since neither FAQ mentioned any mechanism for reporting sites that have illegal content, I assume that means they're relying on some dedicated law-enforcement professionals to go out looking for child porn/bestial porn.
That's gonna make that first date "and what do you do?" conversation a little awkward.
And hey, slowing down everyone's internet experience for only half a million dollars/year? That's quite a steal!
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It reeks of something very different. Namely that "your input is not welcome". We don't want you to report 'bad' sites. We know what sites are bad for you.
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"I protect the country from pedophiles! So, BTW, you're really 18? You don't look it."
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This needs to be modded up. NZ is still in relative dark ages with the internet. Lots of talk about it getting better, but the basic services you can buy here are dreadful. It's only been around a year since they offered "uncapped" uploads, which means higher than 127kbps. It costs roughly $70 for 10GB/month for "naked internet" which means you don't need a phone as well, and that's only just arrived. Unless you can get cable internet, which is only in a few selected areas. My office had a 35GB monthly cap
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I live in NZ (Tauranga specifically) and my internet connection is fine. According to local speed test sites I have a 8.6Mb/s down speed and 0.75Mb/s upload speed. I'm happy with that.
Oh god :( (Score:5, Interesting)
We only just got rid of this laughably insane idea in Australia... here the ISP's refused to co-operate.
Actually, no, sorry, a few did co-operate, just so they could show the govt how laughably infeasible it was!
And now New Zealand introduces internet filtering, just before I plan to move there :(
Re:Oh god :( (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh god :( (Score:4, Informative)
There are people who live in the US that you wouldn't be able to pay to live in San Francisco.
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And actually, I've been managing chronic pain for close to four yea
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And when he says "we", he means "you", not "him". He's the one that needs taken care of.
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Nothing the NSA and CIA feel like telling you, anyway..
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I live in America and I've been to Italy. I can tell you that if the US is a 2nd-world country then Italy is third-world country.
You act like healthcare sucks here. If you have a plan, it is the best in the world. Most Americans (like 85%) have a health plan. Of the ones that don't, a third make over $50k and choose not to get a plan and a third already qualify for government coverage but never bothered to pursue it.
Wages are higher here than anywhere else. You just need to work for it.
My guess is that
Re:Oh god :( (Score:5, Informative)
Of the ones that don't, a third make over $50k
$50k is the median income, and in many places barely pays for food, rent, and utilities. It's about what I make, and it's not expensive to live here, UNLESS you have to buy insurance (thank God my employer offers it). Private insurance is damned expensive if your employer doesn't offer it.
Saying someone making $50k "chooses" to be insured is like my saying I "choose" not to buy a Ferrari.
Wages are higher here than anywhere else.
[citation needed] Wages are only half the equation. Costs are the other half. And speaking of citations, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says you're wrong.
Education (and health care and wages for that matter) are all suffering from central-government control.
Education here doesn't suffer from government control, it suffers from lack of funds. The government doesn't control health care unless you're eligible for Medicare or Medicaid, and wages (see linked wiki) suffer from too little government control.
You should stop listening to that Oxycontin-addled radio personality.
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Wait until you really need your health insurance and you'll very quickly find out it isn't there after all when the insurance company tells you to go screw yourself and they ain't gonna pay to keep you around.
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You don't pay a euro for the service
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the *base* income tax rate 40% in Italy ?
And that's just the base ... higher earners pay even more ?
Having spent 3 years half way between Florence and Pisa, in a town so backward they still close on Wednesday afternoons, Sundays, and in fact ANY time when you might actually be able to visit the supermarket, don't kid yourself. Most people probably die of boredom or depression long before they need any serious healthcare.
quality of life higher? (Score:3, Insightful)
For me 5 weeks (or more) of paid vacation per year is better than 2. Or having more than 2 weeks warning before you are fired also counts as something. Or having a minimum wage that you can actually live on, or not having gun-ridden ghettos in every large city.
I like the quality of life in the Netherlands way better than that in the US, and I've spent about a year of my life in the US.
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Re:Oh god :( (Score:4, Interesting)
Come to think of it, what we need is a Pirate Party of New Zealand to make sure this sort of crap doesn't happen; We are already well on the way to establishing the Pirate Party of Australia (http://ppau.info/).
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Groan. They'll have to inject some sense into their copyright policy before I even consider voting for them. Removing filters is very good, but not nearly enough to overlook the gaping voids of common sense riddled throughout their policies.
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Yes I have to admit the fact in the summary that ~94% of ISPs are willing to implement this struck me as being really bizarre. I usually think of New Zealanders as our friends across the pond. That is, that despite our friendly jokes at each others' expense, we are very similar countries. But this is a night and day difference. In Australia the ISPs were basically all up in arms about the proposed filter, and it was in large part due to the Internet industry's concerns that that proposal was thankfully scra
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Yes I have to admit the fact in the summary that ~94% of ISPs are willing to implement this struck me as being really bizarre.
...snip...
I wonder why NZ ISPs are so different in their opinion (at least as reported by this article)
It appears to be 2 ISPs that represent 94% of the NZ market. FTFA [publicaddress.net]:
Here, the ISPs that took part in the trial, and the ones that have indicated interest in picking up the filtering scheme (Telecom and Vodaphone) represent 94% of the New Zealand market.
Re:Oh god :( (Score:4, Informative)
Haven't been keeping up with the developments, have you?
This "laughably insane" idea is alive and well, as of two hours ago [abc.net.au].
And with precisely the same reasoning - any time you disagree with the government... "but, child porn!". The filters won't work, they'll be trivial to defeat. "Child porn!". This is a top-secret blacklist without a scrap of accountability, confirmed to contain mostly adult pornography... "CHILD PORN!"... and multiple political websites "you don't support child porn do you?". Your top-secret list of the most evil content on the internet leaked, exactly as we told you it would "kiddy fiddler!". Even PG-rated material is on the blacklist... "PEDOPHILE!".
Ugh. And more depressingly, the tactic's working.
ISP's are in a tough spot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, I think the ISPs that want to sign up highly computer-savvy, low support-calls creating people would probably stand up against the law and 'fight' it as good as they can.
Anyone who spent 6 months on the internet knows that such a tool is doomed to fail. Either the implementation sucks. Or the list gets out (pretty much creating a "pedo menu" of sorts, along with a lot of fallout should any site on the list not belong there). And many are just pissed off at the mere concept of government thinking i
Re:ISP's are in a tough spot (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, you make a stand over centralized filtering. Everybody knows that it won't be limited to child porn. They just need some reminders. Point at how every other country that has head down this road, has failed to limit their filters to child porn, and ask how many billions of dollars the NZ government is going to spend to solve the (currently) unsolvable problem of computers not knowing the differe
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Everybody knows that it won't be limited to child porn. They just need some reminders. Point at how every other country that has head down this road, has failed to limit their filters to child porn, ...
This story did come along just a couple of days after it was revealed that the Chinese "Green Wall" porn filter flagged such things as an image of Garfield the Cat as porn, along with such images as a piece of roast pork and the face of Johnny Depp. OK; I'll admit that the last one is getting close.
And lest
Re:ISP's are in a tough spot (Score:5, Insightful)
- H. L. Mencken
Benjamin Franklin (Score:2)
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We have documents that protect individual liberties against the good intentions of the ignorant masses.
Re:ISP's are in a tough spot (Score:4, Informative)
As hard as it is to accept censorship, at the same time, do you really want to make a stand over child porn? It's a rough spot, because it does open the door to more censorship, and if it isn't stopped now it won't ever be able to be stopped, but at the same time this is a really sneaky way of doing it because of the subject mater and the general publics view on it.
It has nothing to do with child porn. These list are NOT used to block child porn. They are used to block whatever the government or those in charge of the list finds [wikileaks.org] objectionable [wikileaks.org].
If it was about child porn the objective would be to catch and punish those who are actually producing and publishing the material. They are committing crimes and hurting people. Blocking has no effect on the production and distribution of child porn. Filters and blocks are trivial to circumvent. It's probable easier to circumvent the filters that it is to actually find child porn on the interent. If it's not it should be relatively easy for the government authorities to shut down the sites and prosecute the guilty rather than introducing censorship that, by all rights, will have a terrifying chilling effect on free speech and freedom of the press. One of the articles included in the summary [publicaddress.net] states that legally objectionable material in NZ includes:
All 'objectionable' material is banned. In deciding whether a publication is 'objectionable', or should instead be given an 'unrestricted' or 'restricted' classification, consideration is given to the extent, degree and manner in which the publication describes, depicts, or deals with:
â acts of torture, the infliction of serious physical harm or acts of significant cruelty
â degrades or dehumanises or demeans any person
â promotes or encourages criminal acts or acts of terrorism
â represents that members of any particular class of the public are inherently inferior to other members of the public by reason of any characteristic of members of that class being a characteristic that is a prohibited ground of discrimination specified in the Human Rights Act 1993.
So this includes that video of the police beating that man who was rude to them. It includes the riot police attacking the crowd of peaceful protesters. It includes the police opening fire on the protesters who turn violent after being beaten. And don't say that won't happen. Finland's list already contains anti-censorship web sites.
I find it strange and ironic that governments are in an uproar about the censorship in Iran and some are actually considering punishing the companies that sold equipment and software used for censorship while at the same time out of the other side of their mouths they are advocating establishing the same type of censorship here (where ever here is: US, Australia, Europe, Canada). It's about child porn my ass.
Ireland got it worse yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)
small bit offtopic
but theres no mention on slashdot of the new 1984 style big brother law coming in in Ireland :(
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/all-email-text-and-phone-records-to-be-kept-for-2-years-1820026.html [independent.ie]
It's inevitable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Post-Iran, governments see that controlling the Internet is vital to controlling their population.
ISPs can declare 3rd-party VOIP and other heavy-usage models as violating the filtering rules (whether that makes sense or not) and kick them off the network.
Large businesses prefer that customers be reached through communication channels they control and understand. (TV, radio, print.)
Governments, ISPs, and businesses support it. Nobody important opposes it. (You are not important.) Why are we surprised that it is happening?
Safe Harbour (Score:3, Interesting)
The way this is usually done is by offering ISPs a safe harbour whereby they are not responsible for their users traffic if they follow the 'rules'.
My question is, why is this not available to ordinary people?
ie: if you run govt selected filtering software on your computer, you should be immune to prosecution for content accessed from that computer - much the same way as the ISPs are.
In NZ I believe posession of child pornography is automatically an offense with no defense (ie: even if you did not know it was present due to someone else accessing it) - so such an arrangement would have the advantage of protecting individuals who chose to opt in.
Of course this wont happen as its only the corps that get the 'get out of jail free' option, but it seems like a fair idea, no?
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The idea of "common carrier" status (as opposed to "safe harbour", which applies to copyright) is that the liability for actions is passed downstream to the users, where, IMHO, it rightly belongs. It's the user's actions that caused the offence, and the ISP has no feasible capability to prevent them from causing those offences. It can't apply to people because there's no-one downstream of the end user (hence the name), so there's nowhere to pass the liability, nor would we really want to, since we've alread
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Yes, writing too fast in the middle of working on things so got some of the terminology wrong..
So tell me, as I would be technically guilty if say someone hacked my computer and left such files there, or hacked the WEB on my wireless router and transfered such data, why should I not be able to also get such protection?
The issue here is that the data on computers is a LONG way from under the control of their owner - there are many many ways that data can both arrive and leave without the owner knowing, and n
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No. there's a much better way to get legal immunity. Set up a porn filtering business and sell it to the government, like these people have done. Then you can spend all day "checking web sites", and you won't get locked up: in fact, you'll get paid for it.
I don't know about New Zealand, but in the UK you might even be in line for a knighthood from the Queen, for "services to the child protection community".
Won't somebody think of the children? (Score:4, Funny)
Won't somebody think of the children? I mean, come on, we're adults and we have easy access to our adult porn on teh tubes, but what about the kiddies, how are they going to access their porn if these filters are put in?
Or am I misunderstanding the concept of kiddie porn?
Protect the imaginary children! (Score:5, Interesting)
What type of material is censored? The trial scheme was used to filter child pornography including video, photos, stories and drawings. Other illegal material (as defined by New Zealand law) is not filtered.
Stories and drawings. Because icky thoughts must be banned.
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bad news for the Bros Grimm.... I mean, cmon, little red riding hood and a big bad wolf? That is some sick stuff! Before you know it, all children are into menstrual fetishes.
First they came for the paedophiles and... (Score:2, Funny)
First they came for the paedophiles and I did nothing to stop them because I was not a paedophile
Then they came for the children but could not put them in with the paedophiles for obvious reasons, realised they had made a terrible mistake, so had to let them go again and I did nothing because I was not a child.
Then they came for the gay people and found that they could put some of the gay people in with the paedophiles without too much problem but had to let the rest go and I did nothing because I was not g
Interesting technical details (Score:5, Interesting)
Does it support the next version of IP, v6?
No.
Whoops.
What if the website uses HTTPS (secure HTTP)?
If the website uses https (e.g. as used for internet banking or online shopping), the filter server can't examine the request to see what website it is going to on the target internet address.
This means the the filter server must block all https websites on a filtered internet address. This will interrupt service to any website that needs to use a secure connection.
Whoops part 2.
Is it possible to circumvent the filtering?
It is relatively easy for a motivated user to circumvent the filtering. This is done by routing the requests to a proxy service in another country that does not filter the required site.
There are also a number of free services that exist to allow people to escape from government monitoring of their internet usage. These services include: Tor, Freenet and WASTE.
Major whoops. Not only do they admit it's easy to get around it, they helpfully give you the name of three services to use.
Don't get me wrong, I find the idea of child porn abhorrent and sickening. It's just that I don't understand why governments continue to push filtering as the answer when it's never going to work. If they want to get rid of the problem, all they have to do is target offending porno sites with a massive DDOS attack. They could slave every idle govt PC in the country to the task, and there are an awful lot of idle govt PCs.
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Yeah, cause you know, there's no collateral damage when doing a massive DDOS attack.
Optional for ISPs + Mandatory for users... (Score:2)
Optional for ISPs + Mandatory for users = Optional for users.
Choose an ISP that doesn't support filtering. If they want to make money (which you can bet that they do), they'll have to keep their service unfiltered. Problem solved.
blacklist on WikiLeaks... (Score:2)
Why are the ISPs signing up to this? (Score:2)
Given the negative experience in Australia with the filtering trial and given that there is extra expense involved for the ISPs in installing and maintaining the filtering kit (even if the government buys the filtering kit and pays for any on-going software licenses, there are still expenses involved), why would an ISP want to sign up to this?
Unless there is some kind of carrot (i.e. "sign up to this and you will get immunity for illegal stuff downloaded by your users) or stick ("if we dont get enough ISPs
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see what the issue is (Score:3, Informative)
If I own an ISP and I want to opt into this in order to prevent some child porn from being distributed, why don't I have the right to do so? It looks like the ISPs are being up-front about it and not hiding what they are doing.
As much as people on /. complain about this sort of thing, I think that in practical terms, this makes the world a better place.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
People blocking (Score:2)
From the technical FAQ:
When a user requests a web page there are three possible outcomes:
So, if I want to put a black mark on someone, I look at the list of banned URLs, and put a hyperlink somewhere so that that person will click through to a banned URL. I could also put a message on the original page saying something like, "if you get an 'access is refused'" message, go back and click on the link again. It's worth it!"
Re: (Score:2)
And also, from the general FAQ:
Visits to non-banned sites on the same servers as banned sites will have to go through the DIA's filter server and will then be forwarded out to the real server through the DIA's internet connection. This will have some impact on performance, although the extent will largely depend on how good the performance of the DIA's filter is, and whether they have enough internet bandwidth to be able to service the requests they pass through.
So, to slow down the filter, I need to find a non-banned site on the same server as a banned site, then access a large file. According to the technical FAQ, the address of the requesting computer won't get logged. A working DOS would need bandwidth greater than that of the DIA, which is likely to be rather difficult.
Re:This path leads to the dark side... (Score:4, Funny)
Can other types of material be censored in the future?
There is no reason why the same technology could not be extended to block websites with other types of content.
Oh. Nevermind.
The domino theory (Score:2)
Filtering of CP leads to filtering of obscenity, leads to filtering of "objectionable content," leads to filtering of government dissent...
The slipperly slope argument reduces everything to extremes of action or inaction.
That is a receipe for political impotence.
Re: (Score:2)
The slipperly slope argument reduces everything to extremes of action or inaction.
And when the topic is internet censorship, inaction is exactly what is needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Another example of such "voluntary" joining are "E-ZPass" -- you don't have to sign-up, but certain toll-plazas have no other means to pay any more.
Really? So what happens when you show up to such a plaza and have no E-Z pass?