Users Betrayed as Australia Adopts a Copyright Censorship Regime

Guess whose site will go down. Hint: not yours.

In moves surprising nobody, leaders and party figures have already suggested using these new laws as a stepping stone to blocking other objectionable content such as pornography and who knows what else.

First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these moves. Chances are it's done as a favour to someone in Washington who needed something from someone connected to the Hollywood lobbies. Not the strongest of motives and the kind of thing that popular opinion can reverse.

Second, legislation doesn't magically happen in a vaccuum when the PM says so. Australians, you MUST get in touch with your local politician, both to let them know (politely) how you feel about certain issues, and to give them arguments to use in Canberra if you want any chance of legislation being passed the way you like it. It's not about Labour vs Liberals. Whoever has been locally elected, is now responsible for listening to you. They also don't do much thinking so it helps to do it for them: "This proposed legislation infringes individual rights like this, this and this; moreover, as per the Constitution, that" goes much further than "I am pissed at you for letting the PM get away with it".

This is of course not a personal response to your comment, but a general note that I thought about and that was triggered by your Tony note. I've found Australians relatively politically disengaged, with the general opinion - at least in Sydney - basically being "they're all scumbags anyway, things will work out in the end", followed by some expletives about Gillard, Rudd or Abbott depending on where the Australian leans...

sigh why is it only the Greens and Independents who are willing to stand up for what's right.

"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.

"The correct position is that the Coalition will encourage mobile phone and internet service providers to make available software which parents can choose to install on their own devices to protect their children from inappropriate material."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-05/no-internet-filter-say...

That's a second backflip. But I think it is a complete 360 turn.

More generally, this is why i'm very sceptical of technical solutions to political problems. Years from now, you might find yourself along with your technically proficient minority of friends being the only people able to still access the Internet freely—most of it might have already become a corporate-controlled walled garden. I for one don't want to have to end up living in digital almost-exile just because we were too lazy to Do Something™ now, when there is still hope.

I admit that this is at once probably rather tinfoil-hatty but also almost reality (how many people would be able to find whatever they're looking for if something like Google Search were blocked? 5%? Never mind if DNS poisoning was added to that). We on HN would be fine, but this would seriously impede democracy, given how the other 95% would be stuck without access to information.

Using a different DNS server is not a "workaround," once enough people do it, it is "escalation" that demands a response.