AusCert 2010: Australian net filter doomed
- 18 May, 2010 15:03
- Comments 4
Renowned security expert, Marcus Ranum, has declared Australia's Internet content filter will fail to combat child porn and may not get off the ground.
He said child pornography is often behind protected servers that are out of the reach of the government's classification processes, and exist only for a short moment.
"Sellers of child porn will find an open website, jack it, and put a VNC (Virtual Network Computer) server on it and sell the credentials to someone they know wants access," Ranum told Computerworld Australia at AusCert 2010 security event being held in Queensland this week.
"I am against censorship of any kind, but I'm also against child porn which is wrong if anything is wrong.
"But blocking freedom of speech has always become censorship of people's ability to protest."
Ranum said Internet content filters were used to censor and track political dissidents in Iran following the country's election last year.
However, while he would not support the kind of content filter the Federal Government is planning to implement, he conceded Internet content filtering can be considered a legitimate tool of nation-state security in as much as it builds similar controls around communication to those that bind immigration and trade .
He went on to add law enforcement agencies can use content filters to identify people who access blacklisted sites, using Baysian filters or series of MD5 hashes "mashed against the blacklist database".
"Someone attempts to look up a child porn website. The [content filters] would do a URL lookup and a fetch against a Baysian classifier which is tied to a codex of naughty websites. If the URL is a high proity [on the classifier] it is blocked, and if it is in the grey zone, then it goes to the police," Ranum said.
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Comments
gordon frend
The filter is not related to "nation-state security". All criminal activities such as pedophilia, rape and terrorism are illegal and subject to full enforcement of the law.
But very few of these activities/sites are going to be detected by the filter, so the resources should be given to the justice system to improve detection of illegality.
Supporters of the filter stand exposed as well-meaning but ignorant at best, and fundamentalist-moral despots at worst.
D Newman
I agree Gordon, nothing worse than giving people a false sense of security.
With such glaringly obvious problems with the statements from Conroy, and the church groups, I have to question the view this is based on a lack of knowledge.
As for that debarcle of pure propaganda, that was the Conroy debate on TV, surely you need a group of people with different views to have a debate.
The whole poccess of forcing the filter through with tactical parliment debate timings, ensuring there is no window for full discussion, and the untruths expressed about how the filter will operate, has me more worried about democratic process than the filter itself at this point.
There needs to be more education on this issue, people are being played for fools because of the long term denial of service, and their lack of knowledge is being played apon by the circus of political fear mongering which is the basis sadly of much of our politics.
Bob
At the very least it is Tax Payers money being wasted on something that the Government have been informed will not work
Corsair
What a waste of money. Even worse is the fact that the Government has cut funding to other areas in regards to effective law enforcement in order to support this failed enterprise.
Seriously. This is a Government that has no idea. Don't let KRudd have a second term in office.
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