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Author Topic: No opt-out of filtered Internet  (Read 1910 times)

Kyle Aaron

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« Reply #15 on: October 16, 2008, 11:34:32 PM »
Quote from: J Arcane;257111
I thought all you Aussies were supposed to be all tough and manly and whatnot?  What the hell is with all the censorship freakouts over there?
Yes, we are. But the sorts of people elected to government are not. They are the bland and inoffensive middle class, with a few upper class morons thrown in to keep them company, and the occasional genuinely loopy one in the Senate.

In addition, our federal capital lies in a valley separated from the rest of the country by a drive of several hours, with no rail link, and no reason to be there except for government. So it's rather easy for the elected representatives to lose touch with reality, to misunderstand what the real problems of the country are, and even if they do know, to not have the right solutions.

I have no doubt that the filter will filter out mostly harmless sites, and be easily stepped around to find the genuinely nasty sites. It's not like sexual deviants and terrorists aren't willing to make a big effort in their "research" already. Like DRM, filtering annoys the honest users and does not at all inconvenience the dishonest ones.
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Kyle Aaron

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« Reply #16 on: October 16, 2008, 11:40:54 PM »
Quote from: StormBringer;257243
Wouldn't is just be cheaper and easier to investigate and prosecute child pornographers?
The government is less concerned with deviants, and more with potential terrorists. You know, bomb recipes and shit like that.

The fact is that most would-be terrorists are pretty stupid and ignorant, and are more likely to harm themselves than anyone else, for example this guy. So they want to minimise the chances of their getting information which could make up for their ignorance.

Not that it's really an issue for Australia, since we don't really have any terrorists. We just have a few people who talk big but do nothing, and a few people who are sorta distantly related to some foreign terrorist, have done nothing but we lock them up anyway before releasing them a while later with red faces, like this guy.

But the government likes to feel busy, and since they have no clue about the country's actual problems, they focus on this nonsense.
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RPGPundit

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« Reply #17 on: October 17, 2008, 04:15:02 PM »
From what I've heard, the initial test run of this software demonstrated that besides everything else, it will slow down the speed of the internet service by 75%. Jesus fuck.

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Engine

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« Reply #18 on: October 17, 2008, 04:33:47 PM »
I hear false positives are on the order of - if I recall correctly - 10,000 out of 1 million. Also not good.
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CavScout
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« Reply #19 on: October 17, 2008, 06:33:33 PM »
Quote from: Engine;257947
I hear false positives are on the order of - if I recall correctly - 10,000 out of 1 million. Also not good.


LOL, why not just say 1 in 100? :teacher:
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Engine

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« Reply #20 on: October 20, 2008, 06:54:02 AM »
Quote from: CavScout;258004
LOL, why not just say 1 in 100? :teacher:

I wondered about that at the time! The only thing I can think of is that they ran a million-item test, and the false positives ran about 10,000. Still, as an "error rate," wouldn't "1 percent" be as accurate?
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« Reply #21 on: October 20, 2008, 09:33:11 AM »
Quote from: Engine;258638
I wondered about that at the time! The only thing I can think of is that they ran a million-item test, and the false positives ran about 10,000. Still, as an "error rate," wouldn't "1 percent" be as accurate?


Not to mention easier to write. :p
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Engine

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« Reply #22 on: October 24, 2008, 08:11:32 AM »
Or I could have been completely wrong on the error rate, anyway. Ouch.
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Abrojo

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« Reply #23 on: March 29, 2009, 02:18:04 PM »
hah well this one backfired before they could implement it. blacklist got leaked before blacklisting and people are mass visiting the soon to be banned sites. Also the list had sites that nobody cant understand why they are getting banned like christianity, abortion, etc. Seems like obvious one happened, several people in the censorship comitee used this for their personal ideology agenda.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1888011,00.html?xid=rss-business
« Last Edit: March 29, 2009, 02:20:51 PM by Abrojo »
 

Kyle Aaron

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« Reply #24 on: March 29, 2009, 07:09:03 PM »
The blacklist of 2,602 websites was leaked, and the Communications Minister said, "it isn't the real blacklist, and leaking it is irresponsible." The ACMA echoes this position. No, that doesn't make sense to us, either.

The problem is that if you want to ban specific websites, you either release their names and addresses, in which case your ban index acts as a helpful index for paedophiles and terrorists, saves them doing research; or you keep the list secret, which means nobody can actually block it for you.

So the idea was to give the list to ISPs, who would then block it for the government. Of course in any ISP at least a dozen people would have to see the list, and we have dozens of ISPs in the country, so there's no way the list can remain secret.

The first leaked list contained many websites which were completey harmless - a Queensland dentist, for example - and quite a few which are technically illegal, but which Australians wouldn't be happy with banning. For example, Aussies in general are not going to object to the banning of sites for child pornography and instructions on making explosives in your kitchen. But some little old lady on YouTube talking about voluntary euthanasia and how to get drugs to knock yourself off painlessly?

It's also problematic that some webpages on some sites are banned, but not the site itself. For example, zombiesurvival.com has a few pages on how to make explosive devices (I don't recommend following their recipes, which are flawed to say the least). These pages are on the banned list, but the site as a whole is not. This makes it relatively easy to accidentally commit a crime by accessing prohibited content; and of course makes it technically more difficult for ISPs to comply.

After the leaking, the government did a quick cleanup, removing the obviously absurd ones, leaving them with 1,172. An article talking about it is here on wikileaks. I warn that the list of banned websites is there, with no images. Most of the websites are child pornography or bestiality. Others are violent pornography with rape themes or the like. Still others provide instructions in criminal activity, like making explosives, identity theft and so on. You can be pretty sure none of it is safe for work, let alone your marriage or relations with law enforcement.  

In Australia, it is an offence punishable by fines of $11,000 a day and up to ten years imprisonment to publish even a single link from the list. As for clicking on the links, accessing child pornography is a crime, though the position of access to material like "how to make blasting caps" on zombiesurvival.com is a bit murkier, depending on your intent and so on.

At this stage, the banned pages list is supposed to be being trialled by 6 ISPs. At least one of them has pulled out - my own ISP, iinet, discusses the issue here; since that article, they have withdrawn from the trial.
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RPGPundit

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« Reply #25 on: March 29, 2009, 07:22:37 PM »
I note, looking at that list, that there's a lot of stuff on that list which is clearly NOT illegal pornography, but clearly offensive to the morals of someone on the list.

I notice that some of the chan sites are there; those don't carry child pornography of any kind (at least none that I've ever seen does), but do have a ton of pictures of penises, really tasteless humour of the worst kind, and sarcastic fringe-material like "pedobear" which is pretty freaking offensive humour but is certainly not legitimate child porn of any kind.

Also, I noticed Abbywinters was there, which is actually a totally legal, brilliant porn site featuring adult women who are not your standard "porn sluts" but tend to look more like regular every day girls (with a kind of hippy-indie bent to them), mostly engaging in lesbian activity that seems much more genuine than the usual "two sluts with big hair pretending to be turned on with each other" variety. And to top it all off, unless I'm mistaken Abbywinters is not only entirely legal but its MADE IN AUSTRALIA.

The idea that these guys are targeting "child porn" is clearly a cover. They're targetting porn, period, because the people involved in making this list are a gang of reactionary fanatics, Australia's own answer to the christian coalition who want to make sure no one else should be allowed to get their rocks off, to anything.  To these assholes, there's no difference between getting off on raping little boys or getting off on two utterly consenting 19 year old women engaging in tasteful heavy petting on a suicide-girls-esque site.

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