The Australian government has been sinking millions of dollars into ISP Internet filters, conducting trials with a handful of ISPs, many of whom have been very vocal in their beliefs that the filters won't technically work. Australian political leaders in favor of the filters don't seem to care -- the government admitting the ongoing trials have no quantifiable metric to determine whether the trials were a success or failure. So not surprisingly, the BBC reports how the trials found the filters to be "100% effective" and the government is moving forward:While the BBC quotes an analyst that suggests such filters have "historically worked up to a point," the reality is that most filter systems often wind up targeting legitimate content for regular users, while those who really want to find a way around the filters are easily able to do so. Even early tests of Australia's proposed filters resulted in education sites (but not porn) getting blocked, while teenage kids were able to bypass the filters in all of half an hour.

Of course the millions the Australian government will spend on these filters could be better spent elsewhere, especially considering the filters themselves probably won't work. It seems more efficient and effective to attack crime like child porn at the source and to have parents simply pay attention to their kids. But these are all lessons some Australian lawmakers are eager to learn the hard (and expensive) way.