Internet filter remains alive and well: Conroy

Conroy's dogmatic insistence on something as fundamentally flawed as the internet filter should raise alarm bells about his judgment regarding his other pet project, the NBN.

@2Visionary, I assume you are being sarcastic about Conboy and his stupid filter, since nobody with any brains and common sense would think that it will stop any and all "undesirable" content.

More to the point, who is going to decide what is supposedly undesirable? Once the system of secret government censorship is in place, there will be constant political and pressure group agitation to increase the list of things and information we are not allowed to see.

@4, yes I agree an internet filter should be applied to all users under the age of 30. People underthat age are not mature enough to judge what they should view!

@6 I am sorry I do not understand your point. Do you feel the internet should be uncensored and allow access to all material?

@2, 4, 5, 7: The Internet should certainly not be subject to secret State censorship imposed according to the political whim of whoever is in power and their political "stakeholders".

Parents are responsible for all aspects of monitoring their children, and there are excellent PC-based filters available that can be set to any parental preference for on-line activity.

Many supporters of State censorship seem to see it as a means to make everyone conform to their own (very narrow) prejudices. We don't allow the nanny State to open our mail or listen to our phone calls, and the Internet is just another comms channel like those two.

@10 - Yes, exactly. Worrisome that Conroy (and ALP for maintaining him in this portfolio) should be so insightless.

@10- why would we be worried if the government stored internet behaviours, that must be a good thing to protect us all. We elect the government to protect us from the evils of life agreed!

@SR You're a full blown idiot too, I wouldn't be surprised if you were a scientologist.

@14- Truth, Sir you offend me! I take it that since you have "spoken" to me I have the right of reply.
Sir, I sharpest tool in the shed as you eloquently put it is often the tool which is most effective.
Check out my previous posts sir and you will find many intelligent and insightful dissertations.
Sir I demand you withdraw those remarks made in post #14

It is scary that people are so naive and dumb they can be duped by Conroy and the ultra right wierdo cults masquerading as churches.

The so-called porn filter is just a means of stifling political dissent, just like China, etc. do.

If you want to live under a dictatorship go live in China or North Korea or Zimbabwe.

@SR I call shenanigans on you.

Good work though, had me going for a while there.

@ 13 It is significant in this aspect, it allows the government to monitor the content, and if a government who had very little majority for instance found a great tide swelling against them via this for instance, they can block all critism.

That you should be scared of!

Go ahead and implement the filter. Each ISP will have to have a standardised filter, on 10 to 20 boxes, unless they are dumb enough to try just one box (oh dear). This means they're all vulnerable to the same security vulnerabilities, it just takes a single mistake. This allows for a man in the middle attack, all someone would have to do is Trojan the box(s). It's going to be nice for someone to have access to the data of every single Australian home connection on that ISP... Think of the possibilities that could raise. Imagine been able to add all your competitor's web sites to the black list, or terminating all the out going traffic Australia wide, or having someone reading all your naughty emails hahaha.
And to bypass it, simplicity itself, Just connect to an Overseas proxy (use an SSH tunnel if you want it encrypted), takes about 5 minutes to set up. My 14 year old showed me how he bypassed his school filter using the same method, and I didn't tell him how to either! The whole scheme is Ill considered and totally pointless, it's going to be fun to see what happens next.

How much has already been spent on it? How much is it going to cost to implement? I've heard that it's expected to run into the tens of billions of tax payers money for a half assed technology that others are already giving away for free. Here' s just one product that will end all arguments for Conroy's proposed filter.

OpenDNS already have a free solution known as FamilyShield. It blocks more of the filth of the internet than what Conroys filter proposes, it's kept up to date much faster and has no risk of a political agenda seeping in. There are simple instructions on how to protect your entire household listed on their website. It works in a similar way to Conroys filter, except it does so at the home level, not at the ISP.

The concept is essentially the same though so it's just as simple to circumvent if your children are smart and decide for whatever reason that they should do that. I believe your children will be less likely to seek to circumvent this kind of filter, since it is free from Conroys unworkable and unreasonable idea to apply RC regulations to internet content which will likely catch pages that people actually do seek to view from time to time.

We would be far better off if the government spent a couple million dollars training mums and dads how to set this stuff up at home.

Labor has a death wish in Conroy. See him on Q&A ?.
Man, he is really dumb, and really toxic.
How did this clown get the job or stay in it ?