Australian Government Green-Lights Internet Filter | Hacker News Reader

Australian Government Green-Lights Internet Filter

afr.com

4 pointsPebblesHD8 comments

When this is in place, Australia will have the complete three: Slow Internet, Severly Limited Competition, and Strict Internet Filtering/Anti-Piracy Laws. Seems like the impossibly high cost of media in this country can only go up.

I would hope that a sufficiently high admin fee would be needed for each blocking request, something like $1k to $10k. Just so people wouldn't spam the office with censorship type requests.

Wouldn't a VPN get around this easily?

I already have a maximum download speed of about 600kb/s, if I had a VPN between my network and the internet would it not become almost un-useably slow?

You could download things into a seedbox and then download from there at your current 600kb/s. Essentially you're renting a server dedicated to downloading things.

Browsing would be slower. Although there are a lot of pay-for VPN's that work quickly. Also I don't think downloading torrents should be effected at all.

I'm actually less concerned with the piracy aspect, I primarily use Spotify and Netflix. I'm more concerned with how attempting to filter the internet may a) further reduce the already dismal speeds and b) become a common tactic for blocking objectionable content as a sort of stand in for the failed 2013-2014 internet filter legislation.

I cited piracy as it was the main purpose of the censor (supposedly); whether that ends up being its actual use or not.

Can't comment on A, seeing as my only experience with Australian internet speeds is mocking my Australian friends' internet speed.

Internet censorship is a case of whack-a-mole. Block a server? They move the server. Seize a domain? Users can edit their host files (or get a new domain). Block an IP address or IP range? People will set up mirrors. The average person (and for that matter, politician) are seemingly unaware of this and waste a lot of time and money forming non-solutions. In some cases I'm actually supportive of B occurring due to the Streisand Effect. Their attempts at censoring information ends up spreading the message further and gives it a microphone and limelight in an increasing number of cases.

I'm more concerned with the ease in how American corporations can so readily influence foreign governance.

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