The ongoing obsession with censorship by the Australian Government continues with two new targets coming into view: Facebook and game review sites.

The interest in Facebook comes after a number of tribute Facebook groups for killed kiddies were defaced. Both cases received widespread coverage in Australia, especially in Queensland where both kids died.

This morning, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said he will consider the introduction of an “online ombudsman” that would be tasked with “cracking down on offensive material on the internet.” The emphasis is mine, but it’s the key: not material that is already illegal, but material that may be legal but which the Government deems “offensive.”

Last week, Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy attacked Facebook, saying that “I think there is a situation where people take Facebook with an enormous amount of trust and they’ve got to clearly explain what went wrong with their security systems, how this was able to happen (and) importantly, how they’re going to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.” In a later report, Conroy was quoted to have demanded that Facebook overhaul security.

The problem with Conroy’s comments is that the only way to prevent this sort of material being posted (and it’s the ONLY way) is to prevent the free posting of material in the first place. That is: anything posted to a site like Facebook would have to be approved before it went live. Such a move would kill social media, and highlights how inept Conroy’s understanding of such sites are: there are billions of things posted to Facebook every single day; you can’t filter it all up front without a massive army of people in Orwellean scope, a scope way beyond the means of even a big company like Facebook.

Any attempt by the Australian Government to force sites such as Facebook to pre-approve comments would kill online free speech in Australia and deliver unprecedented online censorship compared to nearly every other country on the planet. Not even the Chinese insist on pre-approving content.

In related news, it now appears that game review sites may also find themselves in part censored in Australia.

The Australian Government Department tasked with censorship has told Kotaku Australia that pages on game review sites that review games that have been refused classification in Australia (remembering that Australia has no adult game rating) would themselves be refused classification and blocked in Australia because they include details of an RC game.

So not only will Australian’s not be able to play games suitable for adults in the rest of the world, they also won’t be able to read reviews about them.

I’d add my standard Orwell would be proud comment, but we’re probably beyond that point now. The Government in 1984 watched what it citizens said, the Australian Government may now want to approve what they say before they say it.

Australia’s Latest Censorship Targets: Facebook And Game Review Sites is a post from: The Inquisitr

Going into the last Australian Election, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) presented a policy of voluntary internet censorship to the polls. That policy stated that a filtered version of the internet should be made available to those who want it. As a concept, it’s a sound one. Despite the studies proving that computer level filtering is superior, a “clean feed” option via ISP’s isn’t a bad one; it’s optional, and there is a sound market for it.

But that’s not what the ALP did. Shortly after being elected, the highly right wing christian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd changed the policy and made it compulsory. Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy became the messenger; although I can’t say why I believe this to be the case, I believe, no matter how much I hate that he sold his sole, that Conroy is the messenger as opposed to the one pushing it. The push for censorship came from the top, from the same Prime Minister who is now pushing a legal drinking age of 21.

That most Australian’s are against the Great Firewall of Australia is mostly a given based on multiple poll results previously. There was a poll published by News Corp (who have run a pro-censorship line from day one) this week that claimed 80% are for. What isn’t disclosed in their articles, or even by the polsters, is what the question was. And yes we checked the website for the pollsters: it’s not there.

Lets play devils advocate: Question: do you believe that child porn should be blocked on the internet in Australia?

Let me tell you that 80% is low. I believe that it should be blocked. There’s a perfectly good European example that Stephen Conroy likes to use that shows that. But here’s the thing: the UK example is voluntary by ISP, and it strictly blocks child porn. I may be dead against internet censorship, but I have no problem here. The key is in what is being filtered: in the UK it’s roughly 2-2.5k sites, and sites that should be blocked. Likewise though filtering on that small scale doesn’t affect speeds in a major way either; the Australian filter trials in part (only) found that. At the same time those Australian filter trials are being used to say 2-20 million sites won’t be affected, and that’s bollocks.

If Conroy brings in a kiddie porn filter only tomorrow, let me be the first to back it.

But I digress, because the title here is why the anti-censorship lobby is losing.

It’s rather simple: there is zero co-ordination between the groups. I hear or read about minor protest action. Anonymous is doing their best today in highlighting the issue via perhaps illegal means, but they’re getting better headlines than most of the Australian groups.

I’ll say up front, I don’t like all the groups who have come out against censorship. Get-Up has magically turned against the ALP despite helping put them in Government at the last election. The Greens are against it, despite them being against discussion on climate change.

I sort of like the Australian Sex Party, except that they have this bizarre idea that there should be a compulsory 50/50 split M/F in parliament. I’ve joined the Pirate Party, but I’m not completely convinced about their abilities yet, not helped that they don’t get the basics on sending media releases.

But what I believe personally, or any of the players for that matter, should be irrelevant.

The problem is, and remains, that the groups against censorship aren’t getting together and co-ordinating.

Here’s the thing: censorship is a reality in this country unless all the various groups, no matter how far left or right they are, get together and protest this. Not just protest online, but together on the streets.

This country has a proud tradition of street protest that sometimes has resulted in change.

I personally will never agree with all of you, and you will never agree with your selves, but seriously: if we all agree in the one thing, together we are stronger than we are apart.

Please anti-censorship groups: put your differences aside on the one issue. Embrace your enemy because you know that what you say should be as sacred as what your enemy says.

It’s time for a change in Australia.

If you agree with me, and would like to make this happen, email me. We can do this, but only together.

Why The Australian Anti-Censorship Movement May Lose is a post from: The Inquisitr

The news yesterday that the Australian Government has banned small breasts in adult content on the basis that they might look underage has been confirmed…sort of.

In response to Somebody Think of the Children, the Australian Censorship Board (ACB) stated that “publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are or appear to be persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be classified RC (Refused Classification.)

Some Australian sites with a pro-censorship bias are reporting that this does not amount to a ban on small breasts, but it is nothing of the sort. While the ACB claims that there is no blanket ban on small breasts as such, women over the age of 18 with small breasts who might look young ARE banned. The problem is that there is a societal norm that women with small breasts are believed to look young because they look underdeveloped, for lack of a better word, so the ban is still well and truly there.

We also know that small breasts are considered, even if it is written in stone. From Somebody Think of the Children:

Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party (ASP) said she attended a ACB training session late last year where they showed examples of publications that had been Refused Classification due to the size of the woman’s breasts.

Are the critics suggesting that Patten is lying?

The issue here is that the Australian Government is censoring content that features adults with small breasts because they might look underage, as opposed to them actually being under-age. If the crux of law enforcement of child pornography is to protect children (and rightly so) why is the Australian Government censoring consenting adults?

As commenters on Somebody Think of the Children wrote:

The only excuse you could cook up for banning this material, is to spite people we find distasteful. No one is protected. No positive outcome is achieved. No wrong is righted but by-jolly, it feels good!

In every normal country with a normal Constitution equally aged adults have equal rights. What you are saying is that if an adult woman aged 18 looks a little bit younger she shouldn’t take photos. This is a basic violation of human rights.

Australian Government Censor Confirms Small Breast Ban…Sort Of is a post from: The Inquisitr

Any pretense from the Australian Government that its proposed internet filter will not extend to millions of sites has died with news that the Government has banned small breasts and female ejaculation in adult material.

The ban (RC) on small breasted women in adult publications has been made by the Australian Classification Board allegedly on the grounds that such images could be construed as child pornography, even where those publications comply with American law and keep certification that performers are over 18.

Female ejaculation has been banned on the incredible grounds that “the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of ‘golden showers’ in the Classification Guidelines” and/or “Female ejaculation is an ‘abhorrent’ depiction.” Notably here male ejaculation is completely legal under the same guidelines, attracting an X rating in Australia.

The Australian Sex Party argues that “There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn’t even believe that women could have orgasms.”

Millions though doesn’t start to get close to the number of sites that could potentially be banned with this change. Under Australian law, any site linking to a site that has been refused classification is also refused classification, so something as simple as a series of swapped links on a porn site which shows neither small breasts or female ejaculation would be banned. Then if it’s a general site with one small breasted performer, out comes the ban hammer as well, and that takes us to tens of millions of adult sites.

The addition of so many sites makes a mockery of the filtering trial undertaken last year, that only considered the ACMA Blacklist in one example, and a filtered list of tens of thousands of sites. Notably the second broader test showed internet speeds did slow down relative to the number of sites to be filtered; take that out to the millions or tens of million and the proposed National Broadband Network will be Dialup Plus vs anything the Government is promising.

(Hat tip to SomebodythinkoftheChildren, who is down at the time of writing, but caught a snippet off someone linking to them.)

Millions Of Extra Sites To Be Censorsed As Australian Gov. Bans Small Breasts, Female Ejaculation is a post from: The Inquisitr

In one of its most cynical moves yet, the Australian Government will delay the implementation of Internet censorship until after the next Australian Election.

In a letter to an opponent of internet censorship, Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy wrote that the Government would introduce “legislative amendments into Parliament to require all ISPs, starting twelve months from the passage of the legislation, to filter RC material hosted on overseas servers.” (emphasis is mine.)

Note the overseas servers is an extension of current policy; it is already illegal to host RC (restricted content) on an Australian server, filtering being the new part.

The Australian Parliament next sits on February 2, 2010. Even if the legislation were presented to the House of Representatives on February 2 (and there is no indication at this stage that it will be,) the legislation must pass the Senate (which isn’t assured) and eventually return for a third reading in the House of Representatives before it passes. Given the contentious nature of the legislation, it would be fair to presume that there will be proposed amendments and/or strong opposition in the Senate for the bill. Even if it passes the Senate quickly, by the time it is passed and gains royal assent, at the very earliest the bill would be law in late February 2010, for implementation in late February 2011.

The next Australian election must be held no later than the April 16, 2011. But likewise, although Governments can hold out to the last minute, very few in Australia have. The first meeting of the House of Representatives of the 42nd Parliament occurred on 12 February 2008, and therefore expires on 11 February 2011. If the current Prime Minister follows his Labor predecessors, the election will likely be in March, not April. Notably writs for the next election must be issued no later than 21 February 2011.

Under the unlikely scenario that the bill passes in February 2010, internet censorship would come into law in Australia in February 2011, which even if the election hadn’t been formally called, would none the less fall a week or two before the formal campaign (and the unofficial campaign would be in full swing.)

There’s no way in hell that Rudd will risk implementing internet censorship in the middle of an election campaign, because it risks distracting from the Government message. It could easily become a wedge point against the Government, particularly when voters start asking why their internet connections have magically become slower all of a sudden.

More likely is that Senator Conroy is looking for the legislation to pass before Winter recess, with implementation a couple of months clear of the election, which if opinion polls are to be believed, will return the Labor Government.

What should be noted is the bizarre implementation of a 12 month clause; while not unprecedented, there is no requirement under Australian law for a 12 month implementation of new legislation. Indeed, Australian Governments in the past have managed to pass retrospective legislation. Conroy may argue that 12 months is fair game for the ISP’s to get their filters ready, but likewise if we are to believe the filtering report, the implementation isn’t that hard, it’s 100% perfect and easy (apparently), and if they were serious the date would be July 1 (a traditional implementation date for many new Australian Government laws.)

It’s the height of cynicism that the Australian Government, seeking to implement draconian internet censorship in Australia, would be so afraid of what the reaction might be they’d delay it until after the next election. Weasels of the first degree.

A full copy of the letter below, the 12 month clause third last paragraph, page 2 (letter via insertthehandle on Reddit)

Australian Government To Delay Internet Censorship Until After Next Election is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t need to highlight the multiple posts here at The Inquisitr when it comes to my stance against Chinese style censorship in Australia; I’m a foundation member of the Pirate Parry in Australia despite previously swearing off politics for life; half of that drive was censorship driven, the other half was a real need for copyright reform.

So I’m naturally not inclined to criticize those who try and support the anti-censorship drive. But today, there is one cause that is damaging the anti-censorship cause, and that’s the people behind the now unregistered stephenconroy.com.au.

If you believe the media release (link) that SAPIA Pty Ltd put out today, auDA (the Australian domain registrar) undertook an unprecedented act of political censorship by suspending the domain.

It’s a nice line, and I’d normally be the first to support it, after all, it makes for a good anti-censorship line.

Except for two things: it’s not based on facts nor reality. I should note at this point that I have previously been a member of auDA, although I’m not today, although I might still be on their books as an unpaid, or unrenewed member.

No matter how good the tale, the deregistration of stephenconroy.com.au was not made on censorship grounds (and for the record, I haven’t spoken to contacts at auDA.) The registration was 100% dodgy to begin with.

To register a .com.au domain name, you need to have a business relationship with the name registered. Originally that meant a business or company name, but in more recent years that has meant essentially a business slogan as well.

Those rules may well sound weird compared to other domain names, and they are. There’s a reason .com.au is one of the more smaller domain names vs other domains, and that’s the strict registration laws.

In the case of stephenconroy.com.au, despite the political implications, the rules don’t allow for protest sites; the rules are the rules, love them or hate them.

One of the reasons I originally joined auDA (see above) is that I didn’t necessarily agree with the rules, and I still don’t mostly; but mostly on the grounds that they aren’t always applied evenly. auDA has basically allowed big business to register crap names that have little to nothing to do with them, but on the grounds they are the basis of an ad campaign, vs a trademark or company registration.

Still, there was, and still is no registration or ad campaign between SAPIA Pty Ltd and Stephen Conroy, at least when the domain was registered.

Well, except today. I found this Victorian business registration on ASIC, dated today. There’s no supporting evidence it came from SAPIA, but maybe they’ve gotten smart.

Either way, as much as I’m anti-censorship, rules are rules. auDA isn’t prefect, but there is really nothing wrong with the deregistration of the name so far, no matter what some people may think. If SAPIA get the name registered as a business (and not, it can be a broader name, say Stephen Conroy sucks, on that basis you can register the part name) I’m all for them. But until that time, lets stick to playing fair, after all, Conroy isn’t.

Anti-Conroy Campaigners Damage Australian Anti-Censorship Cause is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Australian Government today confirmed that it would proceed with broadscale internet censorship in Australia following a trial into ISP based internet filtering.

Delivered pre-Christmas so as to minimize debate on the plan, Reichsminister for censorship Stephen Conroy spun the decision by selectively quoting parts of the trial report. Conroy claimed among other things that banned material “can be done with 100 per cent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed” and that the filter would apply to all RC (Refused Classification) content.

It’s an interesting line, because the reports findings don’t actually say that the filtering of RC content is either 100% accurate nor would it necessarily have a “negligible” affect on internet speeds (we’ll get to “negligible” in a moment.)

Filtering accuracy: an inconvenient truth

The study asked the nine ISP’s to trial several forms of internet filtering. The first test was based on the flawed ACMA blacklist of approximately 2,000 sites, which as we know from earlier in the year blocks dentists, poker sites, and other legal sites along with illegal sites. The second was based on a broader “child safe” filter which attempted to filter more sites (although the exact figure was not disclosed.)

The tests found that 100% accuracy was obtained with the ACMA blacklist only, a list of 2,000 odd sites that would only be a small sample of sites blocked under the scheme.

The tests found that when the list was expanded to the bigger child safe list, that accuracy dropped to between 78.8% and 84.6%.

On those results, the study claimed “Enex considers it unlikely that any filter vendor would achieve 100 percent blocking of the URLs inappropriate for children without significant over-blocking of the innocuous URLs.”

Notably a full list under the implementation of censorship would be significantly larger than what is currently in the blacklist, a point even Conroy concedes. Depending on the estimation, the real world list could total anywhere from 20,000 sites to hundreds of thousands. So how can you claim a future filter is 100% accurate when the report itself notes that accuracy will never be 100% on a bigger list?

What Is Actually Being Filtered?

While Stephen Conroy claims the filter will apply to RC content, the report didn’t just consider RC content, and actually goes as far as noting that the blacklist includes “prohibited” content.

The Online Content Scheme (the Scheme) introduced in 2000 under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth) (the BSA), regulates content on the internet. The Scheme is contained chiefly in Schedules 5 and 7 of the BSA. Under the BSA, ‘prohibited content’ and ‘potential prohibited content’ include content that has been classified or is likely to be classified Refused Classification under the National Classification Scheme.

Better still, the report actually discusses how prohibited content will be added to the blacklist:

Where content is not hosted in Australia and is prohibited, ACMA will notify the content to the suppliers of approved filters so that access to the content using such filters can be blocked.

It should be noted that prohibited content in Australia is broader that RC alone; content may be prohibited if it doesn’t adequately have age verification for example.

So which is it Senator Conroy? And if the study was accurate, why wasn’t it testing RC content alone? At the same time if the report is based on Government specs, why does it talk about prohibited content?

Define Negligible?

The most blatant sign of bias in the terms of the study is how the Government, and by extension the study decided to define negligible. The report defines it as such:

Negligible impact on network performance

10% and below: individual service performance impact is negligible to the end-user. It would be difficult for the test to distinguish the impact of the filter from any other factor potentially affecting network performance.

Yes, a drop in speed of 9% is considered negligible in a country where internet speeds are at times third world.

But here’s where it gets better: the findings on speed were all over the place, with some results even questioned by the study, like the ISP who reported that speeds were 17.32% FASTER with the filter (WTF doesn’t begin to explain it.)

Some highlights: the biggest decrease in speed is reported to be 44.15%, with other ISP’s reporting speed cuts in various tests of 36.45% and 27.2%. A range of results came in at 0-10%, with some others reporting small increases on some tests (where a proxy to deliver some data was used.) But even those reporting increases of speeds in some tests also reported decreases in others, for example participant 9 reported a small increase in streaming speeds, but a 10% decline in web page speeds.

While you can concede that the average decreased speeds aren’t as bad as some may have feared, to suggest that the results were negligible is grossly disingenuous; Wikipedia defines the word as referring “to the quantities so small that they can be ignored (neglected) when studying the larger effect.”

Circumvention, and a ban on Proxies?

The report also details the circumvention of blocked sites. It notes in its summary that “A technically competent user could, if they wished, circumvent the filtering technology.” The stats: on the ACMA blacklist, circumvention was blocked at a range of a pathetic 8.1% to a high of only 16.2%. The broader list (with the tests of the broader filter being opt-in by customers..so basically those wanting to block stuff from their kiddies to begin with) saw results from 37.8% to 94.5%.

The note there is that it’s the stuff on the blacklist (in theory currently, and the expanded version) which is what the Government really wants to block (dentists with kiddie porn or something like that.) That the best result of circumvention blocking was 16.2% on the hard stuff really highlights what a sad and pathetic joke the filter is; those who want to look at this stuff will still be able to and the filter isn’t going to stop them, and that’s before we consider that the report notes that they can’t block IM or P2P.

But the other strange assumption in the report is that circumvention is only in the domain of a “technically competent user,” a suggestion that implies that it is somehow difficult to use a proxy to bypass the filter. The problem is that it’s not. I ran proxies a few years back for a brief time, and the most popular site accessed via my proxies (this is before Facebook got big) was MySpace: proxies are popularly used by non-technical people to bypass work and school filters, often by kiddies, and you don’t need to be a genius to use one; type proxy into Google, or visit a directory site like Proxy.org.

Likewise the report then seems to accept that proxies aren’t that hard to use to some degree, and this is where it gets into scary territory: the report suggests that proxies should be banned:

Filtering of additional categories of content enabled ISPs to implement measures which made some common circumvention techniques difficult. For example, a third party website which hides the origin of the requested content (proxy site) can be included in a wider list of URLs to be blocked.

and on the broader (not ACMA blacklist) test that delivered better anti-circumvention results, the study notes that proxies were being filtered as part of the test:

The testing for circumvention generally indicates that filtering of additional categories of content, enabled ISPs to implement measures which made some circumvention techniques more difficult to use. For example many commercial lists have a “proxy” category; proxies are a common form of filter circumvention.

Anyone for adult computer games?

Conroy claims that adult computer games will not be initially included in the filter as the Australian Government has started “a public consultation process into whether there should be an R18+ classification category for computer games.

One small problem with that: censorship power in Australia resides with the States. All the states have to agree to support an R18+ rating for computer games for any Federal application, and South Australia isn’t about to change its mind. WA has also banned possession of RC computer games as well, so there’s no surety that the WA Government would support a change either.

Conclusion

It’s a sad day for freedom of speech in Australia when the Government delivers a slanted report that when you actually read it doesn’t back everything it is claiming. It’s not dissimilar to Iran: you don’t get the result you want so you ignore the results you don’t want, you stuff the boxes in other places, and you deliver a result that was always predetermined to begin with.

Conroy claims again that the filter is all about kiddie porn (which is already illegal to view and host anyway) but at the same time will ban euthanasia and abortion sites, along with adult computer games as well. The dark clouds of totalitarianism are descending on Australia; remember, history shows that Governments who start on the road to censorship usually expand the regime with time. The can is open now, and who knows when the madness might end.

Australia Confirms Censorship Plans, Tells Fibs On The Filtering Trial is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Confirmed: Second Life, online adult games to be banned outright in Australia is a post from: The Inquisitr

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….

Chinese filtering move demonstrates futility of Australian censorship proposal is a post from: The Inquisitr

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 Government may backflip on compulsory internet censorship is a post from: The Inquisitr

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?”

Australian Censorship Minister advocates illegal taping of Internet Accounts is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Wikileaks threatens Australian Minister over censorship list: Conroy could be jailed in Sweden is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Google soon to be banned in Australia under draconian censorship laws is a post from: The Inquisitr

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 Government includes Poker sites, YouTube videos on censorship list is a post from: The Inquisitr

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 confirms legal content may be blocked by Censorship Regime is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Australian Minister talks Internet Censorship as Victoria burns is a post from: The Inquisitr

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)

The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia is a post from: The Inquisitr

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.

Australia’s Internet Censorship Scheme Takes Money Allocated to Pursue Pedophiles is a post from: The Inquisitr

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)

Germany to Introduce CP Internet Censorship is a post from: The Inquisitr

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).

Australian Censorship Regime could block over 20 million websites: Testing therefore Useless is a post from: The Inquisitr