As disclosed in the recent budget announcements, the plans for ISP-level Internet filters are still in motion. Electronic Frontiers Australia, a "non-profit national organisation representing Internet users concerned with on-line freedoms and rights", has created a new website at http://nocleanfeed.com/ to try to increase awareness of this new proposed restriction on our tubes, summarising the issues and pointing out the technical and social problems with such a system. If you don't care about this yet (and why would you, it's only your tax dollars!), at least take note of the fact that one of the issues raised is slower Internets.

Check out the website and then hit their take action page to see what you can do to make your voice heard on this issue.

cheers, my email is sent. One of the biggest wastes of time and money i have seen. Not only is this going to slow down our already third world access its probably going to up the cost of plans etc.


the next thing you know "stolen generation" in google won't turn up any results...

isn't this only a mandatory option that isp's have to provide? I haven't seen it stated that we as users are forced to use the filter (we apparently can opt out) and as such our speeds should not be affected?

cool
just had a read of the front page of EFA and im 100% with these guys;

i can only hope that my boy krudd comes to his senses and doesnt waste all our monies on something this retarted

ill just ad, that surely its the parents responsibilities to filter internets in the home :(

ill just ad, that surely its the parents responsibilities to filter internets in the home :(

At school ?
At a library ?
At a web cafe ?
At a free hot spot ?

school is a difficult one for parents, but the other 3 well and truly fall into parents jurisdiction in my opinion

At school ?

There it's the schools responsibility, the details of which can and probably should be mandated by the state governments about what sites can and can't be access from the schools - although I'd say schools should be able to have some say on it as well (in case sites are erroneously blacklisted)

At a library ?

Libraries are run by state governments (I think?) and could have near-same restrictions as schools. Noone wants people going to libraries to look up porn; that's not what they're there for, and parents would probably like to know that the libraries have some form of filtering.

At a web cafe ?

Whether or not they filter should be completely and utterly 100% up to the proprietor of the cafe and left as a business decision. If they want to offer a filter for minors and require IDing, it might be good for their business, as parents should be opting to tell their kids to go there for their Internets.

At a free hot spot ?

Well if you don't want your kid randomly accessing the Internet, don't give them a portable Internet device. In terms of the hotspot, again it should be completely up to the person running the hotspot (though probably in accordance with their ISPs terms and conditions).

The job of a parent is not to watch over their kids 24/7. It is to teach them how to live so that they don't have to watch over them 24/7.

You can't stop your kids learning how to make a home-made bombs off other kids at school, that sort of information was around long before the internets, a smart kid and a good text book is all that is needed. As for porn, again there was/is plenty around that doesn't involve the internet, magazines anyone. A resourceful kid is going to be able to get their hands on something.

Hopefully by the time your kid is old enough to utilize the information gathered from the world, you have taught them to make the right choices regarding that information.

Filtering the intertron will fix any problems of poor choices by children, they will just come up with other creative ways of doing the wrong thing. Like bashing a cop with a crowbar or something.

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 11:33:05 19/May/08

yeah that's what I was implying
I don't mean that parents should have to actually filter library/cafe/hotspot internet

your mum is a hot spot.

Most Libraries are local Government run, same would apply though.

A filter will slow Internet access down by up to 78% according to a Government report

f*** yeah sounds like thats a step ahead in the technological world. What the f*** is up with this country and banning stuff. They have banned movies, games and now now they want to filter our internet... wtf...

k rudd looks like he is turning out to be a great f***ing pm, "we're just putting this bulls*** tax on premixed alco so we make billions each year, but we're goin to say its to prevent binge drinking... oh and yeah in a few months im goin to filter what u look at on the net, cause widespread tech problems and what else... oh yeah.. cut ur net speed by 75%, but u can still pay the same amount "

when i went in and saw a carton of scotch and coke for $87 i nearly cried... and now this, whats happening to this country :(

I say again... isn't this just a requirement for isp's to provide this service? doesn't say anything about forcing people to use it?

If you opt out of filtering, will it affect your internet speed still? That is what I want to know.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could just opt out and everything runs as normal (except the waste of government money). However if you opt out and can view all your dirty porn and it still be slow because of all the filtering done for other people, then there will be much angor. O yer, and downloading game patches and the like.

! Also would the filtering screw with game ping times? Does the slow down include that ?? Because, really, that is the most important thing of all.

Letter sent.

f*** yeah sounds like thats a step ahead in the technological world. What the f*** is up with this country and banning stuff. They have banned movies, games and now now they want to filter our internet... wtf...

I'll give you a hint - have you noticed how tight-knit our new leader is with that of the Chinese government? Noone else is noticing a lot of our laws going a similar way?

I agree it should be parents responsibility to teach their children right from wrong, but seriously, censorship sucks. People should be taught to understand right from wrong, and make the conscious choice them self what to believe and what not to, etc. Deciding for them what they should and should not see is simply not acceptable. I'll choose what's explicit and what I do and don't want to look at or read, thanks - not have it done by someone else.

sure it may be opt-out at first, but the first dirty pedo that claims it was because he could see the material on the internet that set him off, it will no longer be optional.

I mean really, why do you need unfiltered internet if you aren't a depraved child molesting pervert?

what are you going to do on the net that you can't see filtered?


last edited by natslovR at 16:09:18 19/May/08

Go go sig power!

I mean really, why do you need unfiltered internet if you aren't a depraved child molesting pervert?

what are you going to do on the net that you can't see filtered?

lately, i dont even know who you are

i havent seen trolling this hard since the catholics thread where you posted insanity

i dont want anyone but me making my decisions on what i look at

yes, some of it is depraved and perverted (most of it isnt kiddy though), but who the f*** is anyone to say to me that i cant look at whatever i want to look at

what kind of tormented soul would want to make it more difficult for teenage boys to access porn.

give the brothers a break ffs!

edit:

I mean really, why do you need unfiltered internet if you aren't a depraved child molesting pervert?

because there are a lot of depraved and perverted people out there who are not child molesters and use internet pornography to those ends, and last i checked it's not illegal to be a pervert in the privacy of your own home.

where the f*** is our liberty going under the madman??

last edited by infi at 16:43:25 19/May/08

what kind of tormented soul would want to make it more difficult for teenage boys to access porn.

give the brothers a break ffs!

You can say that again girlfriend

I think he's being facetious toward the govt, not trolling

You can say that again girlfriend

Ahuh! *wiggles hand in the air*

I am not trolling, I was suggesting the angle our religious & conservative leader would use to justify making it compulsory. I then read the site linked and saw that it will be mandatory, there doesn't seem to be an opt out option any more, or was that the previous government?

what are you going to do on the net that you can't see filtered?

i dunno... but i wanna see n find out! :p

but ya know... there is always the chance that the job of who decides what is filterable & what isn't is given to someone who doesn't share your own views on life, the universe & everything. say for example, if the job went to a vehement anti-religious agnostic, who decides that it's not enough to just censor religious information... but he has to be a dick about it as well.

Does anyone know how the filtering will actually be done? I wonder if sites that can deliver content that they deem inappropriate will be completely blocked or if they will only block the content displayed from those sites.

If they block entire sites then say goodbye to Google, torrents, email and anything else worth having the internet for because just about anything could be a portal to porn heaven.

emailed, changed sig, and donated $10

the nerds of australia stood up in protest

then sat down again, breathing heavily

I think the mandatory part is directed at ISP's, not users.
ie, it is mandatory that ISP's provide this option to users, but not mandatory that users choose to enable it.

^^ or protest outside scientology lairs screaming GTFO! ;)

I still reckon (opt-in/out) filtering is not such a bad idea.

The online reaction to this reminds me very strongly of the days when legislators were trying to arrest MP3 in it's very early days. There was hellfire on the net! "Don't oppress my rights! (to download music)"

the uniform reaction is almost knee-jerk. Industry people that it most affects eg. Network ISPs are dead against it because it's very prickish to implement, and it hands power back to Telstra, because their network is basically designed from the ground up to do this sort of thing.

We need to find out exactly what the mechanism proposed (accepted from tender) will address, instead of (respectfully), blindly fighting it. People are still arguing over completely basic facts like, is it opt-in, or opt-out? I know some of you say it doesn't matter, but I think you can only come to that conclusion until you actually know how or what is proposed to make that call.

my 2c.

schools: as far as I'm aware, both parents and a child have to read and sign a statement saying that they will only use the internet for proper things and not look up dodgey s*** at school. I think the implication is that it puts the responsibility back on the parents and kids while the kid is at school. Kids who don't have a signed slip can't use the internet at school. Don't know which way the legalities of it would actually work though.

I still reckon (opt-in/out) filtering is not such a bad idea.

The online reaction to this reminds me very strongly of the days when legislators were trying to arrest MP3 in it's very early days. There was hellfire on the net! "Don't oppress my rights! (to download music)"

the uniform reaction is almost knee-jerk. Industry people that it most affects eg. Network ISPs are dead against it because it's very prickish to implement, and it hands power back to Telstra, because their network is basically designed from the ground up to do this sort of thing.

We need to find out exactly what the mechanism proposed (accepted from tender) will address, instead of (respectfully), blindly fighting it. People are still arguing over completely basic facts like, is it opt-in, or opt-out? I know some of you say it doesn't matter, but I think you can only come to that conclusion until you actually know how or what is proposed to make that call.

my 2c.

Good point. Considering everyone in this house is adult and should be able to look at whatever they want, some families with little kids might want some sort of content filter. Having said that, at the Children's Hospital we used some free government one that was f***ing awesome. Can't remember the name though:(

i think schools would be an awesome place for filtered internets and government buildings

so, just apply the filter there, and everyone is happy

i think it doesn't really matter if it is opt-in or opt-out, as long as there is an option to turn it off and once turned off the feed is completely unfiltered and unslowed.