What's scary is most of the people I know haven't even heard of this and what it will mean for freedom of information.
There doesn't seem to be any reports on mainstream television at all about this AFAIK
There doesn't seem to be any reports on mainstream television at all about this AFAIK
I first heard about this on HN (I live in Melbourne). My girlfriend hasn't heard of this (I asked) & I haven't had any conversations about this with anyone. Strange. When earlier this year there was a nude child photography (non pornographic) scandal, the Prime Minister made multiple statements as did senior police & it was on the news for over a week. Anything child porn related tends to get coverage here.
I'm not convinced that it's not a coincidence, but it seems like this is being done on the sneaky. I'm not happy.
This whole thing is hugely sneaky. Clearly the proposed plan was initiated as an opt-out, however after heads began nodding it was changed to mandatory. And now the thing doesn't even bloody work, while fucking up the internet.
On top of all this, I don't think this Conroy chap actually understands the internet. He doesn't understand the scope, the open nature, and how it constantly changes in a way that is impossible to regulate. Hell, Google is only what it is because it was the first company that was able to create any sense of order out of the internet.
Most illegal stuff is transferred via bittorrent. This will do nothing.
The worst child pornography abusers will find their fix elsewhere, to the extent of creating new and secret websites to share their shit. Does he honestly think putting in this kind of regime will make these guys step back from their computers and say, "Well, fuck it, I guess I can't look at a 6-year-old flat chest anymore. Time to move on!" All this bloody thing will do is create more clandestine measures of subverting authorities.
This whole thing is like the war in Iraq, and why the US has failed. There is no enemy. There is no "Terrorist Central" that they can nuke, wash their hands of and say, "Well, that was a jolly good shot! They are all gone, problem solved". When one insurgent falls, more stand up to take their place. And in the meantime, thousands of innocents are adversely affected by the whole shit storm created by the situation. This is like DRM. It does nothing to stem the problem, and it fucks shit up for everyone.
The only people who stand to gain anything from this, assuming the media believes the babble and society is not informed of the ineffectiveness of this plan, is Conroy.
The open nature of the internet, the cost of infringing on free speech, the dangers of putting in place mechanisms of censorship (to me this is no. 1) etc. are unrelated to the technical issues:
Bittorent will still be available, there will be false positives, this will affect download speeds, etc.
Both are valid forms of criticism. But keep the seperate.
Such a website already exists: http://www.netalarmed.com/
Maybe a one-page website that, in essay form, outlines the issue in full.
Ironically, the government trying to censor someone speaking out against this (the Internode employee on Whirlpool) has got more news that the mass censorship in the first place...
Going by his own hysterical reasoning, the Prime Minister is a paedophile and clearly not fit for office.
I've been aware of this idea kicking around in Parliament for a while (listener of Parliamentary debates) but the technical details have been bouncing around the ISP & sysadmin arena for a while on the Whirlpool forums. I got a brief of the technical implementation problems at the Software Freedom Day in Melbourne, Sep20 ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157607387630079... You can get some more details here ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2871574175/in/set-7215... Some technical explanations are detailed here ~ http://www.efa.org.au/censorship/mandatory-isp-blocking/