Australian Coalition retracts Internet filters policy | Hacker News Reader

Australian Coalition retracts Internet filters policy

news.com.au

71 pointspeterkelly17 comments

"The policy which was issued today was poorly worded and incorrectly indicated that the Coalition supported an “opt out” system of internet filtering for both mobile and fixed line services. That is not our policy and never has been. "

Retrieved from their modified page at the time of writing:

http://lpaweb-static.s3.amazonaws.com/Coalition%202013%20Ele...

Here's their original 8 page booklet detailing the "opt out" filtering system:

http://cl.ly/2i103o1y0b2M/Coalition%202013%20Election%20Poli...

Utter bullshit.

Yup. Very disappointing.

> As has recently been achieved in the UK, we expect these standards will involve mobile phone operators installing adult content filters on phones which will be switched on as the default unless the customer proves he or she is at least 18 years of age.

> As has recently been achieved in the UK, we expect these standards will involve the major internet service providers providing home network filters for all new home broadband services, which will be switched on as the default unless the customer specifies otherwise.

Very original writing to boot.

It was poorly worded because it was too obvious what the LNPs future plans are.

This is a transcript of a radio interview (thanks to @marcedwards) about it:

http://pastebin.com/AFA2hUrF

and Marc Edwards's comment from the bottom, which I agree with completely:

So the plan is to get every single OS maker and internet-connected device maker to install pervasive, opt-out software that has access to all network traffic. Yeah, good luck with that technically, ethically or logistically.

Yeah, when Malcolm said that it put to rest all my fears, since there's no way they'd be able to pull that off.

On a related note, Tom Tilley is an amazing presenter and I think he really showed that with the way he handled Anthony Albanese and Malcolm Turnbull tonight.

And that's why they don't release their full policies until right at the end of the election. Who knows what people would find if given weeks with their documents and the chance to question them on them. This applies to both major parties btw, Labor did the same in 07.

Note - this is the same party which is allegedly harvesting facebook data, in a very dubious manner - http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/1lrwe5/did_you_cl...

See their "attack" script here: http://thechoice.liberal.org.au/assets/js/scripts_a525ba27d7...)

Also, some guy says he decoded the hex-encoded JS: http://pastebin.com/TDFUJk1q

please don't link to news.com.au, you are giving them ad revenue and attention they don't deserve :(

I had to wash after doing it, but the other articles I saw on the topic all had titles that wouldn't make immediate sense to non-Australian readers, and HN mods seem to be very opposed to people submitting articles with different titles to the original.

At the same time, I think news.com.au do deserve some credit when they report on something other than reality TV or American celebrities.

Yo. Please boycott newscorp. Why? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-28/hawke-joins-chorus-aga...

That's the mother of all electoral bribes. Let them eat porn!

If that policy were to go ahead it could be good for CyanogenMod.

Don't be foolish, the government can quite easily enforce a requirement that you install their spyware on your devices.

It took them fifteen years to make the eTax tax return preparation software available for Macintosh. It still doesn't work on Linux. This despite it being, essentially, a collection of form pages with minimal logic -- I could whip it up in a couple of days using any programming language more expressive than Malbolge.

So I'm not worried that they'll be demanding I install anything on my Ubuntu server.

Instead, they will just classify your server as being an unapproved device that circumvents the filter.

Can't say I particularly trust them.

Until they get in power that is...

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