norwegian
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1 edit | reply to norwegian
Re: Another leak?
To save answering myself much more, I'll just list a few good links that are worth a read.
• Archive for the ‘Internet Censorship’ Category at www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com
(An archive of some of the items on the list and a description and more, no direct link to any list that will incur $11,000 fine).
• NewMatilda-The Tangled Web
(A public forum has just started that gives great detail and interpretation of what has evolved so far and is travelling around the states debating this issue.)
• Govt undeterred by blacklist leaks ; leaked list of banned websites 'seems like ACMA's blacklist' and A Faith-Based Approach - Conroy And His Filter
(These are after a public press conference and give some basic details of the minister's reply to the public outcry over the lists)
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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norwegian
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1 edit | Black lists needed in child porn fight
»www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25···,00.html
BLACK lists are needed to combat child pornography, pro-rape and incest websites, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says
Mr Conroy said legitimate Queensland dental websites had to be blocked because Russian hackers had illegally posted child porn on them.
"It is possible to support a black list and support free speech," Senator Conroy said ABC TV last night.
But the minister admitted that a PG-rated site, featuring images of children by controversial photographer Bill Henson, was wrongly blocked because of a "technical issue".
Political lobby group GetUp! says this demonstrated the failure of internet filtering.
"The minister's comments have proven internet censorship just won't work," GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh said.
Senator Conroy said the Government's proposed internet filter was not about political censorship.
"It would go against the fundamental tenets of the Labor Party to suggest we'll block political content, which is the China line and Saudi Arabia line," he said.
Mr Sheikh, who has been campaigning against the government's proposed internet filter trial, said Senator Conroy's comments supporting the right of political websites showed pro-euthanasia and abortion websites were safe.
"He's responding to public pressure," Mr Sheikh said.
"It's clear the minister has watered down his support for internet censorship and hopefully, will see him walk away from internet censorship altogether."
A black list of more than 2000 websites banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) was published on the whistleblower website Wikileaks last week.
Senator Conroy said a black list was needed to tackle pro-rape, pro-child pornography and pro-incest websites, adding it would give parents the choice to block certain internet sites.
He said ACMA would apply the same internet filtering principles to the internet as the classification board applied to television and radio.
But Opposition frontbencher Greg Hunt warned there was a danger of the Government encroaching on political freedoms to combat the "worst of the worst" websites.
"We need to increase the resources to take on people who will engage in child pornography and increase penalties for those acting illegally," Mr Hunt said.
Three of Australia's biggest internet service providers have withdrawn from the government's proposed internet service filter, including Telstra.
After news of the leak emerged, Senator Conroy condemned the breach and warned that anyone who published the black list of banned websites risked criminal prosecution.
"No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list," he said.
A recent Galaxy poll of 1100 people, commissioned by GetUp!, found 86 per cent of respondents were in favour of parents having the primary responsibility for protecting children online. I wonder if I could earn a few extra dollars to pay for the kids education here?
The minister is grabbing at straws, with a lack of real understanding of the issues involved on the internet.
We have a site here today, gone tomorrow, then another appears, gone tomorrow, etc, etc, etc. Maybe he could use the knowledge of people like hpguru  , sites like Mvps, BlueTack or any site, including now defunct CastleCops, and others such as ASAP and Secunia and the likes of utilising listing/logging services such as dshield and LinkLogger.
I'm sure with all those resources you could come up with a secure, content filtering router for any home that would like the option.
The only question then is, as most of the sites/members I've just listed would say, is the resources for collective gathering for a filter list simply because what is here today is gone tomorrow with the internet and so many sites.
Why on earth did this forced idea come from. If one thing of revealing these lists has been learnt, the research needed to engage such a list, and the homework needed to keep it valid, without affecting perfectly legit businesses, that get exploited by vulnerabilities, or bad coding/scripting (excuse my generalization) of web pages on the internet don't stay blacklisted, or even reach a black list at all. Wouldn't a helping hand fixing the exploited pages be better than plain "block". How is that cleaning up the net?
Enough for our lecture today........
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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nwrickert
sand groper
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 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T Midwest
| Why on earth did this forced idea come from. Ignorance and religion.
If they could take down the botnets, then the amount of "objectionable" material on the net would be small enough to not be a problem. And if they do not take down the botnets, no amount of filtering/blocking is ever going to stop it.
The trouble is that taking down botnets is difficult and expensive, and it is hard to peddle in a political speech. Using worthless blocklists is a lot cheaper and easier and can be made to sound good in political speeches.
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fatness
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| reply to SUMware
Re: Australia To Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship
quote:
The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has admitted that Bill Henson images were added to the communications regulator's list of prohibited websites in error, while blaming the addition of a dentist's site to the blacklist on the "Russian mob".
Meanwhile, the website of the Federal Government's censorship body, the Classification Board, was hacked last night and defaced with an anti-censorship screed.
The admission by Senator Conroy on ABC television's Q&A program last night casts significant doubt on the Government's ability to filter the internet without inadvertently blocking legitimate websites.
Q&A was inundated with 2000 questions from the public about the Government's hugely unpopular policy, and the audience last night ridiculed Senator Conroy by laughing at a number of his responses.
Conroy admits blacklist error, blames 'Russian mob'
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goodbye dad |
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norwegian
Premium
join:2005-02-15
Outback
·WestNet Broadband
| Hackers attack Classification Board website
Wow, what goes on while your busy at work?
quote:
A PRANK message has appeared on the Classification Board's official website in a hacking attack.
The message, posted overnight, replaced the welcome text on the Government body's homepage.
"This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONRTROL (sic) YOUR FREEDOMZ," it said.
"The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC."
It continues: “We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN.”
The message was noticed about 8pm (AEDT) yesterday and stayed online for a few hours.
The Classification website has been inaccessible for several hours.
A spokesperson for the Classification Board confirmed the attack, and said it was being investigated. The Australian Federal Police are not currently involved.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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norwegian
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| reply to fatness
Re: Australia To Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship
said by fatness : quote:
The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has admitted that Bill Henson images were added to the communications regulator's list of prohibited websites in error, while blaming the addition of a dentist's site to the blacklist on the "Russian mob".
Don't worry about Longboard and the comment on they are knocking at his door.
said by Longboard :.....i have to go now there is a SWAT team at the door because I have apparently got wikileaks in my bookmarks and am a known frequenter of the site, ...they have killed my dog... beaten my partner... and terrified my children......I might be gone for some time..... Mine is next because I use a Russian A/V??
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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ilago
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Australia
·Internode
| reply to nwrickert
Re: Black lists needed in child porn fight
said by nwrickert :Why on earth did this forced idea come from. Ignorance and religion. If they could take down the botnets, then the amount of "objectionable" material on the net would be small enough to not be a problem. And if they do not take down the botnets, no amount of filtering/blocking is ever going to stop it. The trouble is that taking down botnets is difficult and expensive, and it is hard to peddle in a political speech. Using worthless blocklists is a lot cheaper and easier and can be made to sound good in political speeches. It is certainly motivated by the tiny conservative Christian minority. They submitted several petitions to the Senate back in 2006. They are all printed on a form from the same extreme Christian organisation.
»blog.websinthe.org/2009/03/15/th···used-it/
Of all the petitions submitted, only one, with 15 signatures asked for mandatory censorship. The actual numbers are in the link. Opt-in cleanfeed asked for by around 30,000 people in 2006. The article explains how the numbers worked.
The botnets and malware infections are probably responsible for much of the innocent exposure to porn. Fear of computers is a bigger issue than I'd realised. There seems to be some groups of parents that think that their children know so much more than them that they are frightened of what their children may access. This rather surprises me as most of the current generation of parents grew up since computers were commonly available at school and then in the workplace so parents have used them. What is it they are so scared of? What is it that they think this sort of censorship will fix.
There were no computers when I was at school. My introduction to IT was through working with controls systems for plant and equipment (engineering) rather than the traditional IT path. I was burning EPROMs and programming PLCs and installing PCBs in control units and using RS232 to RS422/485 for comms when I had young children. I'm in the "dignified", grandmotherly age group these days and I'm still puzzled about this fear of computers and the internet. It absolutely has to be at least part media hype about awful things.
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norwegian
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·WestNet Broadband
2 edits | reply to SUMware
Update: April 3rd 2009
Update: Information of events of recent times, for those interested it certainly isn't passing by as quietly as some may have first thought.
quote:
Five things I learned from the Insight episode on filtering
He now claims his plan is to block only material which would be classified as Refused Classification (RC). Well ‘almost exclusively’ Refused Classification — In typical Conroy fashion he has left himself a backdoor with enough room to park a Hummer-sized load of as much ‘unwanted’ content as he or anyone else in government likes.
»www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/
quote:
Conroy signals Net filter backflip
THE Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, has said the government’s controversial compulsory internet filtering policy would be confined to content that had been “refused classification” (RC), in a statement many are interpreting as a backtrack from previously announced policy.
Speaking on the SBS Insight program, Senator Conroy said the policy would be restricted to RC websites.
Post note: There is a clip of the show at Insight's link
Under previous leaked versions of blacklisted sites compiled by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), R18+ and X18+ sites had also been listed, as well as other legal content such as a Queensland dentist’s site, YouTube movie clips and an astrology site.
»gocebit.com.au/?q=news/conroy-si···backflip
quote:
Conroy jumps out of filter fire into iiNet ire
Senator Stephen Conroy's watch as Communications Minister seems to be going from bad to worse after publicly making comments that could land him legal hot water. The comments at a public telecoms conference about a high profile court case involving ISP iiNet have been deemed by a number of sources as inappropriate, defamatory and potentially prejudicial to the case.
iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP, is doing battle in the Federal Court of NSW with a consortium of movie studios and a TV network that have accused it of allowing its network to be used to illegally download copyright entertainment. The ISP also happens to be one of Senator Conroy's biggest critics and recently pulled out of his office's much maligned Internet filter trial.
The public slanging between the Communications Minister and iiNet is hard to find a precedent for in the ICT industry. The CEO of iiNet, Michael Malone, has told iTWire and a number of other media sources quite openly that he believes Senator Conroy is the worst Communications Minister ever and described him as incompetent.
»www.itwire.com/content/view/24222/1023/
also
quote:
iiNet tests legality of Conroy slur
PERTH-headquartered ISP iiNet said it has sought legal advice on Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy's public commentary on its legal defence in a high-profile copyright case before the NSW Federal Court.
IiNet managing director Michael Malone said that the comments were a form of retribution against the ISP for pulling out of the Department of Broadband Communications and Digital Economy’s controversial internet filtering trial.
“We have sought legal advice on this. It's unheard of for a crown minister to try to influence the outcome of an active case,” Mr Malone said.
IiNet’s concerns orbit comments that Senator Conroy is reported to have made at a high-profile communications forum in Sydney.
»www.australianit.news.com.au/sto···,00.html
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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norwegian
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| Seems the testing has now extended to to finally include one of our larger ISP's, Optus.
»www.australianit.news.com.au/sto···,00.html
AFTER months of negotiation, Australia's second-largest internet provider, Optus, has finally agreed to participate in the federal Government's live ISP internet filtering trial.
Optus is the seventh participant to receive the green light and will kick-off trials on May 22.
Other ISPs that are involved include Primus, Highway 1, Nelson Bay Online, Netforce, OMNIconnect, TECH 2U and Webshield.
The ISPs have different commencement dates but trials should be completed within a few months.
Optus will only filter the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist, which stood at 1000-odd web pages a few months ago.
"The participation of Optus will help ensure the Government obtains robust results from the pilot, which will inform the evidence-based development of our ISP filtering policy," Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said.
The nation's leading ISP, Telstra, chose not to participate in the pilot but is said to be assisting the Government with some technical aspects.
Optus regulatory compliance general manager Gary Smith said the trial will last for approximately six weeks , and will be conducted with residential customers in Sydney and Newcastle. Customers will be informed via email from today.
"Customers can opt-out of the trial, even after it starts," he said.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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nwrickert
sand groper
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Geneva, IL | Thanks for the update. |
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| reply to norwegian
said by norwegian : "Customers can opt-out of the trial, even after it starts," he said. It would be very interesting to see the stats on the number of people opting out, both before, and after the tests start.
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"In the future, that which is not mandatory will be illegal"
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rawwhide
Zer0
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Zero
clubs: | reply to norwegian
These people do realize that filtering will not stop anyone determined enough, right?
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norwegian
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1 edit | ???
It will keep the honest crooks out that's about it.
I can say lots and lots, but it's all been said already.
I could start up a program that filtered under $4,000 from bank accounts and nothing will be done, because banks consider this worthless to chase up as far as fraud is concerned because of court costs, unless I'm stupid enough to start showing a pattern in my movement or get caught, yet, we will spend a fortune filtering sites only the dubious filth will visit, that they will still be able to visit because they know of other means to get there.
It has to be a political reason for this, nothing more. Where is the privacy or security value in it?
Talking to half the people who has computer come my way for tidying up say the same thing, why would they go visit a site filtered in this list?
It's already a known fact they will be infected by exploitation of ads or infected web sites, way, way before a site that is considered "filterable" will even be visited in the first place. It's already happening.
Ah, I'm getting horse in the throat, someone else ask the question......................
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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Longboard
join:2005-04-13
australia
1 edit | Optus 'opts in'..
This stinks of course: if any non-ozzies have been following our Federal govts latest gobsmacking announcement re building a FTTH national network, the stakes at risk for all providers have just gone through the roof.
Subsequent to the bizarre position adopted by Telstra, championed by that great American bizoid Sol Trujillo, (any of you remember him ??  , who has waltzed off home with many millions having watched billions being wiped off the value of Telstra, yes, I have shares )by way of dissing the Govt in a display of absurd hubris that may well effectively destroy Telstra (heh; may not be all bad if some competition comes in) through their tender offer to participate in a national broadband network build; the federal govt has applied immense pressure to all commercial operators who will need access to this yet to be built 'national network'.
Telstra is running scared at the threat of being broken up.
Other operators ( read OPTUS) are now keen to play footsie with ANYTHING the Govt might suggest to not cruel their chances or give themselves a leg up at any price.
There are now even more pressing reasons to hold the line against any govt interference/social engineering wrt control of the network and access.
The proposal to build this FTTH network is a noble one, but, currently, so fraught with difficulties and wrapped in vapour (putting it mildly) that the implementation of same may well prove impossible.
No business plan, timetable nonsense, costing utterly unreliable, who will control access... 
I'm not happy with Telstra's near monopoly of access. I am furious at the management of this really important infrastructure company's behaviour. Their are commercial realities of course, but, the managemnet have imho failed their shareholders and failed to grapple with the bigger picture in any way.
>For a dissenting opinion with some merit: »www.afr.com/home/login.aspx?EDP:···=opinion
Whatever, there has been a meltdown.
The commercial structure of Telcos and ISPs in Oz is ..umm..complex and has been effectively run by Telstra for some time much to the annoyance of other Telcos.
The govt has signalled its' plan to be the majority owner of this new network..
The end result is that the govt now has a REALLYBIGSTICK to be swinging about. Conroy of course was totally discredited and stumbling along, now the censorship/access issues are rolled into a much larger bundle of issues.
That is part of what is so frightening.
We have been so slow to sort out the whole thing here and now we have no real roadmap at all.
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norwegian
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Outback
·WestNet Broadband
| Infrastucture v's filters
Very well said.
The fact remains we are to have this great big advanced internet built and Sen Conroy seems to be heading it. Going by the fiasco involved with this topic we can only wonder where it is going, or what it really means. Filtration won't be a worry if it becomes govt owned.
Telstra has basically become a waste of time, energy and resources, too many problems too many issues. The government sold all utilities off and now want to build another utility; read: internet infrastructure, even if we are talking different govt's at the time.
While realistically Telstra's network just needed upgrading. Considering the money situation at the moment, you would have thought investing in buying back the telco would be better, then allowing the others to hire the lines. Guess satellite has caused the biggest shakeup of Telstra and it's aged telephone line infrastructure.
Anyway back on topic, while it all sounds a great idea, this internet upgrade, It worries me what sort of locks will be put in place for the general public if they do build it. If the EU debate/vote or the France empowers film industry vigilantes story shed any light into interpretation the crystal ball, you can start to get a picture of the powers to be do not want the internet to be a free service. Still how do you control a world-wide infrastructure that is out-dated and grown beyond it's initial maker's expectations, exploited etc and push the reasoning as piracy, child pron, etc for controlling it yet can't realistically work beyond your own borders.
I just can't understand the logic in it all. Money and power, what a wonderful thing, glad I'm flat broke and free of this corruption.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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Longboard
join:2005-04-13
australia
1 edit | reply to SUMware
Re: Australia To Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship
So here we go again
The last paragraph says it all so far.
Yay us 
quote:
On this latest evidence, the Australian Government is now light years ahead of the rest of the Western world when it comes to political censorship. Whether a less draconian regime will at some point emerge is now a hot topic for debate amongst Ozzie ISP’s.
»www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/07···ink_ban/
I feel utterly dispossessed and 'emptied out' while following this evolving schemozzole.
Budget time down here: everybody running scared. |
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Mele20
Premium
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Hilo, HI
| I like what Freman, one of the responders to EFA is doing in response. Will he get a notice for a link to a "tinyurl"? It is an interesting test.
»fremnet.net/article/263/the-efa-link |
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norwegian
Premium
join:2005-02-15
Outback
·WestNet Broadband
| reply to SUMware
Trial filtering at Optus underway.
»www.australianit.news.com.au/sto···,00.html
quote:
THE nation's second-largest ISP has fired the starter's gun on its live internet filtering trial, a program by the federal Government as part of its bid to censor the web.
The trial will conclude in early July after some six weeks of testing.
An Optus spokeswoman declined to reveal how many customers had agreed to participate; residential customers in Sydney and Newcastle have been selected for the pilot but they could opt-out of the exercise at any point, Optus said.
Optus is the eighth internet service provider to participate in the scheme, joining Primus, Highway 1, Nelson Bay Online, Netforce, OMNIconnect, TECH 2U and Webshield.
All ISPs have differing start and completion dates for the tests as various factors such as availability of filtering equipment have an impact on their timetables.
The Government hopes to introduce mandatory ISP-level content filtering that would automatically block "refused classification" material matched against a web page blacklist managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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DidNotLoginToday
@verizon.net
| reply to SUMware
Re: Australia To Implement Mandatory Internet Censorship
Was not sure if this has already been posted....the topic is long and I did not read it all.
_____________________
No Internet Censorship is an initiative of the Australian Democrats to oppose the current Government’s Internet censorship/blacklisting program and develop alternative policy that will provide the cyber safety information and resources parents need to adequately protect their children.
»nointernetcensorship.com/ |
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norwegian
Premium
join:2005-02-15
Outback
·WestNet Broadband
| reply to SUMware
May back away from mandatory internet filtering plan?
Seems nothing straight, as far as comments from the powers to be, from the start have changed much, even now after all the feedback from external influences.
More in link:-
»www.australianit.news.com.au/sto···,00.html
quote:
THE Rudd Government has indicated that it may back away from its mandatory internet filtering plan.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today told a Senate estimates committee that the filtering scheme could be implemented by a voluntary industry code.
Senator Conroy’s statement is a departure from the internet filtering policy Labor took into the October 2007 election to make it mandatory for ISPs to block offensive and illegal content.
Responding to questions from shadow communications minister Nick Minchin on how the government may go about imposing the internet filtering scheme, Senator Conroy said that legislation may not be required and ISPs may adopt an industry consensus to block restricted content on a voluntary basis.
“Mandatory ISP filtering would conceivably involve legislation … voluntary is available currently to ISPs,” Senator Conroy said.
“One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it.”
In response Senator Minchin said he had never heard of a voluntary mandatory system.
Senator Conroy responded with “well they could agree to all introduce it”.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke |
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