Aussie Censorship, Network Lag?
It’s a touchy subject, censorship on the Internet. And while no one (outside of sickos) wants to see ready access to websites containing Warez or other illegal content, censorship for content that is NOT deemed illegal by most first world nations is treading on dangerous turf.
Outside of the obvious issue with regard to freedom of speech and the potential for a select few deciding what is acceptable website viewing and what is not (politics, anyone?), there are other practical problems with implementing such a filter in Australia.
- Serious lag. It has been stated in a number of instances where initial tests indicate a performance decrease of up to 20%.
- Waste of money. Seriously, would these same funds not be better spent elsewhere?
- False positives. This is a huge issue. Imagine the sheer number of problems that will arise. Imagine what happens when Lockergnome, Digg among other websites suddenly become blacklisted because a keyword or phrase sets off one of the many filters to be implemented.
- Who decides what is inappropriate? Based on what I am able to discern, commercial filter vendors. Even more comically, these vendors believed to be American.
Any Aussies out there care to share their love for this new effort being passed off in your homeland? It’s your Internet, too. Are you willing to fight for it?
5 Comments
What’s Happening in Your World? ~ Windows Fanatics
October 28th, 2008
at 5:33am
[...] Is there censorship in Australia? [...]
AC
October 28th, 2008
at 12:55pm
Active and legal resistance is the answer to the BS being promoted by a few idiots here in Australia.
1 determine what keywords will trigger a blacklist
2 find out where to lodge complaints highlighting an incorrect blacklisting
3 add comments, feedback, ANYTHING to as many sites as possible containing those keywords within an otherwise inoffensive text (and that is VERY important)
4 flood the complaint channels with your findings that an inoffensive site has been blacklisted by these idiots.
Keep bombarding their ’system’ with this to cripple the capacity to censor us. The more hits they get, the harder it is to determine what is really happening and the less able the software is to filter it for valid hits and spurious false positives.
Email your Member of Parliament with your objections and keep emailing them once a week (or if you’re REALLY p****d off, once a day).
Do the same with the Prime Minister’s office.
And the Ministers for Communications, Arts, Business and anything to do with the legal field.
Track down email addresses for Heads of Government Departments and bombard them with a reasonably worded objection.
Sure, no-one might actual want to listen but if enough traffic is generated it will clog the system and cause SOMEONE to do something.
And don’t be frightened of the anti-spam laws here – your own personal objections framed in a reasonable manner are your RIGHT.
Of course, if the idiots decide to use anti-spam laws etc, plead ‘not guilty, your honor’ and the legal system will quickly collapse under the sheer volume of cases to be heard.
Best of all, you can really give the d***heads a broadside in a court of law without much fear of retribution!
What’s Happening in Your World? ~ Chris Pirillo
October 28th, 2008
at 1:21pm
[...] Is there censorship in Australia? [...]
Idle
October 28th, 2008
at 9:15pm
Internet censorship is going to put a lot of people out of business — we won’t need firewalls, anti-virus, anti-spam and what-have-you any more.
In one fell swoop, all those nasties will be blocked by just that one piece of legislation!
The day Senator Conroy makes that one work, pigs will fly!
Rick
October 30th, 2008
at 7:40am
The public at large will remain sadly silent about this, believing it to be a “porn” issue, and nobody wants to appear publicly to be either in support of, or even remotely tolerant of, “porn”, given the depth of fundamentalist thrubbing that “porn” receives.
But as pointed out, who determines what “porn” is? Just what constitutes this nebulous concept of information which is “offensive”? A fart wafted at a dinner table is “offensive”, but since every living being farts, is it only “offensive” because it was publicly published? In the end, that someone has farted has what effect, what is harmed? How can anything which can be known or experienced first-hand without reprisal be judged to be “offensive” when known or viewed in the second-hand? How far does one have to cast the stone of censorship before it strikes and fells information that is within the public’s right to know, but is found to be “offensive” by a government or religious entity, simply because it exposes “uncomfortable” issues for that entity, such as graft, corruption, abuse, subversion, conspiracies?
Then, what leg will the public have to stand on to fight the creeping subversion of rights, when they stood idly by and allowed it to take root in the first place?