
Australian senate passes controversial anti-piracy, website-blocking laws - PebblesHD
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/australian-senate-passes-controversial-antipiracy-websiteblocking-laws-20150622-ghuorh.html
======
bayesianhorse
From what I hear from afar about Australian politics is that the Australian
government can essentially do whatever it wants, unrestricted by minor details
like a constitution, citizens or international law.

Surveillance, website blocking ... And not to forget the new definition of
"asylum", where refugees are kept against their will in camps, "unfit for
human habitation". One former government psychiatrist called it "torture".
Including, of course, children.

But the system works reasonably well. I mean, why flee to Australia from
political persecution, when Australian refugee camps are worse than most cases
of political persecution?

~~~
nness
Since this is presently the top comment, as an Australian, I felt the need to
comment.

First thing to understand is that the Australian constitution is more about
the formation and rights of the Government and less about personal rights as
many Americans come to expect from their own. Australia is very strict about
its obligations to its constitution, and issues like the roll-out of a single
Goods and Service Tax (the GST) and the Tasmanian Dam Case which both had
issues regarding the separation of powers and were heavily debated.

Nothing in the Australian constitution or any foreign treaty Australian is a
signature of prevents Australia from passing this law. The Constitution of
Australia grants the Federal government power to legislate in this matter. The
law was passed with votes in the house from both of the major parties.

To be fair, your mention of Australia's refugee obligations and how it has
handles it now and in the past is of no concern to this matter. There is very
little reason to discuss that issue (even though it is worthy of being
discussed) other than to paint the Australian Government as more villainous
than an Australian might fairly say.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Well, the right to asylum, as well as human rights in general has been
ratified by Australia and it's even part of the constitution.

I brought the asylum issue up because I find this a much more extreme and
urgent example of a human rights issue than to restrict free speech to a very
low degree.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Wait until you're not allowed to talk about an important issue, then you'll
realise just how important freedom of speech is.

Here in Australia, we're already restricted from discussing certain aspects of
voluntary euthanasia because it upsets the fundies.

~~~
bayesianhorse
Still, being allowed full access to porn does not seem as urgent to me as
preventing thousands of children being physically and mentally harmed
willfully by a supposedly democratic and elected government. So is torturing
adult refugees to deter others from coming, but maybe the well documented harm
to the children wakes people up more, than "just" mistreating some adult
Muslims...

I fully agree, that free speech in general is very important, though.

~~~
duncan_bayne
How about forcing adults to die in horrible, dehumanising agony because the
Powers That Be don't want you finding about safe, painless voluntary
euthanasia techniques?

~~~
marincounty
We have the slightly the same problem in the United States. We can talk about
it, but we don't have a way to end life medically when that time comes, with
the exception of Oregon, and one other state? I can't blame it all on
politicians.

In American, it seems like many of us think modern medicine will cure most
disease, or we fall victim to rhetoric like "death squads".

The reality is when that time comes, and modern medicine gives gives up; we
are sent home to die. Oh yes, a bureaucratic nonprofit steps in and finally
the aganoizing patient is given opioids, and benzodiazepines. The problem is
the Palliative Care is hit, or miss. The doctor never seems to come around and
read adjust medication levels, and the nurses--well they try.

My father died of liver cancer. He had a tumor the size of a football in his
abdomen(by the way, he had a tumor for at least 15 years. I don't know when it
turned cancerous, but all professionals overlooked the bulge in his upper
right quadrant. Not one professional palpated his abdomen--I guess they don't
do that anymore? And he had good insurance?

Well, finally one doctor promised to save his life, but reneged after further
review, the hospital then sent him home. He was miserable all summer. The
medications never quite took away the pain. It didn't help that the Hospice
doctors weren't increasing dosages.(I looked at the dose of morphine, and I
was tempted to buy smack off the streets, but he was just too conservative to
break the law. My greedy, manipulative sister played around with his
medication so she could talk him into giving her more wealth.(She is already
extremely wealthy). The nurses, when told, looked the other way. My retched
sister told the nurses, 'I want him to spend quality time with his grandkids'.
My father couldn't stand kids, and barely put up with his own.

My father gradually went from 190 lbs to 65 lbs, and was beyond miserably for
weeks. His last words to me were, "Son when will it end?"

He went into a semi coma and eventually died. He was blue. He would wake up
from bad dreams and scream. He was in hell!

Sorry to unload, but we need to know just how terrible death can be. There's
nothing sacred, natural, or peaceful about it. We need a passionate way to end
life when that day comes.

I don't go a day without thinking about my father's agony. My father was a
mean, nasty person, but they pain he went through was so disturbing; I can't
get the horrid ordeal out of my life. It's been nine years, and I'm still not
over it.

Maybe, this is not the time to talk about this problem? I got sidetracked by a
comment before me--sorry.

~~~
duncan_bayne
It's never the wrong time to talk about this problem, and I'm sorry for your
loss and pain.

My wife's father died a similar way, as did my grandfather. It pisses me off
to a great degree that, as a society, we aren't willing to discuss the matter
of dying with dignity. It's not like it's a new idea - the Roman Stoics did.

In many ways, our society seems infantilised in comparison.

------
PebblesHD
With these laws passed it will be a matter of weeks before the first cases of
rights holders wanting websites blocked begin to appear, meanwhile there have
already been statements by various right wing groups of wanting to expand the
use of these new laws to cover other things they find objectionable such as
pornography, violence etc. which will without doubt have a significant effect
on free speech.

~~~
9762384
Source for that bit about "statements already made about blocking porn"?
Surely no politician would be stupid enough to ever think blocking porn is a
good idea.

~~~
PebblesHD
Fred Nile - Head of the Australian Christian Lobby. The wording of the new
laws is so open that purpose creep is almost intended.

~~~
windowsworkstoo
Just a nit, but Nile isn't the head of the ACL, which is a lobby group - he is
the head of the Christian Democratic Party.

~~~
PebblesHD
Quite right, They seem to be almost interchangeable these days

------
nness
Just for those reading, the bill introduces an injunction power for the Courts
to order ISP's to block access to foreign sites.

The important note here is that the blocking isn't done by the Government, as
you might expect by those concerned about censorship, but through individual
hearings to hear the impact and whether blocking the site would be a
proportionate response in the circumstances (blocking an entire VPN provider
might be disproportionate response for example)

Also it applies to foreign-hosted sites only, since running a hosting provider
in Australian is already tenuous given we do not have anything similar to the
US' safe-harbour provision. If you ran a torrenting site in Australia, there
are already other laws which you can be tried under well before your site is
blocked.

A explanatory memorandum was issued which has a lot of insight to the effects
of the law. Check for the ID
"legislation/ems/r5446_ems_1599ec23-c036-4dee-9562-a8a2e4d3d6fe".

~~~
PebblesHD
At this point it is aimed 'entirely' at minimising access to copyrighted
materials, but as is mentioned elsewhere, the text of the bill is written so
vaguely that it is almost designed to ensure future scope creep. Not to
mention the habit of the current Aus government to disregard pesky courts
because 'They might not do what we want'[0]

[0] [http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-
news/courts...](http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/courts-
might-let-suspected-terrorists-off-says-tony-abbott-20150619-ghs1il.html)

~~~
kuschku
We had a similar situation here in Germany, first they wanted to make an
internet filter against child pornography, then they decided to add some
filters for piracy...

And then the politicians got voted out.

~~~
retrogradeorbit
That won't work here in Australia as the two major parties are, for all
intents and purposes, identical. They both voted for all these recent
draconian bills. We _could_ vote for the third party, who stands against all
these things. But generally we are too smug and stupid to do something like
that.

If you knew Australians (remember, we have compulsory voting) you would know
that there is no hope in the ballot box. The sheer size of the bogan [1]
voting block will make sure that any election will go to whichever party
cracks down hardest on dole bludgers/boat people/sex workers/terrorists/dual
citizens/Internet pirates/etc.

At the end of the day, as they say, we get the government we deserve.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan)

------
dil8
Mandatory data retention, website blocking... Things are defintely headed the
wrong way in Oz

------
byteface
[https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pirate_radio](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pirate_radio)

~~~
byteface
jump to second paragraph starting. "Radio "piracy" began with the advent of
regulations of the public airwaves..."

I guess eventually everyone in Oz will be only allowed to visit abc.com.au and
then be programmed to blame poor people or immigrants for everything

~~~
stephen_g
It's [http://abc.net.au](http://abc.net.au), and they are actually one of the
best news organisations in the country (constantly having their budget cut by
the party that is currently in Government because it's 'too left wing' or not
'on Team Australia' because they have often reported the truth about the
Government...).

With this current Government, it's actually the Murdoch papers that look like
propoganda straight from the politician's spin doctors. Especially Sydney's
Daily Telegraph.

~~~
byteface
not much about this subject on their site. apart from this link to a radio
dude...
[http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2015/06/23/4260478.htm](http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2015/06/23/4260478.htm)

I guess a slant against government is required by a government owned media
agency to appear non biased?. altho I imagine they can't be any worse than
channel 7

------
flashman
Here's the text of the bill (under Schedule 1):
[http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w...](http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbills%2Fr5446_aspassed%2F0000%22;rec=0)

Basically "the primary purpose of the online location [must be] to infringe,
or to facilitate the infringement of, copyright," which gets around things
like "we only host torrent magnet links" while shielding search engines,
general discussion forums, and the like.

It's a reasonably well-drafted law (by the standards of such things) and
relies on the judiciary (which is more than it sounds like considering our
immigration minister, a former drug cop, wants extra-judicial power to remove
citizenship), but falls down on technical merit.

------
Vintila
How does website blocking work with https as the dns queries are encrypted.
The only thing they could block is the ip but that could be shared with
'innocent' sites.

I may have a fatal misunderstanding in my understanding in how a browser
accesses a website...

~~~
rktjmp
Heres the punchline: you don't have a fatal misunderstanding. The policy
makers do.

------
russdill
So are pretty much all of Amazon EC2 going to be blocked? Or all the DDoS
mitigation services?

------
tonteldoos
Meh...offshore VPS with Squid3. And that's just the easy way of getting around
anything - it astounds me that the government seems to think everyone is as
shortsighted as they are.

~~~
nness
The Government is expected to include VPN's used explicitly for evasion of
anti-piracy measures in this law. The Government even tried debating the
definition of VPN, since that's obviously where a lot of people are headed
with this recent change. Not to mention, VPN's are essential for Australian
business and the Government can't blanket ban everything since A. its hard to
even define what a VPN is, and B. even harder to capture and block that
traffic.

~~~
JupiterMoon
To these legislators (and their backers) this is not a tricky question. They
will (eventually) (attempt to) simply block all foreign VPN providers via DNS
or IP and furthermore make using one illegal for private use. This will not
affect BigCorp because they would be using VPN to connect to their own servers
which would not be on the block list.

~~~
kuschku
And that’s when you rent the 4$/year VPS from 1und1.de and use it as SOCKS
proxy

~~~
JupiterMoon
In the eyes of the administrator managing the block list (not sure what
judicial oversight is planned but going on the UK's approach it will be
minimal or non-existent) this would look like a dodgy foreign company and it
would simply go on the block list....

~~~
meric
What about ssh proxy to Amazon EC2? Don't think they can block that unless
they want to shut down half the Australian tech industry...

~~~
JupiterMoon
You lost them at ssh... For now...

~~~
kuschku
You know that 1und1.de is a huge hosting provider in mainland europe? And that
the SOCKS proxy I suggested would run through SSH?

It’s literally the same suggestion as using EC2, just with a cheaper example

~~~
JupiterMoon
How many major Australian companies use 1und1.de cloud services?

EDIT Of these how many have the clout to have the block lifted when it
happens?

EDIT For the record I think that these laws are utterly stupid and totally
unenforceable. (I say this as someone that pays for their content.) However,
the legislators will not be put off by mere technical impossibility.

------
gonzo41
I think a lot of people are going to start using tor.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Unfortunately this sort of braindead legislation seems to be a global trend.
Where will the exit nodes be in 10 years time?

~~~
gonzo41
Exit nodes as we know them now may not exist, but the pressure that is being
placed on this technology is going to caused newer better ideas to pop up.

Australians like stealing content. Nature finds a way!

~~~
daemin
Australians have until very recently had no easy and convenient access to
content like comparable first world countries have had. We have seen the USA
and other countries get all of these services offered to them but they've
always skipped us by, leaving us to one hugely expensive provider.

~~~
rktjmp
They will even pay above the going rate in those other regions (VPN + exchange
rate + currency fees).

Only to have the content providers come back with "No, we don't want you're
money." I think this is changing now though as Netflix et al. become
available, though I'd expect their libraries to still be relatively anaemic
compared to the overseas counterparts.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Netflix are at least on record as saying that they want content to be global.
However, they are also on record as saying that in principle using a vpn to
access US Netflix is piracy (but that they don't think it is important). I am
however curious what happens when some copyright troll decides to subpoena
them for their records on who might be connecting from known vpns.

------
shahocean
Metadata? They need to understand the concept first!

------
jen729w
Well at least our Attorney General understands the concept of metadata.

Oh, wait.

[http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-
news/george-...](http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/george-
brandis-in-car-crash-interview-over-controversial-data-retention-
regime-20140806-101849.html)

[Edit: transcribed from about 1:40]

Brandis: "What the security agencies want to be retained is the electronic
address of the website, that the web user..."

Interviewer: "So it does tell you the website?"

"Well it tells you the address of the website"

"That's the website, isn't it? It tells you what website you've been to?"

"Well when you visit a website, people browse from one thing to the next, and
that browsing history won't be retained, or there won't be any capacity to
access that."

"Excuse my confusion here, but if you are retaining the web address, you are
retaining the web site, aren't you?"

"Well, the ... every website has an electronic address, right?"

"And that's recorded?"

"When a connection is made between one computer terminal and a web address,
that fact, and the time of the connection, and the duration of the connection,
is what we mean by 'metadata' in that context."

"But that is telling you where I've been on the web."

"Well it ... it ... it records what electronic web address has been accessed."

"I don't see the difference between that and what websites you've visited?"

"When you go to a website, commonly, you will go from one web page to another,
from one link to another in that website. That's not what we're interested
in."

~~~
serf
is that a show of ignorance, or a politician avoiding a potentially damaging
sound bite?

I'm not familiar with Australian politics, but in the politics I am familiar
with I would be more apt to accuse someone of deception than ignorance.

The politician in the video seems to be purposely ignorant in such a way that
drives a stake between the folks watching, posing the question "Well, _IS_
there a difference between addresses and web sites? Maybe the man knows
something the reporter doesn't!".

Check out practically any Dick Cheney interview to see that tactic used ad
nauseum.

~~~
flashman
That is the sound of a very smart man who is very out of his depth and has not
been properly backgrounded in a fairly technical policy.

