The Great Australian Internet Blackout

Conroy plans speed humps for Australia’s freeways

Don’t miss this bit in which an RMIT network engineer, who also happens to be a consultant for Enex, the outfit contracted by Conroy to make filtering look successful, is interviewed and gets it totally wrong- and the lively comments thread (in reverse time order) where society puts him straight.

RMIT: Internet filtering alone is not enough

Mark Newton: Are You Ready To Lose Your Privacy? | newmatilda.com

Must read: Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies fellow Russell Blackford considers harm to children from certain forms of communications his piece “What About the Children?“

Michael Meloni is a busy, busy man:

http://www.thegiftofcensorship.com/

Well done, Michael. Even Gladys will get this.

Christians astroturf The Australian in support of internet censorship:

Letters to the editor – Internet Censorship

Author: heresy

I’ve seen a few threads about letters to the editor.

Just read this weekends Australian (19/20 Dec)
The letters to the Editor page contained 5 letters responding to the Internet Filter and Labor’s plan to filter out all material refused classification….

The three letters against were written by alleged ‘citizens’. I did a quick google search on their names and to my surprise

David Everard – Australian Christian Lobby Vic Executive
Gabrielle Walsh – Australian Family Association, Nat Sec
Joe Lopez – Australian Family Association, Secretary

These three did not disclose that they were from Christian lobby groups, not only as members, but executive members.

scum bags. I hope and pray the filter is rejected…

Well spotted.

StephenConroy.com.au open letter to auDA

Conroy’s filter just the beginning- By Brendan Molloy

ALP internet censorship policy, 2006: Explicitly opt-out.

Mark Newton tweets:

@CraigThomler Censorware vendor Peter Mancer is an antivaxer: head of NZ “Immunisation Awareness Society.” http://is.gd/5wvBO

That’d be right. Mancer apparently heeds no objective scientific evidence, be that for vaccination or internet filtering.

Can we develop a vaccine for anti-intellectualism and anti-science?

Computer World: The Filter Protests Guide

Labor gags internet debate
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/comments/0,22638,26665381-5006301,00.html

See my post 12:56AM (Anonymous) 2/2/2010.

Filtering of the internet is necessary, but on an individual basis. If you don’t want the porn on your computer, get a filter on your home computer. Internet filtering software works well and is not censorship when you can override it yourself.

CE, your point is well taken, however, filtering is not necessary for the vast majority of users.

Porn is not a problem, particularly if you don’t go looking for it. Porn doesn’t stalk you- it doesn’t leap out of your computer all of its own volition. If you see porn, you were looking for porn. And if you want to see porn, that’s just fine.

Because of the vastly disparate needs for filtering between assorted users, the only practical way to apply filtering is on each individual machine. For people who don’t need filtering, ISP level filtering is nothing but a nuisance to be circumvented- and fortunately, it’s both trivial and not illegal (for now) to do so.

Mandatory censorship of all internet traffic penalises all users based upon the objections of a very few. It is an extreme minority of internet users in Australia who actually want filters, lest the takeup experience of less than 3% of eligible households (with children) of the previous government’s NetAlert PC based filter is considered. When NetAlert’s takeup is expressed as a portion of total internet users instead of merely those households with children, the fraction falls well below 1%.

However, for people who do want filtering, ISP level filters are simply not a reliable way to get the job done. They’re far more easily circumvented than filters installed on the individual machine. Locally installed filtering has the ability to comb content via many more criteria than just URL or IP filters, both of which are no problem at all to beat. Local filtering also puts the CPU load burden where it belongs- on the machine belonging to the person desiring filtering, whilst not penalising those who don’t need it.

CE, I presume you are a seller of filterware. While I wish you the best of luck, I don’t think it’s a path to commercial success, given the very low numbers of users in need of the service.