Australian Net Censorship 272
An anonymous coward writes "The Australian House of Representatives has passed the censorship legislation which was passed by the Senate a few weeks back.
According to the EFA, from 1/1/2000 Australia will have more restrictive internet censorship than Singapore and Malaysia.
This legislation was introduced to win the vote of an independent senator for the GST vote.
The local news media has made no mention of this legislation. Apparently censorship isn't newsworthy. " If the Australian
media isn't saying anything, I think that's about as scary as the legislation itself. Wired ran a story about this the other day
that seemed to imply choosing Jan. 1, 2000 was not a coincidence. Conspiracy theories, anyone?
Re:Easy Fix for ISP's (Score:1)
Re:Got your gun yet, mate? (Score:1)
to be destroyed, including semi-automatic
costing the government over 500 million dollars, the results are in...
A dramatic increase in criminal activity has been experienced. Gun control
advocates respond "Just wait... we'll be safer...you'll see...".
OBSERVABLE FACT, AFTER 12 MONTHS OF DATA:
* Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2%
* Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6%
* Australia-wide, armed-robberies are up 44% (yes, FORTY-FOUR PERCENT)
* In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300%
* Figures over the previous 25 years show a steady decrease in
homicides-with-firearms (changed dramatically in the past 12 months)
* Figures over the previous 25 years show a steady decrease in
armed-robbery-with-firearms (changed dramatically in the past 12 months)
* There has been a dramatic increase in breakins-and-assaults-of-the-elderly
* At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a
reason for owning a firearm"
Re:Cant control BBS (Score:1)
Re:Tough decisions... (Score:2)
How come Sweden, which has so many guns per capita still has a low crime rate?
Crime rate really doesn't correlate to guns.
Marx said reason doesn't exist cuz men don't think (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
and while the bill popped up occasionally in the news (mostly in The Australian on tuesdays - which features 50+ pages of tech news) when i asked my parents if they'd heard of it - they were not aware that it was going on.
i think we can pretty much kiss alot of future venture capital/investments in australian internet technology goodbye.
one day i'll set up http://censorship.is.f-cked.com
Re:Anarchism (Score:1)
Simplifying a bit, there are two sorts of folks who talk about anarchy. Proponents of anarchism (called anarchists) believe that without a chief we can get along. They often believe that the only rules that we need are those of the natural order of things. Opponets of anarchism belive that without a chief we will have violence, disorder and other nasty things.
Personaly, I am not an anarchist, but I try to understand other viewpoints.
My sugestion of an anarchy-totalitarian scale isn't right, but I couldn't come up with a better alternative for what I wanted to say.
Re:Just do what the Europeans do (Score:1)
You obviously arn't familiar with the current Aussi government. One of their acts in their first term was to overrule a high-court decision that gave landrights to aboriginies. Many of their other acts have also been somewhat nazi.
hmmm... flame.....
colin
His website. (Score:2)
Re:%$!@$*! (Score:1)
The most shameful thing in the USA right now, IMO, is the way politicians are exploiting the Columbine tragedy as an excuse to ramrod their own agenda through the Congress. "Moral malaise" my ass. The USA has an astonishing history of violence. Are we going to blame the murder rate of 50 years ago on net.porn and video games?
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Governments do not change - people have to act (Score:1)
The masses have *never* been interested in being informed participants in any system. They care only that their lives are reasonably stable, and that they can get food and entertainment. In a pure democracy, the putative ruling class is "the people" but the de-facto ruling class is "the people who care enough to participate" --- always a tiny subset of the former, and thus easily marginalized by special interests (including big business, etc.).
Re:there's a term for what happens in these cases. (Score:1)
Not unlike the US drug laws, n'est-ce pas?
People (or in this case ISPs) that have lots of money/power/connections/etc. will get slapped on the wrist, if not "overlooked"; those without these things will rot in jail (or in this case, get run out of business).
Reminds me of those US RightWingNut politicos who go around ranting stuff like, "Let's round up all the people who get high and throw them in prison or have them executed." Like they're actually going to do these to 40,000,000+ people? Yeah, right...
This has nothing to do with "morals" and everything to do with having an excuse to discriminate legally against an (otherwise) law-abiding minority for the express purpose of intimidating everybody else.
I say that hangin's too good for the bastards!
--Z.
Re:Got your gun yet, mate? (Score:1)
Try this - since the prohibition laws were passed for guns, gun related violent crimes has INCREASED, the rate of violent crimes has INCREASED 40% or more in some catagories, then number of occupied forced-entry (i.e. smeon breaks into your home while you are there) crimes had INCREASED by more the 40%.
The citizens are disarmed, while the criminals remain armed. In other words, the criminals are having a field day, because they rest secure in knowing that the government has provided them a much larger and completey unarmed pool of victims they can prey on. This was predicted by the action in Jamaica when they enacted similar laws. Try readin ghte modern research by Dr. Lott and others in the USA. You Aussies are fools for letting the government grab that much power based on your irrational and fear based response to press crusades on the behalf of those who wish to control you.
Lesson here: dont give up your rights, ANY of them.
Re:But what does it all mean? (Score:1)
As to adults supervising children, the law intends that all Australian ISPs will sign up to a code of conduct which will include:
"(d) giving parents and responsible adults information about how to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;
(e) procedures to be followed in order to assist parents and responsible adults to supervise and control children's access to Internet content;"
Under the act, the Australian Broadcasting Authority also has a responsibility to advise parents about supervision.
There is no requirement placed on parents to supervise their children, and no requirement placed on ISPs to ensure that children are supervised while they use the ISPs services.
Some posters have said that any information stored on a host is subject to classification. This isn't the case, as the information also has to be available for access via an ISP.
The interesting thing will be to see what the ABA accepts as the means of dealing with offshore prohibited content. This will be defined in the ISP's code of practice.
This is where the next battle will be fought, and the result won't necessarily be a requirement for filtering at each ISP. The law isn't clear (to me) on when a code can be judged 'deficient' by the ABA and overruled.
I'm very glad that we don't have a (government owned) telecoms monopoly any more, or the government might have considered filtering content at a single point.
guess i won't go there after all (Score:1)
ah, well. some dreams die hard, others die easy.
Re:Guns are hard to come by there ... (Score:1)
A fundamental right is involved here:
THe right to defend your life. This includes any reasonable means. And according to US Dept Of Justice statistics, and similar ones for the BoJ, one fo the most effective methods is the modern handgun. Your statements dont stand scrutiny - a fundamental right is not subject to a needs test. Handguns, escpecially concealed ones, have been shown to be quite effective at preventing a person from being a victim of violent crime, and for those that carry them legally (with the permit system) have been shown to have only a fraction of the crime rate of the normal citizen (Lott, Mustard 1998). And ilegal use of a concea;ed weapon by permit holders is almost nil. As an example, in florida where over 500,000 permits have been issued since 1997, only 12 deaths due to concealed handguns have been reports, and of those 12, only 2 (same incident) were found to be criminal - in other words, concealed handgunds deterred hundreds of thousands of attempted crimes, saved lives, and had very little cost in non-criminal lives. And since the handgun carry permits system was implemented allowing the average citizen to carry a concealed handgun, the violent crime rate in Florida has dropped rapidly and consistently - especially amongst older people and women, at 6-10% a year. Similare results are evident in Texas as well since their passage of CCW for handguns.
So, your statment doesnt hold any water - try thinking it through. Criminal prefer unarmed victims - and a handgun is the best form of personal defense: portable, easily carried, and it works - sometimes needing only to be shown, not fired (Kleck 1995).
Yours is the credo of slave. Think it over and come back when you ahve learned.
Here's a conspiracy theory. (Score:1)
Guess what? 500+ people are working on it. Quite a few projects. at least 2 dozen
Re:What I think will happen... (Score:1)
The full amendment is available from the EFA web site, with comments. Links to reviews of filtering software can also be found.
There was basically no Aus news about this - the first I knew that it had actually been passed into law was from UserFriendly (although there was no doubt that the lower house would pass it anyway).
What I think should happen is that a group of ISPs shouyld put out a tender for filtering software, but specify a penalty cloause for anything which gets through that shouldn't, or anything which doesn't get through but should - including SSL, other langauges, and aything else pepole can come up with. Anyone which any sense won't take that up, so the ISPs can take the excuse to the bill along the lines that they don't have to do anything if its technically unfeasable.
Currently, this law only applies to Aus sites, but it must be reviewed within 3 years to see if the bill can be made to cover overseas sites as well. The big problem is that once an ISP has been told to remove something, they then have to stop anything similar from appearing on their site. Private email is not covered, but the status of mailing lists, newsgroups, and similar stuff is not clear.
Re:Yea, I see a pattern there... (Score:1)
Wow (Score:2)
This bill seems to be so severe as to render itself unenforceable and therefore in risk of being thrown out of court. That can happen in Australia, can't it?
Oxryly
Re:State of the nation. (Score:1)
It doesn't work like that here... (Score:1)
Have you ever seen the movie "Mr Smith Goes to Washington, with James Stewart"? Normal people face that sort of political and media machine should they be "stupid" enough to stand up for their rights...
Re:Internet Censorship (Score:1)
It's also the party whose leader is solely responsible for putting the country into hundreds of billions of dollars of debt over 15 years. I'd vote for One Nation over these bozos.
Um, not cool. (Score:1)
Re:Keeping and bearing arms (Score:2)
only outlaws will have hydrogren bombs.
In some sense, that is the case today.
Seriously, the H-Bomb could be argued to be an exception today based on the intent of the Bill of Rights since the H-Bomb is not reguarded as a weapon that is deployable domestically. The government can't count it as a weapon against the people, and the people can't count it as a weapon against the government. (No matter how tempting nuking D.C. might be sometimes) :-).
The founding fathers could not have been expected to predict the H-Bomb when the Bill of Rights was drafted.
Re:A new BIG industry (Score:2)
At worst we might need a service which emails the contents of a URL to you -- that is certainly legal, even if the email contains prohibited content.
That's an interesting idea...
Re:Anarchism (Score:1)
I am an anarchist.
Anarchism without adjectives (anarchism without adjectives is a theory that anarchists should get along instead of dissmissing the ideas of other anarchists with different ideas as impossible or statist).
Anarchist cookbook (Score:1)
Re:The Australian Democracy No Longer Works. (Score:1)
2. I don't think boycotts against our primary industrys (I'm an Ozzie) will do much, except fuck up our export industries. It won't create a political uproar.
I think that was the entire point. Sending email to a government official does little good when you aren't a constituent, and they need to understand that outside people are upset by this law. Fucking up the export industries with boycotts and other protests will get the message across quickly, directly, and (hopefully) without causing much damage before the government sees the handwriting on the wall and gives in.
Re:It doesn't work like that here... (Score:1)
Arrange press coverage ahead of time, with world news rather than local media. (Call CNN and SkyNews Service.) This shows the world what you are doing (and therefore, what the government is doing) and also forces the local media to toe the line. Doing anything else only makes them look untrustworthy; most people for some reason trust CNN more than their local news.
The point is that you tried everything short of armed rebellion. Very well, try armed rebellion, and let it be known, make it a primary point of your statements, that the reason you are trying armed rebellion is that it is your last and only recourse.
The only problems are finding a large enough group of people to make it work (you would literally need thousands, and the more the better) and convincing evidence of even more popular support. And, of course, that you silly fools already gave up your guns.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
And how is it the first attempt? The second, fourth, fifth, and first amendments have been under attack again and again for a long time.
You are the perfect example of why this shit keeps happening in the USA. Everyone hates the idea, no one wants it to happen, and yet at the same time everyone's too busy laughing at the TV to pay attention. Until the perfect-teeth brainless talking heads come on at 11 to use their "serious" tones to read off from the teleprompter about some issue they think we should find important, and we all scream about it for awhile. The politicians move on it - got to show the voters they're Doing Something(tm) - and do something completely asinine and useless, but it has a catchy title and is something to throw out in perfect news-bite sized statements. And then we all go back to watching TV.
I think I'll move to Canada. Better yet, I think I'll go colonize Mars, NASA is beginning to piss me off with this robot shit. Who's with me?
Re:The ignorance... oh the humanity! (Score:1)
Re:State of the nation. (Score:1)
Re:Um, not cool. (Score:1)
>disobedience (both overt and covert) are
>preferred, at least until martial law is
>declared.
Ditto, but don't forget education and propaganda-they can be effective as well.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
As for Mars, if I can get a big fat data pipe and O2 there, I'm right there with you. Of course, there is the issue of latency measured in minutes, and some sort of domain name.
Re:The ignorance... oh the humanity! (Score:1)
News Stories, and a possible solution ? (Score:1)
Some of the newspapers , like the Australian, and the Age, have covered it pretty well. The other major paper in Melbourne (where I live) , is a thing called the "Herald Sun".
Here is a few stories that they have been printing about "the internet"
In the Herald sun , page 18 , 8 June 1999
"As Evil as porn"
The jewish group B'nai B'rith Anti Defamation commision wants the KKK banned from the net. There is a photo of a Nazi site "Stormfront" , and some guy holding what apparently is a gun, but what looks like a PVC tube (used in plumbing) , with a muffler stuck on the end of it.
"Genuine civil liberties orginizations have also expressed concerns about freedom of speech, but democracy is based on the tenet that induviduals are allowed to live harmonious lives without fear of persecution. Laws ranging from defamation to sexual discrimination provide that there is no absolutes of free speech.
Most Australian would not let a vehemant extremist into their homes, yet via the net, potentially all homes with internet access may play host to such visitors"
on 16 June 1999 , page 18 , the editorial piece says this :
"the insidious nature of the internet as a tool for pedophiles has again been highlighted by the arrest of an Australian man in the united states"
"Internet service providers have an obligation to eliminate or at least reduce the incidence of child pornography and the covert use of the internet by pedophiles"
(some australian person went to the USA to meet some kid he befriended over "the net". He was nabbed by the cops. Good on them.)
basically any story about someone using the internet for a "bad" purpose is hammered in this paper.
All the government has to do is appeal to the majority of people in Australia (who don't have an ISP) that the net is full of paedophiles, bomb recipies and porn , and then they can do whatever they damn well want.
To be honest, I feel totally and utterly sold out. Not just by the Liberal party, but by the whole party system in this country. Back room deals, bribes, the notion that a party member has their first loyalty to the party, not to the country, you name it.
And I've been thinking of a way to change it. (I'm sure lots of others have thought of this, but bear with me). Political Parties, I think, were set up because it was impossible to have all of the citizens in a country run the whole show at once. It just wasn't possible. Now with the net, it IS possible. we don't need to delegate our vote to someone else, who goes to canberra (or washington
So what I'm thinking of is this :
1) set up some kind of slashdot-like web site, where people can freely express any opinions they like on the budget, defense, taxes, social security, etc.
2) after debating for a few weeks, have a vote on particular bits of law. (voting to be done by citizens of that country only. Need to figure out some way to enforce this)
3) The majority opinion gets tabled in Parliment by someone, who the citizens have to vote in to represent them. That person agrees to represent the majority opinion, not their own. (of course, without enough people to actually vote for that person to get in to parliment, this whole step can't be done.)
Yes, I know, you still have to delegate someone to go to the government. But that's only because of the way the present system works. If by some chance the rest of the country sees that the "open source" way is better, and we manage to get a majority , then the whole government can become completely virtual. (and step 3 won't be necessary)
Once that happens, no more "secrets". No more "commercial in confidence" contracts , where citizens are not allowed to know how much taxes are being paid to a company to do some out-sourced activity like power generation , ambulences, or whatever. True power to the people.
OK, that's enough. I think you get the idea.
whaddya reckon?
The political parties of course. (Score:1)
Mainstream politicians aren't looking
to force censorship down our throats, i
t's the independent. On the other hand
the leaders of the government and opposition
are both family-values type conservatives
so they don't see it as a great tragedy.
And besides, its only nerds like us who care.
Loophole? (Score:1)
Just browsing through the legistlation and I notice that once a site is "classified" it cannot be considered for reclassification for 2 years.
So whats to stop you getting your URL rated G with happy pleasant content, then changing it to a full on porn site once you've got your classification?
Re:Here's a conspiracy theory. (Score:1)
Re:guess i won't go there after all (Score:1)
The ignorance... oh the humanity! (Score:1)
a) the legislation is *spattered* with "ought implies can" clauses.
b) they don't censor the stuff in the pipe, they just order ISP's to block addresses... that's nothing new, the British Gov't perfected that technique decades ago - it's called a D-Notice
c) we don't have a bill of rights, thank god - we have implied rights, and are signatories to the UN conventions. our right to free speech is limited to political free speech - and this protects democracy without allowing slobs and pornographers to trot out the free speech spiel in defence of puerility.
d) the bill may or may not be thrown out - but Labor (the socialist-principled equivalent of the Democrats, except we have our own different Democrats party, and they are decidedly unprincipled) is going to get back in at the next poll, and Senator Kate Lundy will save the day.
e) press coverage was almost non-existent, for the simple reason that we're overhauling our tax system.
f) you're going overboard - most aussies are shaking their heads at the folly, not going ape-shit and trembling with rage & fear
g) swear words don't count as offensive content
h) I seem to remember CDA... and CDA II? Something about ill-gotten moral high ground?
i) aussies don't say "eh mate"
j) aussies don't say "g'day"
k) aussies say mate, but only wankers say mateship
l) remember, you wrinkled Americans, we got the convicts and you got the Puritans!
Soyuz Loiter
(we do say that)
Re:Yea, I see a pattern there... (Score:1)
pigs arse (Score:1)
please refrain from very broad generalisations.....I use the phrase every day....
Re:There is something all /. readers can do... (Score:1)
(maw, originally from Boston, USA, now in Melbourne, Australia, and less than pleased with this recent turn of events.)
Re:People are stupid (Score:1)
i often wonder about this. If your old enough to remember the East-Timor invasion by Indonesia, you also might remember the lack of press coverage about it. Noam Chomsky ~ manufacturing consent [zmag.org] (Noam Chomsky on Journalism By Peter Cronau January 1995) also made a nice about how journalism and power can serve against the truth...
Chomsky views the media as an ideological system serving the powerful elites in society. He explains how governments get away with lying, how academics and intellectuals manufacture consent to the actions of government, and how the media confine debate to the conservative middle ground.
Chomsky argues the Western media have neglected their questioning role, instead repeatedly giving primary access to intellectuals who defend the role of Western governments. He sees the media's role as producing consensus amongst the public towards the ruling elites in government and business.
"The [media's] current mission is to ensure that any thought of controlling their destiny must be driven from the minds of the rascal multitude," he has written in, Year 501: The Conquest Continues. And, in Deterring Democracy, he writes: "The goal is to eliminate public meddling in policy formation".
Probably Chomsky's most known book in this country is Manufacturing Consent: the political economy of the mass media, which he wrote in 1988 with Edward Herman, a professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Propaganda Model sketched out in this book describes the structures and influences that Chomsky believes produce systematic propaganda in the media.
"It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalise dissent, and allow government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public."
it's only an opinion, but it's interesting to note the context in which this article describes censorship.
Re:People are stupid (Score:1)
Re:Yea, I see a pattern there... (Score:1)
Re:Remember there are no Free Speech Rights in AU (Score:1)
1. Although the previous respondent was incorrect on point, he was correct in principle. The citizenry of the US are supposed to control the National Guard and other "militia" (the term used to mean a sort of citizen-army, police force type organization, like the British Home Guard in WWII) throught their local governments. The reason why towns and counties used to provide complete units was supposed to be so that they could execute local control. That way, any revolt would have a nucleus of armed troops who were also citizens to assist in the revolution. Which is where the South got their army in the Civil War - or the War of Northern Agression, if you're from the American South. The Founding Fathers planned on revolution - they understood what we have forgotten, that no strong central government stays pure for long. So they set things up so that if things got so bad they required a rebellion, the citizens would have, if not an advantage, then at least a chance.
2. If things got so bad that armed rebellion was necesary, it wouldn't be military forces marching into battle against farmers. It would be a war of assassination, bombings, and guerrilla warfare. Sound somehow evil and just plain wrong? Of course - the government wouldn't like it much. But that's exactly how the US won independence, with hit-and-run raids on British units, murdering troops who were quartered in colonial homes, and firing on marching troops from cover. Only on a very rare few occasions did troops fight troops, and those were usually either one-sided British victories, or occurred late in the war, with French weapons and training supplied to the colonials.
This is why the first right to be taken away is the right to bear arms. Once you lose that, the rest follows easily.
Re:%$!@$*! (Score:1)
Re:Tough decisions... (Score:1)
As for the guns in the classroom - don't blame the guns. Don't blame the movies. Don't blame the music or the games. Don't blame Canada. (Sorry, just saw the movie.) Blame yourself.
My parents were firm, some would say strict. They spanked me when I needed it, grounded me for more minor infractions, and in general, they were parents. Name one case of a kid snapping and killing other kids where the parents were involved with their children and knew what was going on in their lives.
Oh, and I'll answer a quote with a quote. The full text - which I recommend you read, and actually think about, is here. [infinet.com]
Re:OK, so act on it (Score:1)
I can't find a single flipping candidate I like. They're all a bunch of bastards that want to limit something or another. Bush wants to restrict religous freedoms, freedom of speech, and so on, while opening up businesses. Gore - well, what can we say about Gore. And those are the only real choices.
The UserFriendly Dust Puppy for President - aw, crap, he's Canadian. Can't be President. Uh... Hemos for President!
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
So I take it the intent of the law is that pornography is only legal in Australia when _everyone_ can see it on a public TV station or at the beach. If you try to see it privately at home(cable, Internet, etc.), then you're breaking the law. Does that mean you can only have sex with your spouse if it's broadcast on the latenight news?
That's a pretty twisted law. That makes Reagan and Clinton not look so bad after all.
Re:You've got that right (Score:1)
Let's go colonize the moon. Frontiers are traditionally free because no one has the time or resources to waste bugging anyone else; they're too busy staying alive. Well, there's no frontier here on Earth. The solution is obvious.
Let's get off this germ-infested ball of mud.
No, you can't use that as your sig - that's my email sig. But you can have my old one - Happiness is Earth in the rear-view mirror.
Re:Tyranny of the minority (Score:1)
) swear words don't count as offensive content (Score:1)
I really detest the idea that someone else can tell me as an adult, that I have no right to look at whatever material I want to look at. I can buy a porno mag, why cant I look at a porno site?
Censorship is something parents do to their children, it shouldn't be what adults do to adults.
I want to keep my Freedom Of Self, to lose that well, you might as well give me a ten pm curfew and tell me I cant eat pizza whenever I want!
Ms Jute
Re:Freedom of speech - Just watch what you say! (Score:1)
Arrest you? How?
Turn out the Army? Sure, as a roadblock. With cameras galore. Simply go around - the army won't shoot, if they did it would be news the world over, and you'd have won, the troops involved would be vilified, and the government would fall.
Do not simply grab your guns and a hat and turn out to shoot cops, soldiers and politicians. Organize things. Make sure you have designated leaders for each group, and each leader knows each other and who's in overall charge. Keep together, keep it neat, and don't damage any property or trespass on any private property without permission. Keep to main roads to attract more attention. March to the capital, to the parliament building itself, and demand redress. It's dramatic if you can arrange volleys (preferably blanks) into the air. Surround the building and refuse to move or allow anyone in or out until your issues are redressed. Have a spokesman, and be sure to invite the press, world as well as local. Use them instead of fighting them.
Now, of course, it's too late.
Solution which would be handy in US as well (Score:1)
I've long thought that we need to create far more specific root domains (instead of
Re:Got your gun yet, mate? (Score:1)
As oppposed to a git that won't cite sources?
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:How the hell?? -> An American who agrees (Score:1)
When I bought my house a year ago, it had extras (placed by the previous owner) that prove the point about paranoia: monitored alarm systems for motion detection, breaking windows, opening doors, opening windows, feeds for cameras, etc. And this is a rather ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. But that's nothing next to the big one: my house already had a bank-style vault (yeah, the huge black steel door with both combination and key required) about 25 feet (8 meters) deep for storing enough guns to supply an entire army. What do I use the vault for? It makes a really good closet. I keep half of it full of canned food that didn't fit in the kitchen, the other half full of musical instruments my wife doesn't want strewn around the house. One time a gun dealer I know showed me the machine guns and silencers he was selling (yes, even those are completely legal in America, if you do the paperwork and pay the permit fees). No, I didn't buy anything. I would like to hear even one good reason why a machine gun or silencer should be legal to buy. Hunting? Yeah, right! Even the military doesn't normally have any use for silencers.
Re:The ignorance... oh the humanity! (Score:1)
Another thing what about operating a service something like a porn request system where a person in
Work quite nicely or maybe stenography just encrypt some lusty image into a file say a picture of a clown and nobody is the wiser
I think there are so many wonderful ways of doing things in this world why make things easy for anyone? If the govt wants to play hardball have them play hardball. It is a well known that many popular revolutions such as Russia in 1917, China in the 1930-1940's, the French in the 1790's etc. The people at large will always do what they can.
Re:The Australian Democracy No Longer Works. (Score:1)
I am concerned that the legacy media industries (who have highly concentrated ownership) may have acted together to support the bill out of self-interest. It would kill off what they may view as a competing industry. Perhaps the ACCC or some other organization with juristiction in this area should investigate this.
I hope there is an Australian political solution to this crisis. However, if all else fails in the next few months I have some proposals on ways the international community might assist the cause.
Three ways non-australians could assist political change:
1)Australia is extremely dependent on commodities.
So boycott Australian goods and tell somebody why you are doing it, perhaps an Australian embassy or trade organisation. Lobby local politicians to impose trade sanctions. Effectively our new net censorship infringes on YOUR RIGHTS to conduct Internet commerce with Australia so why not get us back. I suspect this legislation will place us in breach of some international trade agreements anyway.
2)Australians hate to be perceived as backward rednecks.
Boycott Australian films and culture - protest outside Australian film screenings. Why should George Lucas make the next Star Wars in a country that doesn't even guarantee freedom of speech - send him an email.
3)Australians love sport.
Don't buy tickets for Sydney 2000. Don't attend sporting events involving Australia - if you do, take banners protesting against net censorship and make yourselves heard.
To win GST vote HAH (Score:3)
(I like how according to the independant the GST becomes more moral when there's internet censorship, democracy for you).
At any rate, once all the independant's demands were met, he did a back flip and refused to vote for the GST yet the net censorship still went ahead.
Our beloeved Prime Minister John Howard, very devote creationist Christian, said that he was in support of censoring the internet because there were things on there he wouldn't want his sons to see. His youngest son is 19. Sadly I believe his sons take up a very small percentage of the Australian internet users.
I run a webpage which has a listing of mentally ill hate sites so people can look at them and see what they really are. If that bill comes in I wont have any ability to continue that page.
http://www.rebel.net.au/~andrews/dhw/index.html
Choose exposure over censorship.
Re:How the hell?? -> An American who agrees (Score:1)
Silencersare one of the most useful devices when shooting, hearing protection is very important, and when shooting with a silencer, you are not damaging your hearing.
We also used them quite a bit in the Marine Corps, taking out a sentry quietly is quite an important task. Knife, silenver, it matters little, it is jsut a tool.
OF course, you do realize that your right to free speech is muzzled, because you allowed your politicians to take your guns away from you. If you kept your guns, the politicinas would not be quite so quick to trample on your basic human rights.
Re:To win GST vote HAH (Score:1)
I went to school together with is youngest son, Richard Howard. From what I have seen from him (and he used to visit our boarding house), nothing's going to stop him from porn. Man... this guy just reads porn everywhere
And since he's 19, I doubt good ol' johnny would care anyway
Re:Projects like that are interesting... (Score:1)
Re:guess i won't go there after all (Score:1)
mostly i'm just disapointed that my thought of being able to travel a little bit, hang out with friends and work all at the same time is less attractive now.
Re:the Australian media isn't saying anything??? (Score:1)
-----
Re:Um, not cool. (Score:1)
Government Agenda (Score:1)
One serious problem the Australian government faced was that many `porn' sites are password protected, and perhaps the owners of those sites would not like to give Australian government agencies the right to access their sites so they can be prohibited.
So it may be necessary to hack the sites, or to fraudulently gain access to their copyrighted material, which contravenes Crimes Act Sect 76 [austlii.edu.au] (and elsewhere), which act provides for a jail sentence.
What to do? It's simple: suspend the operation of all Australian criminal law as it applies to the operation of the censorship act. So that's what they did, in Part 8 - Protection from civil and criminal proceedings [ozemail.com]. What does `Draconian' mean anyway?
What does this legislative provision actually mean? Well, for example, since you might have a password or cryptographic key deemed reasonably necessary to permit the ABA to obtain information, the ABA can hire a consultant to obtain the password by torturing you. Giving Spooks the right to hack.
What is also interesting, in this regard, is the suppressed content of the Australian Government's Walsh Report " Review of Policy relating to Encryption Technologies [efa.org.au]." The government tried to suppress its contents, including this paragraph, among others which demonstrate the same intent:
1.2.28 The Crimes Act 1914 should be amended to permit the AFP, NCA and ASIO to 'hack' into a nominated computer system to secure access to that system or evidence of an electronic attack on a computer system. (paragraphs 6.2.3; 6.2.22 refer)
People have been wondering why the Australian government would bother trying to legislate to turn back the tide of internet content and have laughed at their ineptitude in writing the legislation. I suggest that the censorship legislation is merely a Trojan horse as cover for the kinds of covert operations spooks have been begging for.
This Trojan horse should be seen in the context of such legislation as NSW Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act 1997 [austlii.edu.au] which enables police forces to break the law in order to catch criminals, after a case was lost on appeal to the High Court [austlii.edu.au] because the court exercised a judicial discretion to exclude evidence in a case where a criminal offence has been procured by illegal conduct on the part of police.
%$!@$*! (Score:3)
EFA is totally correct in saying that it is a political stunt. Honestly, they don't give a s**t about the moral wellbeing of Australians. Considering that one of our award winning adverts consiteted mainly of the word "Bugger", and that "If you drink and drive you're a bloody idiot" is a slogan endorsed by our police forces, that gives you a kind of idea about how non-anally retentive we all. Except Brian Haradine. This bill was introduced to pacify him, and him alone, so they could sell off our national phone service, and introduce a GST. Total assholes. I for one totally support the EFA's call for Richard Alston to resign.
But hey, at least it's still legal to burn our flag, and that they don't think that sticking the 10 commandments up on the wall, and confiscating nail clippers will stop mass murders in schools.
:-)
Re:The Australian Democracy No Longer Works. (Score:1)
I don't think boycotts against our primary industrys (I'm an Ozzie) will do much, except fuck up our export industries. It won't create a political uproar.
Feel free to send email, and finally
Goto the Olympics! Don't take a banner - Ozzies hate in-your-face politics. But why come to the olympics at all? The more people coming in, the more empty seats leaving = it cost less for us Ozzies to go on Holiday overseas! Yay!
Re:But what does it all mean? (Score:1)
I was led to believe that included any materials transmissible over the net, not neccessarily accessible via an ISP. This means that, since the contents of your HD are definitely transmissable, that your HD is technically covered by this legislation.
Oh, you say, but its not accessible unless I have set up network services to allow it. I'm sure you've heard of BackOrifice, though..........
Re:guess i won't go there after all (Score:1)
Goverments would be much better if not for the politics
HeTTaR
M&D Eaton
http://www.uq.net.au/~zzmeaton
hettar@uq.net.au
Re:Governments do not change - people have to act (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
But how can "Internet" censorship ever work? (Score:3)
I mean, how will they stop my naughty pic DCC file bot? How will they keep people from joining my Q3 server where I replaced the wall textures for pornography?
So far I have yet to here of program that scans tcp packets looking for dirty bits...
- All spelling errors are deliberate and for the sake of effect.
The real stupidity (Score:1)
They are yet to realise that the internet is not a passive entertainment medium! The net is interactive, and is a means of communication, not just an entertainment source like TV.
Censoring the net is like listening in on, and bleeping out swear words in phone conversations.. Much different to censoring TV.
But the politicians only know of the internet by the stupid catch-phrases thrown around in the popular media like 'surfing the net' as if its just some sort of joyride not a real means of communication and expression.
Finally we get an effective means of free speech, extremely accessible to the public, and this is what happens. I guess thats the precise reason why this is happening.
When will governments get over their arrogant, egotistical belief that they must take it upon themselves to exercise control over the citizens they are supposed to represent?!
Re:Wow (Score:1)
The Tao of Proxy Filtering (Score:1)
2. Express 'surprise' when all
3. 'Regrettfully' inform the authorities that this kind of thing is certain to continue for the unforseeable future, as it is impossible to guard against hacker/cracker attacks.
4. De-install proxy with govt mandate.
-- Reverend Vryl
Re:Projects like that are interesting... (Score:1)
No, no, no...
The sole purpose of goverment is to extract money (taxes) from the people while providing an incrediable life like simulation of being represenitive of their wishes in an environment that restricts freedom, change and chaos.
Re:Freedom of speech - Just watch what you say! (Score:1)
What are you going to do, shoot them? You say not.
Even if they use their pepper spray and start dragging people away?
I'm not saying a stand should not be made (I love the passive voice (-8 ) but is this actually going to achieve anything?
Due consideration (Score:1)
Dear Honourable Member,
I would like you to consider the following arguments against internet
censorship:
Forcing ISP's to comply with this legislation would be onerous and unreliable.
It is almost certain that there will be a contingent of rogue ISP's with a "free speech" agenda who will test this legislation. Detection will be difficult. Prosecution will be harder, mainly due to technical and legal ambiguities.
ISPs are opinion leaders within their educated and vocal user community. They currently oppose your initiatives, and the political consequences of their enmity should be considered.
Software-driven control of viewed material at the recipient end is cheap and reliable. It will be implemented by internet subscribers who are
genuinely concerned, whether or not there are censorship laws.
Implementing this legislation takes valuable technical resources away from other government initiatives e.g. controlling and taxing global e-commerce.
I beg you to abandon or shelve this legislation.
Yours respectfully,
the undersigned
Re:This law will be reversed... -- Yes (Score:1)
And when that day comes, I will scream very loudly ( and so will thousands of other Aussie hackers ).
Likewise, I will scream at my political representatives if they are dumb enough to block my favorite astronomy sites if they contain "naked eye astronomy" on the banner page.
And aussie doctors will scream if they are not allowed to access the latest information on "breast cancer".
Some people are upset about this situation. I'm not. I'm grinning from ear to ear over the fact that this legislation is going to be a major embaresment. Most of all, I'm grinning over the fact that I'm inevitably going to get to make politicians look like complete and utter idiots in front of the voting public.
I'm really looking forward to this. Better than any flame-war here at
Re:A new BIG industry (Score:1)
I think that a service like http://www.anonymizer.com [anonymizer.com] allows one to sidestep blocking of particular IP addresses very nicely -- unless of course the legislation was interpreted as requiring that Australian ISPs had to block access to such services.
I suspect it wouldn't be, and I think that providing such a service -- even in Australia -- may be legal. The person providing the service is (probably) not an internet carriage service under the act, and isn't hosting internet content either, and so isn't subject to the act.
This would make an interesting test case!
I'm pretty sure that providing such a service to Australians wouldn't make anyone subject to extradition.
At worst we might need a service which emails the contents of a URL to you -- that is certainly legal, even if the email contains prohibited content.
Internet Censorship (Score:2)
The Independent senator (from Tasmania by the way) the conservative government was grovelling to got what he wanted and then said he wouldn't vote for the new GST (another party did in any case). Nevertheless he's now irrelevant as he doesn't hold the balance of power as of 1 Jul 99. The perfect example of hero to zero in one second flat.
In regards to the actual legislation, its basically a problem for the ISP faternity as they have to try and filter out material WHEN IT IS TECHNICALLY FEASIBLE TO DO SO. That is difficult enough for them at their own servers but a major drama for material coming in from outside sites. Once the ISPs are told to bar some site it will simply spring up somewhere else. An example of this difficulty was the list of British spooks posted a month or so ago. In the end the British government gave up (after two court orders) as it was pointless trying to find out all the places where the list had been posted to.
I wouldn't get too worked up about it for the time being. The law itself will no doubt be challenged in due course so lets just take a big deep breath and worry about something else.
Re:Internet Censorship (Score:2)
Yes, this is correct (Score:3)
But I seriously doubt that they can stop you from doing whatever you want on IRC and such. And it will probably be possible to simply use a foriegn proxy (as long as it's listening on a really weird port) and thus bypass any cencorship at all.
But don't get me wrong. This is still going to be glaring in your face almost everyday. The bigest downfall to this is when they start blocking stuff that shouldn't even be blocked. Like somtimes you'll click on a download at Freshmeat and you'll find that the particular address is blocked.
Just hope they don't block any major hosts like GeoCities. That would mean you can't access thousands and thousands of websites.
Well, you see, we're all mates down under (Score:2)
Our esteemed midget, little Johnny Hayseed, has found life a little difficult since the old divisions of master-servant were abolished and he jumps on every opportunity to do a Jesus (although he's still working out how to avoid the loaves and fishes trick for all those bloody dole bludgers).
Anyway..the moral minority's paedopliliac obsession with suffering little children seems to provide his best opportunity to show his sheep that he knows best.
In the Internet Censorship bill, Johnny gets to treat all his grown up voters like little children and keep his worthy pastors and corporate interests happy..(oh, yeah, johnny wants a nice upper-middle class world where the women wear pearls, men talk (BIG) money and the rabble eat donuts.)
Just a thought..i can't think of one sexual act that is more abhorrent than the thought of getting my head blown off with an uzi or my guts knifed out and yet i can see this each night on prime time TV..any suggestions
There is something all /. readers can do... (Score:2)
As others have stated, the media in Australia have largely treated the passing of this Bill as a non-issue. Though there have been some strongly worded op-ed pieces in the national newspapers, they haven't really devoted any major press to it.
Time to use the /. effect for a really good cause...
A national newspaper, The Age, has an internet censorship feeback [theage.com.au] section which would be good spot to voice your concerns (nicely and intelligently of course... ;). The only downside is that the feedback section is only appearing online at the moment and not making it to the printed version (ie. comments there are being read by people who already agree that the legislation sucks), but it is still worthwhile.
A much better approach, however, would be to CC those comments to letters@theage.fairfax.com.au [mailto] as this a place to submit comments to their daily reader column for the printed version.
The Age does carry a lot of influence in Australia, and if they had the reactions of the rest of the world pushed at them, along with a valid reason as to why this should be an issue,then we could maybe get some press involvment and some proper public understanding (guaranteed to be followed by contempt) of what the Australian government has just done.
Make it happen. M@T
But what does it all mean? (Score:2)
Yes, it's a Bad Law. It's restrictive. But what does it do?
Essentially, it makes illegal on the net that which can be freely purchased over the counter of a newsagent.
E-mail is *not* censored, but mail lists *are.* Somebody heard about lists but did not make the connection. ah well.
R-rated material (18+) can only be accessed after an "adult verification procedure", but content not hosted in
ISPs will be made responsible for all content on their servers, including mail lists but not email. The ABA can act only if a complaint is recieved. They give the ISP 24 hours to remove the offending material or face fines of AU$27,500, and the user faces AU$5,500 fines, PER DAY.
So Aussies will;
-Not be able to view Refused for Classification content or X rated content.
-Only be able to view Australian based R rated material if it is protected by adult verification procedures.
-R rated material from overseas will not require adult verification, thus putting local industry at a distinct disadvantage.
-Content will include all web sites and any other content which may be stored or archived.
-Email is classed as content and is not excluded.
-The ABA will be notifying Internet Providers and Hosters to block or remove content within 24 hours or large fines may be issued.
-Children will not be able to access the Interent without the concent of an adult.
-Adults must supervise and control children's access to Internet content.
that last one gets me. It renders the law pointless. Who is the law aimed at? Adults?
check out http://gomed.rodos.net/censor/bill-summary.html and http://www.efa.org.au/
Death of
Keeping and bearing arms (Score:2)
In short, privately owned guns are no protection against governments becoming tyrannical.
That's because of weaseling on the part of the U.S. government. The thought behind that amendment was that the population would be armed on an equal footing with the military (at the time, rifles and cannon were all the army had).
The various restrictions on assault rifles missiles, tanks, and bombs are not consistant with the intent of the amendment.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are very plainly written, and meant for literal and absolute interpretation. Anything else is simply an insidious erosion of our rights.
A new BIG industry (Score:2)
I'll bet that providing VPN connections in other countries for Austrailians will be a big business. You can't censor what you can't decrypt.
People are stupid (Score:2)
As one of me sagacious associates remarked to me today, "commonsense is not popular". I've already done my ranting about this subject [nutters.org], so I won't add much here.
Some have suggested that this law was a bone thrown to Senator Harradine in order to get his vote on the GST legislation. That was a nice theory at the time, but we know it didn't work, because Harradine voted against the GST. On the whole, I get the feeling that we have the cart before the horse on this issue: the government wanted the legislation and rammed it through before Harradine lost his balance of power position precisely because they knew he'd vote for it. Harradine's position was always that the proposed law wasn't strong enough, but of course anything is better than nothing. The government really wanted this law, and I don't think we need introduce conspiracy theories to explain it when simple "stupidity" provides an adequate answer.
There's also the suggestion that the general press didn't give this story the airplay and column-space that it deserved because of some self-serving interests. No, I don't see the need for a conspiracy theory here either. Australians in general don't see the film ratings system as an invasion of their rights, and PM John Howard can legitimately claim popular support for the morality-based censorship system that exists. Senator Alston (the minister whose portfolio covers this area) is basically right when he says that this law is simply applying existing censorship laws to the Internet. This is why the whole thing isn't newsworthy, except for a little coverage of the protest marches. Most people buy the logic of our politicians in this matter. Most people simply don't understand that their logic is flawed to hell.
The average Slashdot reader knows that the whole concept of Internet censorship is ludicrous, but the broader public (and our illustrious political leaders) don't. Educating them (the general public, not the politicians -- politicians only want to know about political expediency, not technology) would be a long and slow process if we had to do it ourselves. I can only hope that the vast majority of them will find whatever mechanisms we are obliged to use to "clean up" the Internet for them a complete and utter nuisance. May access times slow, may prices rise, may quality of service in a general sense go to hell, just for a little while. Australians are just as wired as the US, and once the nearly-40% of Australians who use the 'net get sick of their ISP saying "sorry, but we have to do it because of the Broadcasting Act," we'll see how quickly this stupid law gets taken out, or at least cut down to size.
I think the majority of Australians would be in favour of a ratings system for the Internet if it could be done without other negative impact. They just don't understand that it's impossible. Once the price of enforcing this law becomes apparent, I think we will have general support for its abolition. Please, God, may the damage to industry and our global reputation be as little as possible. We are stupid and we deserve the fruits of our own stupidity, but may it be as brief as possible.
Re:A new BIG industry (Score:2)
t does not matter if the content is encrypted. The law is about providing access to the content.
That's when people start demanding that the wan pipelines for Austrailian offices of international corperations be cut off. Who knows WHAT they may be carrying through their VPN?
Naturally, they won't do it (theres tax money to consider). Now, people tell them they are considering some contract work with foreign corperates, but they must connect via VPN to their lans to evaluate some meterial under NDA. Point out that an execption has been made for business networking.
The people providing your VPN could probably even send you an NDA to sign and return.
Re:Well, you see, we're all mates down under (Score:2)
Sex acts with your prime minister?
Suddenly an uzi to your head looks rightly preferable, dont it?
Re:Extradition laws (Score:2)
Wanted for what? I'm not an Austrailian ISP. And of course, there are many countries such a service could be provided from.
Just do what the Europeans do (Score:2)
After a few test cases it will be thrown out, it's completely unworkable.
There was a wonderful story in this week's " This is True [thisistrue.com]" about New Zealand censors being required to view all the scenes in computer games to rate them, but simply not having enough time (12 hours of video, 100 hours gameplay - it's not like watching a 90 minute movie).
Kris.
Win a Rio [cjb.net] (or join the SETI Club via same link)