{"id":682,"date":"2009-12-23T20:36:35","date_gmt":"2009-12-23T10:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/?p=682"},"modified":"2009-12-23T22:03:36","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T12:03:36","slug":"martin-c-parents-the-filter-wont-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/?p=682","title":{"rendered":"Martin C: ‘Parents, the filter won’t work!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an exceptionally well reasoned bit by Martin C, a frequent commenter on SMH story comments, as Martin has posted it on Senator Kate Lundy’s blog<\/a>. Merits reposting everywhere it can be reposted! Print a copy of this for your non-wired friends and family- Martin really nails it in non-technical, non-dogmatic terms.<\/p>\n

Martin C<\/span><\/p>\n

Posted December 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm<\/a><\/p>\n

I have been arguing about this internet censorship issue on [Senator Kate Lundy’s] blogsite, and in each article the Herald runs (at least six so far, so it\u2019s probably a bit unfair to say the media is ignoring the issue). The trouble is that we are winning every battle but making no impact on the war. The few people who come online to SUPPORT Senator Conroy\u2019s censorship system know almost nothing about the internet, and they support the filter because they are completely unaware that the filter won\u2019t work. I am sure they read our arguments about freedom and democracy as simply cover for \u201cI want my porn\u201d.<\/p>\n

I hate to say it, but I believe we need to push more on \u201cthe filter won\u2019t work\u201d rather than on \u201cthis is a threat to our democracy\u201d, and I say this as a person who has been posting regularly about it being a threat to our democracy. The sad truth is that we\u2019re discovering that most people AREN\u2019T motivated by threats to their democracy, because they\u2019ve never considered the possibility of their democracy ever being under threat. Not from that nice Mr Conroy anyway \u2026 he\u2019s a Christian! They will happily give the government the ability to secretly put whatever website it likes on the blacklist, because at heart they don\u2019t see protecting democracy being something that THEY are responsible for: they see it as something the government is responsible for.<\/p>\n

We need to show how hopeless the filter is. We need to make clear point-by-point examples of the type of material that Conroy\u2019s censorship will attempt to remove and how it will fail to do so. I\u2019ve drafted up a few points for discussion.<\/p>\n

1. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s censorship bill will stop my child from accessing child pornography accidentally.
\nBut actually:
\nIt is virtually impossible to \u201caccidentally\u201d access child pornography. The people who make child porn are well aware it is illegal, and they cover their tracks as well as they can, to avoid going to jail. The idea that child porn is just hanging about on ordinary websites, or can be found by googling simple search terms is completely unfounded.<\/p>\n

2. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s censorship bill will stop pedophiles accessing child porn.
\nBut actually:
\nWebsites are only one way of accessing information on the internet. There are many other ways, such as peer-to-peer\/file transfer protocol(FTP) methods. These methods establish a direct connection between one machine on the internet (the pedophile\u2019s) and another machine (the server with child porn on it). Senator Conroy\u2019s filter will leave these types of connections completely unaffected. What percentage of pedophile material is transmitted by peer-to-peer\/FTP compared to websites? Over 99.9%.<\/p>\n

3. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s censorship bill will stop my child from deliberately going to porn sites.
\nBut actually:
\nSenator Conroy has tested the filter with 1000 websites loaded in it. Later he says it might be expanded to 10,000. There are over a BILLION porn websites on the internet. Senator Conroy\u2019s filter will prevent your child from accessing 0.001% of the porn. The other 99.999% will come through exactly as before. Your child will not even notice the difference. And at least a million porn sites are added to the internet each day. No amount of public servants, and no amount of concerned citizens can possible keep up with monitoring that flood of porn. To stop your child from accessing porn websites, you have to actually do some parenting.<\/p>\n

4. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s censorship bill will stop other Australians from accessing porn.
\nBut actually:
\nThe same arguments shown above apply: 99.999% of the porn will still be available. In addition, Senator Conroy\u2019s filter is ludicrously easy to circumvent. Accessing websites with \u201chttp\u201d at the start can be changed to \u201chttps\u201d which makes it a secure connection and will completely bypass the filter. In addition, anyone can get a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which prevents external access (like from Senator Conroy\u2019s filter) completely. And if you think VPNs should be done away with, you need to know that every bank, and pretty much every large company in the country has one: any organisation that needs to prevent people from tapping in on their information has to use a VPN. VPNs cost $5-10 a month.<\/p>\n

5. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s censorship bill will stop pedophiles from being able to \u201cgroom\u201d my child for sexual purposes.
\nBut actually:
\nPedophiles \u201cgroom\u201d children for sexual purposes through websites that CHILDREN hang around on: facebook, friend finder sites, chat sites. Not one of these sites will be affected by Senator Conroy\u2019s censorship, because they are primarily sites for perfectly acceptable contact between children. To prevent grooming by pedophiles, you need to educate your child about the issue: you need to do some parenting instead of hoping that Senator Conroy\u2019s filter will do it for you.<\/p>\n

6. You might think that:
\nSenator Conroy and the Labor government are serious about eliminating pedophile activity in Australia.
\nBut actually:
\nIntroducing a filtering system that won\u2019t work (for all the above reasons) will do nothing to curb pedophile activity in this country. Introducing a filtering system will alert pedophiles to the fact that the government can see what websites they go to, and will force them to use secure methods that defeat the filter AND police monitoring. Also, while the current government is spending 44 million dollars on this totally ineffective filtering system, it\u2019s REDUCING the budget of the Federal Police\u2019s child porn unit. Does that sound like they are serious about eliminating pedophile activity?<\/p>\n

7. You might think that:
\nEven if the filter is that ineffective, surely something is better than doing nothing.
\nBut actually:
\nIntroducing an ineffective filter like Senator Conroy\u2019s will help parents to lower their guard about how their children access the internet. They\u2019ll believe they are safe because the filter is there, but the filter will be almost totally ineffective, so their children will be MORE at risk from child porn and pedophile activity. Also, the filtering system will enourage pedophiles to move to more secure methods of obtaining child porn, so they will be harder to catch. In addition, the money spent on this filter could have been used by the child porn unit to continue hunting down pedophiles.<\/p>\n

8. You might think that:
\nYou are doing some good for your child by supporting Senator Conroy\u2019s filter.
\nBut actually:
\nSenator Conroy\u2019s filter will make things easier for pedophiles to hide from the law and will have virtually no other effect on their activities. It will not touch 99.999% of porn on the internet. It is ludicrously easy to circumvent and your child will need only a rudimentary knowledge of the internet to do so, or he will need to know one of the 90% of kids in his class who do have that knowledge. If you are serious about your child\u2019s safety, you will oppose Senator Conroy\u2019s utterly ineffective filtering system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an exceptionally well reasoned bit by Martin C, a frequent commenter on SMH story comments, as Martin has posted it on Senator Kate Lundy’s blog. Merits reposting everywhere it can be reposted! Print a copy of this for your non-wired friends and family- Martin really nails it in non-technical, non-dogmatic terms. Martin C […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}