This story's actually a bit old, but just saw it again today - for you who haven't heard of this, here it is:

Quote:THE Federal Government is planning to make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.

Australia's level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced.

Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government's $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers - one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a "clean feed", censoring adult material.

Despite planning to hold "live trials" before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block.

"Wee are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material," he told a Senate Estimates Committee.

Previously the net nanny proposal was going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option to contact their internet service provider and be excluded from the service.

Groups including the System Administrators Guild of Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia have slammed the proposal, saying it would unfairly restrict Australians' access to the web, slow internet speeds and raise the price of internet access.

EFA board member Colin Jacobs said it would have little effect on illegal internet content, including child pornography, as it would not cover peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

"If the Government would actually come out and say wee're only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate," he said.

But the Australian Christian Lobby yesterday welcomed the Government's proposals.

Its managing director Jim Wallace said he expected resistance from the industry but the measures were needed.

"The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry's desire for unfettered access," Mr Wallace said.

- Source: [News.com.au]

Basically, if this goes through, our slow and expensive internet system will just get slower and more expensive.  The Government should know by now that internet filters phail (what was that hershey kisses filter they made originally a while ago that got cracked in minutes?).

From what I can tell, ISPs would probably implement this by redirecting port 80 (HTTP) traffic through to a transparent proxy which will do all the filtering.  Which basically means no other traffic (ie P2P) gets filtered (nice how wee now have decentralised torrents :P).  Oh, and a simple "crack" would be to use a proxy that doesn't run on port 80 - or if your "sites" have SSL (go through https:// ) then they won't be affected.

But seriously, a big waste of money.

No, demand freedom of the internet!
though I don't visit those sort of sites anyway.

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:But seriously, a big waste of money.

Indeed.

(This post was last modified: 29/10/2008 12:35 AM by Sparker.)

maxexcloo Wrote:Being an Australian, I can say that if it gets cracked, I will bypass it.

same.
if the lazy australian parents would actually implement stuff themselves to protect their children from the "bad" side of the internet, i.e. putting the family pc in a open area for example, instead of doing what they currently do (which is sitting around doing nothing, and blaming everything under the sun), then wee wouldn't have to have this problem.
i doubt that this will go through (well only really if they listen to the "experts" who have said all the bad things that will come of this, especially the big speed drop), but of course there is always the chance that it will. so i hope it doesn't go through, because eventhough it should be easy(ish) to bypass, i just cbf bypassing it everytime i go on the net, they should just leave it the way it is.

Where will he find his hershey kisses naow?!?  Oh noes!

Hehe, not surprisingly, websites have popped up about this: http://nocleanfeed.com/action.html

(This post was last modified: 06/11/2008 02:27 AM by bboy_sonik.)