Australia Pushes Ahead With Website Blocking In Piracy Fight 100
angry tapir writes As part of its crackdown on unauthorized downloading of copyright material, the Australian government will push ahead with the introduction of a scheme that will allow rights holders to apply for court orders to force ISPs to block websites. (Previously Slashdot noted that the Australian government had raised such a scheme as a possibility).
Fucking Morons (Score:3)
Look up "proxy", you simpering halfwits.
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No one. Murdoch's control of the media is what got the current government in power. So they just do what he wants. Doesn't have to buy off anything.
Re:Fucking Morons (Score:4, Interesting)
They were considering punishing users (three strikes and you're out type shenanigans) but their popularity is sinking fast and I see this as an alternative that they're thinking "We know it won't work, and the public know this so they won't care, but we can say we're doing something to the interested industry lobby groups."
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You underestimate them. They want to become like the UK, where companies can block anything they don't like with a High Court order. As well as torrent sites many UK ISPs also block proxies and sites selling fake goods. The list is ever expanding. Since many of these sites are based outside the UK or run as non-profit they can't easily challenge the blocks.
Basically, corporations now have the power to censor the internet in the UK. That's what they want in Australia too. Just wait, they will soon be blockin
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Don't worry, this is Australia... They'll just make it illegal to pay for an encrypted anonymous proxy or vpn service ;)
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No, why? Let them do their thing, man! It's just another challenge to overcome. I don't see the problem.
And don't call them halfwits... The halfwits and corrupt bastards are the people that vote for them. There is nothing halfwitted about winning...
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and how is that supposed to stop someone routing through a vpn or proxy? or are you suggesting they will go on a mad campaign to block the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of ways around it, not even chinas great wall has managed that.
Very easy to redirect proxy and block VPN (Score:2)
VPN - there's a move to restrict those as part of the current mess that's being complained a
You do not understand (Score:2)
He has a vast amount of influence on the Australian government who control all the links from Australia to the global internet. Is it making sense now?
So where is you VPN licence citizen? No licence? No hole through the firewall on the undersea cable for you.
That bit make sense now?
Yes, all very authoritarian but that's exactly what is being pushed - tight control. Expensive, draconian and stupid cert
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ummmm no, the Australian government doesn't control all the global links from Australia, most are controlled or owned by the various telecommunications companies, you really have no clue what your talking about. Not even going to bother commenting on your clueless VPN rant. hint unless they are also going to ban SSL sites there is NO WAY to prevent VPN's
Ever heard of laws? (Score:2)
Exactly. Take one guess as to what Australian Intelligence organisations want done with SSL traffic in and out of the country. Yes it's bull in a china shop territory but the major donors to the ruling party do not care.
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As per the Chinese government, even if the Australian government went all communist and banned everything they cannot stop it, it is not technically feasible. China spends billions trying to do it and fails, yet you somehow believe the Australian government with a fraction of the resources, far less legal authority to do so and no direct control of the links will do it. seriously you need to see someone, it is not normal to have such insane levels of paranoia.
You just don't get it (Score:2)
The technical requirements would be far less than firewalling all links into a typical US city.
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sigh it is pointless arguing with you, you obviously have very little understanding of IT or government beyond what you see over your tinfoil hat, the world is obviously too scary a place for you to exist in. even firewalling all links in a single US city it would be near impossible to stop VPN's, I can tunnel a VPN over HTTP traffic if I need to.
At least read before you post (Score:2)
I mentioned "packet inspection" at least twice way above did I not? How did you miss it? I suggest you learn what it means before foaming at the mouth and declaring that we are all idiots to be worried about what can be done with draconian laws enforcing what can and can not go thro
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they DID NOT block in 2009. they removed the DNS entries, they are not stupid enough to believe they could block. packet inspection is hideously processor expensive, it would cost billions to effectively do this, and even then it would be easy to get past.
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Yes, but they are on record about not caring about the likely slowdown.
Come down off whatever you are on, consider something more realistic and then remember that it's the ISPs and ultimately the consumers that have to bear the cost so it's no skin off the government's nose. The people they would upset probably didn't vote for them anyway.
Only in a situation where the majorit
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I don't think you do so please stop acting that way.
Also think about what you know about VPNs and how you would go about finding one yourself and if you can't think of a few ways to identify them with wireshark or similar yo
This is a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I for one am looking forward to .gov.au sites being blocked by court order because they contain copyright images being used without permission. [Rights holders, start your inspections now!]
Re:This is a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Never underestimate a government's ability to keep doggedly charge forward with a policy even in the face of obvious failure. After all, we've been conducting a "war on poverty", "war on drugs", and more recently, a "war on terror" for many years without effective results. No, they'll just claim that they're not getting enough funding to do a proper job, or that new laws are needed to close loopholes.
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After all, we've been conducting a "war on poverty", "war on drugs", and more recently, a "war on terror" for many years without effective results.
What do you mean without result? The divide between rich and poor people is getting bigger every year, drug lords are making humongous amounts of money, because they're selling something that's in high demand, but unregulated and illegal, ensuring very healthy profit margins and for the war on terror, looking at the revelations of torture recently, Al-Qaeda couldn't have done a better marketing campaign themselves, which means more terrorists, which means more profits for arms manufacturers regardless which
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After all, we've been conducting a "war on poverty", "war on drugs", and more recently, a "war on terror" for many years without effective results.
I can tell you the current Australian government has a "make more poverty" policy rather than a "war on poverty" policy.
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I can tell you the current Australian government has a "make more poverty" policy rather than a "war on poverty" policy.
Yes, blocking pirate movies is among the least offensive things this government has done since coming to power.
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But of course, the fact that this government has announced an intent to do this is almost certain death for the idea. They are so disorganised and so incompetent that they could never get it done.
Slippery Slope (Score:1)
Slippery Slope meet the Australian Government. This is going to be a wild ride all the way down.
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Yes the tracking of ip and files would be legal.
The linking of an ip found to an isp and account would be legal.
Sending a letter would be legal.
Requesting who got the letters as part of discovery would be a free reverse look up to start finding accounts and files.
Every step of keeping a web history would be legal for the security services, police to any court requesting or allowing discovery on the le
VPN already on the list (Score:2)
pirate bay un|blocked (Score:2)
took a few minutes to circumvent the block yesterday
justfuckingoogleit
https://proxybay.info/ [proxybay.info]
take your choice
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You fucking idiot, TPB was back online within the hour it got raided.
Magical things, 'mirror servers' can be. Perhaps you should fucking learn to utilize them.
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TorrentFreak doesn't run one of these mirrors - I do. I see all of the new content, including Windows 10 build leaks.
Perhaps you should listen to someone actually involved with the stuff instead of a sensationalist reporting site.
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Why are you so angry? Also, The Pirate Bay isn't "back" as per https://torrentfreak.com/can-p... [torrentfreak.com] - "Update: Just to be clear, thepiratebay.ee, thepiratebay.cr, thepiratebay.mobi and others are mirrors not affiliated with the original site. They serve old content (no new uploads) and are not TPB resurrections. If the site reappears it will be on the original .se domain."
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"Update: Just to be clear, thepiratebay.ee, thepiratebay.cr, thepiratebay.mobi and others are mirrors not affiliated with the original site. They serve old content (no new uploads)"
Except that is wrong. .cr has ALL the latest shit.
Quit listening to sensationalist TorrentFreak, whom knows nothing about TPB. I run one of those mirrors. It's showing all new content down to fucking Windows 10 build leaks, and has been as of ONE HOUR after the primary site went down.
You do understand that the only thing TPB lost
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They aren't blocking anything yet, piratebay was offline because it was raided.....again.
As an Australian resident (Score:2)
I don't think this is half bad. Copyright holders need to go to court, rather than allowed to go straight to the ISP under previously proposed schemes.
Of course this is ignoring other possible agendas... and we know the block is useless anyway, but that isn't the point.
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The Australian federal government has already proven their departments can't be trusted when it comes to blocking sites e.g. they incorrectly blocked an IP address responsible for hosting multiple sites. They can't be trusted when it comes to limiting the scope of blocking. I don't see any information giving the web-site holder the option to contest the charges; defend their ability to stay online; or protect innocent sites caught up in a block whose scope is too wide
The government is also proposing graduat
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Yes. Of all the plans floated so far (by either of the major parties over the past decade or more) this is the least worst.
block everything! (Score:1)
Well, they could prevent all downloading of copyrighted material by blocking all sites with copyrighted material on them. That'd work...
Re: Halfwits indeed (Score:2)
The term "piracy" has been used for illegal copying for over 200 years. Not saying it's appropriate but it's definitely established usage.
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[citation required]
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Sorry, I was posting from a mobile so citing was not practical. See:
"A Treatise on the theory and practice of Seamanship", Richard Hall Gower, 1808, p. v-vi.
https://books.google.com/books... [google.com]
"In justice to the Author, it becomes necessary for him to state, that during his late voyage to India, Mr. Steel*, a bookseller, of Union-row, Little Tower-hill, republished nearly the whole of the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters of the first edition of this work, in a voluminous Compilation termed, "Eleme
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Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
Australian here.
This is all pretty hilarious, since Australian's are already being encouraged en masse to take up VPNs to get around geoblocking etc.
http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/computers-and-online/networking-and-internet/shopping-online/navigating-online-geoblocks/page/how-to-circumvent-geoblocks.aspx
(Choice being one of the leading consumer advocate groups in Australia).
We've been shafted by geoblocking / staggered releases (or non releases) and exclusive licensing locking up shows/movies for so long, that 'pirating' is basically a cultural norm here. People from all walks of life, from every cultural background do it. Louise CK explains it fairly well:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/louis-ck-explains-why-all-australians-pirate-things/
We've already got 'mum and dad' users who know about VPNs (they don't know exactly what they are or how they work, but they know that they are a good idea).
In other words, Australia as a nation is much better equipped to circumvent such trivial 'blocking' than your average nation.
Also funny is the government's mandate to ISPs and content providers- they've got 120 days (over a holiday period too) to agree on something that has been argued about for the last...5 years.
Expect this to fail spectacularly at every level.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some of the Louis CK transcript for those interested:
"Like when I was in, ah, Australia, everybody told me that they watch my show. And uh... I figured that they must be getting old versions of it 'cause it doesn't air there - but they were watchin' the show like, the week before because the whole country... pirates, there."
*interviewer laughs*
"Here, weirdos pirate... there's not that many pirate here,"
"Yeah..."
"...but in Australia, Moms and Dads pirate video. Because we're not... letting them buy it. Because we're keeping it from them."
"Oh yeah, really? Yeah?"
"We have shows that have been on the air here for like, three years? And we won't even give them-- if they're given the option? Like... everybody in the world is like, "Take my fucking credit card and just let me have the thing and I'll pay, but if you're gonna be a pain in the ass... FUCK YOU, I can steal ALL of it! So the whole country of Australia rips TV. So when I learned this, so when I put my beacon special, one of the big important things to me was that it was globally available, right away... and they're happy to buy it. Right? So I told FX they should sell my show on my website. And they said that we can't do that because we can't let other countries see it before..."
"Oh boy..."
"And I'm, but the-- what they're doin', all those companies and this... piece of shit fuckin' company,"
*interviewer laughter*
"--that we're talkin' on right now? Is they're keepin' money out, it's a cage it's keepin' money out, it's not keepin' it in, right? They think they're keepin' money in, but they're keepin' it out."
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they don't want other countries to get it before through internet because they want to sell the show to the TELEVISION NETWORKS of the other countries. that's why they can't sell them online to anyone who wants to buy them.
not to the viewers. but to the television networks - and they make those networks bid stupid amounts of money for the shows. they don't want to piss them (murdoc in case of australia?) off because of this lump sum money exchange program they got going on, with this lump sum money exchange
This will not end with blocking piracy websites (Score:5, Insightful)
Blocking piracy websites isn't the endgame here. The bigger picture here is using the guise of piracy and the clout of media rights holders to force all ISP's to implement a system capable of blocking the whole of Australia from accessing specified content. Pair this with enforcing all records to be held for a minimum of two years and the Australian government has just staged a coup on the online community. With these two moves they can block and track anything in the future as they introduce ever restrictive laws. This isn't a move to prevent piracy, it's a thinly veiled step towards government enforced censorship of the entire internet within the country, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership will only hasten this.
You are looking too deep (Score:2)
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Indeed. But that does not mean that phase 2 censorship will not come in soon afterwards.
I think that the extent that Labor got burnt by the anti-censorship back lash will give the Liberals pause. Most of them don't know or care, but Turnbull does understand.
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This doesn't seem unqiue to Australia. It seems right in line with what The UK, France, the US, etc. are doing.
Shooting yourself in the foot (Score:1)
Follow the money (Score:3)
It all leads back to Rupert and his Foxtel service.
Great plan (Score:2)
The carot works better than the stick (Score:2)
If the government and media companies REALLY want to stop piracy they need to make the content easier to legally acquire without needing to pay a lot of money for content you dont want. This applies to both new content and older content.
Some examples of how the local industry makes it harder:
1.Scorpion (2014 TV show). Channel 10 (local FTA network) aired up to episode 10 straight after the US airing. However, to see Episodes 11 and 12, you will have to wait for a few months. Episode 11 is already available