Internet Filtering

On 21 March 2006, the Federal Labor Opposition announced in a media release that a Labor Government would require all Internet Service Providers (”ISPs”) to implement a mandatory Internet filtering/blocking system. This means that you cannot opt out. This list has already been started and has been leaked to the Media organisation Wikileaks. The current list already includes sites that would not be deemed illegal like online gambling some porn sites and a dog boarding kennel. A reasonably well written article appeared in Wired News. This fiasco being perpetrated upon the Australian public by the current labour government is making us look rather totalitarian. "History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behaviour," WikiLeaks said in a statement. "This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring WikiLeaks.". Excellent company our country is keeping in that little list. Thailand start mandatory filtering of internet feeds and the initial list mainly included Child pornography. However since it was introduced hundreds of sites that criticised the King of Thailand have been added to the list. This from Wikileaks "In December last year we released the secret Internet censorship list for Thailand. Of the sites censored in 2008, 1,203 sites were classified as "lese majeste" -- criticising the Royal family. Like Australia, the Thai censorship system was originally pushed to be a mechanism to prevent the child pornography.Research shows that while such blacklists are dangerous to "above ground" activities such as political discourse, they have little effect on the production of child pornography, and by diverting resources and attention from traditional policing actions, may even be counter-productive". With Australia's list being secret and unveiwable how long would it be before some aspiring politician placed websites that criticised him on it.

In 'Labor’s Plan for Cyber-safety' from 2007 They sate the dangers that face Australian Children are:

• having their identities appropriated by others;
• having photos or videos of themselves published online without their permission;
• suffering from computer and/or internet addiction;
• being traced by strangers from details they have entered online;
• being the subject of cyber-bullying;
• picking up a virus or trojan or being the victim of a phishing attack; or
• inadvertently downloading illegal content when file-sharing.

Only this last point (highlighted) has even a slight relation to IPS internet filtering and the report from ACMA report of the trial internet filtering concluded that none of the Current tested filtering method could identify illegal content in non-web based traffic. All file sharing happens on what are called P2P networks which are not web based. This means that file sharing would be in no way affected by the ISP filtering as P2P networks are not html content. This means that this filter is an inappropriate response to a non-existent problem.

Yes it is not a problem. This from Electronic Frontiers Australia - A filtered internet feed, if it could be fully implemented, would help only to mitigate so-called “content risks” - the risk of a child being exposed to content inappropriate for their age or maturity level. However, even the Government’s own literature suggests that content risks are the least serious of concerns to parents or children themselves. The 2008 ACMA report Developments in Internet Filtering Technologies and Other Measures for Promoting Online Safety identifies the further categories of “communication risks” and “e-security” risks. The former include issues such as scams, inappropriate advances from strangers, and online harassment, while the latter includes things such as viruses, spam, and the theft of personal information.

Few to no details of the plan have been given except that it would be a IPS based filtering meaning that you do not get to choose weather you have access to the entire internet. Pages and websites would be filtered out before they get anywhere near your computer. The following is from the Wikileaks website "While Wikileaks is used to exposing secret government censorship in developing countries, we now find Australia acting like a democratic backwater. Apparently without irony, ACMA threatens fines of upto $11,000 a day for linking to sites on its secret, unreviewable, censorship blacklist". So your not allowed to view the list, your not allowed to know whats on the list, but if you inadvertantly link to something you don't know is on the list you will be fined $11000 a day. That would make for an interesting courtroom arguement!!

I have a couple of questions for the government over this stupid little idea of theirs.

Who decides what sites go on the list?
Is there a system of notification and appeal?
Why can the Australian public not see and comment on the list?
Do parliamentarians have any say in what sites go on the list?
If I run a site and get a link to a banned site placed on my website through spam will my site be added to the list?
If it is added to the list how would I get it off the list?
Who will maintain the list and what measures will be put in place that ensure legitimate sites with legal content are not blocked?
What compensation can be sought for loss of revenue if a site is inappropriately blocked?
If only the government of the day can decide what goes on the list what is to stop the Liberals, once they get back into government, from putting ALP and union sites on the list?

I have to say this Idea could be a complete tradgety for Australia. It has the possibly to be a major cancer in Australian Democracy.