In the Australian today there is an article looking at the Government's progress on its election promise to censor the internet by default, Net filter at test phase.

It seems testing will start soon in Tasmania, and is expected to be completed by July at which time 'live field trials' will kick off.

While various groups have come out attacking the proposal, one group that is currently absent but may want to start being heard is internet gamblers, is seems that the new government for the first time included a separate list of gambling sites on the deny-access-to-these-pages list it sends out to ISPs to mandatorily block for Australians.

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kruddler, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?

s***, talk about a waste of money

disappointing move from my boy;

Australia: the new china
next: bamboo curtain

sweet. We can be a backwater for internet access WITH censorship now.

this mandatory censoring can be disabled with a phone call though right?

Its not mandatory, and from what I thought, it was only going to be enabled for customers who requested it (I could be wrong).

This is what happens when you let people who have no idea about technology make promises before they know if its possible without f***ing everything else up.

I read an article written by someone in the industry (Michael Malone or Simon Hackett or someone...) about how they thought it would be a promise that the Government wouldn't or even couldn't deliver on...

My core policy is to get Australia the fastest internet on the planet and make file sharing a positive social activity for all Australians. Oh and I know how to use google and the rest of the internetz!

^I'm waiting for that guy.

Its not mandatory, and from what I thought, it was only going to be enabled for customers who requested it

The linked article says:

"To be exempted, users will have to individually contact their ISPs."

Hence you have to call up to get permission to look up porn (and probably legitimate websites that they've blacklisted)

If my ISP tracked my web site history, they should know to take me off this filter even before I get around to looking up their number.

It's a bit of a pain, but if I can easily make a quick call and opt out, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Yeah and in court after your divorce your wife's lawyer will be like "and he's opted out of the wholesome ISP filtering... what a dirtbag..."

It's a bit of a pain, but if I can easily make a quick call and opt out, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

You won't lose sleep over it tonight, but later on you might when it's taken further.

The government has no right to censor by default. First it will be porn, then they'll move onto anything terrorism or violence related. Next logical step would be anything speaking out against the state, etc.

At this stage that seems laughable, but when something is just one step away, the justification and the political momentum makes it an eventual reality. Just look at the U.S. where it is illegal to take photos in some public places without prior permission, all in the name of preventing terrorism.

"...he exposed the entire family to the dangers of explicit and criminal websites.." - your wife's lawyer

...Well I'll be opting out.

im a dirty dirty perv and prefer my life uncensored;

ill be opting out;

LOLZ, actually, considering our internets is in wifeys name, she'll be opting out for me :)

hhaah

The government has no right to censor by default.

http://www.classification.gov.au/special.html - me thinks they are doing it already with all the other media entering our country, censoring interwebs is the next step (no matter how f***ed it is).

Imagine the influx of calls they are going to get when this is implemented. Then they will realise that they aren't blocking anything for anyone

TicMan, don't confuse the Government's actions with what their rights are. A lot of people assume that just because a law is passed in parliament, it is legal. Not so, a lot of bills and policies go through that are illegal because no one is vigilant enough to notice. And then it is difficult again to prove the illegality in court, because Judges tend to be lazy and just do what is suggested to them by the police, and the police just go along with what the politicians say. I don't think it's anyone's job to check these things.
I don't know how bad this problem is in Australia, but it is quite bad in America, a lot of laws blatantly contradict the constitution, and then in court it's just a war of words, and I guess whoever is richer wins or something.

ssh -L 8080:127.0.0.1:8080 user@us.based.shell:
http proxy localhost 8080, squid on remote server

f*** censors.

Never said I was confused, just stating that censorship has been happening for yonks (before yonks, probably way back when type ages ago).

and then in court it's just a war of words, and I guess whoever is richer wins or something.

No, whichever side has Alan Shore wins.

I will be very interested to know how they expect ISP's to do these blocks from a technical aspect. Especially since I'll be having to set it up if it becomes mandatory. There's a couple ways it could be done but easy enough to get around if you know what you're doing.

last edited by Nailbomb at 16:49:36 26/Feb/08

If you guys are really upset, bitching on Ausgamers forums is going to achieve nothing. Email/write a letter to your local member or Stephen Conroy about what you think about this issue.

can i s*** into an envelop and mail that to him?

If you guys are really upset, bitching on Ausgamers forums is going to achieve nothing.

Actually it results in a discussion, which makes more people aware of it and the consequences.

Most people on Ausgamers are tech-savvy kind of people. They aren't the ones you should be discussing.

That's your opinion. It may surprise you but I have my own: to start a discussion here, talk about the situation and maybe uncover some points that I may not have considered before. Then I'll tell others about it.

If you feel like you need to force your opinion on others, I hear Stephen Conroy is looking for recruits. No offence.

Thx rudd voting d*******s..

lol over half of Australia will want to opt-out, if they want to be filtered they'd download a filter for their PC

What the hell did Rudd wake up one day and decide he's going to stop the internet? Aren't we supposed to be deciding what happens with this country? Democracy mate. We feel cheated having some things filtered. The damn arabs have everything censored except for muslim approved sites. I bet they've never seen Jessica Alba.

i am sending the failbed link to kardboard kevin.

can i s*** into an envelop and mail that to him?

heh
I'd love to see the looks on their faces when they sniff that packet :p
*ack*

Just think, next they'll be censoring our TV and video games.

they censored our movies when we weren't all addicted to hardcore pornography. they are now working to take that away. the man in charge of the government is a religious man who nearly came undone from a quick trip to a strip joint in a foreign country.

this may be as simple as being able to opt-out right now, but what if the next incarnation of this system is that you can 'opt out' but you'll only get the softcore R rated feed since you are in qld and the sale or supply of X is illegal there?

we can worry about government censoring ideas or public discontent, protecting their gambling revenues and propping up their religious ideals, but what about the porn? someone has to protect the porn!

nats - the internet is for porn

Well obviously this will lead to the inevitable cataclysmic collapse of internet civilization

Go home everyone, thanks for coming.

We didn't evolve from apes!@!@!

Since this an ISP level filter which works by full packet inspection, contrary to what Minister Conroy is saying, there will be a significant slowdown of the internet. Opting out isn't going to change that.

it doesn't have to be like that.

they can have the filter appliance out of line with the route path used for users that have opted out.

if you have source based routing in front of the location where the appliance is inserted the traffic from/to IPs of people who opt-out can bypass the filter appliance all together.

source base routing isn't as CPU intensive as deep packet inspection, it is an overhead but nothing that should worry any decent network kit.

Is there any actual evidence that they're doing packet inspection? I haven't seen much (actually, anything) about how they plan to implement this on a technical level.

I haven't seen much (actually, anything) about how they plan to implement this on a technical level.

I don't think the law-makers have even considered that there is a technical side to this.

I am sure the New World Order has been packet inspecting since invention of the Internet. Why would they invent something they cannot totally monitor...

So if I opt out, does my name end up on some list of people that like porn or something?

If there was such a list, every guy would already be on it and it too would be an 'opt out' list.

Yeah, the opt out thing will be the undoing.

First ISPs will make it easy, like via their existing management tools, ie iinet's toolbox or bigponds account management. But kids are the ones who set this s*** up at home so they have the passwords for that.

Then they will make it hardy, but the damge is down, johnny will already have opt'ed out.

Is there any actual evidence that they're doing packet inspection? I haven't seen much (actually, anything) about how they plan to implement this on a technical level.

yeah, they have devices to do this. I doubt it will go very deep but the packets will be inspected.

They are currently testing the devices to do this at a testbed ISP in Tasmania.