Calls for Conroy to release Internet censorship trial results
- 02 September, 2009 12:19
- Comments 22
Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy
Opposition spokesperson Nick Minchin has bought the Government’s proposed Internet content filtering scheme back to the political forefront, criticising the Government over its lack of transparency regarding the trials.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy originally scheduled results of the Internet filtering trial to be released earlier this year. Minchin says the results are overdue and has renewed calls for the Government to scrap its plans and return to the coalition’s Netalert program.
“Almost two years after coming to office with a plan to censor the Internet, Senator Conroy has not even managed to release results for long overdue filtering trials,” he said.
The Government’s plan for content filtering will require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to offer a clean feed Internet service to all homes, schools and public Internet access points.
Under the proposed scheme, there will be one blacklist blocking access to illegal material like child pornography; and another blocking a list of material deemed unsuitable for children.
Minchin told ABC Radio he doubts the controversial scheme will ever go ahead and accused the Government of wasting missions of dollars.
"All [Conroy has] done is cancel the Coalition's Netalert program, put nothing in its place [and is] wasting time, money and effort on his attempts to censor the internet."
Minchin accused the trial of being unable to produce meaningful results, given that most ISPs participating in the trial are small in size.
Telstra, the nation’s largest ISP, refused to participate in the trial, but has offered the results of an internal ISP filtering trial for consideration.
“It is time for Senator Conroy to end this farce and produce his long overdue trial results for independent assessment,” he said.
The Government’s plans to censor the Internet have endured widespread criticism from industries across Australia and the world since they were announced last year.
Security experts have argued that blacklists are the wrong approach to Internet filtering.
Scholars from the world’s top universities have called the plan frightening, while others have pointed out that young people will be able to quickly spread circumvention methods across social networks.
More recently, Children’s rights group, Save the Children, appealed to the Government to drop its plans saying the scheme does not effectively teach children how to protect themselves from online danger.
The scheme has also been criticised by the Web security industry.
"If the Government is going to run the filter, it has to proactively look at internet sites for malware and provide a very high level of service," Websense president, John McCormack, told Computerworld.
"It's a futile attempt - unless you have an active content understanding of the system, it's not practical to filter at that volume. I think they would do better by focussing on other issues.
"I'd encourage them to talk to industry experts to understanding the realities of making that sort of system work." Conroy’s office has confirmed the trial is expected to be completed this month with a report to be provided to the Minister following its conclusion.
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Comments
Anonymous
I think it's important to note; at the end of the day, any 12 year old kid with the slightest ability will be able to bypass this filter anyway.
Anonymous
We already can't watch the movies and books we want. Censorship is a huge issue in domestic situation in Australia. Two television film critics had police sent to their gathering where they showed a refused classification film. This is no joke, government bureacrats create laws about what Australians can and can't watch. They live in an artificial bubble and don't even know it (as the prior commenter "hayden"'s comment illustrates)
Eggs Maledict
Uh, Godwin's Law, much?
Conroy's an idiot who thinks he's doing the right thing, not some kind of totalitarian mastermind.
Joel
Why is Conroy still harping on about this? The plain is a failure, period. Scrap it and get on with more important issues, like our ridiculously slow internet speeds. Put this nanny state garbage behind us and let the citizens make their own decisions and take responsibility for raising their own children.
Matti
When will this clown Conroy get the sack ?
Never before have I heard such an incompetent undertaking of such an incomprehensible plan that is to waste such a large amount of tax payer dollars.
The trial is a farce, as even Conroy himself cannot explain what exactly is required.
How can a complete N00B gain such a dominant position in providing such a stupid plan for society.
Seriously, SOMEBODY SACK CONROY !
Anonymous
This nonsense has gone on far too long. Conroy should apologise and resign, and since he won't then Rudd should sack him.
Conroy is acting like an idiot who is stubbornly going to drag the whole government into disgrace over this very silly idea.
Anonymous
well meaning idiots ate the most dangerous things on the planet ..Conroy is such.
Lindsay
Plaudits to Senator Conroy for at least attempting to do something to tidy up what is presented to our kids via the Internet.
However he gets an Epic Fail for not realising that his idea will not work and trying to bully on through with it anyway in the face of both popular and learned opposition.
There are times when one needs to sit back and say "Well, that ain't gonna fly!" and go back to the drawing board.
Fern
Are they going to block encrypted traffic ??
if not they are wasting their time and our money
Anon mouse
As well as the technological absurdity (hello mr kafka), imagine the process to get yourself, or your ex-employees new business, blacklisted.
Should THEY (where are they) blacklist this:
www.livenudecats.com
MinistershipForDummies
The most plausible explanation I have heard for this filtering aberration is that it is just a show to win the vote of Senator Fielding (the fundamentalist religious nutter). Presumably, once they have got whatever in return from him, they will hopefully ditch this.
MinistershipForDummies
Oh and while I'm on my soapbox, it really should be titled "Rudd's Internet Filtering/Censorship". Having Conroy the main guy associated with it makes it far too easy for Rudd to blame it all on him. The policy may not seem so appealing once Rudd starts copping more heat and electoral backlash.
Anonymous
Rudd won't sack Conroy because Conroy is just carrying out Rudd's orders.
Anonymous
Wow... this is a great way to ensure that the young people of today absolutely love the labor party. I mean, they are trying to be all "hip" and "cool" with younger people with their TV gimmicks, (stand up Julia Gillard and Anna Bligh) but as soon as they stop 16 year old boys getting their hands on porn, they are going to have a riot on their hands.
As a young person myself, I value my uncensored internet. I use it as an important tool to voice my opinion (which actually makes sense, rather then the other babbling idiots in my generation) and I can see now, I won't be able to voice my opinion in such ways as I do now. Even this comment would be filtered.
Also, as an avid observer of my generation, as well as those younger, I can see that most do not care about politics. They do not care because they have seen it as boring, that it does not effect them. This is going to give the government a bit of... and advantage, if you could call it that. We may be able to hack through the filter in about 15 seconds, but the political ramifications of implementing this filter at all? They don't have a clue...
Matza
Government control of the flow of information goes against the basis of a free, democratic society. Conroy's plan not only does that, but slows the speed of the internet for all activity in the process.
Chuck Norris.
I don't care about any negative impact on Internet speed, and I don't care about attempting to restrict access to illegal material. What really _really_ rubs my rhubarb about this whole affair is the simple and well advertised fact that IT WON'T STOP PEOPLE ACCESSING ILLEGAL MATERIAL. Stop deluding yourselves and WASTING TAX PAYERS MONEY.
Andrew G
So who runs the 'blacklist' and who has access to see it, vote for changes, sue for errors? The list of potential problems is long but likely shorter than the ACL this government is likely to impose. This pathetic attempt at censorship will hopefully take down those who put it up!
Frank
So if one of my sites gets on the list for a non legit reason and I lose money, I can then sue the government for $$$? Because there isn't enough oversight of the list from what I've read.
Anonymous
1939 Hitler's Nazi government burnt books to control what people read and thought, 2009 Conroy's government blocks web URLs to achieve the same...! Thats progress for you folks :-)
Humanity has obviously learnt ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about dictators.
"Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them"......!!!
Ryan
The greatest filter in the world can't stop people setting up a VPN (virtual private network) and bypass Conroys evil.
Its clearly another case of a government project that has had so much money thrown at it and even though its a blatantly obvious failure that has to be protected with lies - they have to justify their spending so are still pushing it.
The filter is an ever widening hole that depsite the amount of money shoveled into it, still keeps growing.
The technology is already easily and freely available to get around it, so why bother? All its going to do is make everyone pay more for an internet service thats slower than it is now - and they are pushing this before the NBN is even close to happening... or is that the plan, make the internet slower now so that when the NBN is done and isn't as great as it was supposed to be they just turn off the filtering and make everyone think its great?
Tom
Give the government control of internet and give them the freedom to block articles like this......the government in power at the time will be able to block anything including the oppositions websites. I will not be able to say this......Conroy is a complete f**ktard that wants to take away peoples right to bitch about what ever they want on the internet and view f**ked up porn that they would never be able to do themselves.
quentin
i'm no computer genious , more a computer idiot , my research sites have gone , their not child porn but it seems still sensitive enough to be listed ,,, i don't vote ,, so ,,, u voted these idiots in ,,,get rid of them ,,,, this is embarising for australia,, both now and our future ,, !
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