MartinLuther

So are you advocating zero censorship?

NedKelly

Of course there should be zero censorship. People should be allowed to make up their own minds what they want to look at, except in the case of something that is illegal, in which case the website should be shut down and the owners prosecuted. It is not up to someone else to impose their moral standards on the population, especially when the censorship parameters will be kept secret as is proposed in this project.

MartinLuther

Doesn't that amount to the same outcome as the government's plan? The only difference being that the filter could block servers (or parts of servers) which are outside the Australian jurisdiction.

Who would decide which servers would be shut down and why? Would they shut down servers were only part of the content falls foul of the rules?

Has the government said the censorship parameters are to be kept secret or did they say the list of banned sites will be kept secret? The parameters for the current list can be found here http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90102.

And just to avoid misunderstanding. I think "unfettered" censorship is a totalitarian measure aimed at controlling the population but I disagree with complete freedom as well. Privacy, commercial confidentiality, copyright are all forms of censorship but I don't see them as the tools of a totalitarian regime. I also don't see a problem with banning stuff which appeals to people outside what is considered the norm (accepting that it's hard to pin down what is the norm, and that it will change from time to time and place to place).

bridie

I agree other than the bit about things that are illegal being shut down.
The only thing that should be shut down is child porn...

Why shouldnt a single bloke be able to view porn from his PC at home?

Why shouldnt someone with a debilitating terminal illness not be able to book into a Swiss hotel for their own euthanasia if they want?

NedKelly

I agree, child porn should be shut down. The trouble is we then get back to the beginning in that censoring the internet will not shut it down, it will just go underground. The same goes for everything they might try to block and this makes a nonsense of the whole idea. There have been many cases in the UK where the press has been served an injunction against publishing names, reporting on certain cases, etc. But that doesn't mean you can't log onto an offshore website (offshore from the UK) and get all the details. France tried a similar thing on ebay to stop them selling Nazi memorabilia on their auction site. People just logged into the US site instead. It's all nonsense, this will just cost the taxpayer a fortune and ruin legitamate users internet experience.

MartinLuther

So you'd be okay with kitten juggling

steve`o

you missing the point, the proposed filtering is able to stop peer to peer networking which is how 99% of your dodgy dvd, games and porn is distributed so just what are they really trying to stop you seeing ???

MartinLuther

That Kevin Rudd was behind the 9/11 attacks (allegedly)

22B

I get your point, but if the child porn is just a headline-grabbing cause to divert us from the spin-wrapped censorship, do you have an explanation as to why they want this level of censorship for itself?

What??!!?? Do you mean married women can't look anymore? How will I keep up with the latest trends?

tictac

Don't you mean is *not* able?

steve`o

well spotted yep should have said isnt

i`ll have to save up for a fully working keyboard

NedKelly

It's what labor governments do, loads of bureaucracy, loads of inspectors, they are elitist control freaks who think they know what's best for us.

Pollyana

Latest update

THE Federal Government's controversial internet censorship plan may filter more online traffic than was first thought, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy says.

In a post on his department's blog, Senator Conroy today said technology that could filter data sent directly between computers would be tested as part of the upcoming live filtering trial.

"Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial," Senator Conroy said.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/s...34-952,00.html

bigAPE

What a wanker... frankly, there are amoeba out there with more intelligence than this dunder-muffin.

Even someone with a basic understanding of peering protocols and encryption knows that Deep Packet Inspection can easily be circumvented by strong bi-directional encryption and changing the default ports. CopyRouter, which is the software CONroy is talking about, could possibly defeat Gnutella based networks like Limewire but not BitTorrent, which most people use. I guess no-one at Brilliant Digital Entertainment mentioned that to him that it fails to scrape CRC's from swarm based peering technologies.

This is such a staggering waste of tax payers money and all so that Conroy doesn't lose any more face after promoting this preposterous plan so vigorously. Only a couple of the major ISPs are involved in this idiotic trial and they hve made it very clear they are only taking part to ensure that the true scale of its stupidity is sung from mountain tops.

God it makes me want to piss blood just thinking that some people out there actually support this moron.

NedKelly

What's a dunder-muffin?