[Igor Antunov]

Yes, they are going ahead with this lunacy. Testing will begin just before Christmas of 2008, and undoubtedly full scale implementation will follow.

The government will impose on all australian ISP's a list of adult and 'unwanted' websites, known to number over 10,000. These adult/unwanted sites will have to be blocked by the ISP's.

From the initial 10,000+ it is inevitale that the list would just continue to grow, and our freedom to access online information and services will continue to shrink. IF we are passive, and do nothing to voice our discontent.

To add to this there are concerns that our accessible online services will be degraded due to the increased stress on bandwidth this lunacy will entail. Since the cost in Australia for reliable online acess is already comparitively expensive, this is simply unacceptable.

This thread is to keep you updated on what is to come in the coming weeks/months regarding this issue, and in regards to what we Australians intend to do about it.

In the mean time spread the message that is "THE GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA". Tell your friends, post on your blogs, the forums you visit and so on. If we do nothing we will join the acclaimed ranks of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran in regards to internet freedom.

I will keep you updated.


-------------------------------------

*UPDATE 2*
December 4, 2008

Anti-content-filtering rebels take to Australia's streets

http://www.computerworld.com/acti...d=9 ... ws_ts_head

As more people learn about this more will show up to support these protesters. We need more of these protests ASAP.

My local city of Newcastle must join the fray. I'll be doing some research on what if anything is already organized.



-------------------------------------

*UPDATE 1*
December 4, 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7760996.stm

The Australian government is due to start a series of field trials this month (December) in order to filter websites that are harmful to children.

The 'cyber-safety plan', spearheaded by Australia's Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Stephen Conroy, will cost around AUS$126m (£55m) and will be implemented over a period of four years.

It starts.

"The only countries that really do have a widespread technological filtering or (mandatory) censorship regime are China, Iran and Saudi Arabia,"

And now Australia. We are joining a pretty exclusive club.

-------------------------------------

[NYYS]

I haven't heard about this at all. What are they blocking, exactly?

[Manuel]

pr0n.

Every country is slowly doing this, as it makes it easier to control internet piracy and protect copyrights, as well as its politically expedient to be anti-pr0n.

Australia is the first of the developed world to move in this direction, but I doubt it will be the last.

[bp-open]

The blocking happens all over the World!
Against crime.
Also against porn and politic. Depending on each country.
In some countries more in others less.
For terror safety

It is very important to guard the own countries Internet and the public. The Filters which are applied in some regions, are not that permeable then desired.
And in other regions, in the name of counter-terror the control on the Internet increases.

Well, depending on your browsers Internet-search-bot, or machine.

[Roland]

I really wish I lived in Australia right now. I would be posting constant screencaps of unblockable means to circumvent the firewall on Youtube.

Seriously, haven't these guys heard of packet spoofing, port tunneling, anonymizing proxies, etc?

[Attica]

Half of the MPs in this country probably have never used the internet, Roland.

Although I don't know what those things are

[Oxymoron]

Another Great Media being transformed into a Brainwashing tool. Fuck I thought the internet would change things break down barriers, why am I still so gullibel. This makes me sick,put down that Grass here is some Prozac.

[Roland]

Packets are the photons of the Internet. Just as light sometimes operates as a particle, data sometimes operates as packets.

There are multiple types of packets, associated with different data protocols. Nearly all content censors target specific types of packets, either for a complete block or for a content search and selective block. So if you set up a script to hide all your <packet type that the firewall censors> packets inside <packet type that the fireall doesn't censor> packets, you've bypassed the firewall. Of course, since the computer you're talking to needs to know you're doing this and have a script to "depackage" them, it's not the ideal solution for this issue.

Port tunneling is similar - think of a computer as a city. That computer's internet interface is its dock. Each different berth for a ship is a "port". Some ports are generally used, either by official definition or by unofficial consensus, for particular things - port 80, for example, is http, the HyperText Transfer Protocol that you use to browse PoFo. So if you tell HTTP packets to dock at port 12345 instead, and send them from the same place (but to port 80 externally, so everyone else doesn't have to tunnel with the same port), you can bypass a firewall that's installed on your computer - though again, this isn't the solution for this issue.

The one that works for something like this is an anonymous proxy. Basically, instead of saying "I want to go to <blockedsite>dot com", you tell a third party who isn't blocked "I want to go to <blockedsite>.com". They download the content on that page and forward it to you, and the censor is bypassed. A good proxy (the proxy is the third party) will encrypt all traffic to and from your computer and not keep logs of who you are (in terms of name, pseudonym, or IP address). In this case, the proxy obviously needs to be outside Australia.

[FascistCanuck]

Yes, they are going ahead with this lunacy. Testing will begin just before Christmas of 2008, and undoubtedly full scale implementation will follow.

The government will impose on all australian ISP's a list of adult and 'unwanted' websites, known to number over 10,000. These adult/unwanted sites will have to be blocked by the ISP's.

From the initial 10,000+ it is inevitale that the list would just continue to grow, and our freedom to access online information and services will continue to shrink. IF we are passive, and do nothing to voice our discontent.

To add to this there are concerns that our accessible online services will be degraded due to the increased stress on bandwidth this lunacy will entail. Since the cost in Australia for reliable online acess is already comparitively expensive, this is simply unacceptable.

This thread is to keep you updated on what is to come in the coming weeks/months regarding this issue, and in regards to what we Australians intend to do about it.

In the mean time spread the message that is "THE GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA". Tell your friends, post on your blogs, the forums you visit and so on. If we do nothing we will join the acclaimed ranks of China, Saudi Arabia and Iran in regards to internet freedom.

I will keep you updated.

All this whining, from a bloody COMMIE? Oooh, the irony!

[Roland]

...You're joking, right, Canuck?

[FascistCanuck]

...You're joking, right, Canuck?

That ISP blocking? That is something a commie state would do. You do even realise that it is thanks to the American RIAA that the Ausralian government has decided upon this, yes? The RIAA is GOD. Trust me on this. They can make ANY government do ANYTHING they want. Digital rights rule, and everyone knows it. The RIAA owns your ass. As shown with this thread, they clearly own all of Australia. Pwn them outright.

[Roland]

The RIAA is the representative of four corporations. This is about as far from communism as it gets. So I'm going to take this as a "yes, I'm joking".

[FascistCanuck]

The RIAA is the representative of four corporations. This is about as far from communism as it gets. So I'm going to take this as a "yes, I'm joking".

The RIAA does not represent corporations. It represents an entire industry. This is what the industry has sought all along. To force people to purchase more of their product, also, to purchase multiple copies of the same. Only communists would allow this, because it allows them to complete what they seek, total domination of the populace, under the guise of 'copyright protection'.

[Roland]

No, it doesn't represent the industry. It represents those who pay for it to exist, who are the owners of the corporations which dominate the industry.

It's simply not true that "only communists would allow this". Communists in general (though not necessarily particular schools of communism) are more opposed to it than anyone else, because not only are many communists against censorship, nearly all are against corporate control of the government.

If you want a category of people that really want "total domination of the populace", I suggest you look at fascists. They have a far more storied history of censorship than any other ideology.

[ccdan]

You do even realise that it is thanks to the American RIAA that the Ausralian government has decided upon this, yes? The RIAA is GOD. Trust me on this. They can make ANY government do ANYTHING they want. Digital rights rule, and everyone knows it.

It seems that two religious lobby groups are behind this: the Australian Christian Lobby and the Australian Family Association

Most of the copyrighted porn cannot be censored by the use of filters since it is mostly dowloaded via torrents and emule(this kind of traffic can be encrypted, so it's undetectable)...

[Tailz]

Oh good grief, another reason why I want to move away from Australia.

I should have known Australian Christian Lobby and the Australian Family Association would pull this kind of stunt, maybe the Hillsong bunch are helping out on the side.

[dilpill]

My Australian homies, there is nothing to fear. OpenDNS has your back. This is the easiest thing to get around.

[Tailz]

OpenDNS - Award winning content filtering??

[dilpill]

It's a DNS server alternative. It will probably be slow in Australia, but it gets around the DNS bullshit that Australia is apparently trying to pull off. It's actually a very useful (free) product even if you aren't using it to bypass DNS server filtering.

[Tailz]

But I thought the thing everyone was getting in a tissy over was CONTENT FILTERING, which this service prides itself on!