text:
Internet filtering with Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy
The federal government will introduce mandatory internet filtering this year. And after recent abuse appearing on Facebook memorial sites, the government is also looking at establishing an internet ombudsman. So how far should control of the internet go for the sake of making the online world safer for children? Is it actually possible to make the internet safe?
Join us on Monday, 29 March at 6pm (AEDT), when Australia Talks will be discussing these issues with Minister for Communication Stephen Conroy.
- Stephen Conroy
- Minster for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
- Colin Jacobs
- Vice-President, Electronic Frontiers Australia
- Mark Newton
- Network engineer
- Andrew Graydon
- Chief Operations Officer, Netsweeper, internet filtering and web access company
Further Information
- Presenter
- Paul Barclay
- Researcher
- Karin Zsivanovits
Comments (269)
Adrian :
03 Mar 2010 7:40:52pm
Technologically and fiscally unfeasible, and easy to bypass.
A misappropriation of funds, and a authoritarian policy matched only be the likes of Chinas policies regarding censorship of the internet.
Marcus :
28 Mar 2010 10:16:55pm
It seems that the NBN strategy doesnt include upgrading our links to the outside world, This must be considered a priority in order to get the best out of any internal improvements to our BB structure, When will this be addressed?
The current copper network will only allow next gen upgrades with the US already implementing 1TB/sec technology why dont we bypass this intermediate fix and implement better technology ( seeing as we havent started to spend the $45Billion. Using what is already old technology seems a futile upgrade as it's going to take 8 years to fully implement.
regards Mark
Simon :
29 Mar 2010 7:05:12pm
Mr Conroy never seems to actually answer any of the arguments put before him, he instead just states the same things over and over again.
The only reason his tests showed any sign of success is because the test criteria was written after the testing began. I don't know where he got his ideas about software testing but in the real world a test plan is written before testing begins not after.
Mick J :
29 Mar 2010 8:51:14pm
After reading these comments there doesn't appear to be anyone supporting this policy. Surely this is political suicide.
Liam Pomfret :
29 Mar 2010 11:01:42pm
Sadly, we're not a very good indicator here. Most people who actually use the internet in a more than casual basis (ie. people involved enough with the internet to conduct discussions of this nature online) would be opposed to this plan, because we have a bit better understanding of how these things actually will play out. We're not representative of the overall Australian population however (we're biased to certain demographics, etc). Non-users of the internet are either for it or ambivalent, for the most part. Casual users aren't anywhere near as likely to oppose it as we are either. We're effectively a minority of the population, and Conroy and Labor are more than willing to sacrifice our votes (which, demographically speaking, probably weren't going to them anyway) in order to energise their base, and perhaps steal some of the social conservatives from the Nationals and Liberals.
Liam Pomfret
University of Queensland Sessional Academic in Marketing and Management, Postgraduate Student in Consumer Behaviour on Online Social Networks, and proud member of the Pirate Party of Australia
Richard Ure :
30 Mar 2010 7:14:10pm
I would not be so pessimistic. Book censorship was popular enough in its day, till the community generally became better organised and less swayed by authority figures like B A Santamaria. Now some of these banned "texts" are the subject of HSC study.
Mat :
29 Mar 2010 9:25:07pm
How sad it is, that along with most else that made this country something, journalism is dead.
Very poor work Mr Barclay.
Noocat :
03 Mar 2010 7:58:53pm
Internet filtering is the most ridiculous idea. Let's see:
1) Child pornography does not appear on websites. It is shared through "underground" methods, like peer to peer networks. The government's proposals only target websites, so it won't achieve its stated aims, which makes the whole thing a waste of taxpayers money.
2) A system will be put in place which could be open to abuse by this and any futrue governments. A secret blacklist will be operated and nobody will know what the government is censoring. It will be VERY tempting for governments to try to retain power by controlling the type of information available to people, and therefore puts Australia on the same slippery slope that totalitarian countries like China and Iran have gone down.
3) As the blacklist grows, Internet speeds will slow down. The government ran a trial of internet speeds and although they found less that 10% decline on average (which the call negligible), tests occurred within an extremely narrow set of parameters, which basically guaranteed them the result they WANTED. Australia already has amongs the slowest Internet speeds in the developed world, and it won't be long before this begins to put a drag on our economy.
4) Internet service providers will need to increase prices for customers due to the added cost of managing the filter. Already Australia is near the top of the list for the most expensive prices for monthly Internet subscriptions in the developed world - the government's filter will put us even further behind.
5) We are a laughing stock all around the world. Internet filtering on a scale that the government is proposing has so far only occurred in countries like China and Iran. It has no place in a democracy like Australia, where free speech is supposedly valued and encouraged. In recent months, media around the world have condemned Australia's move toward comprehensive Internet censorship. It's an embarrassment and may have futre economic implications for this country.
6) The government refers to Refused Classification material and has proposed that, at least for now, the filter will focus on anything deemed to fall in this categore. They say this includes child pornography and bestiality, and this is true, but what they don't say is that Refused Classification can also include political and social content that the government decides is not in Australia's interest, such as information about abortion, euthanasia, or any other possibilities.
So the filter won't achieve what the government says it's for. It can be circumvented pretty easily. It will cost millions of taxpayers money. It will put a drag on Australia's digital economy, and therefore our future prosperity. And it sets a potentially dangerous precedent for impinging on freedom of speech.
So why exactly is the government so hell-bent on implementing internet censorship
Moderator: Please keep posts to a reasonable length - under 200 words.
Dissonance Minimalist :
29 Mar 2010 4:31:08pm
What did the TRIAL tell us about number of CHILDREN blocked from accidently / intentionally accessing a BLACKLISTED site ?
bop :
03 Mar 2010 8:27:09pm
I seriously suggest to Conroy that he stop and have a think and listen to all Australians- from the pensioners that are going to have to find an extra $10 a week to get on the knitting groups- to big business that remote monitors their industrial sites and uses VOIP and video conferencing because plane travel is now both too time consuming and expensive
when BHP says their dividend is down $10 dollars a share as well- thanks to Labour and Conroy....
His chances of landing a cushy directorship on his rapid government departure.....
look decidedly shakey....
maybe he could find a job as a pig shoveller at Paul's brothers place...
03 Mar 2010 9:00:55pm
Before deciding on internet censorship, it is necessary to consider four questions, and for a logical decision to be made to do so, the answer to all four must be "yes".
1. Should we censor the internet? This is the question about which there has been most discussion, and about which there is least agreement. Opinions vary from the "extreme civil libertarians" who think that communication carriage services should not be censored, to those of an authoritarian turn of mind who believe that it is the government's role to control what information citizens can receive regardless of the means used to do so, and that the this should be self-evident to any "right thinking person". It is unlikely that either extreme will budge. Answer - no agreement.
2. "Is it possible to effectively censor the internet?" This question can probably be answered in the negative, simply because of the numbers involved, and the fact that the internet is inherently dynamic in nature. The amount of information is simply too large and changes too rapidly to classify in any meaningful way. In my view it is currently impossible to censor the internet, and probably always will be. So the answer to this question has to be negative, but with a slight possibility of argument. Worth noting that none of the most authoritarian regimes in the world have been very successful at doing this despite their best efforts. To try and make it work, they rely on either draconian penalties for getting caught bypassing censorship (China, Iran, Saudi Arabia) or simply restrict internet access to trusted individuals (N.Korea, Myanmar).
3. "Will the proposed government plan work?" Given that it is proposed to censor only the worldwide web, the answer has to be no. Given that the web, with over a trillion URLs, increasing at a billion a day is planned to be censored by a blacklist of 10,000 or less, the answer is no. Given that the filter will not work with any high traffic IP, the answer is no. Given that the filter is trivial to bypass using a wide variety of methods, the answer is no. The answer to this question then, is a resounding NO!
4. "Do the drawbacks of the filter outweigh the benefits?" The major drawbacks are the blackening of Australia's good name, decreased reliability of the internet, increased costs, the certainty that secret censorship will be used for political purposes, and the certainty that URLs will be added to the blacklist in error. Since the filter will not work anyway, again the answer has to be a resounding NO!
So the four questions, all requiring a yes answer have two resounding NOs, one slightly shaky no, and one "no conclusion". Looks to me like a clearcut case for scrapping the whole idea!
Mike Dodge :
03 Mar 2010 9:37:20pm
Senator Conroy,
If the Internet censorship scheme is supposed to "protect children", then why has the noted child advocacy group Save The Children spoken out against it?
Jeff :
03 Mar 2010 11:01:45pm
How can the minister justify inflicting such extremely conservative censorship onto the internet. He maintains that his RC is the "worst of the worst" but in fact includes a range of publicly accepted material including but certainly not limited to R18+ games, all forms of sexual fetishes, euthanasia material.
The minister retorts that the onus is on us to have the law changed if we wish to view these things but what chance do we have to change such things when the politicians seem to be at the mercy of the socially conservative lobby groups. We have been fighting for years just trying to get R18+ games as just one example.
The only answer is to not have this government controlled filter which will only be tightened as politicians weaken to demands from socially conservative lobby groups.
Jason Bennett :
03 Mar 2010 11:17:36pm
Senator Conroy, when confronted with the failures of a scheme like internet filtering you hit back with 'this was never intended to be a silver bullet.' How ineffective and damaging does the filter need to be before you decide that it isn't worth the money wasted on such an idea or the anger of your constituents.
K Payne :
04 Mar 2010 2:11:00am
The Minister has often cited the fact that "RC Material" is not available at movie theatres, newsagents and libraries etc., thus (speciously) implying the internet should be treated just like any other media outlet.
Does the fact that children do not have the right to unrestricted and unsupervised access to movie theatres, newsagents and libraries escape his powers of observation ?
When did children gain the right to unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet ?
Educator :
26 Mar 2010 11:13:26am
They did the moment parents refused to take responsibility for their kids!! Our government is targeting this dumb irresponsible parents as cheap votes with populous policy that has not been thought through.
K Payne :
04 Mar 2010 2:28:25am
Why was such a feeble test, costing less than $100k, performed on the proposed censorship plan ?
There are millions of business and business related data transactions performed every day that depend on the internet. Nearly every Australian business depends on the internet for the communication of data banking. logistics, enterprise - wide software, even lowly vending machines transmit their sales and stock levels back to warehouses.
The impact of any delays will be cumulative across the entire network - why was the impact of the censorship software not tested for its impact on Australian businesses and the thousands of time-critical business networks which currently utilise the internet ?
The internet is far more than just people looking up web pages. Thousands of censorware boxes across Australia's entire internet infrastructure will introduce thousands of unique points of failure and delays.
By comparison, the Minister has spent tens of millions of dollars on consultants for the NBN project.
Will the Minister offer compensation to business who will suffer losses from the censorship plan due to delays and failures ? Will the Minister compensate businesses that will have to change their IT infrastructure due to the censorship plan ?
Felix Gerand :
04 Mar 2010 8:49:47am
Why is the internet being treated differently to other media by the ALP?
All other media has a list of what is censored displayed on the Classifications Board web site for all to see, along with the reason for its classification.
Why are they making this internet black-list secretive?
What do they have to hide?
If the only reason is that it will provide a shopping list for paedophiles, then what use is the filter itself - isn't it supposed to block access?
Aaron Williams :
04 Mar 2010 10:52:11am
A series of questions for Mr Conroy:
How does blocking RC material (such as detailed discussions of euthenasia, drug harm minimisation, consenting adults tying eachother up and spanking) make the internet a safer place?
Why not limit the focus of the filter to illegal material? Or even just child sexual abuse materials?
Why not empower and fund the federal police to track down and take down those who produce and illegal material?
If I have knowledge of a crime and cover it up, I become an accessory, how is this different to what you propose?
A German activist simply sent e-mails to webhosts, who once made aware, removed the child sexual abuse material. Surely this is more proactive than simply blocking the page. How did he get a list of where the child porn material was? He used reverse engineered lists from filters...Mr Conroy, how do you justify the "head in the sand" approach of this filter, knowing that it does nothing to reduce the production of this material and can provide paedophiles with a shopping list of websites?
OdetteStevens :
04 Mar 2010 11:28:38am
I have been using the internet for over twelve years now, not once have I ever seen child porn, it is already censored by our search engines.
As a mother I believe teaching a child how to use an instrument , whether the internet, a sharp knife or crossing a busy street. It is not the governments job to act as the parent of every adult in Australia.
The proposed mandatory internet filter will slow our internet further, and add costs to every Australian household that uses the internet.
What right do you have to ignore our basic right of being let be?
I am scared of this governments stance on addressing all people must be evil we had better hide.
You are not protecting our children you are deliberately misrepresenting anyone who disagrees with your unresearched, nanny views .I despise what you are attempting to do to our country. australia will no longer be perceived as being a free country . If I didnt have family here i would run as fast as I could to a country that does respect the view of information is free to all that seek it. i am an adult and I totally oppose your mandatory censorship.Your bigotted views make me ashamed to be called Australian .I fear for this country , any government that censors its citizens is corrupt.
Dannie McCulloch :
04 Mar 2010 1:34:21pm
All it takes for the average Australian to see what a disgusting Farce LABORS CENSORSHIP proposal is to read this excellent Online Opinion article by Arved von Brasch, a software engineer in Canberra.
"The consequences of filtering"
If the filter proposal passes, Australia would be the first and only Western democracy to introduce such broad and far reaching censorship on the Internet. Our actions thus far have already given comfort to more authoritarian regimes. Our filter model will end up justifying limiting freedom of speech among the most despicable governments. It would blacken our reputation, weaken trade, discourage discerning would be migrants and constrain our moral authority. Respected international human rights organisations are already expressing concern about Australia over this proposal.
The unavoidable conclusion is that the government's Internet filter proposal will be no more than an expensive waste of resources, delivering no benefits and having little or no value to show for it. It will magnify the social problems it claims to be attempting to solve, and destroy Australia's reputation into the bargain. It is well past time this idea was killed off once and for all.
Matthew Dunn :
04 Mar 2010 1:48:48pm
The filter is nothing but a political tool to make 'working families' believe their government is doing something to stop the online muck. They are yet to explain how the filter will work when even the mildest, technological savvy 16yo could by-pass the filter in seconds.
The filter will drive pedophiles further underground, using greater measures to hide their identity. Not only will the filter not work, it will make the work of the federal police harder when it comes to tracking down offenders.
NotSoAnonymousDave :
04 Mar 2010 1:50:08pm
Conroy -
1. What is the stated goal mandatory Internet censorship?
2. Will your proposed Mandatory Internet Censorship scheme deliver on its stated goal?
3. You have stated that many times that the scheme is "Not a silver bullet". How effective will it be considering that the blacklist is limited to 10000 urls before performance issues appear. Also take into account that the internet is over a trillion urls and growing at a billion urls a day.
Also take into account, that your censorship scheme is easily bypassed using a proxy or virtual private network.
4. Why is material that is legal to own and view being blocked? After all Illegal material is only a small subset of Refused classification. In your answer, please don't use the phrase "The worst of the worst". When the blacklist was previously leaked, there was very little of Illegal material. The leaked blacklist contained mainly legal adult oriented material, a boarding kennel, a tour operator, a tuck shop, and astrologer, a dentist, and anti abortion site, and something that was classified as PG by the classification board (ie the Henson pictures).
5. If you want to align the internet with other forms of media such as movies and television, why is the Internet censorship blacklist secret, when you can see classification board decisions on other media?
6. If the material is ILLEGAL (as opposed to Refused Classification), why not get it taken down by the hosters, instead of covering it up? After all, banks can get phishing sites taken down within hours. Yet it takes weeks to be classified by ACMA and the Classification board.
David Parkes :
04 Mar 2010 2:47:05pm
Is Mr Conroy in support of child pornography? I am beginning to wonder, considering this filter is going to make people distributing it around the internet use much more secure methods to transmit it, like SSL VPN. This filter actually assists these people to avoid detection and arrest. The AFP have actually stated that this will make their job much more difficult, if not impossible. So again, my question, is Mr Conroy in favour of his plan to protect paedophiles and aid them to go about their behaviour undetected? Is he in support of sexual predators roaming the streets and in our communities, rather than being caught and put behind bars?
T Nielsen :
04 Mar 2010 3:16:54pm
Congratulations on ABC talking about this subject again. The last time it was addressed, it gave far too much airplay to Clive Hamilton's twisted "somebody think of the children" tripe and not enough to the actual issue at hand.
Please be sure to ask Minister Conroy why his "evidence based" approach tested his filter on such a small sample of internet users, and at far below his precious NBN's data speeds, and why he felt the need to brief the Australian Christian Lobby about the results of his testing before releasing the report to the public.
Also, I've be very interested to learn why the Minister intends to spend so much of the taxpayer's money on implementing a filter that most school-children already know how to bypass.
I very much look forward to hearing the Minister being exposed as the spin-spouting, fraudulent puppet of fanatical lobby groups that he is.
Ruggantino :
04 Mar 2010 3:20:48pm
Hohummm... Comments rehashing the Whingepool posters again...
It has been stated that the blacklist is a miniscule part of the internet, yet also claimed that it represents an extremely conservative censorship of all Australian net users?
Cannot have it both ways. Either it is a conservative censorship, and has a huge list of URLs and sites blocked, or it is miniscule and irrelevant.
Make a choice.
BTW: If you consider blocking RC materials to be a conservative practice then you are clearly have issues and an agenda that has little to do with filtering...
Someone else complains about not being let be..? There are thousands of laws in Australia that decide what you can and cannot do, why are you not complaining about those? Just woken up to the smell of coffee and discovered that Australia also has governments and laws, laws all passed by present and past politicians and affect what you can and cannot do every day.
T Nielsen :
09 Mar 2010 7:52:43am
"It has been stated that the blacklist is a miniscule part of the internet, yet also claimed that it represents an extremely conservative censorship of all Australian net users? Cannot have it both ways.
It's an unfortunate fact that while the filter is small enough in scope to have zero effect on preventing access to millions of pages containing material unsuitable for children, it's still large enough in scope to represent a significant cost to the taxpayer & user, and a significant bottleneck in internet traffic.
Well-Educated :
11 Mar 2010 1:11:28pm
The blacklist is currently only about 1,000 URLs, however that is not the point.
The point that you are missing here is that the _classification_ categories of content (RC) cover many tens of millions of URLs.
So whilst right now it may be 1,000 - there is every chance the list could run into the millions within a few years. And that's just with the current size of the internet being in the trillions of URLs - the internet is expanding in size exponentially.
The government's recent Enex report clearly states the filters will are not proven to work if the black-list exceeds 10,000 URLs.
This policy has 'Epic Fail' written all over it.
AkiraDoe :
04 Mar 2010 4:55:47pm
So Senator Conroy has pulled out of the show, what a surprise.
The fact that he'd too afraid to have a legitimate discussion of the very real issues and ramification of this policy with educated professionals in the field rather than yes men speaks louder than words. No wonder he wants a secret censorship mechanism installed!
Well, on the off chance that he will still be appearing and isn't an absolute coward, if given the chance I would ask Senator Conroy this,
1.) Why, when the DBCDE were designing the testing scenarios for the Enex report did they not include any tests to push the equipment to it's failure point?
If I was about to put "Blackbox" equipment into the infrastructure where I work, let alone on a National level, I'd want to know at what point is it going to fail so I can ensure the load on the box does not reach that point, or there is at least enough equipment to share the load.
Even if you think it's the ISPs responsibility to do this upon implementation (you know, the same implementation the ALP expect ISPs to fund meaning higher internet access fees for all) continuing on not knowing this and other more important technical information is grossly irresponsible. What if the same equipment that was able to filter the internet to the single laptop Bigpond tested, 100% accurately and in less time than it take to blink fails once 50 computers are connected, or 100, or even 1000? Are you expecting ISPs to have server farms of filtering equipment?
So much money spent on the report, yet there are more unanswered questions than before...
2.) Since you repeatedly quote more from the Bigpond report, why do you give more weight to their findings from testing which involved a single laptop in an enclosed testing environment rather than the commissioned report paid for by the tax payers conducted by Enex Testlabs?
Moderator: The Australia Talks discussion on internet filtering with Senator Conroy has been rescheduled to March 29th.
Ken :
04 Mar 2010 5:18:39pm
What's next? Will it be mandated that all scissors be plastic-coated 'safety' scissors in the name of protecting the children?
I am a responsible adult who does not need the government or anybody else to oversee or dictate which web sites I may choose to visit.
Alexander Lucas :
04 Mar 2010 5:31:45pm
Technologically and fiscally unfeasible, and easy to bypass.
Waste of money, gives false sense of security to parents and only gives more gunfire for the criminals/pedo's to continue their activities underground (P2P, IRC, VPN) etc etc.
I wonder if Senator Conroy is going to censor his name being spoken about AT THE MARCH 6 protests....
Brendan :
09 Mar 2010 12:23:39am
How far are you willing to push your censorship policies Mr Conroy?
You and your kin considered us fallacious for comparing your policy to China's great firewall, however, you cited them directly when requesting that a foreign company, Google (through YouTube), censor their results in our country (APCMag.com).
How can you be trusted whatsoever to represent Australian values when you so surely push to implement the will of other nations in Australia?
Richard Brown :
09 Mar 2010 11:04:47pm
Quite simply - Conroy wants to eliminate content on the Internet of a particular nature. There are clear benefits in doing so (such as restricting information on how to make a bomb, for example).
This is great Conroy, though how do you best approach this? You are proposing to perform a man-in-the-middle attack in effect on all SSL connections. How do I know my Internet Banking is secure? The 20 year old trainee at Bigpond whom has access to this filter system, now has access to a system that can decypher my "so called" secure bank connection.
Have you explained this to the masses Conroy? Perhaps add in your spiel about protecting our children that this system as a side-effect makes ALL our SSL based connections - including online banking - decipherable by our ISP and their employees.
Good one Conroy - it's a shame our Minister for Communications grew up in the age of the type writer, rather than the computer. Why did I vote labor again?
Walab :
21 Mar 2010 2:08:08pm
The total disregard and disinterest in what the majority of the public want by Conroy and Rudd on the issue of mandatory filtering is breathtaking.
Talk about a born to rule attitude.
The political right wings of both CURRENT major parties need to realise that Australia is a majority centre-left electorate.
ENFORCED censorship of the internet is going to result in a backlash at the polling booth, as well as a massive waste of taxpayer's (our)
It's time for the wannabe dictators
who deign to tell us what we can and cannot read watch and play to get back into their boxes.
Australia is a DEMOCRACY!
They are ELECTED to represent the MAJORITY interest of the PEOPLE,
not their own interests or the interests of private businesses CALLING themselves The Australian Christian Lobby Pty Ltd,
or their political parties be they Labor or Liberal(sic).
Collins :
23 Mar 2010 2:24:04pm
Tuesday 29th March 2010?
is it Tuesday 30th March 2010, or Monday 29th March 2010?
Moderator: The Australia Talks discussion on internet filtering will be broadcast on Monday 29th March 2010.
Michael :
26 Mar 2010 10:39:57am
Given that it is already clearly demonstrable that the filter you propose is easily bypassed, and that 99% of the content you wish to block is in fact not even addressed by this filter (it's P2P traffic, not web traffic) - why should the Australian taxpayer be forking out $33M a year ($44M in the first year) to support a project that does nothing to meet its stated aims?
Do you think that this resources would be better directed towards detecting and punishing the CREATORS of this content? There would be no kiddie-porn on the internet, if nobody was actually creating kiddie-porn!
When will you openly discuss the fact that your broad "RC" classified material contains a great deal of LEGAL content? Why do you always avoid this fact when questioned about it?
What is illegal about online poker sites (which are on the list)? Why was "dentaldistinction.com.au" on the list, particularly when it is nothing more than a legitimate AUSTRALIAN business website, and you stated on Channel 10's 7PM Project on 24th March 2010 that the filter is only for overseas sites that we cannot control from Australia?
Nick Wallis :
26 Mar 2010 10:54:28am
This is such inappropriate legislation in a democratic country.
Essentially, I feel all the arguments FOR this are flawed (usually revolving around protecting the children or stopping criminals from accessing illegal content).
In ALL places where a child can access the internet, an adult would be monitoring (home, library, school), and can apply their own private-network filter. Which there are many, and allow the control to be in the hands of any responsible adult Australian.
Criminals will still be more than capable of getting around this, and rather than STOPPING criminal content, this will most likely just make them harder to find and create black-trades and e-exchanges.
This is nothing but a vote-grabber, aimed at the conservative vote, who wants to defend everyone against everything, thinking that this will somehow stop all bad in the world from ever happening.
I have already contacted my local federal MP (Catherine King - Ballarat) about this, and was VERY disappointed with the response, as it showed a complete disregard for democratic process. I was told things like, "In Catherine's opinion.." and "Labor's policy concerning.." blah, blah, blah. I am NOT interested in a parties policy, not interested in Catherine's opinion, I am interested in being properly represented, having something adequately and transparently debated and having decisions made clearly as an outcome of this process.
AUSTRALIA!! What the hell?! Where's my DEMOCRACY?!?!?!?!
NO INTERNET CENSORSHIP. We're not stupid, you know!
Educator :
26 Mar 2010 11:11:48am
The main issue is not forced censorship. It is however, security and if we will keep up with the rest of the global economy. Having the censorship argument plays into the hands of their agenda. I want to know the technical detail and the chances of such a system slowing us down and impacting our place on the world stage. We are already behind the 8 ball with our lack of access to high speed internet.
This is a cheap grab for votes from dumb parents who don't want to take responsibility for what their kids do. How about we also have kid police following every child to make sure they don't do the "wrong" thing? Or we could spend tax payers money on education programs for parents and laws that forced parents to be responsible.
I have had enough of this Governments populous vote grabbing strategy that is destroying our society. They have destroyed the education system with their Myschool and pushing of NAPLAN - now they play to also destroy our main connection to the global economy... Nice work guys!!
I am a Christian and I am against a compulsory filter... It is unfair to label this policy as a "Christian" agenda. Lobby groups declaring their values as Christian do not speak for all who subscribe to Christianity. Unfortunately, folk in these lobby groups are misinformed and don't think through the whole issue. There are much better ways of protecting our children.... Parenting programs are a lot more successful than some filter program. If you chose to have kids - take responsibility for them!! And please can we have an elected Government who doesn't take the easy popular route to all policy?
Kathryn :
26 Mar 2010 11:43:59am
The proposal may seem great in rhetoric - blocking out the nasties on the web to protect children. But the reality is that it puts in place a censorware network, controlled exclusively by the Government, that is nothing short of a tool of tyranny.
Senator, why would you support establishing a tool of tyranny that future government could use to undermine and potentially destroy our freedom and democracy? Regardless of how good your intentions are, why would you develop such a weapon that others could easily misuse?
feathers :
26 Mar 2010 12:00:54pm
It takes about 10 minutes to re-route a home system so that it will avoid this block. Why are you wasting our time and money?
Ambrose :
27 Mar 2010 10:43:29am
The best thing you could possibly do on this show is to keep Conroy on topic, and not let him get away with cheap "WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!" rhetoric which distracts from the real issue.
For instance, on Q&A, they asked him about the Queensland dentist whose website ended up on the blacklist. Conroy just said excitedly "The RUSSIAN MOB had hacked the guy's website and it was full of illegal porn!!!". Maybe that's so, but that's not the issue. The issue is, it's a secret blacklist, and a blameless private citizen got on that list, with all kinds of potential legal, social or professional consequences for him. What recourse does he have? Under the proposed regime, what would happen to him? Who does he appeal to to get off the list? Would he even be allowed to know what he's accused of, or would that be an offence too?
Conroy will also talk about child porn. It's such an emotive issue, the other panellists or the interviewer are forced every time to say something like "well of course nobody's in favour of child porn". How about you skip that bit altogether and actually challenge him? Some kinds of pornography are already illegal. Internet censorship doesn't make it more illegal. What it does do is make it the government's job, rather than the courts or the community's, to decide on what's obscene. And to decide that in secret and in advance, with no room for appeal. That's not the way democracies are supposed to work.
The other line Conroy will pursue is to say that this kind of material is banned from publication in this country, and from entering the country through customs, so why shouldn't it be banned on the internet? It's a classic example of begging the question -- it assumes as a given that when a private citizen looks at material on a website, that's the same as physical material being brought into the country. Wouldn't it be just as logical to say that's the equivalent of travelling outside Australia to look at content overseas? Perhaps Conroy would like to ban me from travelling outside Australia too, in case I come across a book on euthanasia?
That concept of the internet as a sea of filth, pounding on the shore of Australia trying to flood in, is completely flawed. Internet content doesn't intrude into my computer in a flood which needs stemming. I look at the things I want to look at. I read the things I want to read.
[You might also ask Conroy why he uses undignified Hollywood-action-movie phrases like "THE RUSSIAN MOB" if you have time. He's not in a movie, he's our elected representative. Ask him if he'd mind behaving like one.]
Chris :
27 Mar 2010 9:49:50pm
Well lets get ready for another interview full of Conroys lies, inacuracies, proporganda and technologically illiterate babble (1/70th the blink of an eye...).
I like the fact that Labor has basically commited political suicide, and dictator Rudd, has yet again gone of on a tangent completely ingorning the ISP's, Google, Microsoft and countless other IT firms on the issue.
Enjoy your one short time in office Mr Rudd, i can tell you now, angering technologically literate people will be your undoing.
James V :
28 Mar 2010 1:10:44am
My questions for the minister are these:
1, Out of all the links in the blacklist there are roughly 300 that are supposed to be child porn, how many of those are still live and if they are why have they not been shutdown and the operators arrested as is the law of most country's.
2, RC material is not illegal to own or view in Australia only to distribute and sell, so it is not illegal, how is something that maybe RC in Aus but would not be in the hosting country make it illegal when it is legal to distribute said material in that country.
3, If this government is so keen on helping family's keep the Internet clean, then why did they cancel the previous system of free filter software and just include education with it, cost would be millions less and no one against it.
4, how effective is this going to be when it wont deal with high traffic sites, SSL security, VPN's and other products such as TOR and peer to peer which is how most illegal things are transfered, or with sites such as facebook, MSN messenger twitter and other social networking sites where most child grooming take place. And lets not forget e-mail.
Ronald Conron aka lazerzap :
28 Mar 2010 3:35:08pm
Question for Senator Conroy. I saw recently that the Sydney Morning Herald quoted that you had only received 147 submissions about your proposed internet filter. I was wondering if that figure included email submissions. Because I attempted to email you regarding the proposed filter. Your office deleted my email without reading it. I suggest that you have treated many Australian citizens submissions via email in the same way. So that leads me to ask when will the Communications Minister start to read and reply to emails that are addressed to him? Final Question: Because you are a "minister of the crown", should we email the Governor General to get this change made?
Nick :
28 Mar 2010 9:16:37pm
Given just some of the recent vaticanisms. if we, as a nation, were serious about protecting our children, would we not censor / control / ban the church, rather than the internet?
Many years ago, I commented that I would much rather leave my children with an unsupervised internet connection than an unsupervised christian...
Jeanette :
29 Mar 2010 12:59:58am
Mr Conroy,
The facts here are simple and your inability to grasp them has managed to astound me. How many times must these simple truths be repeated to you?
1. The study that YOU conducted in Tasmania has shown that your filter will not only fail to achieve it's objectives but will be unable to cope with the volume of internet traffic.
2. You are creating something that has immense potential for abuse by those in authority. When the day comes (and be assured, it will come)that those in power use YOUR filter to block legitimate political speech, educational materials for gay or lesbian teenagers and support groups for child abuse survivors, how will you feel? Knowing that it was your contribution that led to such an appalling erosion of the adverage Australian's ability to access such information?
3. We, the tax-payer, are going to be forking out an unbelieveable amount of money to fund this project that will hamper the NBN (which we are already paying billions of dollars for). And is this start-up amount only going to be a drop in the bucket? Is the tax-payer then going to have to pay for maintenance, upgrades etc in future?
4. Every few months there are stories on the front pages of the papers describing the death of children from neglect and violence because they were left in the care of abusive parents because state child protection agencies that are over-burdened and under-funded were unable to find the resources to do a home visit or locate alternative care. If you want to protect Australian children wouldn't this be the best place to start spending that money (regardless of jurisdiction), rather than on an ineffective filter? And if not then why can't the money be given to police, support groups or victims shelters where it could do some real good?
And last but not least, sir, why you continuing to push the clean feed agenda when there is such vehement opposition from so many diverse parties? Do you really believe that you know better?
Kathryn :
29 Mar 2010 10:10:45am
Just in time for your program: US Government says 'don't do that'
There are many reasons for opposing the filter, from the technical to the ethical. Mine are related to protecting our democracy and freedom, as I'm sure are the US reasons. How can you allow such a tool of tyranny to be implemented, for future Government(s) to misuse?
Does Senator Conroy understand that we don't care how many assurance he gives that 'they wouldn't do that', the problem is establishing the system that could allow it to be done so easily?
Nicolas :
29 Mar 2010 5:36:39pm
Communist State here we come. What will stop the government from widing the range of content to filter?
Australia already has one of the slowest internet connections in the world. Why are we considering to further slow the internet.
I can't believe the right wing christian group are pushing this crap.
Down with Labors and its communist view.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 1:33:31am
I remember when speed cameras were introduced in New South Wales. Part of the legislation prevented them from installing fixed speed cameras; it was one of the main limiting factors to prevent abuse of the technology.
So, I guess that means that when I get pinged by a fixed speed camera I don't have to pay the fine, 'cause it wasn't really there. After all, the government said they wouldn't do it, and I trust them.
Rodyland :
29 Mar 2010 10:45:26am
Could someone please ask the minister for mis-communication the following:
One of the frequently stated assumptions of the proposed filter is that there is child pornography available on the web, and that is what the filter is going to block. In fact, last week in an interview the minister stated that he was aware of 355 (if memory serves) web sites that host child pornography.
So could the minister please tell us, in what country of the world is it legal to host child pornography?
Wouldn't we be better off redirecting the resources assigned to the filter to law enforcement (foreign and local) to shut down the problem at the source?
William :
29 Mar 2010 9:42:59pm
the thing about child porn is that people looking at it on the net are possibly the lowest part of the problem. i mean sure enough if you find the sites shut them down but its the CREATION OF the child porn that is the true harm and not being able to find it doesnt discourage the sick f**ks from having sex with the children in the first place and taking photos of it and it doesnt prevent them talking about it over msn or irc and sharing photos that way.
why waste money trying to hide the fact from people that could be used hunting them down and killing the servers. so thats all the evidance you need to tell that hes just trying to get rid of porn all together because he is a fanatical fruit and nut bar.
Ben Roberts :
29 Mar 2010 10:52:20am
Would you send a child out on to a busy street alone expecting that there could be no danger because someone's hired police?
If so you are infact a moron.
John :
29 Mar 2010 2:19:12pm
You dont go sending your Kids out on any street with out teaching them some rules, Look both ways, Dont go running across when the little red man is Glowing,
Same with the internet you should not let your kids on with out Teaching them how to be safe
sorry but this Filter is not going to work. it is Manual changed and updated, which means some one needs to check every site that going to be on it, how Many web sites/ web pages are created every day??
CP is more likely to be sent through EMAIL P2P Torrents and FTP this filter will NOT check any of those sites or Stop any of that Traffic,
If you think for a Second that this will Protect your Kids from accessing illicit content no matter what it is then YOU SIR are Very misinformed.
This Government canceled the Free Filters that could be downloaded and installed on each individual computer even those could be bypassed,
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Stephanie :
29 Mar 2010 3:41:43pm
This has been said enough times, but I am going to say it again.
Responsibility of parents are being taken off of them and given to the government. Parents may have alcohol in their homes, but it is THEIR responsibility to make sure their children do not drink it. The same rule applies here. I think it is disgusting that this is even being considered, and the opinions of all Australian adults are being ignored and all responsibility is given to one Minister.
How long has Australian been a dictatorship? because this is just the start of many things to come unless the government decides to take over. It blows my mind that there isn't even going to be a vote on this matter, and all decisions are being left to one uneducated minister.
Stephen Conroy you need to reconsider, although I know you wont take the general public opinion into consideration, as shown by many occasions.
Carol :
29 Mar 2010 6:23:34pm
I am tired of hearing all about children, I don't want ANYONE in the community where I live looking at violent porn rape child porn OR beastiality which is just as repulsive vile and disgusting to me.
Gideon :
30 Mar 2010 12:15:19pm
Either way, this filter won't prevent that.
Think-About-It :
31 Mar 2010 11:51:23am
Carol, please listen to what is being said here. I think we can agree that the vast majority of people don't want people in our community to look at "violent porn rape child porn".
The problem is, the very-small minority of dirty people in your/our community who want to access this information will still be able to Dozens of easy to discover methods already exist to circumvent the filter, and most of the methods to access such information isn't being placed under restriction.
Just as importantly, this filter can *and likely will* be used to stop the flow of information on euthanasia, anti-abortion and anything else the government deem inappropriate, such like computer games.
Even commercial websites such as internet gambling sites are going to be banned. None of this is illegal - only the extreme cases are (such as child-porn).
If the internet was around earlier last century, topics such as the right of women to vote (and receive equal pay), aboriginal voting rights, gay and lesbian rights would have all be eligible candidates for the filter. Just because something is "refused" by the government of today doesn't mean that all discussion and information on the topic should be banned to all Australians.
Alice :
04 Apr 2010 5:04:27am
Carol, think about what you are saying.
If someone in your street is looking at it, then they have searched for it and found it intentionally.
That being the case, are you saying you'd feel safer just because a web filter is blocking his favourite site?
Are you saying that a web filter will somehow make your street/suburb/city safer? If you believe that, then I'm truly lost for words.
The only answer is to teach kids not to talk to strangers, not to trust anyone in chat rooms they don't already know.. that sort of thing. Simple, practical "life lessons".
Remember, predators prey on the ignorant and unwary. Don't be ignorant, don't let your child, if you have one, be ignorant. Teach them well and they will be safe from abusive people and relationships. That is the only "filter" that will work.
Isaac :
29 Mar 2010 7:32:20pm
No, would you send a child into a busy street alone, if the government told you it is completely safe to do so?
This filter will do nothing to "protect children" and has been proven time, time, time, time and again!
Boxxy :
29 Mar 2010 2:08:21pm
Conroy does not tell the Australian people that there is NO child porn on the Internet! The 'child porn' he refers to is on the WEB where multiple file sharing occurs through peer to peer networks. He is purely counting on the the 'average' Australian not understanding how the technology operates.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 1:29:00am
Unfortunately, pedophiles are NOT average Australians, and they know exactly where to look to get what they want. If this magic filter was going to block P2P, it wouldn't be such a joke. As it is, the only people who will be blocked are those average Australians who won't even know why they can no longer find any information on euthanasia... Or anything else that the government doesn't like us to know about...
Simon :
30 Mar 2010 9:59:47am
I think you mean the other way around mate. There is no 'cp' on the web (http), but on the internet via p2p
Trevor :
04 Apr 2010 4:54:21am
You have it the wrong way around.
The "Web" is what you see when you have "http://....." in your web browser. That's why it's called a "WEB browser".
The "web" is a subset of the Internet. The Internet is made up of Web, P2P, Newsgroups, Gopher, and more or less limitless other types of communication.
The filter just blocks the odd web page. And paedophiles don't live there anyway, it's well known they use other modes like file sharing.
Of course the Internet itself is a subset of a group of things called "people". Web pages don't abuse children, people do. Usually family members, people they know and child traffickers. Less commonly a stranger.
I believe that puts the claim of a web filter protecting children into some sort of perspective.
Dave Kimble :
29 Mar 2010 2:53:28pm
Please ask Senator Conroy if the following will work and if it is legal :
Instead of typing the URL of the banned website in your browser's address box, you put "https://vtunnel.com" in there, and when that page is displayed, type the URL of the website in the vtunnel box.
If getting around the filter is that easy (and it is, try it) then the whole thing is completely pointless.
pete :
29 Mar 2010 3:11:03pm
has anyone out their
seen the recent add for windows 7
the part where the mother is ticking boxes if she wants social networking sites up or adult content and that puts a password on it. Can someone explain why a system like that isnt good enough
Pam :
29 Mar 2010 3:16:33pm
A question for Senator Conroy:
In Germany child abuse survivors have formed a group called Mogis to protest a similar internet filter that has been proposed for the EU. They argue that hiding the problem will not solve it, and creates further harm. How does your view that filtering is protective of children stand up to this?
onomatopoeia :
04 Apr 2010 4:45:29am
Very good point.
It's a pity we have to do the work of the interviewer, isn't it?
You will be interested to know that, as of now, Germany has dropped their proposed filter. They're not having it anymore. It's a dead idea.
It's been agreed by all parties there that it will do more harm than good. And yet, in Australia, we are being held hostage by one man.
How can this be happening? Is this democracy?
kwaka :
29 Mar 2010 3:17:01pm
Apart from Ruggantino's comments (appears to be neither for nor against) there is not one post supporting the Senator's filtering proposal.
You can add me as a non-supporter as well. Filtering is NOT the solution Senator!
Empowering our Govt. with this power and having "secret lists" just reeks of covert Govt. agendas. If the amount of opposition being heard from the Australian public and private sectors is falling on deaf ears, maybe it'll be heard when the backlash hits the polling booths later in the year.
29 Mar 2010 3:24:37pm
Would Senator Conroy please explain the exact difference(s) between "illegal" material, and "Refused Classification" material.
Could he then please explain why he is proposing to "block" RC material, instead of just illegal material?
Thank you.
Jarrod Lio :
29 Mar 2010 3:33:10pm
Mr Conroy,
Do you understand what VPN stands for and how it works?
Chris Maloney :
29 Mar 2010 3:35:53pm
Mr. Conroy,
Should you proceed with this foolishness in the face of all reasonable advice to the contrary... then labor loses my vote.
Simple as that.
I have only voted against Labor two or three times (State & Fed)in 40+ years.
Your stupidity and a (possible) failure to split the Telstra monster, would be enough to swing my vote - even though I loathe the thought of an Abbott government.
I was an IT pro for many years and I DO understand the issues. In my opinion, you sir, either present yourself as an over zealous fool, are a fool. Or, perhaps, are being driven by one.
29 Mar 2010 3:37:25pm
Hmmm 44 comments, 43 anti-labor, anti-filter and 1 non-committal comment from Ruggantio....
That's a 0% support for ALP poliy on the ABC website....
That speaks volumes...
Xheis :
29 Mar 2010 4:18:18pm
This will infact be interesting. Conroy will be put under pressure by some well known names, which may just be enough to criple his policy. *Thats good* However moderating the entire internet through a "internet ombudsman" is just stupid. I can see false reasoning behind ISP cencorship but complaints is just RIDICULOUS!!!
You know that as soon as Internet Ombudsman is going to get spamed so fast, they wont bother turning to servers back on.
Stuart Greig :
29 Mar 2010 4:52:10pm
Why censor the list of censored sites ?
If the filter is viable, then we can't get to any of these blacklisted sites anyway so there can be no harm in declaring what your faceless committee has declared 'evil'.
Open government!
Beb :
29 Mar 2010 5:05:45pm
Conroy says that the filter will not filter P2P networks where all the child abuse material is transmitted. He also said that it wont stop kids from viewing R18+ material.
So what exactly is the purpose of the 42 million dollar filter except to give the Government control over other legitimate information? Very suspicious.
Troy :
29 Mar 2010 5:09:25pm
I will wear a tutu in parliment house sporting a sign saying I love Kevin Rudd if Conroy can get through this interview without using the terms 'Silver Bullet' or 'Cant buy it on DVD'
Dylan Teakle :
30 Mar 2010 12:12:17am
Looks like you're going to have to save that dance for some other time Troy ;).
This whole thing is a big joke. There are no people in this country that can change the mind of this Conroy guy (except for maybe the Christianity group). I have many problems with this idea of censoring the Internet to save the children, but what children are actually being saved. Conroy says that it will stop the youngns' from 'accidently' coming across it. However I have never heard any story or witnessed it (as I have grown up with children in my house). You never actually see or hear any news stories about children accidently being exposed to this stuff do you? It is always about Facebook/Online bullying or Tweeter.
On another note, how does anyone actually know if this is going to be passed? Because if Tony Abbott is Tony Abbott, then everything will get denied, and nothing will get done.
I also love it how the only person that actually supported the Filter was some guy that had been blessed by Jesus; if this was even to be a truthful statement or just a hilarious joke.
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 1:01:11am
Looks like you dodged a silver bullet on that one :-) He used the DVD line pretty early in the piece.
Paul Ducklin :
29 Mar 2010 5:11:17pm
Endpoint filtering and content scrutiny, plus informed parental supervision, are by far the most effective ways of protecting children online. Content filtering at the endpoint means that the computing power of every user's PC, not just of an ISP's servers, can be applied to the job of actually performing the content inspection. This, in turn, permits much more careful and accurate scrutiny. It allows the content actually delivered to the endpoint to be assessed, which means it is not easily tricked by anonymising proxies or encrypted tunnels. And it can much more flexibly be adapted as children learn and grow up.
The next most useful approach is voluntary, individually-configurable, subscriber-funded filtering by ISPs. This lets parents choose what to filter, can protect against a wide range of threats, and, like the endpoint solution, provides visibility into what was filtered, and when.
The lack of visibility in the government's mandatory filtering proposal –- parents won't know what was blocked, or why, or when, or even why they should care –- is a good example of how privacy and security can collide to the detriment of both.
Children aren't at any measurable risk from inadvertently stumbling on paedophile material via their web browser.
But they are at risk pretty much whenever they use social networking sites and many other quite legitimate places to hang out on-line.
Mandatory filtering will give nothing but a false sense of security against the clear and present on-line dangers.
Tanya Cumpston :
29 Mar 2010 5:44:18pm
Thing is, Stephen, lately a lot of intelligent, well educated people have said to you "Hang on, mate!".
Also, Google have said "Hang on, mate!", and Yahoo have also said "Hang on, mate!".
But, most significantly of all, the United States Government has said "Hang on, mate!".
At some point, what may at first have seemed like determination becomes universally recognised as hubris.
How else can you explain sticking to a course that is not only deeply unpopular, but undermines U.S. foreign policy. You must be aware that this runs counter to our long standing bipartisan defence policy of never offending the people on whom we are going to rely if our sovereignty is ever at risk.
onomatopoeia :
04 Apr 2010 4:30:35am
What's sadder still is that offending their own citizens comes in on the list a bit beneath that one.
Ryan Courtney :
29 Mar 2010 6:13:47pm
Stephen Conroy needs to let us live the way we want, if parents let their kids view malicious sites then so be it, punish their parenting instead of punishing the country of our web access.
Grow up, mate.
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peterg :
29 Mar 2010 6:14:57pm
To Steven Conroy, did you say on the SBS insight program that there was nothing illegal about going to the links in the ACMA blacklist leaked to WikiLeaks in 2008/2009. Is that not an admission that Refused Classification is not about illegal activities online? if so, why are you prepared to force this expensive and ineffective censorship fitler on the Australian people?
Sean Hawkins :
29 Mar 2010 6:15:16pm
Does Senator Conroy understand the technical issues behind having an ISP filter? Let alone the ethical issues behind a secret black list?
Daniel :
29 Mar 2010 6:15:52pm
Based on the ministers quote of Hilary Clinton's speech that societies recognise freedom of expression has its limitations - is the minister indeed trying to limit free expression? Hearing CONroys voice makes my blood boil.
How DARE this man try to restrict and deny us the freedoms that he has enjoyed himself growing up in the free society that is Australia...
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 1:21:54am
But that was different, because Senator Conroy is so much smarter than we are. When he was growing up, he knew that naughty things were naughty because they just were. Now that he's all growed up, he can help us all by explaining what's naughty and then we'll all be happy. Docile. Compliant. What a lovely world it will be. At least, it will be for Senator Conroy, because now everyone else will know how right he was about all those naughty things.
Luke :
29 Mar 2010 6:23:18pm
The people most capable of circumventing Conroy's filter are the children he thinks he is protecting.
Hacking into secure streams will jeopardize bank security and office VPNs.
You have never shown the harm caused by the material. Just because you don't like the material it doesn't mean it is harmful.
You have left the other RC material, like depictions of normal sex. Tony Comstock's films were RC. They simply depict 2 consenting adults.
Your accusations that anyone against the filter is seeking child abuse material is a false dichotomy.
This money! $120 million dollars just rolls of the tongue when you are spending public money. People have real medical and social needs and you are throwing money away on moralizing.
Why isn't Conroy looking at white list for parents. Why not software that parents can download that restricts the in house computer. I don't want my net rated G.
And, simply, this is a power I do not want my government to have.
Andrew :
29 Mar 2010 6:25:26pm
I've written an essay about this topic and Stephen Conroy should not filter information on the internet.
See Andrew Tech help
RC is a very wide band of content and that's very worrying.
Jeff Waugh :
29 Mar 2010 6:25:27pm
Please ask the Minister if he truly believes that some of the vocal opponents of his policy support the distribution of child pornography.
I am disgusted by this suggestion, which has made before and just made AGAIN on your programme a few moments ago.
Jason :
29 Mar 2010 6:28:23pm
teretic :
29 Mar 2010 6:29:07pm
Why is the blacklist not transparent? if we're being so honest and fair....
and anyway, the urls of miscreants will be more agile than the military, eh?
Jawed :
29 Mar 2010 6:29:24pm
Senator Conroy, you disgust me.
Mike :
29 Mar 2010 6:30:10pm
Whirlpool.net.au is independent from the Government, Why not go have a good read Stephen Conroy!
See what REAL people think of your crap!
Chris Lehmann :
29 Mar 2010 6:30:34pm
If the filter is 100% effective, then what is the problem with making the black list public? Either the filter is 100% effective or it is not.
tony :
29 Mar 2010 6:31:13pm
Get real about transparent democracy. Th ABC is a publicly funded organisation which at the best of times is not transparent. Further information from the cabinet is not revealed so as to to protect the policy process from excessive external influence and vested interests. Where the major problem is the government bureaucracy which covers up its poor performance!
David :
29 Mar 2010 6:31:56pm
Your system is FLAWED Conroy.
Do you know how EASY it is to bypass any government filter?
How do you really think the smart ones share kiddie porn? SSL VPN you noob!
Clinton Pitt :
29 Mar 2010 6:32:04pm
Just a question,
There currently exist a blacklist of sites which ISPs are currently required to block. How many of those 355 child pornography sites are on the current list and already blocked and how will making a 'new' filter make them even more blocked than they currently ?
Perryn Fowler :
29 Mar 2010 6:33:15pm
Senator Conroy,
I find it most offensive that you accuse Colin of misleading people about the accuracy of the filter, when you yourself are the one misleading people.
It may very well be that your filter has been shown to be 100% effective at blocking a known list of URLs in trials, but it has also already been shown that it is ridiculously easy to get a URL added to that list if you are someone with an axe to grind. Prominently an anti-abortion site was added simply by submitting a complaint about it.
Ticked Off :
29 Mar 2010 6:33:27pm
So, the blacklist can't be made public, because that would disclose the information... Didn't Conroy just say that the filter was "100% effective"? That's 100%, Steven; that means all of them, so even if you did publish them, your great wall would stop us seeing them.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 1:10:35am
In Senator Conroy's world, 100% means something different to what it means in the real world, depending on the point he's trying to make... In other words, 100% effective in blocking naughty things. 100% effective in stopping people from thinking naughty things. Just not 100% effective in stopping people from doing naughty things.
What a lovely world he must live in... Shame the rest of us have to live in this one, after he's made our country the laughing stock of the western world. Don't worry, though - Senator Conroy will just stop us from reading any criticisms, anyway, so we'll never know.
Moore :
29 Mar 2010 6:33:27pm
Porn isn't RC content is it? If not how does the filter stop children from accidentally accessing adult content, if so then how come adults can not turn off the filter to access "adult" content.
Marlon :
29 Mar 2010 6:34:27pm
How can Conroy continue this disgrace? His subtle accusation that people who oppose this filter are in favour of this want to see this material is disgusting.
Tim :
29 Mar 2010 6:37:02pm
Pornography isn't as big on the Internet as you might think, according to Don McLagan, CEO of Web analytics firm Compete, who's attending PC Forum in Carlsbad, Calif., this week. Pornography pages grew by 18 percent last year, but pages accessed on the Web overall grew by 36 percent. As a result, the overall share of porn in 2005 declined from 5.5 percent of all pages flipped online to 4.5 percent.
Moore :
29 Mar 2010 6:37:47pm
Just because the material is abhorrent doesn't mean we should ignore free speech argument, or any other argument. I mean should we ban all videos and images because the material is so abhorrent that we must stop all chance of it being viewed?
Orca :
29 Mar 2010 6:38:47pm
Would someone please point out that you can't stumble across ugly things on the internet? (Unlike the local newsagents) You have to actively search for them. If ISP's wanted to provide this as a sign up service that is fair enough. But to compel them to inflict it on all their customers.
What if there was a story critical of Conroy and Rudd would we get to see it?
China is still blocking searches for Tienanmen square and photos of the guy with the shopping bags stopping the tanks... It is very hard for other Nations to push the point of an open and free society when Australia has it's own 'great wall of censorship'.
Carol :
29 Mar 2010 6:40:02pm
PS I am pleased the Minister stressed the HORRIFIC NATURE OF WHAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO SEE on the net. I think people just do not get it. I am concerned about censorship but in this case, something has to be done. I am not sure sure what, but something must be so please let us not entertain doing nothing.
whoathere :
04 Apr 2010 4:23:23am
Totally agree, something must be done to protect children.
However, children are not harmed by sexual content on web pages, they are harmed, in almost all cases, by family members and people they know.
So if you "want something done", tell the government to spend money on social services and education.
Unless you want something *visibly* done, like a web filter, which can let you personally feel better about the world we live in. So you don't have to think too hard. So you can ignore the real, complicated issues out there.
Your choice.
mongrielle :
29 Mar 2010 6:41:35pm
What a load of hypocritical bull this govt spouts!! This government is allowing absolutely OBSCENE judgements to go through the Family Court - for example the recent decision in Tasmania that forced 2 young (very young) girls to live with their pedophile father becasue in the daytime they should be able to cope and at night they would have locks on the INSIDE of their bedroom door which would keep him out. This shows that the whole idea of parent as being the #1 protector of their kids has somehow disappeared because kids are just chattels that dads no matter how kinky shd be able to "access" and ... well, you fill in the gaps - I'm speechless! Meanwhile Govt dithers and fiddles about with kiddy porn on the net and art and ....YUK! KRudd Kconroy and cO are SICK! Doesn't anyone really care aboput what's REALLY happening to kids??!
pblakes :
29 Mar 2010 6:43:55pm
ask about the TOR network
easy to bypass the filter
Jim :
29 Mar 2010 6:45:06pm
One simple question for Senator Conroy and the politicians generally - when will you allow Australia to finally grow up?
Mark Newton :
29 Mar 2010 6:49:42pm
Enex report, Pg 25: "Number of circumvention attempts successfully blocked out of 37 tests", ranges from 3 to 5.
Robyn Grunberg :
29 Mar 2010 6:51:36pm
Could someone explain how software can possibly be 100% reliable? All software contains bugs, or has God suddenly become a software developer?
Perryn Fowler :
29 Mar 2010 6:51:56pm
What is the purpose of the filter.
Is it?:
1) To protect Children from seeing Bad Things?
Hmmm no. This would best be achieved by an opt-in service that filtered out much more than RC content. There is a lot of perfectly legal content that I'm sure most parents would not want their children seeing.
2) To protect Good Adults from seeing Bad Things?
Hmmm no. The type of heinous content that Conroy insists is the only content being targeted is not easy to find. You have to go looking for it. And, if by some incredible coincidence, you did happen to stumble upon it, One would hope that an Adult would be sensible enough to simply navigate away again…
3) To prevent Bad Adults from seeing Bad Things?
Ahah. This almost makes sense – but wait, anyone who actually wants to see this stuff can circumvent the filter quite easily, or more to the point probably doesn't get it from the web anyway, but rather other internet protocols. For this purpose the questions is not whether the filter can work 100%, but whether it can work AT ALL.
Given that the filter does not seem appropriate for ANY of it's puported uses, the question of whether it technically filter out a list of urls sucessfully seems rather moot.
fluffygutss :
29 Mar 2010 6:52:55pm
i'm counting all his lies and it's making me more and more nauseous!
paul :
29 Mar 2010 7:00:30pm
Does anyone honestly think that senator fieldings list of 355 url's is in any way going to make a meaningful difference? For goodness sake there are 1.1 trillion url's discoverable on Google alone! Has the senator checked them all? Or is it possible that there is ten times as much illegal stuff not on the list that his very expensive filter will simply let through. He's said himself, anything not on the list will NOT be blocked.
Chris :
29 Mar 2010 7:02:25pm
Sledging Google Minister?
I cant wait to see their rebuttal to your blatant lies.
You have no answers, and keep spewing up 'Child pornography'.
Please have Conroy on again, it was great to hear the togs in Conroys brain spin when he had to make answers up on the fly.
Dee :
29 Mar 2010 7:03:16pm
Conroy only answered with his usual non answers - I am an adult and my fourteen year old has shown me how to get around a filter. You Conroy are a dictator and should be thrown out of Australia not just Australian politics.
Joe :
29 Mar 2010 7:03:19pm
How would a website be placed on the block list?
Could I a concerned internet user, report a website that i found serving RC material?
What would be the scenario if that website that I reported was a victim of a defacing attack. How would that once legitiment website get off the black list?
How long would the process take?
How much potential income would that website lose while they were on the blacklist?
What if that website was your Australian business?
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 12:59:08am
The scenario you've described has already happened, several times.
Dental Distinction, Maroochydore Boarding Kennels, and a school tuck shop consultancy business were all incorrectly blacklisted by ACMA after people reported the presence of RC content.
On ABC's Q&A program last year, Conroy blamed the Russian mob, and said they'd put child pornography under the blank spaces between their web pages.
Experts are still puzzling over what that means :-)
Anyway, ACMA threw a blanket over the sites and left them online, ostensibly serving child pornography, for several months. But Conroy's merry band of keystone kops had showed that the most they're prepared to do is below the least you're prepared to expect: Blacklisting the sites was the be-all and end-all of their response.
The site owners eventually found out when the ACMA blacklist was leaked in March 2009, when they were astonished to find their sites listed there.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If Conroy's rabbit proof firewall goes online, I'd expect the blacklist to be regularly leaked, even if only so that ACMA can clear the dentists from it :-)
- mark
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 1:03:09am
If enough people complain about your defaced web site then, yes, you will find yourself on the list. Sorry, but I hope you didn't work too hard building up your business...
Oh, and if you complain about being on the list and losing business, you'll be labelled as being pro-child-pornography and you'll end up not only losing your business, but you'll become a social pariah as well.
Angela Anchugov :
29 Mar 2010 7:05:38pm
There are over 1 billion pages indexed on Google. Does Minister Conroy really expect this "independent body" to sift through all of them? Also, this number is growing.
Minister Conroy's argument that having the blacklist made public will give access to the material. If his filter worked, you wouldn't be able to gain access to it anyway. He's basically saying it doesn't work.
Also, the media and a lot of the public seem to think that this filter will ONLY filter child pornography and abhorrent material such as bestiality. This is FALSE. The legislation surrounding this issue is extremely vague. Less politically favourable content that will be blacklisted include women who "appear" to be underage because they have small breasts and female ejaculation. This is a blatant discrimination against body image of women and encourages the objectification of women.
Conroy also uses his "it's all for the children" argument way too much. Many sex offenders and viewers of illegal material do not use websites to circulate their material. They use other methods - which will NOT be blocked such as peer to peer networks and torrents.
Senator Conroy also makes the argument that because there are laws that prevent underaged people from smoking, it doesn't prevent all of them from smoking that the law shouldn't be eradicated. The difference between this logic and the internet filter is that the smoking law prevents a significant proportion of the underaged Australians from purchasing cigarrettes and it is this which makes the law effective. However, there are current over 1 billion websites indexed in Google, growing at an ever faster pace. How is Senator Conroy planning to filter through ALL of those websites in an effective way that will "keep the children safe"?
I would like to end with a quote from Benjamin Franklin - "Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety."
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 12:54:10am
All good, except Google has said that they've indexed a trillion pages, not a billion. They also said it was growing by a billion URLs per day, nearly a year ago, so it'd be somewhere near 1.3 trillion URLs by now :-)
The web is really big.
Conroy wants to block 355 URLs using technology which failed his testing. He wants to spend $44.5m to make it happen.
But he's not the only idiot in this mess. Listening to the timbre of his voice tonight, I'm not even sure he believes his own press releases anymore. This is being driven by Rudd, Conroy is just the fall guy who's wheeled out to take the abuse.
- mark
Stephen W :
29 Mar 2010 7:06:40pm
Conroy, you and Rudd have lost a labor voter for life over this stupendous policy.
You make no effort to address the legitimate questions put to you, and only frustrate with any one variant of your favourite fallacy: the "cannot buy it in xxxx location".
This policy will fail, but the utter contempt you have shown for the facts and the will of your constituents has cost you my vote and the vote of my family and friends. Peddle your ACL agenda elsewhere, bigot.
Clytie Siddall :
29 Mar 2010 7:07:58pm
We already have Parental Controls. This software comes, built-in, with your operating system, including the iPod that guy's child was using. The parent can set the parental controls (which do a much, much better job of protecting kids than Conroy's "filter") and lock them. I have them on my iPhone, our Xbox and on each of our computers. Both gaming consoles and hand-held devices already have Parental Controls. We just need to use them.
The issue shouldn't be about censoring the whole Internet: it should be about taking personal responsibility, and learning to use the tools we already have. For Heaven's sake, we have to learn to drive a car, which after considerable time and expense can take us a long distance: why don't people bother to learn to use their computers, which with a click of a mouse can take us all over the world?
Paul :
29 Mar 2010 7:11:10pm
Net filtering - A solution looking for a problem.
Exactly who is the filtering for?
It doesn't prevent children from accessing porn.
The chances of accidently discovering child porn are slim. 355 websites out of trillions.
It won't prevent those actively seeking such material as the filter will be easily bypassed.
RC classification is so ambiguous that sites can get caught in the filter that might not belong there. What is abhorrent and "offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety" to one "reasonable adult" may not to another.
Kristy :
29 Mar 2010 7:11:44pm
This will be the main issue i vote on.
I am a parent and i understand it is MY responsibility to keep my children off dangerous sites. This is why they do not have a computer in their bedroom, instead it's out where the family sits. I do not need the government to parent my children.
No clean feed.
Jason Stone :
29 Mar 2010 7:15:07pm
The Minister didn't actually answer the question or provide a legitimate reason why the opt-in (or opt-out) path cannot be followed. He only ever reverts back to scaremongering by saying how bad the worst sites are (and no one is suggesting otherwise).
The internet should not be filtered by Australia or any other country. Some reasons:
- Filtering/Censorship by an open, progressive, industrialised country such as Australia gives such restrictions a veneer of moral validity and will encourage oppressive regimes such as those in China, Burma and Iran to maintain and strengthen their filtering and censorship activities.
An Australian filter will inevitably corrode Australia's ability to speak with moral certitude to the governments and people of those and other countries.
Breaking ranks with countries which are standing up for a free and uncensored Internet (such as the United States) will diminish their campaign to maintain freedom of communication and expression throughout the world.
- No matter how small a time delay the filter is claimed to cause, it is inevitable that there will be delays and diminished performance on all filtered transactions.
- Filtering can be bypassed by people with rudimentary technical capabilities, and will cause such capabilities to be promoted more widely – thereby negating the effectiveness and "universality" of the filter – while still maintaining the universal disadvantages of the filter.
i.e any perceived benefits will be negated, but the disadvantages will persist
- Once the "thin edge of the wedge" is established, governments do not have a good track record and often extend the scope of their powers.
If the Government is genuine about providing families with effective filtering options then it should consider these better alternatives:
- Encourage ISP's to offer an optional opt-in filtered service (or provide it by default, but allow opt-out). They already offer multiple speeds, and in certain cases (including Telstra/Bigpond) offer virus/spam filtering – so it is possible for them to also offer a full filtering service.
Availability of such a service would allow families to choose to use a filtered service if they so wish.
It is not even essential that all ISP's offer such a service. Provided some ISP's offer the service then interested families can vote with their feet by moving to those ISPs.
- Effective software and hardware filtering solutions do exist, and can be offered to families to use at their discretion.
- Facilities are available for protecting youngsters by monitoring or restricting usage of iPhones and other smartphones – these technological solutions are improving all the time and should be pursued and encouraged in lieu of a universal filter.
Moderator: Please keep posts to a reasonable length - under 200 words.
Alex :
29 Mar 2010 7:17:27pm
Stephen, although I'm sure you will not even concern yourself with it, if you could answer one persons request let it be mine.
Read EVERY comment on this radio discussion page and truly consider what they say. The issues and points put forth here are serious concerns from true Australian people. You are an elected official, listen to the population and do what you MUST know is the right thing. Abandon this naive attempt at "saving Australians".
John :
29 Mar 2010 7:18:32pm
300 links containing Child Porn. How about working with the countries they are in to get them shut down.
A filtering system is the same as going *la la la it doesn't exist it doesn't exist*.
You are going to spend millions of dollars per year putting in a filtering system that a 15 year old can get around in 10 minutes.
A person that wants to access these 300 sites will also get around the filter in 10 minutes. The money needs to be spent targeting the scum that produce the content and are causing the harm to these innocent kids.
The money should be spent on more resources to stop these people at the source.
As for Refused Classification is already illegal. Its not.
It its perfectly legal for me to have sex with a girl who urinates on me ( akka golden showers ). It is perfectly legal for me to film it and watch it.
But because this country is so backwards we don't have XXX ratings where fetishes fit in meaning it can't be sold because all videos need to be classified for sale.
It does not mean the content is illegal. Its as it says Refused Classification.
Its the same with R18+ games.
This country is so backwards it disgusts and infuriates me.
Louis :
29 Mar 2010 7:18:44pm
It will only take two clicks to hop on to Google Translate to circumvent this filter...
Matthew W :
30 Mar 2010 7:00:28am
You don't even have to go to those lengths. At work when the dynamic filter won't let me see a site, I just seach for the page on a search engine and use the cached version of the page on the search engine rather than actually going to the real page. Works like a charm. And note that filters at workplaces restrict a whole lot more that the one the government is proposing.
Ashley :
29 Mar 2010 7:19:40pm
I'm disappointed with Senator Conroy's responses, he manages to find a non-answer for every question.
whoathere :
04 Apr 2010 4:14:21am
What's really disappointing that they are not challenged by interviewers.
I'm sick to death of politicians - who are in office by *our* grace - are treated with kid gloves as if we are afraid of them.
They should be afraid of us.
glengyron :
29 Mar 2010 7:21:01pm
Of the many specious things Senator Conroy said tonight one stuck in my mind: the analogy of under-age drinking.
Underage drinking is regulated in Australia but banning the sale of alcohol to all minors.
With the proposed Internet regulations we're talking not about banning all of something bad to a society, but just an arbitrary list of known bad things. 355 domains of disgusting material.
This would be the equivalent of banning 355 specific brands of alcohol for sale to minors.
The next day each one of the affected brands would simply change their names.
That's exactly what will happen with this poorly conceived scheme. What's more, the actual market in this disgusting material isn't the mainstream internet the public inhabits; it's the peer-2-peer networks and password protected forums this scheme doesn't even touch.
David Crafti :
29 Mar 2010 7:22:02pm
Senator Conroy knows that the system won't work and won't protect children. He knows that it is not technically feasible to run on more than a pathetically limited set of urls.
I don't particularly care about that stuff though.
My concerns are about how this legislation will be used to limit our freedom, or that of our children, who Conroy sets out to protect, in years to come, when the filtering technology comes of age. Who will be in government then? What will be deemed objectionable? Pro-euthanasia sites now, but pro-euthanasia political parties then?
He's going to ruin this country if he forces this fascist legislation through. Not now, but some day.
David Crafti
Pirate Party Australia
Luke :
29 Mar 2010 7:23:56pm
I'm not sure why the Netsweeper representative was brought in to weigh in on the issue, when the company clearly has a lot to gain from the filter.
The most ridiculous part of the debate was when Mark Newton from Internode stated that the filter would be easy for most people able to do a google search to circumvent, at which point the host interrupted him, saying that this was an 'extraordinary claim', and then asked the Netsweeper representative if this was true, who vehemently denied this. Of course he is going to say this. His company is about to get a huge contract from the Australian government if this legislation comes to pass.
It's apparent that there is still a lot of ignorance about what this filter will actually do, with parents calling in to offer support for the filter, claiming that it will make them feel the internet is safer for their children, even though it was stated during the debate that this would not be the case.
The filter will not target hardcore pornography. It will not target violent video clips, adult oriented Youtube clips, and will do nothing for cyberbullying. What it will most certainly do, as evidenced by some of the callers, is lull parents into a false sense of security about leaving their children to use the internet unsupervised.
Unfortunately, Senator Conroy presents well when debating the issue. I wouldn't be surprised if some listeners of the debate were swayed in favour of the filter.
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 12:50:52am
If you google for "netsweeper circumvention" you'll get a big pile of methods for circumventing Netsweeper, intermingled with a big pile of Netsweeper press releases saying that their product is uncircumventable.
The Government's own report into the live trials they did in late 2009 backs up my words on-air:
Page 25 has a table at the bottom which summarizes the "Number of circumvention attempts successfully blocked out of 37 tests."
A perfect score (which the Netsweeper salesman claimed his product exhibited) would be 37 out of 37.
None of the products tested achieved more than 6 out of 37. The worst one scored 3 out of 37. Not sure which one is Netsweeper (they anonymized the results), but it isn't hard to do the maths necessary to work out whether this evening's Netsweeper sales speil is true.
If you pick literally any circumvention method at random, odds are it'll work; If it doesn't, pick any other method and that one will work instead.
This is the Government's own report, the one they held up to justify their current policy. Only people who don't know what they're talking about can read this report and come away with a belief that ISP censorship can work.
- mark
Interested :
01 Apr 2010 9:00:35am
Could you please post where these sites are ?
All I can find are posting from kids and no real details.
Was this vendor part of the trial ? I thought the schill said they weren't
Michael :
29 Mar 2010 7:28:52pm
- "the filter is 100% accurate" - perhaps, but how accurate is it when it is trivially bypassed?
- Eric Schmidt is NOT the founder of Google!
- The Minister knows he has to make the list secret, because if it wasn't, people would know the sites when they bypass the filter. Tacitly, this is an admission that he knows the filter is flawed!
- Since the Minister knows that high-traffic sites like YouTube will in fact be significantly slowed by the filter - (he's already admitted this) - how can he claim that there is an insignificant effect on internet speeds?
- "Books, DVDs and magazines" are STATIC content. You can ban them knowing the content of the book, DVD or magazine won't change later. Content on the internet can (and does) change second by second. The internet IS special...it's content is DYNAMIC.
- The leaked ACMA list contains online poker sites...since when is online poker illegal Minister?
- The leaked ACMA list contains teen sex sites - since in Australia 16-year-olds can LEGALLY consent to sex - (while they are still TEENAGERS) - why are teen sex sites on the list? Not my cup of tea, but...you know, it's your list!
- You know why only 30,000 people took up the previous government's filtering option? Because nobody else wanted it!
- Why did you go to the last election with an "optional cleanfeed filter" policy, yet you shafted us later by changing the policy to mandatory?
You have little or no understanding of what the internet is, and what the internet does. Stop pandering to a minority Christian group like the ACL, and start listening to your MAJORITY employers...we the people...the people who can elect and un-elect you, and pay your wages through taxation.
Stop this charade...stop claiming you have a mandate for this. You do not. You have NEVER taken a mandatory internet filter to the electorate.
Moderator: Posts that are abusive, defamatory or discriminatory will not be published on the message board.
Ash :
29 Mar 2010 7:33:31pm
Just curious...
Given that everyone who knows anything about this debate will agree that this ISN'T a perfect solution to the problem they're targeting, has anybody seriously weighed the costs benefits against other ideas, for example, establishing and/or supporting some sort of international organisation specifically mandated with knocking down doors of server farms and laying down some more direct problem solving?
Perhaps this is an equally bad if not worse precedent, but if this isn't simply a political stunt, I'd very much like to see the alternatives that have been considered.
Is this really the most effective way to use such information?
The most powerful tool when it comes down to it is education. Does Australia yet have regular, nation wide education sessions available for both children and adults, taught by people in the know? Here is a crazy idea, why not invest this money in offering a tax break for qualified individuals who volunteer some of their time to perform such sessions all around the country.
I mean... why not work with the people... not against them?
My other question is whether or not this will assist in preventing child abuse at all, or simply just cut off a key tool that law enforcement has been using to such highly publicised success over the last few years to track down and stop people who are likely to become predators...
Having seen the last couple of things Conroy has been doing, and understanding a lot more about the situation I have to say I feel less threatened by the idea of the filter itself than I originally did. That said, I'm still very far from convinced that when it comes down to it the benefits even remotely justify the costs-- surely there is something I'm missing? I mean, Conroy wouldn't be going to such extreme efforts unless he believed it was justified.
Whatever the case, based on the weight of opinion on the radio segment, he's doing a poor job convincing the general public of it.
My two cents anyways.
Cheers folks.
whoathere :
04 Apr 2010 4:10:51am
"I mean, Conroy wouldn't be going to such extreme efforts unless he believed it was justified."
A great many people do extreme things and feel justified in doing so. I'm sure you'll agree that doesn't have any bearing on whether it's right or not.
"My other question is whether or not this will assist in preventing child abuse at all"
No it won't. Children are not abused by web pages. Children are abused by:
a) Family members and people they know (this is the vast majority of cases),
b) Paedophiles in chat rooms pretending to be other teenagers (see the recent case of Carly Ryan)
c) Child traffickers
d) The odd stranger
In 20 years of net use, I have *never* stumbled on a child p*rn site or page. Never. It just doesn't happen much.
So no, it won't prevent a SINGLE child from being abused. It will, perhaps, but not likely, prevent a child from seeing something of a sexual nature on a web page. But web pages don't hurt children.
Conroy is openly misleading people into thinking it will make a difference for children. For that, he is either unforgivably ignorant, or..
I don't even want to contemplate that this is all just for votes and party funding. Surely we haven't gone so far down that road, that we wilfully neglect truth and morality for short-term gain?
Mike (NT) :
29 Mar 2010 8:01:14pm
I have viewed almost every interview with Stephen Conroy regarding the clean feed.
As far as I am concerned this is a huge waste of money and resources that could be put to much better use in preventing and prosecuting clearly illegal content, or even putting financial pressure on the countries where the content is being produced.
I vow that if and when the clean feed is introduced I will bypass it for all content and promote this behaviour as a demonstration against the waste of time and money that the ego trip the clean feed represents.
The internet is designed to withstand attacks of this nature against freedom of communication and free speech. I am just disappointed that the government is wasting money attempting to implement personal morals on adults private life.
The Clean Feed WILL NOT prevent distribution of illegal content such as child abuse. Stephen has admitted this, so WHY is the government perusing this when EVERYONE I speak to is opposed to the clean feed?
Tony :
29 Mar 2010 8:02:25pm
Unfortunately I could not call in due to driving but here is what I would have asked:
"How many children are killed or injured in Australia each year, with lasting emotional and/or physical scars, as a direct result of head on collisions?"
Why such a seemingly odd question in this context?
Well, the filter proposals and the cost of implementation versus the benefit is akin to saying we should make dual carriageways on every single road in Australia with separation barriers to prevent the death or injury to children as a result of head on collisions.
There is no doubt that dual carriageways everywhere would dramatically reduce the toll to said children.
When you ask whether we should do it, I think just about every person would say NO, it would cost to much. Do people saying no automatically become in favour of children being killed? No they do not but there is always a balancing act in any society where we need to see the cost benefit of doing something.
I would personally rather see the money spent on education and a strengthening of the police resources to track down the people behind the nasty stuff so that they can be put in jail and prfereably loose the key.
Using filters at all ISP's is ineffective in stopping the problem as everyone can circumvent this very easily.
As it is illegal to download and view this stuff anyway, one could track and trace it as paedophiles are traced, tracked and prosecuted.
Just my 5 cents worth of input to the debate.
Wolfie Rankin :
29 Mar 2010 8:17:11pm
So if I run an iffy website, and someone complains and it's blocked, Surely I'll get some e-mails from people who liked the website? and to get it going again, all I need to do is have the URL changed, I could be up and running again in an hour, right?
BTW: The Titanic was 100% unsinkable.
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 12:35:30am
Run your website on HTTPS and they won't be able to block it in the first place. :-)
Curious :
01 Apr 2010 8:58:26am
Aren't you the network engineer that was on the show ?
Your answer is very odd considering a packet based model would not worry about the HTTPS of the application layer protocol but the IP address of the TCP/IP request. So HTTPS would be blocked here also ! This is very different that the SMB proxy based systems I think you refer to.
Mark Newton :
02 Apr 2010 12:32:56pm
Yes, I'm the same Mark Newton that was on the show.
The Government's plan calls for blocking of individual URLs. The Minister has repeated over and over again that he won't be blocking entire websites.
< geek >
In an HTTPS session, the URL is carried in the encrypted payload. If the Government is to block individual URLs, the only way they'd be able to determine which URL a user is attempting to visit is by decrypting the payload, which is impossible without a man-in-the-middle attack facilitated by a fake root signing certificate (which they don't have).
</ geek >
Consequently, anyone who wants to publish illegal material without risking its censorship can simply publish it on an HTTPS server.
scott :
29 Mar 2010 8:22:44pm
If the number of child porn websites is about 300, why is there 10000+ sites on the blacklist?
The internet is not a broadcast medium like TV or radio - it's a communications medium like the telephone system.
Thanks, Big Brother Stephen, but I'll decide for myself who I communicate with and what I say to them.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 12:53:30am
No, you won't. Stephen Conroy will decide. Every whinging member of the moral minority will decide. Whole bunches of bureaucrats will decide. You'll never get to decide again. Sorry. It's a shame, but it's for your own good.
Wolfie Rankin :
29 Mar 2010 8:51:54pm
For those of you who really might not understand why the filter is a bad thing, let me explain it this way.
It's 1970, and a Christian group has discovered that children are learning swear words from the telephone.
They advise the Government, who agree that something needs to be done.
They then make it law that the girls at the exchange have to beep out every swear word on the lines, including the unexpected ones where a mother is chatting at home with a friend, realises that something is burning in the oven.
Every swear word is to be censored or the PMG (70's name for Telstra) will be fined thousands of dollars.
Now imagine how many phonecalls were being made in the 70's, and how many different people were talking.
Ask yourself if you think the Women at the exhange have any hope of blocking each and every swear word.
Adam :
29 Mar 2010 9:11:49pm
the worst thing about this filter is the speeds. i can understand that the government wants to get some votes from some people who know otherwise but, this RC rating is going to destroy the speeds. It is estimated that around 300 million web sites (if memory serves me right) have the RC rating atleast. The trials were done with 5000 websites. That is nothing compared to 300 million websites. This obviously means that the ISP filtering report is absolute crap and has to be done again with more websites, and accurate data on how far away from the exchange they are. the irony in this is that on the other hand the government is making a 100 mbit fibre network. Its like Conroy doesn't know what he is doing with his left hand while working on his right.
This entire exercise is an expensive joke at the tax payers expense just to get some cheap votes. The government knows that it cant possibly filter the internet and as the whirlpool survey indicated, most people will figure out how to circumvent it. Now the government is keeping the whole thing on the down low and not implement the policy until just a few weeks after the next federal election in effect ruining my life.
filtering the internet is not the solution here. These weeds of society need to be uprooted from the source, not by using weedkiller which will also affect the surrounding good flowers.
Its unbelieveable that the government is actually going to get away with this since no one is really opposing the idea. Sure howard said that he would implement it but he never did. this maybe because he knew that it meant political suicide and would make us look like china.
This entire thing makes me feel like throwing up and now if you dont mind i might just do that.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 12:50:08am
They don't care about the speeds. They don't care about expense. They don't care about logic or just plain common sense. They sure as hell don't care what any study could tell them, because they've already decided that we're getting this filter.
They want Australia to be just like China, and they won't be happy till we have no right to read or say anything that the government doesn't give it's rubber stamp of approval to.
The worst part is that, if the filter goes ahead and some right-wing christian looney like Tony Abbott gets into power, it'll be even worse. Within one generation every Australian will believe that the world is flat and that the world has only been in existence for 4,000 years. And we'll have no way of finding out otherwise, because we'll be completely cut off from the rest of the world.
Can anyone suggest a nice country to move to where they don't have a filter? Oh, that's right, JUST ABOUT ALL OF THEM.
Adam :
30 Mar 2010 5:41:23pm
Not true, most countries have filters (or monitor) of some sort to block actually obscene material. I actually would not be this angry at the government if this filter would actually work. if you saw the interview with steven conroy on hungry beast a while back he says that older software filter was cracked in about half an hour by a 15 year old. This proposed filter can be cracked in even less time and you dont have to be a genius to figure it out. At the end of the day, the parents who really care about their kids will install something like netnanny or some other software that can filter out websites. The parental lock features on Windows vista and 7 are impossible to crack unless you know absolutely everything there is to be known about windows architechture. Also, almost every broadband router has a filtering system installed. these are also very effective and very hard to circumvent because it actually reads the incoming packets. there are also free alternatives like opendns which are also effective becuase they dont allow the end users to query the websites which contain the keywords you want to filter out. All these solutions are pretty much a few key strokes and a mouse click away. these solutions will also not affect the speed.. atleast not for everyone in australia.
If there was a opt-out it will create a automatic list of people who wil automatically be considered as pervets, pedos , terrorists and so on.
you people should consider that this comment will be filtered if the filter was in place because i have mentioned the worst "perverts", "pedos" and "terrorists"
Gizzt Milton :
29 Mar 2010 9:14:11pm
There isn't even a single child abuse/pro rape etc website on the list as evident by going through the ACMA blacklist leak.
It just makes me angry when Conroy makes this claim that there are 355 child abuse URLs when he can just look for himself if he's trying to force this censorship filter on us.
However, there appears to be alot of adult women with small breasts often hosted in the US, which ACMA is known to currently classify as child abuse in Australia (but not illegal).
ACMA seriously need to fix their classifications before we can trust there classification!
There isn't anything illegal on the list or about the list because child abuse/pro rape etc is illegal in ALL countries and the web server can't cover up their I.P. address so it's extremely easy to find the physical location of the web servers - unlike P2P.
It just appears our government thinks that the rest of the world is just one un-policed barren wasteland.
William :
29 Mar 2010 9:52:07pm
realy? so our government thinks women with small brests arnt alowed to have sex? what happened to trying to getting rid of body image problems. all women are beautiful unless you happen to be short and skinny but then that 15 year old who developed early must be ok then. riiiight.
Frans :
29 Mar 2010 9:30:04pm
Can we really trust government to be the censor. How we forget so quickly, remember Muhamed_Haneef affair, children overboard, John Howard having a special relationship with the Exclusive Brethren, fake Email affair and forged how to vote cards only last week. I have experienced the filter that the education department in Victoria use, which works on only allowing credited site through, something I thought I heard Stephen Conroy say thats what he wanted to do. The School filter is so restrictive that it was blocking some Australian Universities and made it practically useless for any open research. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might think this all be part of the Labor party's payment to the TV barons and the copyright agency, whom, will be the greatest winners from the filter.
James V :
29 Mar 2010 9:33:44pm
Well after listening to the show I am still convinced the minister has no idea what he is talking about, the only thing that seems to come out his mouth is that child porn and bestiality will be blocked and is something that should not be on the net, well go figure who says that it should be no one. What everyone says that has no vested interest in this unlike the CEO of a filter company is that it will not block the distribution of this material. And will be easy to bypass, there is already a page called beat the filter now will this be on the blacklist? At the moment it is not illegal to bypass the filter and will it be anyway. I have work with kids who have bypassed the school filters in about 30 minutes, the only people who won't be able to are the parents who are adults and should be able to view what they want anyway as long as it is legal, and don't forget it is not illegal to own RC only to buy and sell, so if you visit a free website with RC on it and no money changes hands how is that illegal especially if it is legal in the country it is published.
Bill Wilson :
29 Mar 2010 9:33:53pm
Con and Krud courting the Pentecostal lunatic fringe. I'm a rusted on laborite and I hate the greedy Tories more than anything, but I swear I'll vote liberal forever if this fascist shit goes ahead.
Pilot McBride :
29 Mar 2010 9:39:47pm
It is crazy. We are already stuck with slow speed on the internet a filter is only going to slow it further. We have never had a problem with our kids on the internet because we care about our kids and we protect them. We do not expect a government to do it.
Mr Conroy, it is not your concern or responsibility to do this. It is the responsibility of the parents.
The decision of the government will not save one child.from accessing porn.
Spend the money on policing and detection, not on slowing the net available to every Australian.
Shut them down, leave what slow net access we have alone. Please!
Anthony :
29 Mar 2010 9:47:40pm
Hey Conroy, out of those 355 child abuse URL's, how many have been reported to police, both locally and internationally. Last I checked, child abuse was illegal the world over. So instead of sticking them on some list and pretending it's just all gone away, why not spend that wasted filter money on actually doing something to protect the children.
whoathere :
04 Apr 2010 3:46:29am
Yes, like educating them on the use of the internet. They do that in South Korea, in *primary school*.
Education - like watch out for people in chat rooms, you never really know who they are unless you've met them before - would go a long way. It would actually protect children.
But hang on, that requires spending money on education which is always a bit "off the radar" when it comes to votes and a government scoring points by saying "hey look at this concrete thing here, we did this."
So... that will never happen, and kids will continue to be abused. Conroy should be publicly shamed for saying "this is for the kids". How depressingly cynical our politicians have become.
Anthony :
29 Mar 2010 9:47:49pm
Every time I here Conroy open his mouth, I just so desperately want to vote for someone, anyone, other than the arrogance of Labor in this next election. I like so many others can't wait for the day.
He accuses his opponents of twisting the truth when it is he who is guilty of this. I get tired of hearing him bang on about the same worn out "bestiality" and "illegal" argument in defense of the filter.
For anyone who has an IQ of more than 50, or has done some serious homework, his argument falls flat on its face and his real intention just shines through.
This proposed China style filter is purely political and the thin edge of the proverbial. The fact it is so loudly supported by extreme fundamentalist religious groups who believe the world is less than 10,000 years old, should be of concern to many alone.
Good ol boy Jim Wallace is urging the chosen ones (on the ACL site) to lobby Conroy to have M15 and R18 added to the secret list in the future.
Great to hear one listener actually point out that if the filter is so effective, then why not publish the blocked URLs. After all, they are blocked and safely hidden aren't they? Or doesn't the filter work that well Censator Conroy?
As a tool to protect our children, the filter will be a failure. We know that now. There is NO proof the accidental rare exposure to bad sites is a big problem anyway. The small risk does not justify attempting to turn the Internet into a G rated media outlet.
The responsibility is with the parents I'm afraid. As a parent myself, I feel anyone who says they need the government to parent their kids don't deserve to have kids in the first place, if they can't spend the time to do their job responsibly.
So Conroy, hands off our Internet and just remember, many of us are NOT voting Labor, this time round. (as for me, never again)
Tom Parsons :
29 Mar 2010 10:22:21pm
The practice of filtering the Internet is too flawed to be implemented.
The concept of a "secret" list of blocked sites is totally abhorrent, and for example might contain details of the plans opponents. Appointing an independent observer does NOT render the process transparent and is overt and cynical tokenism.
If a list of barred sites is to be constructed it must be open to review and action, the sites if necessary filtered by the responsible parent or supervisor
Ian Rose :
29 Mar 2010 10:24:08pm
Is it because basic common sense & logic have almost vanished in our society (I blame the teachers & why not, they get blamed for everything else) that only one person realised that once again a politician was snowing us.
The minister said that certain sites were being blocked but then said that he couldn t not release the list of sites because then people would get the URL s & so could visit them. Eh?
If this is so then they ain t been blocked! Surely blocking a site means that when people type in the URL they will not be able to reach the site, or it has NOT BEEN BLOCKED!!!
If the minister s knows that you can visit the sites if you type in the URL s & he hopes that by not listing the blocked sites, their URL s will not become known then he is either totally lacking in understanding of the computer society or deliberately being sparing with the truth because the first thing that s going to happen is that every kid who thinks he is computer savvy is going to be racing to list as many sites as he/she can, put them out there (probably via peer to peer) & claim bragging rights amongst his peers.
I am not against blocking some site but lets at least be honest about what is going on.
Yours truly
Ian Rose.
Paul Seymour :
29 Mar 2010 10:24:47pm
I noticed that that several times in the program it was either stated or implied that this filter would help protect children from accidentally viewing objectionable material. This is definitely not the case, you could not allow children to surf the net with only the government filter. The opt in filters provided by the previous government are suitable for the general protection of children, but the new filter is not, families will still need to purchase a filter
Jo :
29 Mar 2010 10:25:11pm
How would a website find out if they are on included on the blacklist. Could it be possible for my business website to be hacked, modified and have RC material placed within it and then such be blocked by the filter.
Devz :
30 Mar 2010 12:30:20pm
Has occurred in the past (re: dentist site from leaked ACMA blacklist) This also sets a nice 'sorry it was an error' platform for blocking, well anything & only reverting it when it becomes found, but it wont be found, as there's no published list or database to query against.
There's a reason politicians exist & another reason why IT technicians exist. Only one of the two really has any knowledge in this arena.
Andrew :
29 Mar 2010 10:25:40pm
Given a webpage could change Urls as often as they like - several times a day - then how can the govt vet and block on a per page basis and not per domain?
Why did the govt discontinue Howard's free home filter programs that would protect children from adult content such as "normal" pornography?
Daniel O'Connor :
29 Mar 2010 10:57:48pm
I believe Conroy is on record as lambasting the previous government's NetAlert scheme as a huge waste of money.
30 Mar 2010 9:38:19am
The irony!
Jay Tomkinson :
29 Mar 2010 10:26:15pm
What are your views on an opt-in filter, without a public black list.
ralph :
30 Mar 2010 4:58:23pm
@Jay: Such options are currently available for anyone that wants them anyway. Both free and commercial. Parents only have to ask their ISP for information.
Thomas Armstrong :
29 Mar 2010 10:26:52pm
Minister Conroy grossly misunderstands the nature of the internet. The filter attempts to treat the internet a discrete published work like a film or TV program. In fact, the internet is at least as much a conversation as anything else, and this filter will adversely affect some of the most vulnerable people in our community, who use the internet to safely discuss issues that affect them - material on safe drug use, sexual orientation and harassment, sexual health and safety, and other matters that would fall under the RC listing.
Peter :
29 Mar 2010 10:27:20pm
I support this idea. Please confirm that pro-abortion websites and the like will be blocked.
Mark Newton :
30 Mar 2010 12:28:07am
Sorry, Peter, but so far it's only been the anti-abortion sites that have been classified RC.
whoathere :
04 Apr 2010 3:37:21am
Yes but a huge number of people find pro-abortion web sites offensive. I think these people should file complaints when the filter begins and see what happens.
Then we will *really* see who decides what is offensive material and what isn't.
Ryan :
30 Mar 2010 2:56:42pm
That comment says it all.
Anonymous :
29 Mar 2010 10:28:16pm
Rudd/Conroy s compulsory Internet censorship:
1) My high-tech company is 95% export and we are taking steps to remove all mention of Australia from International promotion. Conroy/Rudd is causing Australia to be demonised in International high-tech community.
2) The reason the USA does not want compulsory Internet filtering is because it will lead to mainstream use of increasingly powerful and elusive proxy servers . Every PC in the world can act as a proxy server providing anyone in Australia access to whatever Internet is available in the country where the proxy server PC is located (an international friend for example), completely avoiding Internet filtering.
3) Rudd/Conroy s compulsory censorship ensures widespread take up of encrypted proxy servers to bypass Internet filtering. This makes it very difficult to track Internet activity that is presently easy to track. This is likely to have the opposite effect to that expressed as the reason for censorship!
Peter :
29 Mar 2010 10:31:06pm
I'm a power user.
1. I could bypass your filter easily.
2. You CAN'T guarentee same latency
3. Beastiality and Child abuse and of the smallest % of internet use.
4. You'll block the LEGAL content.
5. I don't trust you with a "secret" blacklist.
6. Giving us the NBN is great, but the filter will bring us back to the stone age....
7. The internet is a useful tool. Educate people. Don't just cover their eyes
8. I've voted Labor all my life. Never again.. Come on the greens!
355 illegal sites??? Why are you the minister for telecommunications.
Moderator: Posts that are abusive, defamatory or discriminatory will not be published on the message board.
29 Mar 2010 10:41:21pm
My 8 year old can bypass the filter, all you need to do is google bypass filter and see all the step by step instructions. You don't need to be a power user, filtering will give parents a false sense of safety. Please Mr. Rudd it is time to listen to the people of Australia, and get rid of this policy and the person behind this.
Devz :
30 Mar 2010 12:25:41pm
heh, the person behind this is K.Rudd - remember his election promises? yep, his trying to come good on this one. Despite the absolute knowledge that it wont work. That's a 'technically' wont work. In political terms if people believe that something was/has been done, that's deemed as something 'that worked' & no doubt that is their angle at the moment.
Filtering the internet is far more attractive then solving the problem of homeless isn't it?
tom :
30 Mar 2010 12:04:21am
By voting greens Labour will get your vote if it comes down to it in the end anyway. The greens are not a mainstream party and will never get into power. You have 2 choices Lib or Lab both which are freedom stripping parties in the end.
Dale :
29 Mar 2010 10:34:14pm
What a massive waste of Tax Payers money.
I LoL'd at "Jesus told me this is what Jesus wants".
29 Mar 2010 10:40:30pm
I note with considerable unease that Sen. Conroy explicitly said that information on methods of killing oneself would be blocked. What sort of totalitarian censorship regime does he want to preside over?
I do not take any comfort from his assurance (even if he keeps it) that discussion about the rights and wrongs of euthanasia will be permitted - just the "how-to" would be blocked.
This is outrageous. If someone is at such an extremity of suffering (whether physical, mental, or existential) that they are desperate to end their lives, it is cruel to deny them this. It is not for governments to tell people whether they must live or not (and maybe suffer), and to tell them they are not allowed to know how to end their lives.
I am healthy now, so it is not of immediate concern to myself; but if I ever find myself in a lingering death one day, or even just a serious, non-fatal but permanent condition with no hope of improvement, I do not intend staying around to endure pointless suffering if I can help it. I am outraged that anyone would presume to deny me the most basic right of controlling (so far as that is physically possible) the means and time of my own death. It is no-one else's business, so politicians should butt out of this well and truly. I have long preferred Labor to the Coalition, but this is a potential vote-changer, for me at least.
I fear for my own old age if this goes ahead and remains entrenched. If the reason is the possibility that the "how-to" would be abused and people coerced to die who don't want to, this is to my mind (a) no more likely than any other law is abused; and (b) no more evil than forcing people to live and suffer - possibly for years or even decades - who desperately long to die.
I would love to know what Dr. Nitschke thinks of this, and believe it is no coincidence that he is being harrassed in various places as he goes about what he does.
This must not be allowed to become entrenched in Australia, and the euthanasia debate needs to be ramped up urgently, before we forever lose the potential right to have euthanasia, and maybe eventually even to discuss it - despite Sen. Conroy's assurance in tonight's program.
td22 :
29 Mar 2010 10:47:37pm
I just heard the podcast - why did the interviewer allow Conroy to soak up all the time with platitudes?
Stupid policy by a stupid man. It will be amusing to see this rhetoric backfire when the failures of the filter emerge.
For a start - if there are more than 355 child abuse websites in the future - Conroy has failed!
Liam Pomfret :
29 Mar 2010 10:51:47pm
Anyone doing a cost/benefit analysis on this idea can see that it's a load of hog-wash. The fact is that this filter will not stop anyone getting to this kind of material who wants to, and the chance of it actually stopping people stumbling across this material by accident is negligible. If they want a filter, resurrect the opt-in filter that can be installed on home computers. Sure, it can be bypassed too (hell, it was cracked in 30 minutes by a kid after the Howard government released it), but at least then it impacts only those who install it to their computers, and it's not like it costs you all that much to bring it back and keep it occasionally updated. Would cost you, what, less than half a million at most to pay for the staff for it? If you want to seriously fight child porn though, fund more policing on these issues, because while you can't block this stuff on the net (it doesn't require a knowledgeable user, it just requires someone who can type "How to bypass the Australian internet filter" into Google and follow instructions), you can conduct forensic investigations into it. Don't put this stuff under a blanket and pretend it's not there. Hunt these bastards down! It's all well and good to say that you want all the same laws to apply across all distribution platforms minister Conroy, but what you're suggesting to do is the wrong approach, both technically and in the sense of actually eliminating child porn.
Liam Pomfret
Sessional Academic in Marketing and Management, Postgraduate Research student in Consumer Behaviour on Social Networks, and proud member of the Pirate Party of Australia.
neilmc :
29 Mar 2010 11:12:40pm
On Andrew from Netsweeper's comments. Your product in the context of a national ISP filter is no better than any of the products tested by the government for circumvention (and you should know that).
Filtering a nation is not like filtering a high school.
"Also, while a school system administrator can walk around the school at lunch times (as mentioned above) with the aim of seeing/finding out what new proxies etc. students are using to bypass filtering and then block those, obviously ISP system administrators cannot walk around the homes of the ISPs' customers."
Andrew, which part of Labor's policy gives you any scope to control proxy or VPN use (it doesn't and it won't)
Anthony 2 :
29 Mar 2010 11:14:46pm
Don't forget Rudd and Censator Conroy are backing the "secret" part of the blacklist with HUGE per day fines and it will be criminal offense to willingly publish any URL on the "secret" list, if it is leaked.
Basic economic law. The more something is worth the harder you try to protect it.
Trust this government? Lets look at their report card so far.
1. The Insulation scheme (fail)
2. Green Loans (fail)
3. Solar Rebates, axed months ahead (fail)
4. The school building scheme ( million dollar shade sails) (soon to fail)
5. Out doing Howard in the arrogance stakes (pass)
6. And for the worst of all...Turning an honest and entertaining popular rock star with ethics, into a politician incapable of answering a simple question truthfully. (pass)
Trust this Government with your civil liberties?...
I don't think so.
Chris :
29 Mar 2010 11:34:11pm
I am an IT professional. It will not satisfy your voiced criteria, Conroy. This makes me wonder about your unvoiced agenda.
Lets forget your cherrypicked study's results, the total failure for the filter to prevent access by any but the most ignorant, or even your whitewashing of the true scope of what you wish to erase from our conciousness. In addition to all this, basically your conceptualization of the internet as a static product like a movie or a book, or even a dvd or any other real world publication is flawed. A URL (or more correctly a URI) is not an address of some countent per se, it is an address of some resource which is currently hosting some content at that particular moment. It is dynamic, it not only may but probably will change, both the URI and the content held there. It is not a library or a newsagent and to think so is so far beyond ridiculous and ignorant, it plays mockery to any other over your specious statements (they are not even close to arguments). Your are trying to censor the shelf upon which the book rests!
As for no slowdown... you are doing a set of comparisons and no matter how they are carried out each one takes time Senator Conroy. The more comparisons, the longer it takes. This cannot be avoided or refuted. If I could work out a way for this to be otherwise, I would change the face of computing on this planet forever. You cannot block by IP which is useless anyway, and you are saying you are not blocking by domain which also is useless, you are blocking by URI... no latency increase is a politician's pipedream, and that politician is you Senator Conroy.
Enjoy your stint in office while it lasts. I will no longer be voting for Labor.
Sam :
29 Mar 2010 11:37:58pm
Well, the Howard Government's filter didn't work at all ... reason? It WAS-OPT IN.
So you can't say they haven't learned from the mistakes of the past, OH no, they know people wouldn't opt-in to a filter just like they didn't before (hmm, probably because they don't want it? Just a guess, Conroy himself said it had millions of dollars of advertising and still didn't work), so they're FORCING us to have it.
This is an affront to freedom and democracy, putting us in league with China, Iran and the other oppressive regimes of the third world. It is also an affront to freedom of speech. If I had the means I would leave this very instant for the "free" world (any western democracy that isn't Australia).
I know who I'M voting for: anyone at all who's opposed to this horrendous scheme. I hope this current government falls next election.
Jason :
30 Mar 2010 12:08:36am
This is a totally pointless project. Can someone, anywhere, show me ANY person who has accidentally come across RC material (not regular porn, RC material)?
If not, and it's conceded that any motivated user will still be able to access 'filtered' sites, then why on earth are we pursuing this?
Nothing but politics. The money would be better spent on the AFP to catch the creeps who are actually seeking this stuff out, not pushing them further underground.
Completely Agree :
04 Apr 2010 3:29:21am
Children commit suicide because of online bullying. Will a filter stop that? No.
Children are tricked by paedophiles in chat rooms into meeting them, abused and sometimes killed. Recently happened in fact. A web filter won't even touch that.
Children are usually, mostly, abused by whom - family members and people they know. Filter that.
In South Korea, the most "wired" country in the entire world, children are taught about internet safety *in primary school*.
Tens of millions of dollars is being spent on a filter which will do all of nothing to stop REAL children in the REAL world being abused.
How much is being spent on EDUCATION for children and teenagers about the internet?
And Conroy says he's doing all this "for the kids". I don't have words to express how appalling that is to hear. He is, himself, the antithesis of his own rhetoric. This is not a man who represents the people's will, or the real needs of any child.
Shame on you Conroy. I can only assume it is ignorance, rather than wilful neglect, which informs your views. But neither is acceptable in this matter and in your position.
Bob :
30 Mar 2010 1:18:38am
Considering Mr Conroy says 'iinet support' the filter, the managing directory of iinet thinks it is a 'silly' idea:
Owen :
30 Mar 2010 1:57:50am
I find it very troubling that the Senator continually avoids questions relating to safer drug use, suggesting that this kind of information will be covered by the filter, despite the fact that a reduction in drug-related harms is supposed to be one of the priorities of the National Drug Strategy.
Denying users or potential future users access to life saving information is down right irresponsible. Harm reduction is not about telling people to use drugs; but about encouraging people who already do, to take precautions which have been shown to reduce the associated risks.
Owing to the secretive nature of this blacklist, there is no telling what else this or future governments may decide they don't want us to see.
Reg Langford :
30 Mar 2010 2:05:24am
Wow! 141 comments, and 3 of them for the filter. I guess that's what Senator Conroy calls a mandate from the people.
For anyone who is interested, I recommend an article from Neil Gaiman's journal titled "Why defend freedom of icky speech"
While any sane person would agree that child pornography is completely unacceptable, using this as the primary argument for restricting access to any information included on an arbitrary and invisible list is typical of political opportunists everywhere.
It has become increasingly obvious that Senator Conroy has a personal agenda, and no amount of rational argument is going to sway him from it. I have no doubt that he believes that what he is doing is for the good of the people of this country. It's just unfortunate that he is absolutely, and irreparably, wrong.
The Senator's complete ignorance of the technology involved is probably the worst aspect of this debacle - He is supposed to be the Minister for Communication; surely it's about time that politicians who take on a particular job should be required to have some idea of what that job actually is?
I don't know about everyone else, but if this legislation goes through, I believe I'll move to Canada. I hear they have a liberal democracy over there and have a healthcare system which seems to work. Maybe we can all get together on MSN chat and organise a big "Phew, glad we got out of that country before they closed the borders and became North Korea" picnic?
Dale :
30 Mar 2010 2:55:03am
What happens with games that get Refused Classification (RC) in Australia because we have no R rating for video games
Do websites regarding that and trailers get blocked to? Where do we draw the line?
This filter is not protecting anybody. It's just censorship. Period.
Conroy the pariah :
30 Mar 2010 3:50:42am
I hope Stephen Conroy is hounded for the term of his natural for the crimes against Australian freedom he is guilty of.
He's a fascist paternalist... and I reject his filthy, ugly, bitter tasting pills he is forcing down our throats.
I would be hard pressed to name another Australian who is so distasteful and disgusting.
I would rather be sentenced to staring at child porn for the next three years than look at even a photo of this anti freedom criminal.
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Joe :
30 Mar 2010 4:12:23am
Where is the opposition voicing our concerns??? I vote liberal, and will still do so, but if they were as vocal about this issue as they were on the minor insulation issue, the whole filter discussion would have probably been put to rest already.
Please dont tell me that the libs are for the filter as well. We really will be up the creek.
neilmc :
30 Mar 2010 9:56:25am
Joe Hockey gave a speech in which he was scathing about the policy.
The party position has been a fairly weak expression of concern and some fence sitting. (They said they'll form an opinnion when they see the legislation. Since when do they need to hold back on attacking stupid stuff the government says).
The new shadow communications minister has been pretty much MIA on the issue.
From an appearance on Q&A Barnaby Joyce seemed to think it would be awesome (but obviously having no idea what was being proposded or what was technically possible). Dana Vale is a fan of the idea.
I think they may be concerned about a certain slice of the conservitive voter base (not sure).
Veronica :
30 Mar 2010 6:45:15am
If the government was honest and genuinely determined to protect children, they'd use their legislative and regulatory powers to ensure that the clergy were fit to be near children.
Pretending to be "concerned" by child porn, while allowing the cover- up of the rape of generations of children by the clergy is utterly despicable.
Time for a Royal Commission into the thousands of cases of child rape by so many "institutions", and the continuing criminal conspiracy to cover them up.
A filter ? Censorship ?
That's tokenism, and sadly it's probably the very best you are capable of.
John :
30 Mar 2010 8:50:23am
I'm very interested to see what Conroy/Labor actually wants blocked. Their filter so far won't do anything to stop the 'threats' on the RC list. Political sites will be a long way off. File transfer sites will probably happen much sooner. Sites on bypassing the filter/Internet tutorials too. I don't think anyone doubts that this filter will follow moral panic/political covenience.
Not that it will bother me - I already have an ssh tunnel for security when using public wireless. I won't even notice when the filter is turned on (except for the slowdown).
Anonymous :
30 Mar 2010 9:44:34am
How long did it take to you to get hold of Portnoy's Complaint once you heard it had been banned ... and that was before the Internet existed!
Banned URLs will get visited as never before under Conroy's plan, while these days, hardly anyone bothers even looking for these sites.
The 'banned' list won't be secret for long - here's why:
It will take perhaps a day (or two after debugging) to write a program that tests EVERY issued URL to check if its accessible in Australia. There are about a trillion URL's that need to be tested so this might take the average PC with broadband access a few weeks to compile the complete list. Sooner or later the list will be circulated - especially amongst children, not just here but Internationally, and those children can access sites directly because there are no filters (won't we Australian's be popular).
By then Australians will have become fed up seeing 'this site is not available' messages for even basic X rated material because one 'Refused Classification' photo on any site shuts the ENTIRE site down. To avoid the frustration, many will be forced will instal encrypting 'proxy server' software that allows billions of PCs internationally (i.e. they can't be filtered) such as an international friend's PC in the USA, Europe and Japan where there is no filtering, to be used as a 'proxy' that accesses whatever web site you want at their end and channels it to you with URLs (at least) encrypted to avoid Australian filtering.
Conroy admits "getting past the filtering is possible", he just isn't bothered having half Australia's population untraceable, which fully encrypted proxy servers also happen to provide.
THE BOTTOM LINE - millions of children, not just in Australia, will have access the absolute worst the Internet can offer, now what do we think they will do next?
Sheer unadulterated genius isn't it!
John :
30 Mar 2010 9:51:29am
You call that a debate? Seriously. The ABC should be embarrassed with this program. They obviously gave Conroy more time to talk, and when they got in experts, they got one expert on the internet, and one 'expert' on the product that there trying to sell.
tim :
30 Mar 2010 9:52:19am
I'm confused.
Conroy notes that the Howard filtering scheme was "a failure" because it was:
a) Unpopular.
b) Easily bypassed.
c) Expensive.
I would be interested in understanding how Conroy can judge his plan favorably, if he applies these three same metrics to his proposed mandatory filter.
30 Mar 2010 10:16:10am
This is more about Rudd's religious ideals and right wing agenda than Conroy.... This is the Rudd-Conroy filter and let's not forget it.
My question is when will the Liberal Party start acting like a liberal party?
Richard :
30 Mar 2010 10:45:22am
Is Stephen Conroy the monkey or the organ grinder on this issue? Given the failures of GroceryWatch and FuelWatch and the flak the government is getting over the home insulation and school hall issues, why does it use up political capital on this unwanted cause?
Censorship in Australia has always made us look silly and attracted more attention to the subject matter than would have been the case otherwise. Many clever people (and it only takes a few) will be quick to draw attention to even marginal failures in the system and they will be beaten up mercilessly.
Has the government solved all the issues that early affect the nation like health, good schools, student living allowances, adequate pensions, pathetic internet speeds etc., so it can waste resources on a manufactured issue like this? The list goes on.
Tim :
30 Mar 2010 11:23:13am
This is how it will happen. Filtering is implemented, doesn't work all too well (if at all). Government doesn't like its imperfect filter and decides to tighten it up, more sites get blocked but not yet totally perfect. They decide to tighten up the restrictions of the filtering even more and at some point we're going to see an encroachment onto the freedom of speech. This is a given once it's started, not a possibility. A given.
Voodoo :
30 Mar 2010 11:50:11am
I'm going to start the Anti-net-filter political party, with the objective of gaining political office and disemminating information of how to get around the net filte to the general public.
Is Adolf Conroy going to declare me and my organisation illegal?
Glenno :
30 Mar 2010 12:04:20pm
I do quite like the fact that there was only two pro-filter callers, one of which spoke to Jesus, and the other wants to filter YouTube, which is to be excluded from the filter.
It was also mentioned that the previous governments opt-in end user filtering product has terribly poor uptake, cost $84 million and has been scrapped. Both that product and the mandatory filter are said to be easily bypassed.
So now the government is spending more of the taxpayers money to implement another plan, which plainly, very few people want!
Here's an idea for you Conroy. Spend a little bit of time and effort on promoting the opt-in home filter. Nobody is going to complain that their internet is slowed by somebody else's home filter. If the product was actually marketed properly it might have more pickup, and the minority of people that feel that a filter will somehow protect the kiddies will be appeased.
Lastly, if Andrew Graden of netsweeper confirmed that the latency increase of the filtering product is 300ms, how do you think that will affect the large amount of people that use the internet for online games??
It's quite apparent, that the mandatory filtering system is not workable, WILL adversely affect our internet speeds, and will NOT protect children from accessing pornography.
Stephen Conroy should resign. The filter should be scrapped.
Paul H :
30 Mar 2010 2:41:03pm
To be fair, Andrew Graden did say 300 microseconds, not milliseconds. Whether that is the case with the proposed filter is questionable.
The host commented most were against the filter and invited pro filter callers to join in. Probably as most with an interest in the subject are opposed, it was reflected in the calls.
One caller highlighted the problem - the uneducated (on computers at least) majority believe that the filter will stop junior from looking at legal adult content on Youtube - they have bought Conroy's "protecting the children" comment hook, line and sinker.
If Labor went back to their original policy of an opt-in filter, they might actually get some support. A good number of people can see through Conroy's repeated regurgitation of the words "child abuse", "bestiality", and "RC content" and know that once this gets in, it is the tip of the iceberg. Political Correctness and the Nanny State will take over and stop us from viewing sites deemed offensive (yet legal) by religious conservatives lobbying the government.
Daniel :
30 Mar 2010 3:22:22pm
"the mandatory filter [is] said to be easily bypassed."
That's why it's such a waste of taxpayer money. All you or I or anyone need do is go to a site like hotspotshield.com, install the free VPN software installed there and hey presto - filter is gone.
Takes about 3 minutes and costs nothing.
What I want to ask Conroy is if, like China, they will place sites that enable users to bypass the government filter on the blacklist also. Otherwise...what's the point?
Opposed :
04 Apr 2010 3:08:53am
One of the best proxy systems is called "Tor". Free, easy to set up.
But nevermind that. Believe me, the geeks of the world are behind us, and are also appalled at this situation. In no time, there will be a standardised way to circumvent any and all imposed filters, possibly made part of browsers like Firefox, and I imagine Chrome (Google's) as well.
All this filter will achieve - as have all such thing throughout Internet history - is to encourage greater freedom through superior technology.
Conroy doesn't understand his portfolio, nor his world, poor man.
Mark :
30 Mar 2010 12:10:09pm
When Conroy says that the filter will block 'harmful content' he's really saying 'harmful ideas'. Is that what this country is about?
Its the job of parents to protect their children from harm, not the government. Why not have a 'opt in' based filter at the ISP level and let people make their own decision.
Its ironic that the most harmful idea of all is the loss of freedom of speech.
Craig :
30 Mar 2010 1:13:50pm
Stephen Conroy is becoming known as the Rudd government's most skilled parrot. He repeats his claims about the Internet filter perfectly, ignoring the comments of those opposed to the filter.
However he doesn't seem to understand what he is saying and either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the impact of the filter on politically and legally controversial topics such as euthanasia, drug rehabilitation or legitimate academic research into the psychology of terrorists or others committing illegal acts - the research necessary to help stop them in the future.
The mandatory filter will no do what Conroy says it will - protect children - as it cannot block webpages and sites that move whenever blocked. Even the AFP has said it will not be effective and will make their job harder.
Conroy needs to stop attacking individuals (like EFA management) and companies like Google. His headkicking background in getting Rudd the leadership of the Labour party is no asset in building support. And kicking people verbally in the head only shows up his own lack of rationale for his position. His only way of getting his point across is to bully and demean others. I wonder what stories will come out of his office in the future!
Grant :
30 Mar 2010 1:35:05pm
Mark Newton
I am concerned that every single time that Conroy is interviewed. No one (including you) really calls Conroy out on the definition of RC.
Conroy just says child porn, bestiality, pro rape sites.
As you are aware the scope is so much larger than this and has the potential to capture a lot of different websites.
Mark Newton
I am concerned that every single time that Conroy is interviewed. No one (including you) really calls Conroy out on the definition of RC.
Conroy just says child porn, bestiality, pro rape sites etc. As you are aware the scope is so much larger than this and has the potential to capture a lot of different websites.
Zaphod's just this guy, y'know :
30 Mar 2010 8:55:23pm
I agree, and I consider it nefarious of Conroy to overplay his sensationalist references to taboo, and not be upfront about superstitiously- and religiously-driven topics like euthanasia.
If the gov was genuinely comncerned about pro-rape movements they'd have closed the University of Sydney college that was expounding pro-rape behaviour on their Facebook page, and properly investigate the EPIDEMIC of rape culture among football players. (And, of course, the ever rape-scandal riven Catholic Church.)
Nothing is done about these major issues, nor the structures that generate them.
I tire of moral arguments from people who have no ethical bearings at all.
I fear that the morally-retarded Liberal Party will be returned to government if the ALP keeps this absurd course. . . what could really be motivating them?
Evan :
04 Apr 2010 3:01:52am
No, you don't get it.. you see it's not about ethics, morality and all that PR talk.
It's about winning votes and contribution money. You can't investigate an organisation, however rotten - be it Scientology, the Bretheren or Catholic Church - if they are contributing lots of money to your party and/or command a lot of voters.
Our political system works more like two companies vying for the same market than the voice of the people.
Our choice, as consum.. I mean citizens.. is Coke or Pepsi. I'm not even sure if they taste different anymore.
Mark Newton :
02 Apr 2010 12:38:50pm
Hi Grant.
We actually are calling him out on the definition of RC, which is why he's having to defend it all the time.
I wrote extensively about what RC is here:
You'll also see various people responding to his interview yesterday with similar points here:
A good deal of the heavy lifting in this area has been done by Irene Graham (who is a quiet retiring soul who avoids spotlights) and UNSW's Prof. Lumby et al, authors of the "Untangling the Net" paper that pointed out that RC includes safe sex information, harm minimization techniques for drug use, political messages about voluntary euthanasia, and so on.
- mark
Lizie :
30 Mar 2010 3:04:56pm
It's a shame Paul Barclay isn't allowed to enter the debate. It means douchebags like Conroy can get away with crimes against logic.
Tony :
04 Apr 2010 2:54:28am
I've seen this a few times with Conroy interviews - it's like there's a deal that if he appears on a show, he's not allowed to be interrupted.
For god's sake, these people, politicians, *work for us*. *We employ them!* How dare he, or any other politician, use the position we give them to force through laws that do not represent the people's will.
What is this, the middle ages?
Marc :
30 Mar 2010 3:17:57pm
There are a lot of histrionics in all of this, and people are just plain ignorant when it comes to their assertions - the black list contains a small proportion of URLS of material that we all agree shouldn't be made publically available.
ingenuous :
30 Mar 2010 5:38:25pm
Marc, we certainly DO NOT all agree that the black list contains URLs that should not be made publicly available.
People who are braver than me have checked all the leaked blacklist URLs and declared them to be either dead, plain porn, or banned political speech (ie euthanasia info or safe drug taking info).
Senator Conroy can get up and say anything he likes about the black list because it's secret and nobody can check up on him. I call shenanigans on this. I arbitrarily declare that everything on the black list is photos of petunias. If Conroy wishes to dispute this, he should publish the list. Since he won't, we have just his word, something we don't trust further than we can spit.
Just Laughing :
01 Apr 2010 8:54:37am
That's right, because the leaked Blacklist was DEFINATELY the one that was used. And we all know that because the nice hackers said so......
Just Laughing at Just Laughing :
01 Apr 2010 11:58:37am
Conroy admitted it was the true source. Thank you come again.
Andrew :
04 Apr 2010 2:48:08am
Somehow you are certain what is on a secret blacklist. Mind telling us how you know? Nevermind being certain that "we all" agree on it.. it must be wonderful living in your world.
Daniel :
30 Mar 2010 3:18:04pm
I have a feeling Conroy's going to live to regret introducing this filter.
Australians are too proud of our tradition of democracy and more or less free speech to be conned with something like this. They're not so easily swayed by arguments about kiddie porn which most people know simply isn't there in the first place and are suspicious about why then the government wants this so bad, considering the amount of negative feedback it's getting.
I'm surprised though at Conroy's level of maturity: invoking China and Thailand as successful examples of filtering?? Having a go at Google, which has just gained lots of respect for pulling out of China over exactly the same issue???
Sometimes I wonder if Conroy doesn't live in a wonderland all of his own, where the sun always shines and nothing rated beyond "G" makes it into existence.
Eric :
31 Mar 2010 11:19:05am
"gained lots of respect for pulling out of China"? Really?
The fundamental characteristic of Capitalism is profit maximisation, no exception here for the Google case. Also , do you know what role the us government/congress has played in google pulling out of China? Do some research before you post, you clearly need more education.
Andrew :
04 Apr 2010 2:43:30am
"Also , do you know what role the us government/congress has played in google pulling out of China? Do some research before you post, you clearly need more education."
Please enlighten us as to the role of the US gov. in Google "pulling out" (they stopped search services that's all) of China. Obviously you know something about secret US gov. business that nobody else does. Enlighten us, please.
Alan B.Goulding :
08 Jul 2010 1:37:48pm
I believe the China example is a good one, inasmuch as, China suppresses political expression, freedom of worship, democratic principles; and ethnic minorities. Arguably that is why they also need to CONTROL the net; and, genuine freedom of expression. I believe, theirs and our inherent security needs, would be far better served; by a watching brief, rather than outright suppression. Politicians need to know, what people think! Capishe?
Devraj Mukherjee :
30 Mar 2010 4:08:50pm
Have you considered how easy it is for someone running a web site to change their URL and domain name?
Who in the government office is going to keep track of this!
Conroy says "The laws that apply in the real world, should apply in the virtual world", then why is it virtual?
Conroy says "We have to educate people", this is not education.
jim :
30 Mar 2010 10:03:46pm
Not really... once they put it on the black list, they'll also take away the IP address of the site, and enforce every ISP to take any associated links to your site off their DNS servers.
At least theres one thing we agree on. Conroy is an idiot
Ida Down :
30 Mar 2010 4:13:23pm
Now that is what I call an entirely unbiased debate. :-)
Senator RobRoy :
30 Mar 2010 4:19:54pm
You're so far off the mark here Conroy that it's not even worth the effort to tell you why. Consider the public opinion polls, what the US Government and what Google is saying though and you might get an inkling. Oh, and great work on your handling of the Telstra/NBN mess. Douchebag.
Nick Wallis :
30 Mar 2010 4:33:18pm
Some of the reasons why I am most bothered by the proposed internet filter is because of its potential for misuse in the future and its lack of transparency.
I regularly write letters to and follow debate about drug laws in our country and around the world, and am worried that websites regarding this debate, regarding safe drug use and regarding the culture around drug users will be considered inappropriate content and blocked.
Minister Conroy continually compared the internet to books and DVD's, while I'd sooner compare it to a coffee lounge, water cooler or some other open, discussion place.
Essentially, I feel that relatively the same conversations that people have in these places are also taking place online. These are places where people shouldn't have to worry about their conversation being monitored, their sharing of ideas and debate censored.
I wonder if websites such as Erowid.org, Maps.org, pillreports.com, shroomery.org etc. will be blocked. All of these websites are about drugs, and come from a community of drug users who wish to use these substances without harm to themselves or any other person.
The drug argument aside, people DO talk about these things, people DO take drugs (Nice people take drugs to, you know) and people WILL continue to do so. Restricting information and the sharing of information about such things could lead to the drug black market (a rather sinister, capitalistic entity), abusing the lack of knowledge and selling dodgy substances. It also has the potential to stifle debate about such a contentious topic, in favour of one particular moralistic point of view over another.
This isn't a matter of protection of children, it's an invasion of civil liberties. It's opening doors for ease of abuse and misuse of such infrastructure.
Zaphod's just this guy, y'know :
30 Mar 2010 8:33:37pm
I agree with your concern for the incursion of values-based filtering:
Even if we consider Obama and Rudd to be relatively progressive, and neutral/just with respect to their opponents, that doesn't mean that future governments whether Lib, ALP, Greens or something else (Pirate-Sex coalition party!?), won't exploit anti-transparent, contra-democratic tools like this one.
This cannot be discounted, especially so soon after a decade of deceit from the radically-predatory Bush/Howard governments, who happily referred to morality, whilst eroding culture, health and commonwealths in favour of advancing private profits and economic anarchy.
(i.e. as evidenced by the GFC and the dramatic falls in Australia's education rankings.)
If technical challenges were resolved, and such a filter was implemented, it would have to be operated by an independent commission and include boards drawn from the community (like the OFLC) as well as perhaps jury-style involvement of a genuine cross-section of culture.
Kermit :
30 Mar 2010 5:15:15pm
Dear Stephen Conroy,
I heard the program last night. A mate of mine did, too.
My mate said to me after listening to the logic of your stance that you obviously don't have the brains of a sheep.
But, you'll be pleased to know that I stuck up for you.
I told him in no uncertain terms that it's obvious you do.
Adam :
30 Mar 2010 5:47:28pm
google and similar companies should move their operations to other places if the filter starts
Jason :
30 Mar 2010 7:57:44pm
This proposed policy is an absolute disgrace. I have always voted Labor but I will never vote Labor again. I can't stand the Liberal party but this issue is enough to make me switch my vote. Shame on you Kevin Rudd, Conroy and Co.
Wayne :
03 Apr 2010 6:58:24pm
You are exactly in the position I am in. I have voted Labor all my life and Conroy is changing my vote.
If Labor wants the internet to go dark, this is the way to achieve it. Soon everyone will encrypt everything. At the moment law enforcement can see what is being accessed and nail them. I want child molesters and purveyors of kiddy porn to be nabbed. Conroy in his stupidity is putting that at risk and Labor is tarred with his brush.
David :
31 Mar 2010 1:42:24am
Do not have a mandatory internet filter.
Labour will LOSE my vote if a mandatory internet filter occurs - on this one issue alone. 20 years I've voted for ALP, but no longer post a mandatory filter.
Ian Roberts :
30 Mar 2010 6:11:13pm
Stephen Conroy reveals his own lack of faith in the filter with his arguments for keeping the blacklist secret. If the filter was effective then there would be no reason not to publish it as those sites would inaccessible.
He also reveals great naivety when he states that such a small number of URLs would represent a significant blockage of undesirable content.
Adam Meehan :
30 Mar 2010 6:37:21pm
In the program the effectiveness of the filter was at issue but not thoroughly debated.
Senator Conroy said it was 100% accurate in that it blocked all sites when the specific URL was entered into a browser. While this is correct, we should be careful as describing this as its effectiveness.
The effectiveness should be considered in a real world context. The effectiveness should be gauged as the ability to block the content on the page which the blacklisted URL intended to block. This is where the claim to almost complete ineffectiveness has substance.
The simple method by which you can reach the pages content while not using the *exact* URL is outlined in this page http://www.orzeszek.org/blog/2009/12/20/add-nocleanfeed-or-nocleanfeed-to-blacklisted-urls-to-bypass-mandatory-australian-internet-censorship/
I think anyone who reads that can agree it would be absolutely trivial to bypass the filter for the great majority if not all websites on the blacklist.
I do no support the filter in any form and believe it a policy without any evidence for its real world effectiveness. Its greatest achievement will be a technology that stands between the citizens and their online information controlled by the Government. Once in place will it be there for all time.
The plaintiff arguments by Senator Conroy that it is only RC material neglects to expand on how material arrives on that list. The legislation is broad enough to allow for much subjective interpretation.
James :
30 Mar 2010 7:15:32pm
there is an obligation by the government to have free speech, free access to information that is NOT censored in this manner. Why does the Australian gov't not also stop certain books being published because they don't adhere to gov't view or majority of popular opinion - this is because Australia is a DEMOCRACY. In fact in USA, they do not publish certain people's writing (Noam Chomsky to name a few) and even the US government does not and will not undertake an internet censorship programme. Our government is supposed to make decisions on behalf of the people for the people, from all the statistics I can gather the vast majority (including parents) feel either this programme has gone "too far" or [as I] reject the principle entirely. This is not to mention the potential abuse future governments of this country will have being able to monitor far more closely all citizens data traffic patterns. IT'S A LUDICROUS IDEA!
John :
30 Mar 2010 8:19:56pm
Sack this crappy minister already..
Henry :
30 Mar 2010 8:55:53pm
Conroy is is repeating the same over and over again... not replying to any of the important questions as to who will manage the list or on what basis will the list be updated. After all there are tens of thousands of websites popping up everyday.
How does a Webmaster get a site whitelisted if it's been blacklisted by e.g. a typo? Who do I call to whitelist my site Mr Conroy? The ghostbusters?
I think that this is a mad plan only created by a madman, such as the one below, and his famous quote...
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think -- Adolf Hitler
slava :
30 Mar 2010 9:36:02pm
Politicians should not be concerned with REASON, or FACTS, or LOGIC, or COMMON SENSE. Their role is to act, and when you take this into account, Stephen Conroy is a legend.
Ambrose :
31 Mar 2010 2:49:27am
I'd like to try and sum up the things I learned from this program.
1) Will the filter stop people who want to access child porn?
No. Senator Conroy freely admits that.
He speaks regretfully about the fact you can't filter peer-to-peer traffic, but doesn't draw the obvious conclusion, that one of the main planks of his policy is invalidated by this.
2) Will the filter stop children seeing regular online porn?
No. Senator Conroy freely admits that.
It only prohibits the RC material. So the thing concerned but ill=informed parents (like the guy whose son saw something "inappropriate" on his iPod) probably think is going to happen, won't actually happen.
3) Will the filter be 100% effective?
No. Senator Conroy freely admits that ... when pushed on the topic.
He speaks regretfully about how the really determined geeks out there will find a away around it, but says the government "can't just do nothing". That doesn't mean they have to do THIS thing, does it?
[If you listen carefully, by the way, he starts to say "it won't be 100% sex" then corrects himself. Brilliant.]
4) How will the government ensure some kind of transparency, so that we can be sure it's not inhibiting free speech?
Senator Conroy has no idea. That's a hard one. He has put out a call for submissions. I can't see the link on this site.
5) Will whole sites which discuss issues like euthanasia be banned?
No. Only specific URLs, so you can see the debate, but not the instructions. But probably not the debate about the instructions.
Senator Conroy probably needs some kind of basic instruction in what URLs are. One URL can lead to two things, two URLs can lead to the same thing, and so on. If someone runs a site with the URL "/how/to/commit/suicide" and the filter bans it, it will be the work of a moment to change it to something else, or to set up a version for Australians to see, or any one of a thousand variations.
6) There are 355 sites out there with child porn.
Senator Conroy did not say, nor did Mr Barclay ask, what we're doing about these sites. We're going to stop people looking at them with the filter. Oh, wait, no we're not, we already covered that. So, have we reported them to the authorities? To the relevant police forces of the countries in which they are hosted? The question didn't even come up.
As usual, Conroy talked at length and without interruption about how horrible child porn is. Which presumably 99.9% of listeners already know and agree with. It's a waste of everyone's time.
Child porn is illegal. Telling people how to disinfect a syringe, or take a pill, isn't. That's where it get interesting. That's what the show should have focused on.
timothy.vukomanovic :
31 Mar 2010 5:00:46pm
Well put I agree with all that you have said. Somthing that is so fundementally flawed can only be a face for somthing else.
It is amazing that people still want to vote for the arrogant liers in this government. They want to take your freedom by scaring you, they spend money friverously, wake up australia.
Wayne :
03 Apr 2010 6:16:34pm
Well I won't be one of them. If this moron puts this idea to a vote I will vote against Labor at the next election.
If it passes the parliament I will vote against Labor for the rest of my life.
Why? Because the only reason we don't have an international treaty for effective slavery (The multi lateral agreement on investment) is because someone leaked the negotiation document to the internet and people all over the world told their goverments they would throw them out if they joined this obscene treaty.
As for Senator Conroy's claim that the filter is 100% accurate. How is that possible if the list it is using is not 100% accurate? Blacklisted dentists in Toowong have already proved the falsity of that!
And as for self harm, if we block info on how to euthanase yourself people will invent their own, less effective, more painful ways. He might as well send a coat hanger to every woman in Australia.
Chris :
15 Apr 2010 8:52:38am
I wouldn't get too focussed on which party is bringing in this legislation. Whatever the libs violently disagree with now becomes a workable idea once they're in power. Just look at GST. Originally a Labour plan (keating), opposed by libs, but implemented by libs when in power (after which labour clamours for rollback, which never happens).
We are already living in a one party political system - two major parties with effectively no policy difference apart from mindlessly opposing the other.
Please bear in mind that if this filter gets implemented it will be here forever. Simply voting labour out won't result in removal. Fingers crossed sense may yet prevail but not optimistic.
Cezar :
31 Mar 2010 10:27:29am
Conroy is introducing "Phase one" of a far more intrusive free speech control "department".
Don't get sidetracked by debating which sites will be blocked in Phase one.
When Joe Public says "I agree, some sites should be blocked."
What Joe is actually agreeing to is more like this... "A permanent department should be set up to monitor and limit Internet access, I agree to be controlled by their values. I accept that there will never be a democratic means to undo this decision."
Michael :
31 Mar 2010 10:31:32am
I can't even bring myself to download the audio.. Can't stand listening to Conroy throw hissy fits anymore.
Simon :
31 Mar 2010 11:51:35am
1) 350 odd kiddie porn urls in the list. What makes up the other 9650 odd?
2) If the filter blocks the urls 100% why can the list not be made public? Seeing as though no one in Australia can see them.
China 2.0 here we come!
Oh by the way, if you want to see how scary the future is just have a look at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032402511.html
Dave :
31 Mar 2010 1:53:16pm
I just have to comment on this issue.
The internet is not like your TV, like a published book or a DVD or anything else that Conroy compared it to. It is more like the roads, or telephones, or postal service.
I ask the people of Australia, How would you like it if every conversation was listened in to, every time you drove down the street your car was searched, or every letter arriving at your house had already been opened all. You would be outraged! This whole debate is outrageous. Why would we give up all of our rights to privacy to stop people "smuggling in" child porn.
Go after the people having sex with children, the people hosting these websites! Not after your constituents. Innocent until proven guilty. Conroy will never get a vote from me, or for Labor until this ridiculous policy is dropped
And please, stop using Child Porn as a shield to stop real debate. Otherwise I suggest we ban cars, swimming pools, lego, knives, vitamins, heavy objects, cleaning products and plastic bags because they all kill children. And you don't like killing children? Do you?
smithi :
31 Mar 2010 11:01:02pm
This 'child abuse' filtering is but a sideshow, a shoehorn for a much larger foot into a much bigger boot, which is why Conroy so desperately bangs the kiddieporn drum to drown out all else; witness the closing minute of this show.
There's been scant mention of what this will achieve regarding overall internet traffic control at national and 'allied' levels, nor links with new 'cyber-security' as well as existing state surveillance agencies.
Forget Labor v Liberal; ALL governments want this ability to not just block but to realtime monitor and easily surveil all forms of communication.
My bet is on Tony Abbott, after bluster in the Reps, allowing a Senate 'conscience vote' to ensure this bill's passage by floor crossers, while nominally opposing 'aspects' - a win all around.
Now 'child abusers', soon to be 'terrorists', 'gangs', 'dissidents' then 'activists', if not by the present government then one not long in coming; nature of the beast.
Forget encryption; no need to see content, just who's talking with whom; Facebook, but everywhere.
Conroy implies peer to peer is a 'later' part of the plan. HTTPS, P2P and VPN links can only be snooped by inline, realtime Deep Packet Inspection, so expect DPI equipment to be mandated for all ISPs.
Forget speed issues. Enough computing horsepower (money) eliminates noticeable delays, e.g. NSA filtering AT&T's traffic through their black boxes (google 'warrantless wiretaps') was exposed by a whistleblower, not detection of sub-ms delays.
This gear is _really_ expensive for even present ADSL bandwidths. That's sure to lean hard on medium-size ISPs and be prohibitively expensive for smaller fish. This scheme requires hastening the demise of pesky smaller ISPs through corporate buyouts into very few nominally competitive players, while needing mostly just redeployment and tuning of existing kit by existing staff with a spare million or two for the largest ISPs.
Providing roll-your-own open source DPI solutions will be prohibited, now that being given state secrets to maintain becomes a requirement for providing internet access in Australia.
Once using as pretext maintenance of state secrecy by mandating particular 'solutions' to requirements, you want the fewest number of ISPs to deal with when it comes time to compel connection of monitoring, analysis and forwarding infrastucture that no doubt some 'emergency intervention' will soon demand.
cheers anyway :)
Gilbert :
04 Apr 2010 9:35:28am
Brave New World, The essential modern politician's handbook. Conroy must have just about worn his copy out by now.
Look at political history over the last 30 years and you will see the "Boiling Frog" Concept in full swing.
One simple example is a film shown in cinemas, yes, in mainstream cinemas, and drive-ins actually, in the 1970s, in its uncensored entirety, called the Story of O. This film is still available in Australia on DVD, but has had scenes (considered today as RC) CUT OUT to comply with today's classification R18 criteria.
This may give an idea as to where this filter is heading in the future.
Exit international is also on the black list, the whole site apparently according to them. So much for Conroy's assurance that debate will not be blocked. Exit held a hacking masterclass for seniors this week teaching them how to side step the filter. Beautiful stuff, showing the Eureka spirit is still alive, if only an ember.
This is political and not really about Porn or CP at all. We need to act and act now, any suggestions?
Drew :
04 Apr 2010 10:28:03pm
Just on an age thing (I'm 22), my 3 younger brothers and I haven't ever had issues surfing the Internet, and I've grown up on the Internet. More importantly no one I know has had issues with anything that the filter is capable of dealing with.
My opinion is that we scrap the filter as planned and put the funding to the police who are tasked at dealing with Internet based issues.
If we must have a filter I think it needs to be client side with different list for different people's needs. I heard Conroy talk about no one using the old filter, but as far as I was aware (I was young at the time) there wasn't one, due to (my thoughts) bad advertising (regardless of the cost of the advertising). Also, why did it need to be taken down? I feel like it was a deliberate move to make his filter MORE necessary because there are no longer alternatives.
If it is going to go down this path, if the Black List is public I think that the voices against the filter will get much softer.
Just my 2 cents.
On a less constructive topic but something that annoys me: can Conroy SHUT UP from time to time, he interrupts people all the time, but no one can interrupt him? Its just rude...
Sophie :
06 Apr 2010 11:46:19am
Anyone who supports this internet filter is an under evolved ape. I hate living here in Australia, I honestly wish I had the money to move away from this absolutely disgusting, slow and shitty nation.
We have a country filled with complete idiots like this, our internet is filtered and 90% of the population is filled with bogan idiots, EVERYTHING is becoming censored and we're being treated like children by our own government. I could go on and on and on but people probably read "I hate Australia" and decided to ignore this message.
The SECOND I get any sort of income (I am a student, we're not supported by the government because for some reason people addicted to heroin deserve more money than those trying to get their degrees and make something of themselves), I am moving away from this disgusting country and cutting all ties I have with it. I'm absolutely ashamed to call myself an Australian when I am stereotyped and lined up with this halfwit.
If no one can see what they are trying to do, then you need to throw yourself off a bridge and never reproduce because you aren't going to do the world any good by living.
Angry resident :
06 Apr 2010 4:58:11pm
Anyone who agrees with this filter should still be living in their caves and hunting for their food. Wake up Australia! Sophie is right, this country is turning to shit. Just listen to the fools who agree with the filter on the radio program, yes, 'Jesus says we must censor the Internet! You morons.
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Grant :
06 Apr 2010 11:39:50pm
@ Mark Newton,
I and others appreciate your work on the technical aspects of a free internet.
However, someone in your position has an opportunity to direct the discussion towards what the definition of Refused Classification (RC) content is.
What RC captures is one of the most important aspects that needs to be discussed.
As you are aware the internet is not a medium like printed publication, television or radio. It is a forum, a free flow of information between individuals.
For example, a private website for swingers, that might contain uploaded footage of spanking or foot fetish is RC.
A website forum discussing the ideological merits of terrorist activities and information or photos of their outcomes is RC.
A website talking about medical procedures related to abortion and the ideological juxtaposition of this subject would be considered RC.
This is the true issue of freedom of speech, and has a desperate need to be addressed.
You have ample air time and it would be nice if you could call the Senator out on labeling RC content as 'rape, bestiality and pro rape sites' because this is simple not the case.
The scope of RC is far wider.
Alan B.Goulding :
08 Jul 2010 1:22:58pm
There's an old expression that goes, give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves. What people do and say in private ought to be sacrosanct, we don't open or censor private mail; albeit, we might have a trained sniffer dog run a nose over it; or, pass it through an X-ray device. While one can agree in principle with most of your comments, we still need to catch and prosecute the criminal element, by simply giving them enough rope.
LC of Eastern Melbourne :
11 Apr 2010 11:10:40pm
I like the idea of trying to clean CP, bestiality and other unsavory material off the internet.
However just like how a lock will not keep the criminals out of your house, the filter won't stop bad people who really want to see CP or whatever else. If, you Mr. Conroy, saw a woman getting on the street, would you simply toss a blanket over them? I'd certainly hope not, but that, in effect, is what the filter does. In the words of Senator Scott Ludlam; "Censorship will not catch a single pedophile, will not cause a single image to disappear from the internet, will not protect a single child". After all, you don't catch kiddy porn peddlers by painting over a door so they look like a wall, you catch them by kicking the door down.
Secondly, you'll find that child porn is NOT spread around using the internet. Why? It's too public. Child porn is illegal in every 1st and 2nd world country, which are the biggest users of the internet. Putting up a website for CP will only cause it to be closed down within hours and the owners prosecuted. The major CP busts we've seen over the last 3-5 years have been concerning private, invitation only networks used to make the people responsible harder to find. Additionally, these networks cannot be affected any kind of filter. In the days before the internet, did you see pedophiles walk into newsagencies to pick up their child porn? No. They shared it in their secretive groups. Little has changed since then.
So instead of spending my taxes on a filtering plan which is unworkable on several levels, how about you spend it on better equipping and training the AFP so they can infiltrate more Child porn P2P (peer to peer) rings, put more pedophiles in court, taking down abusive images and hopefully rescue more abused children?
Alan B.Goulding :
08 Jul 2010 1:15:44pm
You know, common sense is one of the rarest commodities, but particularly it would seem, in Canberra, which seems to attract inherent "autocrats" like moths attracted to a flame. The very best way to end CP is to nab those who peddle; and or, produce it; and, filtering will, I believe, only ever impede that. Parents have and ought to exercise ultimate control over what is watched, which arguably is all the filtering we really need. Senator Conroy and others with a perceived similar mindset, need to first focus their own morals, which apparently caters for seemingly rank political expediency; instead of, tampering with the very bastion of democracy, freedom of expression.
sean :
25 Apr 2010 12:34:37pm
In a liberal-democracy freedom of speech is important. Freedom of Speech is a fundamental ingredient.
How important?
Important enough that in the US Bill of Rights the First Amendment (nb: not the second or third, but the first among all amendments) is Freedom of Speech. But Stephen Conroy thinks he knows better, he thinks he can tamper with the bits he doesn't like.
It was important enough that some of the greatest most respected political philosophers Voltaire, Mill, Locke and Franklin spoke of the importance of the essential presence of this freedom. If you are not familiar with the writings of these people, that is the fault of our government and education system and this ignorance could lead to the loss of the way of life our brave soldiers have suffered and died for. Yet Stephen Conroy thinks he knows better.
Freedom of Speech is so important that where it lacks there is tyranny and oppression, and rebellion is justified. Does that sound extreme to say? It is. Is it unAustralian to say so? No, in fact, Australia in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put our nation's name to the statement "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law" Freedom of Speech is regarded by Article 19 of that Declaration to be one of those inalienable rights.
It is deeply saddening to realise that potentially ignorance and apathy may see this nation's future betrayed by ideologically defective and short-sighted politicians on this matter. It is reassuring to see so many contributors motivated to speak out.
The question is whether enough of us will take more visible action, marching rallies and demonstrations to defend our way of life from this attack on our liberal-democratic way of life.
Let me know where we are marching, and I will be there. Stand for Parliament on this as a one issue party or independent, and I will vote for you.
Mark :
28 Apr 2010 11:32:42pm
When will our Communist government learn that we are a FREE!! Country.
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asylum :
06 May 2010 12:04:14am
The thing is, if this passes through government, more sites are going to pop up offering a easy way to bypass stephen conroys australian internet filter.
I guess the best thing about this (if it does happen) is these places will raise awareness of how insecure current browsing is now, especially over wifi hotspots etc.
Craig :
06 May 2010 11:39:21pm
Well done Paul, good interview.
Apart from the awful Hungry Beast poll (I think that was very flawed, with leading questions), there seems to be very little support for this censorship. In particular, I haven't heard a single person that is a) technically competent or b) informed and intelligent agree with the filter.
i.e. everyone that gets what he's really doing, knows how ineffective and dangerous it will be.
I hope the rest of the Labor party knows what a threat to their re-election this issue is!
Where are forward thinking people in politics? I'm so sick of the conservative christian agenda that is driving crap like this.
Conroy, the internet is NOTHING LIKE a newsagency. Sir, you are a naive and dangerous fool! Please listen to your citizens, the US govt, Google and humans rights groups, and leave our internet alone!
Network Engineer :
27 Jul 2010 2:18:23pm
Im a network engineer at telstra for 20 years, also a father of three young adults / teenagers, I for one would be first to support this filter, in fact, i'll design it and be happy to implement it myself.
kate :
08 Jun 2011 10:56:56am
why don't you just do that on your OWN computer, at HOME?
That way you can protect your kids (which makes you happy) and i can decide what i access online (makes me happy).
on that note, what would happen to wikileaks?