Internet Censorship - Trial starting now

[Aaron Sice]

my internet is now FKD.

even Mozilla is crashing every 20 or so mins if i leave it on a screen for too long.

i think it's more than just censorship - i think it goes beyond.

disgusting.

 

[ianvestor]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aus...n-to-go-ahead/comments-e6frgakx-1225810665832

This is so disturbing. People who want this in place seem to think that those who don't want it must therefore want to view illegal sites, but that isn't the issue at all.

 

[JulieW]

A sad, sad development. It will do absolutely nothing to prevent 'access' to said materials, and is all about handing powers of censorship to a bureaucrat with no oversight. One step closer to totalitarianism in the name of doing the best for the majority. Hitler was democratically elected. Obama now has power to shut down the US internet in 'an emergency'. Our ill thought and draconian terror laws have similarly taken rights away from us and continue to do so, and this stupid legislation is just a further tightening of the screws - all in the name of protecting us from the international conspiracy of terrorist pedophiles.

Baa Baa

 

[Witzl]

If Tony Abott comes out and says he will immediately abolish internet censorship.... just watch how many voters will swing his way in the next election.

Basically anyone aged 18-30 will swing vote.

The internets - serious business

 

[ianvestor]

Yes, personally he broke my heart when he mentioned re-regulating the banks, but again he'd probably get heaps of votes by doing that.

 

[Aaron Sice]

Yes, personally he broke my heart when he mentioned re-regulating the banks, but again he'd probably get heaps of votes by doing that.

either start lending again or be regulated.

then we can pull the guarantees, bans on shorting etc and make them open institutions again.

i say they deserve everything they get.

 

[natmarie73]

My internet is the same speed it has always been, but then I live in a remote area and don't have super broadband, just normal old school cable speeds.

 

[COLJP]

We live in dark times

It disturbs me deeply that the Australian Federal Government is moving towards controlling internet censorship.

Censorship, where necessary to protect minors should be the responsibility of individuals, parents and responsible local authorities (eg, parents, schools, libraries, councils).

This is the 'nanny state' at its worst - we all need to take more responsibility for our everyday lives, not expect the government to control every aspect of our lives. What's more disturbing though is government control of such a censorship mechanism, which could quite easily extend beyond the limits of what might be considered 'obscenity' (a definition open to varying interpretations itself), and the blanket use of such a mechanism. Censorship is not the answer to this problem and the fact that such a proposal has come this far is a worrying turn of events in an intelligent democratic country that presumably values the freedom of its citizens.


Rant over. It's one of my beefs that ever more aspects of our lives are becoming increasingly 'legislated'. Don't get me started on 'public liability' and its effect on trying to organise even the most basic of social gatherings.

 

[RumpledElf]

My mother sent me a chain email today just in case I missed it. She's a social worker, so the bolded bit is pertinant.

"Senator Conroy has made this announcement in the face of overwhelming public opposition, expert industry advice, and even calls from child protection groups to drop this scheme. It will hand over control of what we can see online to an unaccountable government body - with no way to tell what they're blocking."

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/GreatFirewallOfAustralia

Seen some blog entries already commenting on how a huge volume of child abuse calls get made to DoCS and a really tiny number get investigated. So if people are that concerned about the welfare of a child that they call in in the first place, and DoCS doesn't check, that's a lot of abused children being missed. But of course, throwing millions at a bypassable filter is better than throwing millions at investigating actual, substantiable abuse. The vast, vast majority of sexual abuse comes from close family members, not from websites.

 

[JulieW]

I am totally opposed to this.

The fact is that it will not achieve it's stated intention. This action is about as effective as a single strand barbed-wire fence on the US-Mexico border.

Pornographers and criminals will have absolutely no problem circumventing this list, but government will find it very useful in stifling dissent and the dissemination of ideas. Now watch for the announcement of a new prison or two being built.

 

[House_Keeper]

My mother sent me a chain email today just in case I missed it. She's a social worker, so the bolded bit is pertinant.

"Senator Conroy has made this announcement in the face of overwhelming public opposition, expert industry advice, and even calls from child protection groups to drop this scheme. It will hand over control of what we can see online to an unaccountable government body - with no way to tell what they're blocking."

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/GreatFirewallOfAustralia

Seen some blog entries already commenting on how a huge volume of child abuse calls get made to DoCS and a really tiny number get investigated. So if people are that concerned about the welfare of a child that they call in in the first place, and DoCS doesn't check, that's a lot of abused children being missed. But of course, throwing millions at a bypassable filter is better than throwing millions at investigating actual, substantiable abuse. The vast, vast majority of sexual abuse comes from close family members, not from websites.

Here is an rticle in the herald that discusses this topic

I'm embarrassed to be Australian after seeing such a disgraceful attempt to censor the internet. It's not hard to figure out this has nothing to do with child porn, it's about government control of information. It is so open to abuse by present and future government that it is embarrassing that this is being proposed in a democracy.

I urge everybody to click on the 'GetUp' link above and send your message to Stephen Conroy. We are still a democracy, why not make your opinion known as a citizen? 120,000 people have already joined the protest. The more the people join, the greater the pressure on the government to give up on this policy.

Please do take action, it only takes one minute.

Cheers,

 

[ARF]

The filter is easily beatable. Use a free web proxy. If you want to visit banned-site.com, all you need to do is visit a proxy site and type "banned-site.com" into the search box. The proxy site will then call up the site for you. This way banned-site.com doesn't know who you are, but also your ISP doesn't know you looked at banned-site.com.

Another trick for bypassing filters is to dig a tunnel to the United States using a Virtual Private Network. When you surf the internet, it looks like your computer is in the US rather than Australia. It means you're bypassing any content filtering performed by your Australian ISP, and there's nothing they can do about it.

VPN's aren't illegal and they're not designed specifically to bypassing filtering, they're designed to protect your privacy when you're using an insecure wifi hotspot... or look at something that some fundamentalist git has decided you shouldn't be allowed to see.

 

[ianvestor]

Image comes from http://stephen-conroy.com (formerly stephenconroy.com.au before it was taken down).

 

[JulieW]

This is getting some press around the world - with Australia's proposal being compared to the Chinese firewall.

For a country founded by convicts and rebels we sure have a lot of people here who want to be police and wowsers.