The Great One For All Australian Firewall

[Harper]

url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081016-net-filters-required-for-all-australians-no-opt-out.html]'Net filters "required" for all Australians, no opt-out[/url]

'Net filters "required" for all Australians, no opt-out

Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.

The Australian government first revealed its filtering initiative in 2007, which it expected to cost AUS$189 million to implement. That money would go toward imposing filtering requirements on ISPs, who would have to use the Australian Communications and Media Authority's official blacklist, which is in turn based on the country's National Classification Scheme.

Australia moved forward with its plans despite widespread public outcry and began testing the system in Tasmania in February of this year. At the time, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that the filters would be enabled by default and that consumers would have to request unfiltered connectivity if they wished to opt-out of the program.

Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true. Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the "additional material" blacklist—which targets content inappropriate for children—but not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.

"That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out," Newton said. "Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked—end of story."

A spokesperson for the Australian Communications Minister seemed to confirm this revelation by saying that the filters would be required for all Australian citizens.

Assuming this is in fact the way the scheme is implemented in practice, it raises plenty of troubling questions. "Illegal" is a broad definition, leaving users wondering exactly what kinds of content will end up falling prey to the government's apparently mandatory filtering restrictions. Will Big Content be ringing up the Aussie government soon to have tracker sites added to the blacklist? What about sites that discuss topics like at-home bomb making, or something a little less explosive, like DVD decryption tools? And how about those sites that advise users on how to get around the filters? Will various Wikipedia pages be blocked?

Australia continues to ignore its own government-funded studies from 2006 that show ISP-level filtering to be ineffective and costly. The Australian government's disregard for those prior studies suggests that the driving force behind the current plan is more political than technical.

The term "Illegal" is rather broad. Sure have some various obvious ones like CP. However there are messures all ready in place for that. And by blocking that matterial, all it will do is make it go further underground and therefore harder to the authorities to track. And it will make some one that is a predator of children actually go out and so something.

However about other subjects like activism. Sure, one man terrorist is another man hero. And just because you read an article being anti-government does not make you a terrorist. And I do believe that people do have the right to be able to view both sides of the story, and not just get spoon-fed what the government feeds them.

Porn and Mature Content. Sure it not approate for kids. However any responible adult would have a copy of net nanny installed on thier computer, or is in some way monitoring what there children are viewing online. However what about the older people. What give the government the right to turn Australian internet access into a nothing higher than a PG-13 Disney Movie for any one else that is over the age of 18.

Sites about drug use. Drugs are not my thing. However I am one of those people with the open mind on drugs. If some one want to blow thier minds on some thing, let them. I am aware of that there are some site out there was till talk about drugs from a users point of view. Instead of the school teacher approach of "Drug Are Bad", it the view of "If you want to try drugs, this is what to you need to be careful of..." With the view that this firewall it take, it would most likely mean that these sorts of site are going to black listed. I would rather that some one "shooting up" and doing it properly, as appose to screwing it up and killing themselves.
And the of course there is bit torrent. No real explaination need there for why lot of Australians are going for these larger 150Gb or 200Gb plans. And why should we be limited to what is avalable on in the local media whether it be music, tv or movies.

And considering that it only took a kid 30 minutes to hack around the $189 million anti-porn tech initiative last year, I am quite sure it will be the same again with this new firewall. This one size fits all content filtering a Communistist control over the Internet in Australia.

There are a few sites that are addressing the problem.
No Clean Feed - Home
Somebody Think Of The Children
TIG Petitions - Stop Australian Internet Censorship (online petition)

I am pretty much address a letter to my local member of parliment about my conserns on this mater.

 

[Oreo]

It'll block online porn of all kinds ? Jokes aside, there going to have major complaints and riots from alot of people - aswell as the websites that make money from it.

This sounds like China.

 

[Nitestick]

i warned people about this policy before the election...now they're surprised it's happening.

And considering that it only took a kid 30 minutes to hack around the $189 million anti-porn tech initiative last year, I am quite sure it will be the same again with this new firewall. This one size fits all content filtering a Communistist control over the Internet in Australia.

it's not going to be that simple. you pretty much have to tunnel to a proxy with an encrypted connection to get around it as far as i know. i urge any australians on the forum to visit the "no clean feed" link in my sig and do something about this.

edit: i've stickied this thread as i think this issue is very important not just for australians but for other nations world wide as the outcome will have impact on similar plans elsewhere.

 

[carnageX]

Would Tor work to get around this, like it does in China? I'm not in Aussie, but I'm just curious if a Tor network would work.

 

[Kharn]

Tor is a possibility at least at first, i doubt it will get as strict as china but this is very bad news for all Australians as anything taken out of context can be considerd illegal, Say Nitestick forgot his password an didn't know how to access the administrator account? is that illegal no but if he left that is was his machine it would get him into hot watter.

 

[Apokalipse]

I sent an email to him.
Is there some way we (Australian citizens) can legally force the government not to do this?

Perhaps another Anonymous movement could be in order?
Freedom of information is one thing Anonymous does not like taken away.

 

[Harper]

Perhaps another Anonymous movement could be in order?
Freedom of information is one thing Anonymous does not like taken away.

Oh I am very sure that the Anonymous will be interested in this. However i don't think it would be wise if Anonymous to be leading the way in protesting against this motion.

Seriously, we anon is got a had a bad wrap for being a labeled as a cyber terrorist organisation and being linked up to things like CP and other things like that. This is sort of stuff is why the government want to put the firewall up in the first place.

If the Australian Anonymous community really want to combat this motion, then they reall need to for a new hivemind away from Anonymous. Otherwise, the goverment is just going to turn around and laugh as they bring up various accusations of CP, Yellow Vans blowing up, bomb threat and other cuber-vigilante behabour. Sure I am sure that Anon can play an active roll in protesting against the government. However i don't think it would be wise if they led way.

 

[Apokalipse]

Oh I am very sure that the Anonymous will be interested in this. However i don't think it would be wise if Anonymous to be leading the way in protesting against this motion.

Seriously, we anon is got a had a bad wrap for being a labeled as a cyber terrorist organisation and being linked up to things like CP and other things like that. This is sort of stuff is why the government want to put the firewall up in the first place.

If the Australian Anonymous community really want to combat this motion, then they reall need to for a new hivemind away from Anonymous. Otherwise, the goverment is just going to turn around and laugh as they bring up various accusations of CP, Yellow Vans blowing up, bomb threat and other cuber-vigilante behabour. Sure I am sure that Anon can play an active roll in protesting against the government. However i don't think it would be wise if they led way.

If they used that argument, we could call them on an argumentum ad hominen.

 

[Nitestick]

well i'm thinking of organising a pen and paper petition, much more effective than an internet petition. for now we should just encourage people to write/email senator conroy.

 

[KSoD]

I signed the Petition online. Iwill add the No Oz Net image to my sigs around the web in other forums as well.

This isnt right. The USA had proposed something liek this a while back and it was shot down. I dont think anyone should have to live with it.