Australian Government has a blacklist of websites?

[IDrinkaRum]

Australian Government wants everyone in their country to have strict internet filters?

Wikileaks leaked the fact that the Australian government has a list of sites that they deem to be bad and need to be blacklisted from their country's inhabitants. Many sites are for child pornography. However, there is also one link to a Dental Office(!?).

I'm writing this at 3:05 AM.

I can't type much more ... too tired ... Please discuss. Has anyone heard of this idea before?

[MadMike]

I saw the same story at http://www.dslreports.com. Not surpisingly, the ISPs aren't happy about it.

[Boozy]

The freedom of speech issues raised are interesting. But what's more more amusing is that the Australian government apparently thinks it can control the internet.

It's futile to block 2,400 websites. If someone wants access to certain content over the internet, they'll get it. The internet is too dynamic for any single entity to control. Even China (with its massive government and state-controlled ISPs) hasn't been able to get a grip on this. It's almost impossible.

[anriana]

I like the "Oh God the children!!!" quote.

[IDrinkaRum]

Thank you everyone for making sense of my post.

Yeah, I thought I should post it as it was interesting, but then aftter putting up the title & link, I was afraid I'd be blabbing.

I'm not sure how a government - any type of government - could think they can actually police the internet. Boozy, you're correct that if anyone wanted to see something on it, they'd be able to. Just makes no sense to me.

[Slytovhand]

My sigline has a little political thing, part of which is a 'watch' system, where you get elected (or you can choose) to keep tabs on a particular government rep. I'm a part of that, and I've got Sen Conroy as my watchperson... he's the dude in charge of this little fiasco. And I can assure you, there is a fair bit of dissent going on about it. Including ads and the like (not to mention the petitions). I suspect enough heat will come out of it that there'll be at least a little bit of backlash... and backdown.

Boozy, I suspect part of the plan is to 'monitor' those particular sites and track them back to the user, who can then get done by the feds for child pornography and the like. It makes it a lot easier from their point of view if the average person isn't able to access those sites by accident... so anyone on there has intent.(this is just mere speculation on my part, btw)

[Greenday]

Boozy, I suspect part of the plan is to 'monitor' those particular sites and track them back to the user, who can then get done by the feds for child pornography and the like. It makes it a lot easier from their point of view if the average person isn't able to access those sites by accident... so anyone on there has intent.(this is just mere speculation on my part, btw)

Or certain countries may keep track of people using websites that contain information valuable for terrorism.

[fireheart17]

I don't mind the filter, as long as it's ONLY used to block illegal websites. Yes, a dental office is part of it, as well as tourist office and a few others. That's the problem. (and yes I'm Australian )

[Seshat]

I don't mind the filter, as long as it's ONLY used to block illegal websites.

I do mind the filter - and largely as a technician. (And yes, I'm also Australian.)

Some background. I have been part of a team providing filtered internet access to schools. I completely agree with that, by the way: schools have a duty of care to their students. The teachers had a choice between using our filter (generated by all the schools we worked with) or using a filter of their own.
The teachers could also gain access to the unfiltered net - which is necessary, given how easily filtering goes wrong!

The basic, initial filter prevented access to sites whose domain names included keywords. Which prevented access to almost all information about breast health, fairly obviously. It also blocked access to many, many sites which were innocent but had a 'naughty' string in their name.

Look for the bad word in 'www.bismuth.com'.

Over that filter, we had an 'allow' list. Which included breast health sites and bismuth.com, and other such sites. The 'allow' list had to be generated by the teachers.

By the way: don't go to 'www.whitehouse.com'. Unless it's changed since, it was a porn site. And a common mistype for children who were looking for the US seat of government.

We also had a 'block' list, generated by the teachers. The need is obvious!

The automatically generated list was incredibly faulty and had a lot of false positives and false negatives. The valid list had to be generated by people.


On top of that, the filter was expensive to run, expensive to code, expensive to maintain. And no matter what we did, it did slow things down. It had to! It does take time for even a computer to compare the site the user was looking for to the filter list.


I see two valid reasons for making a human-generated list of block sites for the internet. To provide filtering for children (as we did for schools), and to locate illegal activity.

Illegal activity
Instead of blocking the sites, report them! Give the site reports to the federal police, and let them deal with the situation. Give them the necessary powers to do so - such as, with a warrant from a judge, request a list of IPs accessing said site from ISPs. (Only with a warrant, but once the warrant is obtained, YES! I don't want children raped!) And yes, have Interpol on the problem. And the UN.
I see no reason for having a list of sites dealing with, say, child pornography and NOT handing that list to the police. Handing the list to ISPs isn't going to do a damn thing to protect the children!

Child protection
Have the submissions be included in an optional filter, which parents may opt into, and non-parents don't need to opt out of. I don't see any reason why households with no children in them need to be 'shielded' from sites selling 'marital aids'; or from information on dealing with 'girly' illnesses (or 'boy-y' illnesses either!).


Given the simplicity of those options, I can only presume that the senators and reps trying to get the filter happening have other things on their mind. And I do NOT like that!

[Slytovhand]

I once tried to access a WoW or other gaming site, but couldn't. I got an email from work saying it was a bad site. Since I'd been there before, I couln't fathom it... till I got on at home and realised...

It didn't have 'gender' for your character - it had 'sex'.... d'oh!

[Evandril]

Given the simplicity of those options, I can only presume that the senators and reps trying to get the filter happening have other things on their mind. And I do NOT like that!

I believe there's a saying similar to 'Never attribute to malice what can be explained by simple stupidity'. I'm guessing the people behind the bill don't have a clue about the realities of the situation, and are looking for an 'easy' fix.

[MadMike]

Someone else made a point once about blocking sites that I never even thought of -- simply blocking the sites doesn't do anything but mask the problem. The sites still exist, and kids are still be exploited. Just that a small handful of people who can't figure out how to circumvent the blocks isn't going to be able to see them.

[PepperElf]

www.whitehouse.com
it's no longer porn - they converted to politics.

but yeah... i've been to countries where the government regulated the internet before: The United Arabs Emirate and China, for example.

I'm somewhat surprised Australia is following their lead however, especially when they claim it's to combat child molestation.

I say that because by their own laws there's some child molesters out there who *aren't* registered due to legal loopholes (the convicted molester was convicted prior to a specific year and therefore isn't required to be registered... even though interviews with the media have shown that he still thinks it's ok to have sex with kids in the single-digit age range)

so... they won't put him on the registered list but they will prevent web surfing.

go figure. the world's gone insane.