
The Australian Government has greenlighted compulsory internet filtering - xelfer
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2772467.htm
======
JacobAldridge
What a crock of shit.

As an Aussie, I am disgusted that this is seen as a viable solution for an
advanced democracy. It riles me on all sorts of censorship levels, even before
it pisses me off as a taxpayer that a system so readily circumvented will be
the subject of public spending.

I honestly thought the 'trial' was going to be used to demonstrate what a
pathetic and short-minded idea this was, so that it could be quietly swept
under the carpet. Instead, I can only assume the trial was always intended to
arrive at a foregone conclusion.

Extreme conservatives - who won't ever support the current Labor government -
must be delighted. And there will be a whole swathe of middle-class, swing-
voting families relieved that their children will be protected, until they
discover their 12 year old surfing the net _around_ the filter just to see
what sites like donkeyporn.com and ruddisacommunist.org (sites I probably made
up) are all about. At that point they'll be wondering why the government
couldn't spend $125.8 million over four years on reducing the massive deficit
or stimulating jobs.

Edit: The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - the government has also
communicated _today_ that they plan to open discussion for an R Rating on
video games - [http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-
say-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-say-on-video-
game-ratings/story-e6frfro0-1225810592521) I doubt it's a timing coincidence.

~~~
adsyoung
Aside from the censorship issues (I know which end of that spectrum Senator
Conroy sits and I can't imagine him moving), I cannot believe they are going
ahead with a plan that they have been told repeatedly will fail.

From the tv debate held here a while back, it all seems to be based on the
ridiculous agrument that we have to try something...anything...for the
children's sake.

No, you really don't have to try things we know will fail. That's just pure
idiocy.

~~~
camccann
_it all seems to be based on the ridiculous agrument that we have to try
something...anything...for the children's sake._

This seems to be an instance of a type of reasoning known as the Politician's
Syllogism:

    
    
       Premise: Something must be done.
       Premise: This is something.
       Conclusion: We must do this.

~~~
mdemare
This quote is from "Yes Minister":
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vidzkYnaf6Y>

------
andrewtj
I think this is a pretty good indication of where Australia is at - welcome to
the nanny-nation. What really grates me about this is the supporters always
seem to fall back on saying it protects children. I find this absurd - it
amounts to "can't see the problem therefore it doesn't exist".

~~~
ErrantX
_What really grates me about this is the supporters always seem to fall back
on saying it protects children._

That always amuses me too; because it doesn't protect them at all (do Children
really browse CP sites? no, they get caught in MSN or other chat rooms.... are
they going to block all them ;))

It might limit the CP being viewed; but I highly doubt that will have an
appreciable impact in the # of children abused.

~~~
onceandonlyonce
> do Children really browse CP sites?

I registered this one-off account to respond to this point: yes, they do. Or
rather, I did, so there exists at least one :)

When I was 11, even 18-year-olds tended to look ridiculously alien,
anatomically, and were not something I would really consider myself aroused
by. Instead, I tried to find porn of girls closer to my age, preferably ones I
could fantasize were classmates or somesuch. I was much too introverted to
strike up a conversation in a chat room; I just browsed websites until some
random server somewhere transmitted the bits I wanted to see.

Totally agree that it won't impact abuse, though—the Australians seem to have
never heard of Tor.

~~~
ErrantX
Thanks for the reply: your something of a statistical anomaly though (no
offence intended). This, then, would have "protected" you, however the vast
majority of kids looking at porn would be unaffected.

------
CWuestefeld
How is this different from China's rationalization of their filtering? Is
there any objective difference?

 _the Government will not determine what is blacklisted on the internet in
Australia, rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as
RC for refused classification._

This will turn into a convenient way to let lobbyists ("Block the hate
speech!" "Block the anticompetitive corporations" and ultimately "Block those
who would weaken our country") hide behind a separate entity, giving the
politicians a screen to hide behind while continuing to support the overall
concept.

 _will require all ISPs to block material which has been refused
classification in other countries_

Umm... who is in charge of classifying the content on the Internet? I know of
no one doing so (let alone someone who can be trusted by all interested
parties). I think this statement is 100% BS.

------
xelfer
The full report for the Live Pilot is here:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-
Pilot-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-Pilot-Report-
High-Res)

The report claims no degredation of speed, however it says that about 1 in 30
legitimate sites will be blocked.

~~~
dmnd
Some observations from that report:

When they tested the filters they reported "less than 3.4%" of innocuous URLs
were mistakenly blocked. They say this is too high (no kidding!), but that
"blocking rates of below 2 percent would be considered low" and thus
acceptable.

They also considered performance degradation of 0-10% to be "negligible", and
10-20% to be "minimal". The performance results looked incredibly noisy to me,
but they don't report variance or any kind of statistical significance, so I
don't think their results mean much.

------
philk
It seems that nowadays you can get pretty much anything through by playing the
"think of the children" card even if it won't do anything to protect them.

I'm not adverse to interventions that will keep children safer (although I
think their vulnerability is overplayed) but it'd be nice to see useless
proposals get shot down at least once in a while.

~~~
eru
Don't forget the terrorists and (copyright-) pirates.

------
Evgeny
It's so ironic to move to Australia from Russia ... the former Soviet Union
... just to find myself eventually back to roughly about the same level of
government regulation. Hopefully not worse than that. Should I now set my goal
to leave Australia for a better place ... but what could it be though? Any
ideas?

~~~
demallien
Exaggerating much? An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the
'regulation' of the population as practiced by the KGB. You'll notice for
example that you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television
for trying to implement this, and nothing will happen to you.

~~~
Evgeny
_An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the 'regulation' of the
population as practiced by the KGB_

Yes and no ... just as the filter is ineffective for someone who knows a bit
about how stuff works, there always was the 'black market' in the SU where one
could find books, movies, music etc. that were not supposed to be available to
Soviet people.

Ineffective as it is, it may be just the first step towards a certain
direction ...

 _you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television for trying
to implement this, and nothing will happen to you_

Reminds me of a popular joke from Soviet times: American: In the USA you can
go to the central square of your town, and shout out "Reagan is a bloody
idiot" and nothing will happen to you! Soviet replied: Big deal! In the Soviet
Union you, too, can go to the central square of your town, and shout out
"Reagan is a bloody idiot" and nothing will happen to you.

So, basically, everyone is calling K-Rudd a bloody idiot about the filter, but
still it gets implemented.

------
aarongough
Gah. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I am very unhappy with my
government, and very glad I moved to Canada.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Just in time for the Harper Conservatives, eh?

~~~
aarongough
Haha, yes indeed.

I will admit that a large part of my satisfaction comes from the fact that I
no longer have to be involved. I am not on the electoral roll in Australia
(where voting is mandatory) and I can't vote in Canada... I guess I'm taking a
'hands-off' approach...

------
etherael
This makes me quite happy to be moving to Estonia in February.

It's not just this, it's a pattern of behavior in general by the Australian
government. It's not even a single action, I don't play games that often
anymore and the lack of an R18+ classification has almost no effect on me,
there are many data points in Australian political actions though which
reflect a deeply troubling underlying truth, the government perceives it's
citizens as children.

My reasons for leaving are many, but the two big ones; primarily the above,
but secondarily that I can't help thinking in a large amount of cases with
regards to aforementioned citizens, the government is not entirely wrong.

So long Australia, and thanks for all the fish.

~~~
mindaugas
You are moving from Australia to Estonia ...? Really impressive. I kind of
considered to do the opposite, though I'm not from Estonia.

~~~
etherael
Sydney vs Tallinn.

I dislike;

1) Very high cost of living.

2) Very high tax rate.

3) Poor quality of internet access.

4) Lack of R18+ rating for games.

5) Conroy's clean feed nonsense.

6) Quality of technological innovation in Australia in general.

7) General contempt for civil rights displayed by political parties in
Australia.

8) Apathy disguised as being laid back.

9) Hot weather.

10) Sun.

I like;

1) Low cost of living.

2) Very low marginal tax rate.

3) High quality of internet access, almost ubiquitous wifi access.

4) One of the highest populations of atheist people in Europe.

5) Largest political party majority ideology is classical liberalism.

6) One of the most advanced technological infrastructure programs in Europe.

7) Straightforward no bullshit populace.

8) Very cold weather.

9) Very little sun.

All of that said, you can never really know until you've actually tried it a
while, so start February I'm moving to Tallinn for a three month trial, in the
event that it wasn't for me was planning on coming back to Sydney but in light
of these new developments and a continuing frustration / annoyance with
associated events, I think if Tallinn doesn't work out I'll just pick some
place else, I have a pretty big laundry list to go through. :)

~~~
selven
What about languages? Does English work fine there? What about Russian? The
native language is very unlike any of the Indo-European ones I've studied.

~~~
etherael
From what I've heard from a friend who has already moved over there, English
is fine for Tallinn (the capital). That said, if I do end up making the move
permanent, I'd want to learn the language fluently regardless.

------
jefftown
I sure hope one day we will look back on the early age of the internet and
even if the debate over illegal content, piracy and privacy and so on is still
on going, we will at least have settled on one solid fact. Internet filtering
doesn't work and people that want to access illegal content will get it
anyways.

What a waste of money.

~~~
dflock
I think that from the point of view of global digital society, if this thing
fails spectacularly and publicly, it could be money well spent - if it deters
other nations from pouring their taxpayers money down this particular drain.

Can anyone think of a way to make it fail loudly, rather than quietly?

~~~
roundsquare
I don't like this method, but it might work. Maybe someone can help change it
to something that doesn't do harm.

1) Setup a site that the government would want to block.

2) Make sure it gets blocked.

3) Have the site track whenever an aussie logs onto it.

4) Send out an email with statistics on a regular basis to someone.

You may want more than one site or find a way to use existing sites, etc...

You need to make sure your okay with posting whatever material would qualify
though. That might be tough.

~~~
pwmanagerdied
A problem with this idea is that the easiest ways to get around filters
(secure tunnels) would generally result in the connection appearing to come
from outside of the country.

------
caf
I've voted ALP all my life, and this is absolutely a votechanger for me.

~~~
prawn
To who though? The crew who were pushing it previously? Remember Alston? Both
parties have spoken out against it when in opposition but pushed it while in
power? And no one would believe for a second that Abbott wouldn't want this or
worse.

Family First love it. Xenophon has only gradually shrunk away. I think only
the Greens have consistently opposed it. Very frustrating situation.

~~~
caf
Probably Australian Sex Party first, Greens second.

~~~
philk
Australian Sex Party first, Democrats second, Greens third.

The Greens lost a whole lot of credibility after they ran Clive Hamilton in
the Higgins bielection. Clive Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a
strident supporter of the content filter and has penned such dreadful op-ed
pieces as:

[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-
ne...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-net-
libertarians/story-0-1111118869227)

~~~
prawn
Fair points from both of you, and I wouldn't be unhappy about voting for these
mentioned, but you have to worry when your best bet is the Sex Party, your
second option is almost dead, and the third hosts a strong supporter of the
filter.

I was really disappointed to see the ALP pushing this.

------
scottjackson
"Successful technology isn't necessarily successful policy. We're still yet to
hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and
why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on."[1] \-- Colin Jacobs,
spokesman for the EFA

[1]: [http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-
ce...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-censorship-
plan-gets-the-green-light-20091215-ktzc.html)

------
Salvatore
Is this an Orwellian precursor or should we not get too upset about it? Should
the Government really be playing internet police?

------
Estragon
There has to be a business idea in this, somewhere...

------
shimi
For the sake of the kids, Rubbish!!! I feel my kids are safer in the USA than
in Australia after the recent developments.

and you know, where they burn books...

------
nazgulnarsil
supporting freedom feels quite Sisyphean for the student of history.

------
bbsabelli
Wow, the comments here really suck. Filtered != Illegal, so work around it if
you need to and tell your family and friends how.

~~~
philk
The thing is we shouldn't be having to work around the filters, and we
shouldn't have to put up with degraded performance just because some non-
technical people think that it'll protect their kids from the Scary Internet.

Also we shouldn't be wasting tax dollars on a boondoggle that achieves
nothing.

Finally, it's a bit embarrassing to be a citizen of an educated first world
nation that is actually implementing something so ill advised.

