Australia to adopt China-like firewall.

[demonfirzen]

 

No opt-out of filtered Internet

 

Policy to be set after trial

 

 

 

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.

 

 

 

Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

 

 

 

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.

 

 

 

The government will iron-out policy and implementation of the Internet content filtering software following an upcoming trial of the technology, according to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

 

 

 

A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.

 

 

 

Labors plan for cyber-safety will require ISPs to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet points accessible by children, Marshall said.

 

 

 

The upcoming field pilot of ISP filtering technology will look at various aspects of filtering, including effectiveness, ease of circumvention, the impact on internet access speeds and cost.

 

 

 

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.

 

 

 

Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

 

 

 

Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering.

 

 

 

Users can opt-out of the 'additional material' blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for 'illegal content', Newton said.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked end of story.

 

 

 

Newton said advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.

 

 

 

The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

 

 

 

EFA chair Dale Clapperton said in a previous article that Internet content filtering could lead to censorship of drugs, political dissident and other legal freedoms.

 

 

 

Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material, Clapperton said.

 

 

 

According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million.

 

I will personally develop/distribute a fix for this, as a big **** you.

 

 

 

And thanks to Mage_Man0103 for finding this article:

 

 

EFA says Filtering Trial a Failure

 

Thu 31-Jul-2008

 

 

 

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today labelled a recent government trial of ISP-based Internet filtering a failure.

 

 

 

The recently released ACMA report entitled Closed Environment Testing of ISP-Level Internet Content Filtering showed that of the six unnamed ISP-based filters evaluated:

 

 

 

* One filter caused a 22% drop in speed even when it was *not* performing filtering;

 

* Only one of the six filters had an acceptable level of performance (a drop of 2% in a laboratory trial), the others causing drops in speed of between 21% and 86%;

 

* The most accurate filters were often the slowest;

 

* All filters tested had problems with under-blocking, allowing access to between 2% and 13% of material that they should have blocked; and

 

* All filters tested had serious problems with over-blocking, wrongly blocking access to between 1.3% and 7.8% of the websites tested.

 

 

 

Despite this report highlighting the inaccuracy of these filters and the loss of performance caused by their use, Senator Conroy announced the government will press ahead with a real-world pilot program in furtherance of Labors pre-election commitment to force all Australian ISPs to filter their customers Internet access.

 

Leaving aside the serious privacy and free speech implications of mandatory ISP-based Internet filtering, the governments own trial shows that ISP-based filtering can cause serious performance degradation and is not accurate enough to be forced upon people who dont want to use them, said EFA Chair Dale Clapperton.

 

 

 

On average, these filters wrongly blocked access to 4% of the websites tested. Senator Conroy may regard this as an acceptable level of

 

collateral damage, but we think most Australian Internet users would disagree with him, Clapperton continued.

 

 

 

The ACMA report also showed that the average performance drop across all six filters tested was over 40%. It makes no sense at all for the government to be pushing their National Broadband Network agenda of faster Internet access for more Australians, while at the same time they want to introduce mandatory filtering which will make Internet access unnecessarily slower.

 

 

 

It is now apparent that the Governments plans extend far beyond merely blocking access to a list of web sites containing illegal material.

 

Mandatory ISP-based filtering will be disastrous for the Internet in Australia. It will become slower and more expensive, parents will be lulled into a false sense of security, meanwhile the filters can be trivially bypassed by anyone determined to get access to prohibited material online, Clapperton said.

[Orpheus]

Such a shame, that apparently countries are starting to become corrupt and are trying to control what their citizens think. But this goes far beyond that.

[thrash-boy]

that is [bleep]ing [cabbage]!

 

even our own [bleep]ing government is going corrupt now. you cant beleive how pissed off i am reading that.

 

ill happily help you distribute whatever fix you make for it (if you manage to make one).

 

stupid labour. hope they dont get their plan through.

[warri0r45]

I'd have to know what "illegal content" is before really giving an informed opinion, but I have a feeling that it's probably kiddy porn. In that case, it's fine by me. That stuff needs to be blocked so that there can't be an audience for it. If there's no audience, then there are no people buying it and the industry dies.

 

 

 

As a general principle I hate governments who think they can treat people like children and make decisions to censor internet material for them (which is why I like that the opt-out for "additional material" is actually optional), but as with anything the devil is in the detail. I'm quite capable of figuring out what I do or don't want to see on the internet, and if parents are worried about what their kids see, then they can pay attention to what they're doing or get a filter themselves.

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, the Australian government already offers them for free. They also have a link there where you can notify them of illegal content.

[justin_m23]

Wait, does illegal material include copyright infringing sites? Hope not

[warri0r45]

I have to add that some people so far have really overreacted, and comparing this case to what the Chinese do is pretty laughable.

[Orpheus]

I'd have to know what "illegal content" is before really giving an informed opinion, but I have a feeling that it's probably kiddy porn. In that case, it's fine by me. That stuff needs to be blocked so that there can't be an audience for it. If there's no audience, then there are no people buying it and the industry dies.

 

 

 

As a general principle I hate governments who think they can treat people like children and make decisions to censor internet material for them (which is why I like that the opt-out for "additional material" is actually optional), but as with anything the devil is in the detail. I'm quite capable of figuring out what I do or don't want to see on the internet, and if parents are worried about what their kids see, then they can pay attention to what they're doing or get a filter themselves.

 

 

 

As a matter of fact, the Australian government already offers them for free. They also have a link there where you can notify them of illegal content.

 

 

 

If it's just stuff like kiddy porn, then go ahead, there's not much to lose anyhow. I think torrent sites, for example, or any webpage that involves any sort of stuff like drugs, euthanasia, or protest(as the article states) might be going too.

[Nope12345]

Why spend money on something like this when were in a MARKET CRISIS -.- .

 

:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

 

 

But i Thought that the 'kiddy porn' was already monitored

[____]

I'll believe this when it actually happens to the degree that's being presented. Their concept of 'illegal content' is rather broad and technically impossible to manage without putting it in a list form, and through major loopholes, so long as legal content is there you could agrue it shouldn't be blocked. Easy outs.

[Ouchy]

Eh, this has too sides too it. One of them, is that they are being uncontrollable idiots, and should let people do what they want on the internet, while the other is thinking that this is a good move, to help get rid of illegal content. I am opted more towards my second opinion however, as I myself don't really do anything 'naughty' on the net.

[demonfirzen]

This will filter all porn, not just the illegal kind.

 

"blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material."

 

You are forced onto the first one, and if you need to, you can get switched to that second one.

 

Those are the only options.

 

 

 

I'm angry at the media for not reporting this correctly.

 

 

 

Also, whats to stop this filter from stopping opinionated and political sites?

 

What about legit sites that are accidentally blocked?

 

WHAT ABOUT *CHANS?

[warri0r45]

This will filter all porn, not just the illegal kind.

 

"blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material."

 

You are forced onto the first one, and if you need to, you can get switched to that second one.

 

Those are the only options.

 

 

 

I'm angry at the media for not reporting this correctly.

 

 

 

Also, whats to stop this filter from stopping opinionated and political sites?

 

What about legit sites that are accidentally blocked?

 

WHAT ABOUT *CHANS?

 

 

 

Opinionated and political sites aren't illegal, and neither is porn in this country as far as I'm aware.

 

 

 

What exactly is the problem here? That you don't want to be bothered opting out of the first option to get to the latter?

[demonfirzen]

Opinionated and political sites aren't illegal, and neither is porn in this country as far as I'm aware.

 

Sure, but whats to stop them from blocking those aswell?

 

Porn is being blocked to protect children apparently.

 

What exactly is the problem here? That you don't want to be bothered opting out of the first option to get to the latter?

 

-being forced to use it

 

-it's what the government deems to be illegal

 

-our access to the internet being limited by the government.

 

-(minor) slightly slower internet speed.

 

-this is one step closer to "big brother".

[thrash-boy]

i hope that they dont class torrents as illegal material, because technically any site that hosts torrent files isnt doing anything illegal, but the goverment wont look at it that way.

[Intriguing]

If the plan is exactly what it says, I don't have a huge problem with it. I'm a fairly avid downloader of music, but I'm sure I can find another hobby.

 

The problems that I have with it were mentioned in the first post:

 

Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

 

To censor information about drugs is a thought that really annoys me. If it gets censored, people will just continue on in ignorance about the effects of drugs. I just honestly don't see how that would help anything. I'm also assuming that they would censor things about cults or new-age religions, as many internet filters do that.

 

 

 

Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material

 

That's the other thing I don't like about it. It's very true that once they have the system in place, it will be a lot easier to add new things to the censor in the future. It has a high chance of putting our government into an overly-controlling state, and I'm not the only person who really doesn't want that to happen.

[warri0r45]

Opinionated and political sites aren't illegal, and neither is porn in this country as far as I'm aware.

 

Sure, but whats to stop them from blocking those aswell?

 

Porn is being blocked to protect children apparently.

 

What exactly is the problem here? That you don't want to be bothered opting out of the first option to get to the latter?

 

-being forced to use it

 

-it's what the government deems to be illegal

 

-our access to the internet being limited by the government.

 

-(minor) slightly slower internet speed.

 

-this is one step closer to "big brother".

 

 

 

The point I was making is that they won't block opinionated sites, political sites or porn sites in the compulsory option - they can only block those in the "additional material" blocker, which under this system you can freely opt out from.

 

 

 

I don't buy the argument that you're being "forced" to use the additional material blocker just because it's opt-out. Absolutely no one is forcing you to stay opted in with this system, so you'll be free to view as much political crap and porno you like.

 

 

 

As for the blocker of illegal material (compulsory under this plan), yes, ultimately this blocks what the government deems illegal, which I may not always agree with. Having said that, I'm waiting to see what exactly they propose to block under this plan before getting outraged about it. Added, passing laws is a bit more of a process than "the government says so, and it is". Obviously it has to go through the senate, and by observing the course of political proposals over the years, that's never straightforward.

 

 

 

As I said before, if it comes down to me being limited kiddy porn I won't mind at all, because that kind of thing is rightly illegal and shouldn't be tolerated.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Opinionated and political sites aren't illegal, and neither is porn in this country as far as I'm aware.

 

Sure, but whats to stop them from blocking those aswell?

 

Porn is being blocked to protect children apparently.

 

I'm not expert on the Australian legal system, but:

 

users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

 

If porn isn't illegal to watch in Australia, I can't see why they'd put porn as "illegal" on the separate adult list. Again, I don't know the law for Australia, but I know in America it's illegal to view porn below a certain age, however, so if it is illegal to view porn under aged in Australia, it should be on the child's list.

 

 

 

I think the fact of the matter is this: if it's illegal stuff, you shouldn't be downloading it. So what have you to worry about if it's auto-blocked?

[thrash-boy]

I think the fact of the matter is this: if it's illegal stuff, you shouldn't be downloading it. So what have you to worry about if it's auto-blocked?

 

 

 

but the problem there is most people do download it, myself included. not the kiddie porn or anything but music from limewire or things from torrents etc. image how much legit stuff could be blocked if they somehow manage to stop torrents.

 

and anyway, no matter how illegal it is, im going to continue to download music from limewire because im not interested in paying a record company to stamp out cd's, when it was the artist that created the song.

 

im also not interested in paying big dollars for software that i use myself for educational purposes.

 

 

 

if the goverment wants to block kiddie porn thats fine by me, but everything else they class as illegal that goes with it.

[Da_Latios]

 

I will personally develop/distribute a fix for this, as a big **** you.

 

On behalf of all sane people, I thank you in advance.

 

 

 

Edit: I even made up a name for us: Internet Freedom Fighters, or IFF for short.

[Furah]

 

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.

 

 

 

 

As soon as this market crisis is over I'm moving to America... unless they choose this too

 

 

 

I will personally develop/distribute a fix for this, as a big **** you.

 

On behalf of all sane people, I thank you in advance.

 

 

 

I too thank you, and will help in any way I can...

 

 

 

[big quote]

 

 

 

worst of all is that you have to opt-out, aka it's automatically put up -.-

[demonfirzen]

The point I was making is that they won't block opinionated sites, political sites or porn sites in the compulsory option - they can only block those in the "additional material" blocker, which under this system you can freely opt out from.

 

The is no true "opt out", only a porn enabled filter, and a porn blocked filter.

 

I don't buy the argument that you're being "forced" to use the additional material blocker just because it's opt-out. Absolutely no one is forcing you to stay opted in with this system, so you'll be free to view as much political crap and porno you like.

 

You are being forced, you have no choice of using this filter or not.

 

As for the blocker of illegal material (compulsory under this plan), yes, ultimately this blocks what the government deems illegal, which I may not always agree with. Having said that, I'm waiting to see what exactly they propose to block under this plan before getting outraged about it. Added, passing laws is a bit more of a process than "the government says so, and it is". Obviously it has to go through the senate, and by observing the course of political proposals over the years, that's never straightforward.

 

Ah, lets hope that the senate is not a bunch of old computer illiterates that don't understand the importance of the internet. ;)

 

 

 

As I said before, if it comes down to me being limited kiddy porn I won't mind at all, because that kind of thing is rightly illegal and shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Sure, but what about your internet speed?

[Furah]

you might want to add this to the original post...

 

 

 

 

EFA says Filtering Trial a Failure

 

Thu 31-Jul-2008

 

 

 

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today labelled a recent government trial of ISP-based Internet filtering a failure.

 

 

 

The recently released ACMA report entitled Closed Environment Testing of ISP-Level Internet Content Filtering showed that of the six unnamed ISP-based filters evaluated:

 

 

 

* One filter caused a 22% drop in speed even when it was *not* performing filtering;

 

* Only one of the six filters had an acceptable level of performance (a drop of 2% in a laboratory trial), the others causing drops in speed of between 21% and 86%;

 

* The most accurate filters were often the slowest;

 

* All filters tested had problems with under-blocking, allowing access to between 2% and 13% of material that they should have blocked; and

 

* All filters tested had serious problems with over-blocking, wrongly blocking access to between 1.3% and 7.8% of the websites tested.

 

 

 

Despite this report highlighting the inaccuracy of these filters and the loss of performance caused by their use, Senator Conroy announced the government will press ahead with a real-world pilot program in furtherance of Labors pre-election commitment to force all Australian ISPs to filter their customers Internet access.

 

Leaving aside the serious privacy and free speech implications of mandatory ISP-based Internet filtering, the governments own trial shows that ISP-based filtering can cause serious performance degradation and is not accurate enough to be forced upon people who dont want to use them, said EFA Chair Dale Clapperton.

 

 

 

On average, these filters wrongly blocked access to 4% of the websites tested. Senator Conroy may regard this as an acceptable level of

 

collateral damage, but we think most Australian Internet users would disagree with him, Clapperton continued.

 

 

 

The ACMA report also showed that the average performance drop across all six filters tested was over 40%. It makes no sense at all for the government to be pushing their National Broadband Network agenda of faster Internet access for more Australians, while at the same time they want to introduce mandatory filtering which will make Internet access unnecessarily slower.

 

 

 

It is now apparent that the Governments plans extend far beyond merely blocking access to a list of web sites containing illegal material.

 

Mandatory ISP-based filtering will be disastrous for the Internet in Australia. It will become slower and more expensive, parents will be lulled into a false sense of security, meanwhile the filters can be trivially bypassed by anyone determined to get access to prohibited material online, Clapperton said.

 

 

 

22% while idle? might as well start packing my bags now... even with a way to bypass it (which I already know how to do) it will still be slow :wall:

[limpbizkit]

I think the fact of the matter is this: if it's illegal stuff, you shouldn't be downloading it. So what have you to worry about if it's auto-blocked?

 

 

 

but the problem there is most people do download it, myself included. not the kiddie porn or anything but music from limewire or things from torrents etc. image how much legit stuff could be blocked if they somehow manage to stop torrents.

 

and anyway, no matter how illegal it is, im going to continue to download music from limewire because im not interested in paying a record company to stamp out cd's, when it was the artist that created the song.

 

im also not interested in paying big dollars for software that i use myself for educational purposes.

 

 

 

if the goverment wants to block kiddie porn thats fine by me, but everything else they class as illegal that goes with it.

 

 

 

And how much does that record label pay out for these bands? a lot more than they earn just from cds.

 

Pathetic argument because if there were no big labels and that you wouldn't get much music via cd and all that because the record label pays for most that bands costs.

[Lenticular_J]

Once the public has allowed the system to be established, it is much easier to block other material

 

That's the other thing I don't like about it. It's very true that once they have the system in place, it will be a lot easier to add new things to the censor in the future. It has a high chance of putting our government into an overly-controlling state, and I'm not the only person who really doesn't want that to happen.

 

Exactly. I'm sure if the Chinese that had the education to complain could complain, they'd have this same problem.

[warri0r45]

 

[big quote]

 

 

 

worst of all is that you have to opt-out, aka it's automatically put up -.-

 

 

 

And what's the big deal there? All you have to do is make a phone call to say "I opt-out of the additional material blocker".

 

 

 

The point I was making is that they won't block opinionated sites, political sites or porn sites in the compulsory option - they can only block those in the "additional material" blocker, which under this system you can freely opt out from.

 

The is no true "opt out", only a porn enabled filter, and a porn blocked filter.

 

I don't buy the argument that you're being "forced" to use the additional material blocker just because it's opt-out. Absolutely no one is forcing you to stay opted in with this system, so you'll be free to view as much political crap and porno you like.

 

You are being forced, you have no choice of using this filter or not.

 

As for the blocker of illegal material (compulsory under this plan), yes, ultimately this blocks what the government deems illegal, which I may not always agree with. Having said that, I'm waiting to see what exactly they propose to block under this plan before getting outraged about it. Added, passing laws is a bit more of a process than "the government says so, and it is". Obviously it has to go through the senate, and by observing the course of political proposals over the years, that's never straightforward.

 

Ah, lets hope that the senate is not a bunch of old computer illiterates that don't understand the importance of the internet. ;)

 

 

 

As I said before, if it comes down to me being limited kiddy porn I won't mind at all, because that kind of thing is rightly illegal and shouldn't be tolerated.

 

Sure, but what about your internet speed?

 

 

 

Demon, you opt-out of the additional material filter. How is this hard to understand? If you want to argue why you don't like the blocking of illegal material then by all means do so, but don't try to mix words and tell me there's no opt-out involved in the additional material filter.

 

 

 

As for your second point, read what you quoted again.

 

 

 

On the final point, of course the speed issue is a worry. I suppose the question is whether internet speed should be sacrificed for the sake up getting rid of kiddie porn. Having posed that question, there's probably a much better way of doing that. I'm thinking serious international action to track down and prosecute rather than just blocking websites.