Australia Temporarily Backs Down On Internet Filters But only so a consensus can be reached on what to filter... The Australian government has been sinking millions of dollars into Internet filters, conducting ISP trials with admittedly no quantifiable metric to determine success or failure. The man primarily responsible for the plan, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, hasn't much cared about opposition from academics or carriers -- many of whom have been very vocal in their beliefs that the filters won't technically work and could block legit content. It now at least appears that Conroy has decided to put the controversial filtering plan on hold until next year -- but only so a broader consensus can be reached on what is to be filtered: "Some sections of the community have expressed concern about whether the range of material included in the RC category ... correctly reflects current community standards," Senator Conroy said. "As the government's mandatory ISP filtering policy is underpinned by the strength of our classification system, the legal obligation to commence mandatory ISP filtering will not be imposed until the review is completed." It's not clear what Conroy plans to do to in the interim to tackle all of those " spams and scams coming through the portal."
|
 | | What we really need is a real life filter ...That automatically blocks horrible and obnoxious politicians like Minister Conroy. | |
|  Frankis chillingPremium
join:2000-11-03
somewhere
1 edit | How long before.... Vpn services become popular in Australia like they are in restrictive countries in the middle east?
The reason I say this is because I was looking at vpn services a while ago (I wanted one with a uk ip so I can watch uk tv online) and saw that while some of them are designed to allow you to watch foreign tv online (mostly with us ip's so you can watch hulu and other us sites from outside of the us), most of them were tailored towards customers in the middle east who were in countries with filtered internet connections.
--
At first I thought everyone on the highway was drunk but then I realized I was driving in Florida  | |
| jfmezeiPremium
join:2007-01-03
Pointe-Claire, QC
kudos:22 Reviews:
 ·ELECTRONICBOX
| Is this a political way out ? Could this just be a tactic to give the project a much needed abortion without admitting it was mistake ?
A year from now, people will have forgotten about it, and nobody will notice that the project isn't being brought back. This way, the politicians manage to kill the project without the political cost of admiting defeat. | |
| | | internet filter backdown From what I`ve read of comments related to this topic, everyone of you damn foreigners have at last, some sympathy and a common interest with `us`. Also common to "democracised" countries, from what I`ve seen, is the political disdain and contempt for the electorate`s wishes- a plain majority do not want it nor asked for it (filter) and have said so, but there are a number of things at work here, I beleive, that brought this "backdown" about;
There is an election looming, with the filter being a possible, unwanted election issue.
It will also serve in the future, as a bargaining "chip" 3 yrs down the political track, i.e. "elect us or you will get an IP filter. Just for the record, I don`t see it going away.
Broadly, no-one anywhere likes the concept of filtering; it provides a government with the opportunity for defacto throttling thus hitting the P2P traffic without having to legislate specifically, then putting a case to trial etc. (remember there was no list of specific sites to be restricted) or cop political backlash for putting the onus on IP`s to throttle or warn /pursue customers. And while we`re here, there is only one way internet traffic gets in/out of (not around) australia and that is through the government (read: public) owned, now "privatised", telco, Telstra.
So we`re looking at social engineering, "early warning" monitoring of the internet generally (possibly individuals), for anti-government sentiment, (the end of free speech), via social networking, etc. etc. sure the odd terrorist might get noticed, a paedophile as well, but this is already bing done (paedophile trapping) by state police anyway. As someone said, parents are responsible for what gets into the house; we do not need a nanny state looking after that, healthcare, education, cheap telecommunications is what we ask for. We didn`t ask for an internet filter. | |
|
| |
|
|
