Double or nothing, Senator Conroy?
Monday December 22nd 2008, 9:26 pm

Conroy is really beginning to test the patience of Australian internet users. Today he’s threatened that the mandatory internet filtering scheme will extend to P2P file sharing.

My previous offer to cough up fifty bucks if I can’t beat the filtering in under 1 minute (plus 52.2 seconds for the 87% speed reduction) not only still stands…

… but I’ll make it a hundred if the Conjob filter can stop or even slow encrypted P2P traffic.

The good Senator’s problem is that he knows sweet FA about computers and networking. His filter will only affect those incapable of finding a workaround, which is approximately nobody with an IQ above room temperature in Celsius.

I’ve received Conroy’s four page proforma response to complainants regarding the filtering scam. Scanned and posted here, PDF format.

Conroy has signed us up to use the UK based ‘Internet Watch Foundation’ (IWF) banlist. IWF are the mob who banned access for UK users to a controversial Wikipedia entry last week but then backed down at approximately Mach III. Bear in mind that under UK law, Bill Henson’s photos would have attracted a ban, while they were rated PG in Australia.

*sigh*

Bill of Rights, anyone?

-weez


4 Comments so far
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woohoo, we’ve made The Register.

Oz net censorship apparatus to target BitTorrent

🙄

We’ve not had a Minister for Prevention of Communications as adept since Dick Alston, who reckoned broadband was only wanted by gamers and porno downloaders.

If this gets up, how long ’til the first leak of the banlist? 10, maybe 15 seconds? Conroy might be a professional politician, but he has no idea of the meaning of the term ‘white-anting’ until he gets offside of every network admin on the continent.

Banned pages will be proudly reposted on anonymous blogspot & WordPress.com sites until Conroy by necessity of dealing with any other issue than this one, will pull the plug on the alleged filter.

Comment by weez 12.23.08 @ 1:52 pm

This is not about filtering anymore but about Conroy’s pride.

Comment by melchior 12.24.08 @ 8:30 am

Too right.

To be frank, the best thing for Labor- and Conroy’s pride- is to sneak out a press release late one Friday evening in January, stating that the filtering test was unsuccessful due to some bogus reason or another… and to slink very quietly away from this stupidity.

Rudd & Conroy would have done better to attempt to regulate the speed of light.

Comment by weez 12.24.08 @ 8:44 am



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