A Sad Day For the New Zealand Internet 221
An anonymous reader writes "Another one bites the dust, as New Zealand's Internet filter stealthily goes live with two smaller ISPs, and three of the largest already rumoured to have signed up to do the same. However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently 'committed to helping people to circumvent government internet filtering,' so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?" Clever of one of the acquiescing ISPs to have named itself "Watchdog."
Um why (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would an ISP implement a filter voluntarily?
Unless this is a filter designed to reduce bandwidth use (Torrents, P2P) I truly don't understand the logic here.
I did RFTA.
Re:Um why (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called politics, mutual backrubs, one hand washes the other and so on; probably somewhat of a longterm investment that pays back in the form of favours and goodwill from the government.
Politics and business are about benefiting on the back of the least powerful party, i.e. citizens/customers. Communication companies help the government with their surveillance. In turn, governments keep new regulations and consumer protection laws to a minimum or erode existing ones.
Re:Um why (Score:4, Informative)
It's not voluntary.
If they don't their government will intervene.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but could you source this? It's not in the article.
Re:Um why (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not saying you're wrong, but could you source this? It's not in the article.
I'm going to go ahead and say he's wrong. Pulled from this page, it was linked to in another comment [techliberty.org.nz]:
The scheme is currently voluntary for the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as there is no law to force them to use it.
I'm hoping that this causes non-cooperating ISPs to start advertising the fact to attract customers. That, and that this falls flat on it's face and injects some sense into the Australian filter plan.
Re:Um why (Score:5, Insightful)
"voluntary" in politics is doublespeak.
It's doesn't mean: do whatever you feel like, there will be no consequences one way or another.
It means:
For now we leave you a choice but you better pick the right one or we'll just pass a law that will be even worse for you. By the way, nice tax-free service you're offering there, would be a shame if something happened to it.
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"voluntary" in politics is doublespeak.
EVERYTHING in politics is doublespeak. As the old joke goes -- How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips move.
Lately business seems to be following the same rulebook. Ny phone provider Boost, for instance, offers me "unlimited" voice, data, email, text, voicemail, and internet for fifty bucks a month, but if you look at the terms on their website you'll see they can shut you down if you use "an unreasonable" amount. Like a politician, saying "unlimited" doe
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Yeah, good advertising campaign. Try fitting "Use us instead of our competitors, because they attempt to filter child porn and we don't! No, really, we don't want you using it for child porn, we just think that automated filtering is a technically unsolvable problem, and prone to corruption, so it's better to not have them in order to prevent legitimate sites from getting blocked." into a slogan.
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and nothing but the internet
But my ISP comes with a free* VoIP account with a DID (Direct In-Dial) number. Claiming to offer nothing in the way of addons isn't the best way to go.
* There are some fees for making long distance calls
Re:Same "it's voluntary" ploy here in Finland (Score:5, Interesting)
That's basically the same ploy that was used here in Finland to get ISPs to censor certain (claimed to be) child porn domains. If the ISPs wouldn't do it "voluntarily", then it was understood that government would step in and make it mandatory. Interestingly, after a couple of years, some ISPs have turned off the censoring by default and allow people to explicitly order the censorship "service". Basically it felt like it was all about making politicians look good at that moment, nobody really cared about if it worked or not.
Re:Um why (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK it was recently reported that the government will not buy services from any ISP that does not implement the IWF blacklist.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article7055882.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
And in the USA, the Minnesota Senate is considering a proposal to prevent state employees staying in hotels that offers "violent" pornography.
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=843624 [kare11.com]
Re:Um why (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure they would much prefer that all state employees should not be brutal knife-wielding homicidal maniacs, as opposed to just prevented from ever entering the Kitchenware department of a local store.
Once again, the regulation has gone the wrong way. Regulate the officials, not the environment they live in.
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To be fair, a lot of our stupidity results from our proximity to Australia. It's like trying not to have the volume too loud when you're living beside the airport.
(It's a friendly rivalry, really)
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As any Kiwi could tell you, sheep numbers are plummeting with the dairy boom. 32 million sheep and 5.8 million dairy cows in 2009.
As a Kiwi, I wasn't aware of that. Not all of us obsess over the sheep population.
Re:It's just stupidity and ignorance of technology (Score:4, Funny)
It is a very important topic taught to us every year at schools, universities and even in the news.
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Re:Um why (Score:5, Insightful)
You *do* understand what an encrypted ZIP file is ?
Rapidshare is full of them, and no filter in the world can block randomly encrypted bits.
Unless you are suggesting shutting down every FTP, filehost, P2P application, Yahoo Group and other massive swathes of the Internet, this filter like all others is a waste of taxpayers money and government resources and time.
I don't know why you think pedos are so dumb that they will name their files "little_naked_boy.jpg" ?
They are possibly some of the most sneaky and conscientious people around when it comes to incriminating evidence, simply because of the very act they perform.
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First they came for the Pedophiles...
While this filter ostensibly targets child pornography, what is to stop it from being used to censor other 'obscene' or 'unwanted' material? It would not take much to tailor this filter to target political speech.
Re:Um why (Score:4, Insightful)
While this filter ostensibly targets child pornography, what is to stop it from being used to censor other 'obscene' or 'unwanted' material? It would not take much to tailor this filter to target political speech.
It's not ostensible at all, since the scope of what is filtered is secret. In effect, its only use is political. IMHO.
Re:Um why (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the fact that this stuff generally doesn't work at all I'd hazard a guess that you're wrong about pedophiles and their relative degree of laziness.
Ya see, these are people who do something which is pretty much universally reviled. Even serial killers, drug dealers, murderers, and normal every day run of the mill rapists hate people who do this sort of this to kids. If they were capable of just "jerking off to something else" I reckon they would have. There's plenty of freak porn that won't have your neighbours trying to burn down your house and/or kill you. Terrorists are more popular than these people.
The corollary of this is of course that the automatic filter is supposed to be targeted at people who are likely to be more careful and paranoid than, as previously stated, terrorists. It would be harder to eliminate child pornography than it is to defeat terrorism, and we can all see what a lovely job the governments are doing at that.
I'm perfectly happy for them to block child pornography(though I confess that the recent court decisions here in Oz about the old Simpson's cartoons we all saw back in the late 90's are going a bit too far). The problem is that these filters don't work, they're not even particularly good at stopping accidental exposure to this sort of thing let alone deliberate exposure, and they require resources and add a burden to internet connectivity which should not be born for so little benefit. The example I alway give is that even oppressive regimes who have the authority to burst into your house and shoot your for no real reason at all(China, North Korea, Iran) can't actually make them work.
Two words (Score:3, Informative)
Encryption
Proxies
Re:Two words (Score:4, Informative)
Dropping connections that want to hanshake encryptions / look encrypted.
IP-bans of proxies; general useleness of open proxies; ease of proxy detections.
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Do not solve social problem with technical means, it will never work (see: drm).
Re:Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
So drop all e-commerce and anything that requires a password, including half the forums on the internet? Yeah, that won't have any blow back.
Re:Two words (Score:5, Insightful)
Dropping connections that want to hanshake encryptions / look encrypted.
IP-bans of proxies; general useleness of open proxies; ease of proxy detections.
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Do not solve social problem with technical means, it will never work (see: drm).
That's probably true, but I wonder how far things will go? For example, where I live, there are already kids setting up local wireless mesh networks to share their music collections and other stuff around. Sure, these are small and operated by pizza-munching geeks, but if the idea gained general traction and the Internet as we know it simply became something similar to cable TV today (plus perhaps a comms network similar to email), would not the people be able to steal the Internet revolution back? I'm also interested in whether this might mean a return in some form at least to the ancient (and perhaps default) mode of human life: that of small, tightly-knit communities.
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where I live, there are already kids setting up local wireless mesh networks to share their music collections and other stuff around.
One of the few good things about censorship, it does lead to more technically and politically literate kiddies.
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Sure, but try doing that over the ocean.
That would limit the Internet to islands. Sure, you would have plenty of people to share with in a large city, but what about isolated places? Country-to-country connections? It would kill the Internet as we know it, unless someone would came with something better than "mesh networks".
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Wifi detector cars. Sniff the connection, if there's an encrypted connection that doesn't use a government-approved private key, then triangulate, and arrest the owner of the access point.
Free space optical isn't vulnerable to that one, although FSO gear is more easily visible to the naked eye.
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Dropping connections that want to hanshake encryptions / look encrypted.
IP-bans of proxies; general useleness of open proxies; ease of proxy detections.
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Do not solve social problem with technical means, it will never work (see: drm).
If you allow HTTPS site you can't block SSH tunneling.
And there are also VPN connections.
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If you allow HTTPS site you can't block SSH tunneling.
They don't need to block every https site. They block a list of named sites, and that list grows over time. The police add pedo sites to the list. Other agencies add other sites that they deem "inappropriate". The IWF maintain such a list and governments say it's good because it's targeting child porn sites. But there are also lists maintained by various governments, and they often filter for political sites too. It's impossible to run properly effective filtering by algorithm. So there will be lists
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They don't need to block every https site.
They do if they just block all encrypted traffic (which has nothing to do with blacklisting URLs), which is where this thread originated.
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Someone is modding everyone who supports going around this filtering using encryption and/or proxies as a troll.
That is very political use of modding. There is no: -1 Disagree so they are using -1 Troll for the same purpose.
Suspicious. I wonder if there are organized interests trying to keep slashdot discussions on the "right" track
these days. And yes, I'm seriously wondering that, and not saying it in order to promote an angry reaction.
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Encrypted traffic :
All VPN's
All Secure transactions
Proxies, which are almost universally used by businesses as a security measure
Well that's all business off the internet - do you want an economy?
P2P Traffic - Well that's BBC iPlayer and similar streaming services, many game updates etc ...
Almost everything that has been used for nefarious or illegal purposes was originally developed and is still widely used for legitimate reasons ...
While you are at it you had better stop people using envelopes in the mail
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Before irrigation, starvation was a social problem. Technology solved it.
Solved it? There are still a lot of people dying from starvation every day.
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Suprise butt sex.
circumvent to destabilize (Score:5, Interesting)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently 'committed to helping people to circumvent government internet filtering,'
You might have got that a bit confuzed: US only circumvents in the case of the Cuba's, Iran's etc of the world - it helps destabilize our enemies. For everyone else like NZ, WE are committed [ustr.gov] to forcing the world [iipa.com] to filter as conditions on our trade treaties. (in this case, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA [iipa.com]) with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam.
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Crap, it's too bad the International Intellectual Property Alliance is against stealing website templates. It's like 1997 all over again.
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Not to mention that their logo is a friggin' bitmap.
Alternatively (Score:3, Funny)
Google can quit!
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That would be a crippling blow to NZ, indeed. I hear that Google has the most comprehensive sheep index! ~
NZ Filtering FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to know more about it, check the NZ Internet Filtering FAQ at: http://techliberty.org.nz/issues/internet-filtering/filtering-faq/ [techliberty.org.nz]
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"The DIA say that the filter will not be used for law enforcement."
AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH H AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAH
*breathe* AHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAH
HAHAAHAHAH *wipes eyes*
The entire justification for the filter is CP with a side order of bestiality.
And it won't be used for prosecution. That's rich.
*Snort*
--
BMO
Re:NZ Filtering FAQ (Score:5, Insightful)
This, to me, is the strangest thing about these filtering/censorship proposals. On the one hand, it's claimed that only really, really illegal stuff will be blocked by it -- the worst of the worst that pretty much guarantees a prison sentence merely for possessing, and that the lists will be accurate and won't block legitimate content. On the other, people who are detected trying to access this stuff won't be charged or even investigated?
It seems very strange. Obviously there's simple explanations for this lack of coherency, but the self-contradictory nature of the proposals is so much more transparent than usual in politics.
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Well, if having child porn is a crime of posession it'd be weird to get charged for failing to find a way to obtain some. It'd be like locking somebody up for having expressed at some point the desire to get some heroin, but failing to find a dealer.
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That's not weird at all. In most countries I know of, conspiracy to commit murder or attempted murder carries much the same penalty as murder, by and large (parole conditions etc not withstanding).
What IS weird is that pictures of murders (and movies with with murders in them) are so very, very common- played on our household TVs, in our movie theatres and present on almost any media you can find today... but the mainstream view is that this is harmless, just a fantasy, and not harmful to adults even in gra
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it'd be weird to get charged for failing to find a way to obtain some.
No, actually. There are plenty of ways of being convicted of a crime if you fail to suceed. They call it conspiracy.
"Vadim has hit the server 50 times this year. We should get a warrant to search his computer for illegal activity that wasn't stopped by the server. Also, we should get a warrant to arrest him for conspiracy to acquire child pornography"
Or...
"Vadim has been blocked by the server 50 times this year. Let's look at the log
Re:NZ Filtering FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone should read this.
So far, so good.
But these are bad:
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So those in the biz of hosting kiddy porn simply need a self signed certificate and the vile scum they call customers will still be able to access them, come to think of it, i can't believe they'd pipe that content over the web unencrypted anyway
They probably ARE HTTPS-based (Score:2)
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How to annoy the ISPs (Score:2)
Maybe the best way to get ISPs to stop being censorship bitches is every time you have connectivity issues, is to call them up and complain your site has probably been caught in the government censorship filter and you can't see any reason why it would be blocked. Here is hoping that enough complaints of false positives will change things. After all how are you to know whether a site is mearly slashdotted or being blocked?
Sounds like like you guys really need a pirate party to defend your liberties and in
invasion ? probably yes (Score:5, Funny)
"so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?"
That is probably true.
Since there is rumor CNN might have proof that Bin Laden has been seen there for vacation.
People also say he is accompagnied by Sadam Hussein and Joseph Stalin.
Who are said to have found some oil offshore.
Sorry, won't work until you talk funny (Score:2)
Oh, you speak the queens english? That is good enough. Prepare to be liberated! (Also known as kiss your ass goodbye)
Human Rights? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, I do have to admit that this is the first time I heard about the filter... but how can they possibly square that with human rights [hrea.org]? Especially this part:
I get that various dictatorships and so on around the globe might not care all that much about human rights, but New Zealand was still a democracy last time I checked?
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Just because it's a democracy doesn't mean people care about freedom. People vote in dictators all the time.
Re:Human Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
I get that various dictatorships and so on around the globe might not care all that much about human rights, but New Zealand was still a democracy last time I checked?
Democracies don't give you good government, they give you the government you deserve. If the people don't pay attention, the government will be corrupt. If the people is willing to put up with human rights abuses, the government will be willing also. If the people are willing to put up with unbalanced budgets and lack of healthcare for some people, the government will be willing to also. See also slavery in America prior to the civil war.
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Democracies don't give you good government, they give you the government you deserve.
Democracies don't give you the government you deserve[1], they give you the worst government any 50.1% or more of your fellow citizens can be tricked into voting for.
[1] As if anyone actually deserved to be ruled by any government. Democracies have advantages and disadvantages relative to other forms of government, but these minor differences pale in comparison to the disadvantages inherent in government itself, of any type. Among other issues, so long as any government exists we will never be free of "legi
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A democracy is just a dictatorship trough sock puppets. The puppets can change to simulate non-existing free choice.
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You haven't heard of it before because that information was filtered.
We'd be happy to help (Score:3, Funny)
"so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?"
The USA would be more than happy to overthrow your government for you and install a dictator friendly to our interests. We can also free you from your public health care system and bring in a less efficient private system that will only cost you 2X as much. We will though commit to spending billions to rebuild your country after our war of words. And finally the issue at hand. We promise to bring you the same great internet service that we have in the USA. If you haven't experienced dial up before you're in for a treat!
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We promise to bring you the same great internet service that we have in the USA. If you haven't experienced dial up before you're in for a treat!
NZers will gladly exchange their internet access for yours. Try 50$ with 10G cap.
NZ ISP experience (Score:2, Interesting)
Having recently moved to NZ, I'm still not used to having a 25 gig/month data cap, but at least my ISP (Slingshot) has taken a stance against the filter. We'll see how long that lasts. Having dealt with numerous account issues (overcharges, undercharges, VoIP issues, you name it) in the two months I've had it, I have a pretty dim view of their professionalism. At least I can reach an actual human being in customer service. They're usually quite polite and helpful (I make it a point to be also). Gotta give t
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Wow ... I was going to suggest that you just moved to a higher plan, but I took a look at their website and 25 GB is the highest. Wtf?
I thought we had it bad here in Australia with data caps, but yours are way worse. For the same $50 as you're paying for 25 GB, plans here are generally in the upwards of 60 GB (TPG will even give you 130 GB for $49.99). Plus even 200 GB plans are still under 100.
It's weird that Slingshot doesn't have any higher plans (even expensive ones!).
A bad precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Nooo...
That means there's more chance the proposed filter might come to fruition in Australia. Now the Government can point and say "see, NZ did it!".
Although it's sorta funny ... I was being berated by a kiwi on this very forum a few weeks ago, who was going on about how crap Australia was and that he couldn't wait to go home to NZ where there was "no chance of an internet filter". Joke's on him now, I guess. At least our 'filter' is still only an (unpopular) proposal, rather than actually implemented. Yet.
Don't forget us brits (Score:3, Informative)
And don't forget us brits [iwf.org.uk] too.
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"herefore there are lots of credit card transactions going on in the sale of the stuff. Therefore force the credit card companies to police those transactions and stop them happening - if they don't, name and shame them in the public media."
They do, they are, and this is the police's main weapon in fighting it, the credit card companies are very cooperative ....
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Carbon footprint? (Score:2)
new zealand is a fictional country (Score:2)
i think this story is referring to where peter jackson is from
you know, middle earth
but don't we all already really know.... (Score:2)
the target result that will be eventually achieved is censorship and control over what is communicated publicly over the internet.
And all that is really going on here is the effort to water it down little by little in public semi acceptance and the newbees that simply don't know better.
Freedom is a simple word to understand.
And its easy to see this sort of censorship does not support freedom.
Read the Declaration of Independence if you doubt the intent of the government, any government.
Filtering NEVER works (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that I support Child Pornography but I have seen many filtering systems over the years and NONE of them (including the one proposed for Australia or the one that seems to be being used in New Zealand) are going to stop someone who wants to find Child Pornography.
No filtering system that I have seen even attempts to block the kinds of encrypted p2p networks used by many child pornographers.
The right solution to child porn is to go after the people who are taking these pornographic photographs of kids in the first place and lock them up in a Gulag, Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison, Jail, Camp or whatever the appropriate correctional institution may be. If you cant do that because its not illegal in the country they happen to reside in, extradite them to a country where it is illegal and pressure the government of the country where its not illegal to make it illegal.
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That idea sucks. Why couldnt all the homosexuals in the USA get extradited to Iraq so their heads can get chopped off?
Just one question... (Score:2)
There is not truer saying than "We get the government we deserve."
UK town name, sCUNThorpe, a classic example (Score:3, Interesting)
of why filtering doesn't work.
No, I don't mean just the fact that the simple text string filter is too crude, but mainly the fact that there is no penalties imposed (eg loss of job) on the assholes who implement filtering technology with the same due diligence as an indian first line support call centre, and fuck up the entire internet for whole groups of users, or domain owners.
Scunthorpe is just one example, what is crude, evil or illegal to one person, is totally innocent and innocuous to another person.
Back in the day, no ISP wanted to touch filtering with a bargepole, not even if it cut their upstream bandwidth costs by 50%, for one simple reason... once you filter, you take legal responsibility for EVERYTHING, and open yourself up to lawsuits.
Goodbye "common carrier" and "mere conduit" status.
EU Law states (and I know exactly of what I speak, being personally instrumental in this law being codified and specified within UK Law) that for the purposes of the Electronic Commerce Directive an ISP is a "mere conduit"
As this applies to a UK ISP this ruling SPECIFICALLY EXEMPTS the "mere conduit" from all civil, and criminal, liabilities, even if the material in question is defamatory, copyright violation, or even child pornography... PROVIDED THEY REMAIN A "MERE CONDUIT"
The nanosecond you start filtering, you are no longer a mere conduit or common carrier.
a billion sheep twitter each other (Score:2)
I wonder what they say.
Re:Like many fads, (Score:5, Insightful)
"Like internet censorship too will never last."
Censorship will exist as long as either
1.) There are governments with secrets to hide
2.) ZOMG SAVE TEH CHILDREN
I forsee neither of these going away anytime soon. As in, Ever.
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I forsee neither of these going away anytime soon. As in, Ever.
I don't see 'em going away, either - not when we have power-hungry groups who have been including the Internet [newamericancentury.org] in their thinking for some time.
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*Attempted* Censorship will exist as long as either
1.) There are governments with secrets to hide
2.) ZOMG SAVE TEH CHILDREN
Re:Like many fads, (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the uncensored internet is the fad coming already to a close?
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It might last, but it wont take long before people find other ways to do the things they want to do. it's always been like this. All it takes is enough people adjusting to it, it spreading and becoming more convenient until it raises brows enough to slap it down.
And then, the next alternative will sprout up.
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We have two major parties in NZ (Labour and National).
The filter process was started when Labour was in power.
It's now gone live while National is in power.
At least the Greens are against it! Oh, pity they only get ~5%.
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So...start a new party.
Call it the Packet Party.
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...which will get even fewer votes than the Greens.
I think the next step for democracies is to scrap the party system and have voting based on particular policies, not on some nebulous notion of a "party platform". The common system of voting in a bunch of drongos every few years and writing to representatives and hope they'll support your views is far from ideal, and modern technology makes it quite feasible to enable voters to have a much more direct say on particular issues.
But I'm not sure any of the ma
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I think the next step for democracies is to scrap the party system and have voting based on particular policies, not on some nebulous notion of a "party platform". The common system of voting in a bunch of drongos every few years and writing to representatives and hope they'll support your views is far from ideal, and modern technology makes it quite feasible to enable voters to have a much more direct say on particular issues.
I agree, that's a great idea, in principal. I doubt that any politician, even assuming an honest one, perfectly represents my views.
The big problem, though, is that 1) parties will form no matter what, and 2) few people have the time to become knowledgeable enough about every issue to make in informed vote. For example, I heard on NPR the other morning, that a temporary speed limit for boats on my state's big lake will be made permanent. I think it was 45mph during the day and 25mph at night. Is this a
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4 million people isn't a lot and perhaps half of them are eligible to vote.
So Start a Party call it th will of the people and if elected will take the majority view on any issue. Each topic would have a poll I doubt it would be able to be a huge part of Politics but every vote would b e reflecting what people want. Just as the Green Party doesn't control any countries government it certainly influences both the left and right.
In a PR system 5% of 4 Million is 200,000, probably could be a working reality wit
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Perhaps try this: http://pirateparty.org.nz/ [pirateparty.org.nz]
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this has very little to do with the government, they recommend that isp's enable it, but it is not compulsory (as of yet) many of the isp's that are agreeing to implement it are ones generally regarded as companies that like to keep a strong-hold on their customers, many of the other isp's are relatively small ones that still value their image to consumers
That graph doesn't mean what you think it means (Score:3, Interesting)
Corruption takes three forms:
This last one is actually most in
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They are basically just a list of blacklisted URLs (and probably also the equivalent IPs). As you say, dead easy to get around ... these aren't sophisticated filters scanning everything you do ala China (so people comparing the situation in democracies like NZ and Australia to China are wayyyy over-reacting). The proposed Australian one just had a few hundred URLs on it.
So basically they are completely useless since any nasty material like CP is generally transmitted via usenet/private IRC/torrents/etc, not