The Inquisitr » great firewall of australia

Confirmed: Second Life, online adult games to be banned outright in Australia

Duncan Riley — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:44:19 +0000

The Australian Minister for Censorship has today confirmed what I’ve been reporting for nearly two years: online adult games including Second Life will be banned in Australia.

A spokesman for Censorship Minister Stephen “Goebbels” Conroy confirmed to Fairfax newspapers that “under the filtering plan, it will be extended to downloadable games, flash-based web games and sites which sell physical copies of games that do not meet the MA15+ standard.” In Australia, the MA15+ rating means that the content is restricted to those aged 15 and above. Australia does not have a R 18+ or similar rating for computer games, with all adult games automatically being classified as RC (Refused Classification.)

I wish I hadn’t been right here, so I take no delight in being so. However I was derided by more than a few bible bashing ALP voting Conroy lovers (in a platonic sense of course, cock sucking will be banned under the censorship regime) as being extreme and wrong in the past, so here’s two examples of things I’ve written previously about what Conroy was planning to do:

December 2007
To be censored by the Australian Government is “pornography and inappropriate material.” X rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino style internet gambling, certain forms of “hate” speech and R rated computer games.

January 2009
We know that among other “unwanted” things, the following falls into the censorship regime: porn, R rated games, certain types of political speech (for example discussion of methods of euthanasia) and possibly copyrighted content.

I am though surprised this is news today, as the policy was ALWAYS THERE in the fine print from day one. Conroy has waffled and avoided ever giving a direct answer about until now, but he’s also very good at that.

That at the half way point of 2009 this is even still on the agenda in Australia is a fucking disgrace, and the more the Government confirms the details, the more totalitarian the proposal becomes, and even China starts to look more open and free.

Chinese filtering move demonstrates futility of Australian censorship proposal

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:30:56 +0000

The Chinese Government has issued a decree that all computers sold in the country must include filtering software from July 1. The software will allow the Chinese Government to filter sites it deems inappropriate on each PC, including the ability to regularly update computers with up-to-date filtering lists.

The need to introduce PC based filtering in China can only be interpreted one way: existing ISP level filtering in China is not adequately working, despite years of investment in technology and support staff.

So if China can’t get ISP level filtering to work, why does the Australian Government believe that it’s different?

Australia’s proposed “Great Firewall of Australia” internet censorship regime proposes to block thousands, even possibly millions of sites (the Minister today still refuses to give a straight answer) using ISP level filtering. Unlike China, where the methods to bypass filters would be subject to strict censorship, the knowledge and tools needed to bypass the Australian version are freely available, and as far as we know, are not about to be banned either. Tools is probably the wrong way of putting it, because tools imply some level of effort, where as bypassing ISP level filtering isn’t anywhere nearly that hard.

Proof that filtering doesn’t work effectively in China is yet another reason why the Australian Government must drop its draconian internet censorship policy. Who knows: Australia’s Mandarin speaking Prime Minister may actually recognize that if his mates in China can’t get it right….

Australian Government may backflip on compulsory internet censorship

Duncan Riley — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:01:09 +0000

The Australian Government for the first time since their election may be considering optional internet censorship, the original policy they were elected on.

Australian Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy today (Tuesday local time) told a Senate estimates committee that the “Great Firewall of Australia” could be implemented by a voluntary industry code, as opposed to legislation.

The implication from Conroy is that the same outcome can be done via an industry code, but more likely that the Australian Government doesn’t have the numbers in the Senate to pass the enabling Legislation. The current Australian Government does not hold a majority in the Senate (the upper house), and relies on the votes of the Green Party, and a number of independent senators. So far, the Greens, and the Independent Senators have expressed serious reservations on the proposed fascist state censorship proposal.

Senator Conroy told the Senate Committee: “Mandatory ISP filtering would conceivably involve legislation … voluntary is available currently to ISPs…One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it.”

There is no concrete evidence that the Australian Government is backing down from its China inspired censorship regime outside of Conroy’s words.. The current ISP trial continues.

Australian Censorship Minister advocates illegal taping of Internet Accounts

Duncan Riley — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:58:41 +0000

Controversial Australian Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy is back in the news after mocking a company for not breaking the law.

Conroy, speaking at the CommsDay Summit in Sydney Tuesday, mocked ISP iiNet over its defense in court that it didn’t know what its users were downloading. As we’ve reported previously, iiNet is being sued by big media over alleged illegal downloading by its customers.

From ITNews.com.au:

In what was at times a heated morning at the CommsDay Summit in Sydney, Conroy told an overflowing room that the idea that iiNet “have no idea if any customers are illegally downloading music” on their network is a “stunning defence”.

“The capacity to be able to ignore what your customers are doing on your network is being fought out in the Courts but I thought the defence of ‘we have no idea what anyone is downloading over our network’ was a classic,” Conroy said.

There’s one rather problem with Conroy’s mockery: it’s illegal to spy on users in Australia without a court order under the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. If iiNet had been spying on what its users were downloading, they would be breaking Australian law.

Stilgherrian rightly points out that even if they were illegally spying on customers, how could iiNet tell whether a particular data stream is an “illegal” copy or not? “A music file looks just the same whether it’s being used legally under the terms of its license or under fair dealing, or not. Does Senator Conroy imagine illegally-made copies are stamped “pirate” or something?”

Wikileaks threatens Australian Minister over censorship list: Conroy could be jailed in Sweden

Duncan Riley — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:26:34 +0000

Wikileaks has upped the ante in its stoush with the Australia Government, warning that any attempts to find the source of the leaked censorship list would cause an international incident, and could see Australian Minister for censorship Stephen Conroy indicted on criminal charges in Sweden.

The full Wikileaks release (note offline as of 4am US PDT/ 8pm AEDT):

“Wikileaks to Conroy: Go after our source and we will go after you.”

The Stockholm based publisher of Wikileaks today issued a warning to the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Steven Conroy, who is responsible for Australian internet censorship.

Senator Conroy issued an official media release yesterday in response to Wikileaks’ release of last year’s confidential Australian internet censorship blacklist. The Senator said that his department, “is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Any Australian involved in making this content publicly available would be at serious risk of criminal prosecution.”

The Senator is perhaps unware of the legal and diplomatic risks associated with the statement.

Sunshine Press Legal Adviser Jay Lim stated:

“Under the Swedish Constitution’s Press Freedom Act, the right of a confidential press source to anonymity is protected, and criminal penalties apply to anyone acting to breach that right.

Wikileaks source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection. Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and, if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights.”

Senator Conroy may wish to consider the position of the South African Competition Commission, which decided to cancel its own high profile leak investigation in January after being advised of the legal ramifications of interfering with Sunshine Press sources.

Let me be the first to say that should Conroy breach the law in Sweden that as a citizen who respects international law, I will do everything possible to assist Sweden in the investigation.

Google soon to be banned in Australia under draconian censorship laws

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:37:38 +0000

Recent action by the Australian Government may see Google and many other popular websites banned in Australia under existing censorship laws.

Under the Communications Legislation Amendment (Content Services) Act 2007 sites that link to content that is Refused Classification (RC) are considered themselves to be RC, and if hosted in Australia, site owners can be ordered to remove the link(s), or fined AU$11,000 a day.

The problem is that the provisions potentially make most sites on the internet illegal. Take for example the leaked Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist on Wikileaks we wrote about earlier. Given that the list was published after ACMA banned a similar list from Denmark, it’s fair to say that linking to the Australian list will be illegal as well from Australia. Note at this point that the content in the list consists entirely of URLs and does not in itself publish pictures or video; under the act, the links in the list are illegal content (RC) because of what they link to. Likewise, linking to that list is illegal because the list itself is now illegal. Any site that links to the list of links then becomes prohibited content. Most sites would have a front page with internal links, so any page on a site that links to the post that links to the list of links becomes illegal. Keeping up?

If I was linking to XYZ blog, and XYZ blog was linking to ABC blog who had linked to the list, all the pages in the chain are illegal, because each one links to prohibited content. Any site linking to me then becomes illegal, and so on.

But it gets better, because it took 1 second for me to bring up a page in Google which links to the Denmark list. If the Denmark list is prohibited content, then Google is in breach of the act as well, and could well end up being banned. And that’s before you even consider that Google itself takes copies of pages through Google Cache (I’m not allowed to link to it, but it is there, in full in Google.)

This is the stupidity of what is essentially a thought crime: criminalizing a list of links which are text and do not in themselves constitute child porn or other physical illegal activity. The law sets off a chain that could potentially result in most, if not all of the internet in Australia being banned by the Government.

Sounds extreme? well so is making laws that say sites are refused classification for a link and not content. Fascism in Australia has a very wide bow.

Australian Government includes Poker sites, YouTube videos on censorship list

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:56:45 +0000

The blacklist of web sites banned by the Australian Government has been leaked to pubic disclosure site Wikileaks.

The list details all sites “refused classification” in Australia that would be illegal to view in Australia, or as was discovered last week, even linked to. The list, which does include child pornography sites, is remarkable for the additional material it also bans. Included on the list are Poker sites, including sites where poker is played and even a Poker news sites, religious sites, YouTube videos, normal porn sites and as Asher Moses at The Age points out, even the site of a Queensland dentist.

The sites on the list would form the backbone of Australia’s proposed internet censorship regime. Currently, the sites aren’t blocked although illegal to view; under the proposal, all sites on the blacklist would be blocked at the ISP level in Australia.

The list finally puts to rest the Australian Government’s line that the filter was all about child pornography, when it’s clearly not at all, and that the filter would be far greater than Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy has previously said.

I can’t link to the list because it’s likely that the list itself will end up on the list (and it’s a AU$11,000/ day fine), but I’ll be damned if I can’t link to a perfectly legal site like Pokerstars. As well as having an account with Pokerstars, I’m also an affiliate; waiting for the police to come and drag me away now.

Australian Minister confirms legal content may be blocked by Censorship Regime

Duncan Riley — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:31:36 +0000

Despite saying previously that “unwanted” content would be included in the Great Firewall of Australia, Australian Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy had also claimed that the proposed Internet censorship regime was focused on blocking “illegal sites.” Until now.

At an estimates hearing of the Australian Senate’s Environment, Communications and the Arts committee Monday, Conroy said that the trial of the filter now underway was based on blocking “illegal sites,” but the censorship of other content would be “determined after the trial”.

Some have incorrectly suggested that this other content would include X and R rated pornography, for the purposes of the internet, this content is already illegal in Australia. X rated pornography is illegal to sell in Australian states (but legal in the Northern Territory and ACT, it’s also legal to possess), and R rated pornography is legal but only with strict age verification which websites would not meet. See our run down of what might be blocked in this post.

Crikey also suggest that “additional content that will be considered after the trial relates to illegal content such as gambling sites, websites that counsel suicide, seditious material and material banned at the behest of multinational copyright owners,” however this content is already technically illegal, so it hardly counts outside of illegal content as defined by the Minister. Take it as a given that they will likely end up on the blacklist.

The implications of what Conroy is said is far more serious again.

The opposite of illegal content is legal content the last time I checked. Legal “unwanted” content (unwanted being the criteria given by the Minister) could well include political speech where that speech may constitute hate speech in some Australian states. It may include debate on immigration, the debate on global warming, discussion of the links between Organized Crime and the previous Government…it could just about mean anything the Minister decides he doesn’t like. That open door can and will be abused by do-gooder groups who want things banned, after all the criteria now isn’t illegal content, but unwanted content.

There’s one thing though to take away from the Ministers disclosure: the do-gooders like Clive Hamilton and the Christian Lobby can no longer seriously claim that this filter is all about child porn when the Minister himself has clearly confirmed that it’s something far more wide reaching than that.

Not long now until Australian joins China, Iran and other progressive places.

Australian Minister talks Internet Censorship as Victoria burns

Duncan Riley — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:45:31 +0000

As we’ve reported regularly over the last two days, Victoria, Australia has experienced the worst natural disaster in Australian history. As I type this post, the official death toll has risen to 130, with up to 200 people believed dead.

It’s a tragedy beyond all reckoning. So what do you think the Australian Minister for Censorship Senator Stephen Conroy was doing?

Well he was promoting the Australian Governments censorship proposal.

In a release titled “Australia participates in Safer Internet Day 2009″ Senator Conroy promoted the Rudd Governments $125.8 million cyber-safety plan to help create a safer online environment. The cornerstone of that policy is the Great Firewall of Australia.

In case some bright spark in the Government picks up on the sensitivity fail, the screen capture above captures Conroy’s fuck the fires, censorship stands in the way of no man press release.

I’ve sent a message to the Australian Prime Minister on Twitter at @kevinruddpm calling on Conroy to be sacked, and I’d encourage others to do so.

The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia

Duncan Riley — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:51:09 +0000

Much has been written about the social cost of the proposed Australian Internet censorship regime, but far too little on the economic cost.

As the Rudd Government attempts to pass a $42 billion AUD stimulus package in an attempt to stave of recession, it continues to back a plan that has negative economic consequences for Australian businesses.

Calculating the cost isn’t easy; most studies consider the economic benefits of increased broadband speeds, as most sane Governments would never look at slowing internet speeds down, but that is exactly what will happen in Australia when internet censorship is implemented.

The first test paper released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that under trial conditions (so not a full black list), filtering reduced speeds between 2% and “in excess of” 75%, with three of the 6 products tested coming in at between 20-30%. Since that report it has been suggested that the filters with the lowest success rate are the quickest, so a proper implementation of a censorship regime would likely, at best cause a 20% drop in internet speeds, but likely significantly higher again.

Direct cost

Australian ISP’s have already stated that they are likely to pass on the cost of filtering data directly to users (ref). Further, a broad scale filter proposed by the Government may also drive up related costs, such as data center staff needed to deal with an increase in customer complaints when they can’t access sites.(ref).

No hard figure has been proposed by the industry, but even a small increase in internet charges would create a negative impact on the Australian economy.

At the end of June 2008, there were 7.23 million internet subscribers in Australia (ABS). An increase in costs of only $10 per month would immediately cost Australian internet users $867.6 million a year in additional direct costs. A $25 increase in internet access would result in an additional $2.169 billion in direct costs.

Indirect costs

Australia already has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world. A 2008 study (link) found that average internet speeds in Australia was 1.7 mbps, up from 1 mpbs in 2006, when Australia was ranked 26th out of 27 developed countries (ref).

The amount of the indirect cost will depend very much on the amount speeds drop. A 75% cut would bring the average speed down to 425kbps, where as a 25% cut to 1.275mpbs.

The cuts in speed would punish small businesses and the less well off more deeply than large businesses and those who can already afford high speed access. The June 2008 figures from the ABS found that only 43% of Australians have speeds higher that 1.5mpbs, and 21.7% of “broadband” subscribers only have speeds between 256kbps and 512kbps. A 75% cut on a 256kbps account would result in a 64kbps connection, basically dialup.

Remarkably, some 2 million Australians are still using dialup, with a maximum speed of 56kbps.

Slower speeds mean quite simply that it takes longer to do business, and that has a negative effect on productivity.

Inverse benefit

It’s slippery to presume that the loss of internet speed in Australia will result in the direct opposite of the benefits gained by increasing them in the first place, but we can take some of those figures as some indication of a potential loss caused by slower speeds, particularly when the net result of the censorship regime will be slower speeds.

The Federal Government sponsored Broadband Advisory Group found in 2003 that high speed (or “next generation”) broadband could produce $12-$30 billion per annum to the Australian economy. (KPMG pdf)

Paul Puddle Communications in 2004 put the figure at $90 billion (KPMG pdf)

The American Government found in a report Measuring Broadbandʼs Economic Impact (pdf) that “the results support the view that broadband access does enhance economic growth and performance, and that the assumed economic impacts of broadband are real and measurable other economic indicators.”

It’s not a huge leap then to suggest that crippling speeds would have an inverse effect to increasing them.

Competitiveness

Even if we may struggle to put a solid figure on the indirect economic cost on internet censorship in Australia, we can consider factors reducing speeds have on various aspects of business.

A report from the Australian Local Government Association by consultants National Economics (ref) found in 2005 that

“If Australia falls behind, an increasing number of exporters may well feel that they cannot operate as efficiently in the supply chains as other firms elsewhere in the world who do have access to best practice infrastructure”

“This will result in the enterprise being dropped from the supply chain at the cost to the nation’s export performance.”

Governments also recognize the benefits of high speed broadband, and the pitfalls of not having it, remembering that the censorship proposal will slow significantly slow speeds. Auckland City Council (link): “Economic development in any city depends upon access to fast, high capacity broadband infrastructure and services. Due to the lack of high-speed broadband, Auckland is losing economic opportunities.”

Australia is already at a disadvantage in terms of distance from major markets; making businesses less competitive through slower internet access can and will cause lost opportunities, and even lost jobs.

Downward pressure

Julie Schwartz for the Progressive States Network (link) says that broadband access “Can help rejuvenate a lagging economy: Spurs economic development, increases economic equality and increased job opportunities.”

Would then reducing broadband speeds, and making it more expensive not have the opposite effect?

Conclusion

There are many fine reasons why the Australian Government should not introduce the Great Firewall of Australia, and yet freedom of speech doesn’t seem to be high on the Prime Minister’s agenda. The economy though is, and any basic analysis of the figures, even when we may not be able to pin down the exact costs, show that introducing Internet censorship in Australia will have a negative effect on the economy, both in direct and indirect costs.

At a time of economic crisis, Australia cannot afford to risk the introduction a scheme that will contribute to costs and work against the economy.

(img credit: Tamar Leaver)

Australia’s Internet Censorship Scheme Takes Money Allocated to Pursue Pedophiles

Duncan Riley — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:11:37 +0000

The Great Firewall of Australia, the Australian Government’s Internet censorship scheme that is being sold as protecting children has resulted in significant budget cuts to a dedicated anti online child abuse police team.

$2.8 million AUD ($1.86m USD) originally allocated to the Australian Federal Police’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team (OCSET) has instead gone towards Internet censorship. A small figure perhaps, but the total budget for the team in 2007 (without the $2.8m) was $7.5 million AUD ($5m USD).

But it gets better: according to research from Stilgherrian, without that money, OCSET simply doesn’t have the staff to investigate all of the suspected pedophiles it already knows about. Some cases get palmed off to the states — that is, to police who don’t have the specialist training and experience of OCSET, and the rest are simply dropped.

So the Australian Government, in the name of protecting children with a scheme that blocks millions of sites, has created a situation where pedophiles get away, even when they are known to exist, because funding that would have been allocated to pursuing them has been spent on internet censorship.

Won’t somebody think of the children?

I’ve said it before, but this whole scheme is a farce and the Minister should be removed from his position. Even the do-gooders who are backing the censorship regime should be disgusted by this gross misallocation of funds by the Australian Government, as most Australian’s will be. Imagine inversely if the $44 million allocated to censorship was given to this taskforce, and the real outcomes that could be achieved.

Germany to Introduce CP Internet Censorship

Duncan Riley — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:39:35 +0000

Germany has announced that it will introduce compulsory Internet censorship starting in March.

The censorship scheme will block access to child pornography, and will follow a similar model to Norway, where the Government decrees a list of child pornography sites to be blocked by ISP’s.

Germany Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) addressed concerns that the censorship regime could exclude other content by confirming that it may be extended: “We must not dilute the issue. Child pornography is a problem issue and clearly identifiable. [However] you can not exclude what the federal government may wish to block in the future” (note, translation tweaked via Google Translate, so may not be perfect).

Notably the model does not go anywhere close to the proposed Australian Internet Censorship scheme, which will block pornography, adult games and “unwanted content.”

(via Der Spiegel)

Australian Censorship Regime could block over 20 million websites: Testing therefore Useless

Duncan Riley — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:35:44 +0000

As the debate around the proposed Great Firewall of Australia censorship scheme in Australia continues, the Government’s long awaited censorship trial is due to begin shortly.

While some ISP’s are participating only to prove that the filter is flawed, it’s the testing procedure itself where things are completely wrong. The number of sites to be filtered in the trial: 10,000.

While 10,000 may be 10,000 too many, it’s also no where near close to how many sites the filter will have to block to comply with the Government’s guidelines.

We know that among other “unwanted” things, the following falls into the censorship regime: porn, R rated games, certain types of political speech (for example discussion of methods of euthanasia) and possibly copyrighted content.

We can’t count every category, in part because we simply don’t know exactly how the Government will define what stays and what gets blocked, but we can estimate block rates for porn, because we know R and X rated porn (R Rated stays only with strict age verification, which 99.99% of sites won’t meet) is out.

According to Netcraft, there was 182,226,259 sites online in October 2008. “Active” sites (not defined) come in at around 73.6 million.

Estimates of the number of porn sites online vary from 1% through to a massive 35% of all sites online. The most common figure used is 12% (one ref, but common figure)

12% of pages to be blocked by the Great Firewall of Australia would total:

All sites: 21,867,151
“Active” sites: 9.12 million (est).

Even if we take the minimum figure of 1%

All sites: 1,822,263
“Active” sites: 736,000 (est)

Do any of these figures sounding anything close to 10,000 sites?

I’m told that the more sites listed on a blacklist, the slower the filter becomes because each website requested must be checked against the list. 10,000 sites vs 21.9 million: there is no way the trials can give a representative result of what the implementation of the Great Firewall will do for internet speeds in Australia.

The Government may well say in response that they will not be filtering that many sites, and that may be the case. But if true, how will the firewall be effective if some sites are blacklisted, and others aren’t? And that’s ignoring finer points like the filter not blocking non-web content, and only maybe blocking P2P, but with filtering technology in its infancy.

The stupidity of this plan goes from bad to worse. If this does occur, god help everyone in Australia, because we might be returning to internet speeds closer to dialup than our already sorry excuse for broadband.

And a little perspective: the number of sites blocked in Iran is said to be up to 20 million, and the figure isn’t known for China (and censorship isn’t centralized there to complicate things) it is believed to be at a similar level. Soon we’ll be adding Australia to the list.

(image via Queen of the Desert on Flickr).