
Australian Government adds Wikileaks to banned website list; $11k/day fine for linking - nickb
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/australia-issues-wikileaks-linking-fine-warning-585894
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pg
I wonder if the government realizes how much damage they're doing to the
country's reputation by ensuring that when the rest of the world thinks of the
words "Australia" and "Internet," the next word that follows in most people's
minds is "censorship." They're practically marketing themselves as a
backwater, in the same way Kansas does every time they try to outlaw
evolution.

~~~
axod
I think the other important point is that censorship of the net like this
isn't something that will stop people visiting websites. It's easy enough to
just get the content another way.

So the censorship will have pretty much no effect, apart from negative PR.

~~~
Chompy
I suspect that we're talking about some old people here.. legislators who have
literally no idea what they are attempting to regulate, or it's potential
consequences.

~~~
jwilliams
Yeah, that's the problem.

A mechanism like this get's implemented under false pretenses ("do this and it
will end child porn forever") - then it becomes a future tool to abuse
individual freedoms.

------
fallentimes
<http://www.wikileaks.com/>

I guess I've been taking linking for granted.

Could any HNers residing in Australia please add their thoughts to this? I
could only imagine what would happen if the US did something similar...

~~~
JacobAldridge
For the past year or so the federal government has been trialling software
they will make mandatory for ISPs to filter the internet. The industry doesn't
want it, the public doesn't want (trials show it demonstrable slows ALL
internet traffic), but they persist.

The relief we have so far is that we're reasonably confident they won't really
be able to enforce a lot of things, including links. I'm personally confident
that they will eventually find an excuse to 'park' the project, but the closer
it gets the louder we need to be about censorship.

Our PM speaks fluent Mandarin. A very useful skill for global diplomacy, but a
skill that when combined with censorship draws comparisons he probably doesn't
like.

~~~
jwilliams
_sigh_ It's frustrating - because - we all know - technically, this just won't
work...

I'm sure their reasons are somewhat valid, if only that they are pandering to
a small, scared part of the community. However, putting in place this sort of
apparatus to do that - with seemingly no checks and measures - seems negligent
in the extreme.

The government doesn't inspect every letter, every package, every phone
conversation. That's just ludicrous. Instead they just police it.

For some reason, they think this will work with the Internet. It's an
embarrassment as all it demonstrates is that the government is completely out
of touch with technology.

I've written to my local rep several times. It usually a form reply. They say
don't want to stop "legal" activity. This scares the hell out of me. Does that
include technically illegal acts such as those against corporate interests?
property? political dissent?

Frankly. It's not a tool I want in the hands of a government that seems to be
prepared to barter almost anything in order to get legislation though. We've
had the parliament held to ransom by crazy independents before (totally
marginal, unrepresentative nutjobs on the whole). I hate to think what they
will demand once they have this to play with.

I only wish this initiative would quietly die like everyone is mentioning - it
still seems to kick on and on though.

~~~
cameldrv
I wish people wouldn't make these sorts of arguments, because they're short-
term ones, and don't get the real point across. Whether it technically won't
work, or whether it will slow down the internet aren't the real issues,
because someday, it technically will work and won't slow down the internet.

The real argument to make is that this is wrong because censorship is wrong,
and because this is the thin end of the wedge of tyranny. It always starts
with child porn or terrorism, because everyone hates terrorists and
pedophiles. Once the government gets the capability, they just start taking
more and more. Even this article talks about blocking anti-abortion websites.
Abortion is one of the most important social issues today, and they're saying
that we can't argue against the government position on the internet? How will
we ever make progress as a society if we can't talk about anything different
than what we are doing today?

~~~
dejb
Yes this censorship is wrong - I agree with that. However the technical
aspects of trying to censor the internet do have important ramifications.

To effectively make censorship work on the internet it would require the
government be able to access all you possible means of receiving data - Email,
proxies, bittorent, SSH, everything. It is just too easy to re-route censored
data over different channels otherwise. Even then it is possible to hide data
within other data (Steganography).

So without big brother constantly staring over your shoulder it won't work.
Any government serious about making censorship work would be (possibly
unknowingly) drawn down this path.

------
gasull
FTA: _Currently, it is not illegal for internet users in Australia to click on
the sites found on the web blacklist. The people targeted by the Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) are webmasters linking out to the
sites that the government have flagged up as inappropriate.

This could all change, however, if a mandatory internet filtering censorship
scheme is implemented – something that is being debated at the moment._

In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship
with Tor: <http://www.torproject.org/>

~~~
rms
>In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship
with Tor: <http://www.torproject.org/>

Or VPN'ing through your VPS, googling for "start using CGIproxy", using an
online translator, Google cache, archive.org, etc. See
<http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013> for as much info on this
matter as you should ever need.

~~~
numair
Or here's something that works on a ton of machines, with no major rocket
science necsessary:

1\. ssh -D1080 username@host 2\. change proxy settings to have http traffic go
through a proxy running on port 1080 3\. enjoy.

~~~
whughes
I've always used the ssh -D proxy as a SOCKS proxy, not a HTTP proxy. It works
well, though, and it's dead simple to set up.

------
tptacek
Well this is a clusterfuck of a trivial civil disobedience protest and
concomitant selective enforcement defense just waiting to happen.

------
jacoblyles
It is possible that the anarchic nature of the present-day web is an
aberration, a symptom of a new technology catching the authorities momentarily
unaware.

The rapid innovation, widespread criminal activity, anonymity, and other
hallmark features of the modern web will likely be tempered as regulation
increases. However, humanity will still be better off for its existence than
it would be without. It may be suboptimal, but it will not be the end of the
world.

~~~
donaq
I do not think humanity would be better off if, to take this theory to its
most extreme conclusion, the internet became a collection of sites whitelisted
by the various governments around the world.

~~~
jacoblyles
There was a grammatical ambiguity in my sentence. I think we would be better
off with a regulated internet than with no internet.

~~~
donaq
I think I got you the first time, actually. My point was that humanity might
actually be worse off with an internet that is regulated in a totalitarian
manner than without an internet.

~~~
jacoblyles
Sorry, I only noticed the potential ambiguity after I made the comment and I
wasn't sure which reading you were responding to.

Perhaps you are right. But everybody having the ability to communicate cheaply
with everybody else is a new phenomenon. We got along for a good long time
without it.

I would think that the government's ability to control popular opinion was
much stronger in the industrial age than in any time since. We got through
that period okay.

I think the internet is awesome, and I hope people fight like hell to preserve
it. But if some controls are placed on it, I doubt it presages a new Dark Age.
Also, I think there will be some lasting benefit due to the reduced cost of
global communications and coordination, even if blogs are outlawed.

~~~
swombat
As we live more and more of our lives online, this control is tantamount to
having powerful cameras and microphones in every cafe, on every street corner,
at home, in every public and private space, recording everything that happens
in a convenient, searchable format.

If this was the case in meatspace, it would certainly have a chilling effect
on freedom of thought and discussion.

This may still add up to a net positive for us, but for the next
generation(s), who will live more and more of their lives online, the
implications are disastrous and, likely, a net negative compared to no
internet.

~~~
jacoblyles
I grant the possibility.

------
katz
I have a few problems with this. Their attempt to block wikileaks is so that
no one can see the URLs they blocked. This is a bit of nonsense - no one can
argue for the websites - so in effect they can block everything they want.

If they have a judge that decides which URLs are blocked maybe it would be
right.

> The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for
> posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website.

Hmmm... Why? Can they at least give a reason why a site was banned (except
promoting a dissenting view)?

~~~
electromagnetic
Because if Whirlpool had refused they'd have been fined $11,000 a day,
probably from the day the notice was sent out... probably in the slowest mail
service imaginable so that by the time Whirlpool got the notice the government
would consider them owing like $77,000 and an extra $11,000 for every day that
passes between them refusing to take down the link and them getting taken to
court.

It's a money making scam. There's no sense in a fine being levied per day for
hosting a link other than to extract money.

Edit: It's like getting a speeding ticket, but instead of being charged for
how fast over the legal limit you were going, they charge you for every meter
you cover whilst speeding. Or being charged for drunk driving, but they charge
you per 0.01% over, so for the same crime you get charged a ridiculous amount
if you're so drunk you only managed to turn the key before passing out (which
in most places being behind the wheel of a running vehicle and drunk, even if
the vehicle isn't in motion, counts as drunk driving) but someone who's only
0.03% over the legal limit and is capable enough to drive, but drunk enough to
be a danger is given a slap on the wrist.

This kind of system is just whole heartedly moronic. It's like a dentist
charging, not for pulling a single tooth out but how many milligrams the tooth
weighed. It's complete quackery.

------
kiba
Wee! Streisand effect.

Gottach love the effort of authorities trying to control information. It
usually backfires. That's a good thing too.

------
FlorinAndrei
So glad I'm not living there.

------
rgrieselhuber
This just put Wikileaks on my daily toread list.

EDIT: I think Wikileaks could benefit from a Reddit / HN style layout.

~~~
Sephr
It's a collaborative wiki, not an index of links (of which you can comment on)
sorted by current popularity or similar means like HN/Reddit/Digg.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
I know, but from a filtering perspective, it would be a nice tool, IMHO.

------
vaksel
when will people learn that you can't censor internet

~~~
jacoblyles
seems to work for North Korea.

~~~
TweedHeads
And cuba

~~~
electromagnetic
I don't think those countries really count, North Korea doesn't have enough
fuel to run trains, so I don't think there's like 30 million people just
cruising the internet. IIRC Cuba has had restrictions on computer sales up
until recently purposefully to allow themselves to establish the
infrastructure.

You can't try to build a dam in the middle of a running river, it's just
insane. Equally, you can't just begin to set up essentially an electronic dam
in a torrent of packets.

It works successfully for certain countries because it's on a small scale, but
when you get to the scale of China (whose internet system was built the same
way as Cuba and NK) you can start getting problems again. So I hardly see any
success happening in a rapid implementation of a complete web-filtering
service from an already developed nation.

------
carpo
So, if you can't see the list of banned sites because the only place to see it
publicly is banned, how do you know which links you're not allowed to post? I
guess you wait for the $11,000+ fine in the mail which will hopefully tell you
what link you then have to remove.

It's a monty-pythonish thought, but I keep imagining the letter you receive
having the offending link blacked out by the censor's pen, and all the while
new fines turning up every day and you frantically removing each link until
you get the right one.

------
electromagnetic
This just stinks of a moronic money making scheme. Many countries have a
black-list of websites that ISPs don't host links to, most of which are child
porn websites or sites used by known terrorists. So why is Australia planning
on fining _users_ for clicking on these links and not simply blocking the
link?

This isn't about censorship, or protecting the greater good. It's about lining
pockets and sheer greed.

------
ikor
I think, from today Tor ( <http://tor.eff.org>) usage will increase in
Australia.

