Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
In addition to getting involved in the EFA's campaign http://nocleanfeed.com you can subscribe to their lists to stay informed (there are familiar SLUG names there too!) http://www.efa.org.au/about/lists/ http://libertus.net/ and http://sites.google.com/site/filtermenot/home have additional information about the filter on their sites Also there's the PPA http://www.pirateparty.org.au/ who plan to fight the filter at the next election cheers, Meryl -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
meryl wrote: In addition to getting involved in the EFA's campaign http://nocleanfeed.com you can subscribe to their lists to stay informed (there are familiar SLUG names there too!) http://www.efa.org.au/about/lists/ http://libertus.net/ and http://sites.google.com/site/filtermenot/home have additional information about the filter on their sites Also there's the PPA http://www.pirateparty.org.au/ who plan to fight the filter at the next election snip Google has also blogged on the subject: http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-views-on-mandatory-isp-filtering.html While there is lots of moral outrage on the subject, I like the way Google has explained how it is not in their interests. I think this is a better approach than the independent from the world approach. jam wrote: I wrote to Conroy talking about proxies and ssh tunnels and received back many pages reminiscent of 'Shirley Valentine' 'Hello wall ...' Then, older and wiser, I realized *doing something* and being seen *to do something* are vastly different and after all it's *your* $100 million ... and on the 100% accurate filters, see: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2009-December/085954.html It would be useful if we could articulate our concerns about the impacts on us, as users of linux, open source, system administrator, etc. If we can get a single issue that is comprehensible by the wider public then that could clinch it. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://ramin.com.au Tel: 0414-869202 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
The no clean feed group have a template for a letter on their site I think, I'll try to dig it up later. I think this is very relevant to us as linux/open source/free software users, if we follow the philosophy free as in freedom, not fee as in beer then that should go not only for the os and programs we use but for the Internet and our access to data. I got an email from the president of the PPA with some ideas and advice: Hi crew, Pirate Party Australia has been working hard on getting press releases out and establishing media contacts to spread our message. We are establishing some working groups to plan a fresh round of national protests, and we are working on an overhaul of our IT systems. We are looking at sending members to LAN parties to communicate with the players, and sticking flyers up in city centres, where legally feasible. So far, we have not touched a cent of the membership fees or donations, and some members are using their own funds on essential services, because we know that every dollar counts. To those of you who have joined us already, thank you for your support. I know we haven't gotten back to most of you with confirmations, but we do plan to once we have started collating the memberships. To everyone else, I would like to tell you some hard truths that you might not like to hear. To fix the world, you have to do more than click some buttons on a website.We appreciate that you did sign up as a preliminary member, but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. In this case, all we are asking you to do is to go through the process of actually printing a document and faxing it. I know it's an old- world effort, but it's really just a few minutes of effort. For those of you who have not joined because of the money, send me an email atdavidcra...@pirateparty.org.au and we'll see if we can work something out. I grew up dirt poor, so I know what it is like to really not have a few dollars to spare. For those of you who have not joined due to other issues, just look at yesterday's release of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship report. We don't have time to waste. So far, around 140 people, or about 1 in 10 of the preliminary members have signed up. This is not good enough to affect serious change in Australia. We are trying to protect freedom of speech, but it looks like many of you don't have much to say. You need to get angry, and you need to join, and you need to convince other people to join. You need to do this by painting them a picture of what the world will be like if we don't put up a fight against the slide into tyranny that we are now facing. Ask the historians to imagine what Stalinist Russia would have been like if Stalin had the computing power of today. Tell them about how fragile democracy is and how it can be corrupted by just a few influential people over just a couple of decades. Let the environmentalists know that freedom needs to be protected, because without freedom, we don't have a world worth saving. Tell the libertarians that we are trying to keep the government out of their lives. Inform the concerned parents that we are fighting for their rights to run their own families. If you're in the country, speak to some farmers and tell them that we will stop companies from patenting their seeds. Tell the sick that we'll stop the drug companies from revelling in their pain. Tell the musicians that we will work with them to ensure they can earn good money doing what they love. Tell the trade unionists that we will work to repeal laws that infringe on their freedom of assembly. Let the gamers know that we'll rip out Michael Atkinson's spinal column if he doesn't realise that violent video games don't cause violent behaviour. OK, maybe not the last one. In fact, I'm not even sure if my freedom of speech rights protect that statement now-a-days, so let me explicitly state that it was a joke that referenced Scorpion's finishing move in Mortal Kombat. I hope my point is clear. We need you to join Pirate Party Australia, so we can protect our freedom to make the world a better place. You signed up as a preliminary member, so you already agree with our goals, so please make it official. Regards, David Crafti, President Pirate Party Australia P.S.: Some people have stated a concern about being on the books as affiliated with the party, but the AEC treats the applications as confidential. __ Contact with the Pirate Party Australia There is an email discussion list that you can participate in here. You can also participate on our forums or join in the discussion in IRC. All other enquiries go toenquir...@pirateparty.org.au On 17/12/2009, at 7:13, Marghanita da Cruz marghan...@ramin.com.au wrote: meryl wrote: In addition to getting involved in
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 09:02:52AM +1100, Mike wrote: The no clean feed group have a template for a letter on their site I think, I'll try to dig it up later. http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/16/dont-waste-your-time-waste-theirs-a-guide-to-writing-to-ministers/ May (or may not) be of use. -- A search of his car uncovered pornography, a homemade sex aid, women's stockings and a Jack Russell terrier. - http://www.news.com.au/story/0%2C27574%2C24675808-421%2C00.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Google Chrome for Linux !!!
Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Well maybe it should have defaulted to a more restrictive scheme rather than a less restrictive scheme. I agree with that. The default should have been to move to next most restrictive option in each case. Terry -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
jam wrote: I'm not sure if this belongs here, sorry if it doesn't. Well looks like the government got it's way. Our Internet will be censored next year. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115 I wrote to Conroy talking about proxies and ssh tunnels and received back many pages reminiscent of 'Shirley Valentine' 'Hello wall ...' Then, older and wiser, I realized *doing something* and being seen *to do something* are vastly different and after all it's *your* $100 million ... Doing something like this may have more of an impact: http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/16/dont-waste-your-time-waste-theirs-a-guide-to-writing-to-ministers/ Scott -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Tear down the great firewall
Hey y'all Sign the petition, http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNetid=892 ddave On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 12:00 +1100, slug-requ...@slug.org.au wrote: Send slug mailing list submissions to slug@slug.org.au To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to slug-requ...@slug.org.au You can reach the person managing the list at slug-ow...@slug.org.au When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of slug digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Australian government to censor your internets (Mike) 2. Re: Australian government to censor your internets (CaT) 3. Re: Google Chrome for Linux !!! (Terry Dawson) 4. Re: Australian government to censor your internets (Scott Finneran) email message attachment Forwarded Message From: Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com To: marghan...@ramin.com.au marghan...@ramin.com.au Cc: slug@slug.org.au slug@slug.org.au Subject: Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:02:52 +1100 The no clean feed group have a template for a letter on their site I think, I'll try to dig it up later. I think this is very relevant to us as linux/open source/free software users, if we follow the philosophy free as in freedom, not fee as in beer then that should go not only for the os and programs we use but for the Internet and our access to data. I got an email from the president of the PPA with some ideas and advice: Hi crew, Pirate Party Australia has been working hard on getting press releases out and establishing media contacts to spread our message. We are establishing some working groups to plan a fresh round of national protests, and we are working on an overhaul of our IT systems. We are looking at sending members to LAN parties to communicate with the players, and sticking flyers up in city centres, where legally feasible. So far, we have not touched a cent of the membership fees or donations, and some members are using their own funds on essential services, because we know that every dollar counts. To those of you who have joined us already, thank you for your support. I know we haven't gotten back to most of you with confirmations, but we do plan to once we have started collating the memberships. To everyone else, I would like to tell you some hard truths that you might not like to hear. To fix the world, you have to do more than click some buttons on a website.We appreciate that you did sign up as a preliminary member, but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. In this case, all we are asking you to do is to go through the process of actually printing a document and faxing it. I know it's an old- world effort, but it's really just a few minutes of effort. For those of you who have not joined because of the money, send me an email atdavidcra...@pirateparty.org.au and we'll see if we can work something out. I grew up dirt poor, so I know what it is like to really not have a few dollars to spare. For those of you who have not joined due to other issues, just look at yesterday's release of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship report. We don't have time to waste. So far, around 140 people, or about 1 in 10 of the preliminary members have signed up. This is not good enough to affect serious change in Australia. We are trying to protect freedom of speech, but it looks like many of you don't have much to say. You need to get angry, and you need to join, and you need to convince other people to join. You need to do this by painting them a picture of what the world will be like if we don't put up a fight against the slide into tyranny that we are now facing. Ask the historians to imagine what Stalinist Russia would have been like if Stalin had the computing power of today. Tell them about how fragile democracy is and how it can be corrupted by just a few influential people over just a couple of decades. Let the environmentalists know that freedom needs to be protected, because without freedom, we don't have a world worth saving. Tell the libertarians that we are trying to keep the government out of their lives. Inform the concerned parents that we are fighting for their rights to run their own families. If you're in the country, speak to some farmers and tell them that we will stop companies from patenting their seeds. Tell the sick that we'll stop the drug companies from revelling in their pain. Tell the musicians that we will work with them to ensure they can earn good money doing what they love. Tell the trade unionists that we will work to repeal laws that
Re: [SLUG] Re: Tear down the great firewall
David Andresen da...@hayday.biz writes: Sign the petition, http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNetid=892 A list of better things to do, which are more likely to influence the legislation than a petition, is here: http://nocleanfeed.com/action.html While petitions are nice and all, their ability to convince the office of the politicians here is actually pretty low compared to regular opinion polls and the like. Also, do keep in mind that the people who support this filter are also quite capable of, and almost certainly are, generating their own petitions asking for it; more direct methods are a good plan. Daniel -- ✣ Daniel Pittman✉ dan...@rimspace.net☎ +61 401 155 707 ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Don't pirates kidnap people and hold them for ransom, therefore denying their freedom? Anyway, I for one don't mind the Gov't filtering out child porn and all the other crap that tries to get my attention. There is so much good stuff out there that I can fill my mind with that rather than the lowest common denominator crud. Yeah so flame me! (Also, this should be moved to slug chat) Ben Mike wrote: The no clean feed group have a template for a letter on their site I think, I'll try to dig it up later. I think this is very relevant to us as linux/open source/free software users, if we follow the philosophy free as in freedom, not fee as in beer then that should go not only for the os and programs we use but for the Internet and our access to data. I got an email from the president of the PPA with some ideas and advice: Hi crew, Pirate Party Australia has been working hard on getting press releases out and establishing media contacts to spread our message. We are establishing some working groups to plan a fresh round of national protests, and we are working on an overhaul of our IT systems. We are looking at sending members to LAN parties to communicate with the players, and sticking flyers up in city centres, where legally feasible. So far, we have not touched a cent of the membership fees or donations, and some members are using their own funds on essential services, because we know that every dollar counts. To those of you who have joined us already, thank you for your support. I know we haven't gotten back to most of you with confirmations, but we do plan to once we have started collating the memberships. To everyone else, I would like to tell you some hard truths that you might not like to hear. To fix the world, you have to do more than click some buttons on a website.We appreciate that you did sign up as a preliminary member, but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty. In this case, all we are asking you to do is to go through the process of actually printing a document and faxing it. I know it's an old-world effort, but it's really just a few minutes of effort. For those of you who have not joined because of the money, send me an email atdavidcra...@pirateparty.org.au and we'll see if we can work something out. I grew up dirt poor, so I know what it is like to really not have a few dollars to spare. For those of you who have not joined due to other issues, just look at yesterday's release of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship report. We don't have time to waste. So far, around 140 people, or about 1 in 10 of the preliminary members have signed up. This is not good enough to affect serious change in Australia. We are trying to protect freedom of speech, but it looks like many of you don't have much to say. You need to get angry, and you need to join, and you need to convince other people to join. You need to do this by painting them a picture of what the world will be like if we don't put up a fight against the slide into tyranny that we are now facing. Ask the historians to imagine what Stalinist Russia would have been like if Stalin had the computing power of today. Tell them about how fragile democracy is and how it can be corrupted by just a few influential people over just a couple of decades. Let the environmentalists know that freedom needs to be protected, because without freedom, we don't have a world worth saving. Tell the libertarians that we are trying to keep the government out of their lives. Inform the concerned parents that we are fighting for their rights to run their own families. If you're in the country, speak to some farmers and tell them that we will stop companies from patenting their seeds. Tell the sick that we'll stop the drug companies from revelling in their pain. Tell the musicians that we will work with them to ensure they can earn good money doing what they love. Tell the trade unionists that we will work to repeal laws that infringe on their freedom of assembly. Let the gamers know that we'll rip out Michael Atkinson's spinal column if he doesn't realise that violent video games don't cause violent behaviour. OK, maybe not the last one. In fact, I'm not even sure if my freedom of speech rights protect that statement now-a-days, so let me explicitly state that it was a joke that referenced Scorpion's finishing move in Mortal Kombat. I hope my point is clear. We need you to join Pirate Party Australia, so we can protect our freedom to make the world a better place. You signed up as a preliminary member, so you already agree with our goals, so please make it official. Regards, David Crafti, President Pirate Party Australia P.S.: Some people have stated a concern about being on the books as affiliated with the party, but the AEC treats the applications as confidential. __ Contact
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Not heard that one before. Ben Donohue wrote: Don't pirates kidnap people and hold them for ransom, therefore denying their freedom? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? I'm more of a builder of things than a talker, and it occurs to me that if the scope of potential blocking is as wide as it (naively, to me) appears to be (and based on comments such as 80% of the 95 million porn sites fall under this criteria from the Sex Party etc) then the theoretical maximum size of the block list is something like 100 million URLs and contains every online games shop that sells NC video games, and so on and so forth. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... This is to some degree idle speculation, and I'm sure that any specific attempt to do something like this would need to be more thoroughly researched, but if anyone can recommend any technical anti-filter forums within the various groups protesting this it would be handy... Adam K 2009/12/15 Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com: I'm not sure if this belongs here, sorry if it doesn't. Well looks like the government got it's way. Our Internet will be censored next year. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Anyone heard of actual protests? Dean Adam Kennedy wrote: Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? I'm more of a builder of things than a talker, and it occurs to me that if the scope of potential blocking is as wide as it (naively, to me) appears to be (and based on comments such as 80% of the 95 million porn sites fall under this criteria from the Sex Party etc) then the theoretical maximum size of the block list is something like 100 million URLs and contains every online games shop that sells NC video games, and so on and so forth. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... This is to some degree idle speculation, and I'm sure that any specific attempt to do something like this would need to be more thoroughly researched, but if anyone can recommend any technical anti-filter forums within the various groups protesting this it would be handy... Adam K 2009/12/15 Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com: I'm not sure if this belongs here, sorry if it doesn't. Well looks like the government got it's way. Our Internet will be censored next year. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- http://fragfest.com.au -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Dean Hamstead wrote: Anyone heard of actual protests? there is/was this... Aussie Gamers all around the country are preparing to take to the streets this Saturday to protest the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia http://treatuslikeadults.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/protest-on-the-5th-of-december/ http://gamerblips.dailyradar.com/story/treat-us-like-adults-rally-for-an-r18-rating-brisbane/ http://www.growupaustralia.com/left-4-r18-rally-imminent-337/ http://left4r18.xtremenetworkonline.com/ BTW, regarding pirates, a tour guide on Rhodes explained it to methe people of Rhodes side with pirates from time to time, when they are no longer happy with their current legitimate owners. Then the pirates become legitimate rulers until the locals get a better offerin this way, the Arabs, Crusaders and Ottomans have come and gone. They are currently tolerating the Greeks and EU. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://ramin.com.au Tel: 0414-869202 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
Ben Donohue wrote:
Don't pirates kidnap people and hold them for ransom, therefore denying
their freedom?
Anyway, I for one don't mind the Gov't filtering out child porn and all
the other crap that tries to get my attention.
There is so much good stuff out there that I can fill my mind with that
rather than the lowest common denominator crud.
Yeah so flame me!
(Also, this should be moved to slug chat)
Ben
Hi Ben,
Filtering such sites is not the problem. Responsible ISPs and even
Google already do this. It is the government using the motherhood
argument to sneak in a very powerful propaganda tool that is the problem.
Who then determines what is appropriate (and fits in with their values)?
It is putting into the hands of a public servant the power to determine
what is filtered for the rest of eternity and that is a problem.
The argument goes - to block undesirable sites we need to be able to
determine from time to time what is inappropriate material. {This can
include anything, even material that puts the government of the day in a
bad light}
Once the legislation is implemented then what is filtered is up to the
government of the day - or more likely a public servant until they
outsource the filtering to (say) Microsoft.
I know that this is an extreme example but:
For example, if they wish to convince the public of how wonderful their
new tax has been in the reduction of methane and carbon dioxide
pollution they only have to have all material that shows otherwise
listed as inappropriate for public access and block it. We would be none
the wiser as we would not know it existed.
Just my thoughts
Heracles
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--
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Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
I'm sure it wouldn't be QUITE that simple, but for 100 lines of code I'm sure you could modify that to search for beastiality or Left 4 Dead 2 US Edition, scrape the front page to validate it a bit, then submit. But like I said, doing it properly would mean a bit more co-ordination... Adam K On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 4:24 PM, David Lloyd lloy0...@adam.com.au wrote: Why would we need to bother writing something ourselves? 1. Go to google 2. Type in something likely to get bad content (eg. sex) 3. Submit EVERY SINGLE result to the list arbitrators (Reasoning: well, clearly WE don't know what's classified - if we did, why would we need the Government to write great big laws about such things?) DSL -Original Message- From: Adam Kennedy adamkennedybac...@gmail.com Reply-to: a...@ali.as To: Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com Cc: slug@slug.org.au slug@slug.org.au Subject: Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:08:10 +1100 Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? I'm more of a builder of things than a talker, and it occurs to me that if the scope of potential blocking is as wide as it (naively, to me) appears to be (and based on comments such as 80% of the 95 million porn sites fall under this criteria from the Sex Party etc) then the theoretical maximum size of the block list is something like 100 million URLs and contains every online games shop that sells NC video games, and so on and so forth. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... This is to some degree idle speculation, and I'm sure that any specific attempt to do something like this would need to be more thoroughly researched, but if anyone can recommend any technical anti-filter forums within the various groups protesting this it would be handy... Adam K 2009/12/15 Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com: I'm not sure if this belongs here, sorry if it doesn't. Well looks like the government got it's way. Our Internet will be censored next year. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Adam Kennedy a...@ali.as writes: I'm sure it wouldn't be QUITE that simple, but for 100 lines of code I'm sure you could modify that to search for beastiality or Left 4 Dead 2 US Edition, scrape the front page to validate it a bit, then submit. But like I said, doing it properly would mean a bit more co-ordination... The ACMA process is documented on their website and, yes, does apparently involve a human review of the details. This existing system is used as the basis for the updated mandatory component of the system. ...and you could probably overload that with a few thousand items a day, personally, since it is not designed for high volume use; they envision less than 20K to 30K items on that particular list. Daniel -- ✣ Daniel Pittman✉ dan...@rimspace.net☎ +61 401 155 707 ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Why would we need to bother writing something ourselves? 1. Go to google 2. Type in something likely to get bad content (eg. sex) 3. Submit EVERY SINGLE result to the list arbitrators (Reasoning: well, clearly WE don't know what's classified - if we did, why would we need the Government to write great big laws about such things?) DSL -Original Message- From: Adam Kennedy adamkennedybac...@gmail.com Reply-to: a...@ali.as To: Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com Cc: slug@slug.org.au slug@slug.org.au Subject: Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:08:10 +1100 Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? I'm more of a builder of things than a talker, and it occurs to me that if the scope of potential blocking is as wide as it (naively, to me) appears to be (and based on comments such as 80% of the 95 million porn sites fall under this criteria from the Sex Party etc) then the theoretical maximum size of the block list is something like 100 million URLs and contains every online games shop that sells NC video games, and so on and so forth. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... This is to some degree idle speculation, and I'm sure that any specific attempt to do something like this would need to be more thoroughly researched, but if anyone can recommend any technical anti-filter forums within the various groups protesting this it would be handy... Adam K 2009/12/15 Mike beatbreake...@gmail.com: I'm not sure if this belongs here, sorry if it doesn't. Well looks like the government got it's way. Our Internet will be censored next year. http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2009/115 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Daniel Pittman wrote: Adam Kennedy a...@ali.as writes: I'm sure it wouldn't be QUITE that simple, but for 100 lines of code I'm sure you could modify that to search for beastiality or Left 4 Dead 2 US Edition, scrape the front page to validate it a bit, then submit. But like I said, doing it properly would mean a bit more co-ordination... The ACMA process is documented on their website and, yes, does apparently involve a human review of the details. This existing system is used as the basis for the updated mandatory component of the system. ...and you could probably overload that with a few thousand items a day, personally, since it is not designed for high volume use; they envision less than 20K to 30K items on that particular list. snip For Feb 09: Complaints received 95 Invalid complaints1 4 Investigations terminated2 6 Investigations completed47 Content items actioned3 40 http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_311697#ONLINE Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://ramin.com.au Tel: 0414-869202 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
Heracles is right. The Filtering problem is more about stifling freedoms of speech and censoring the Net than it is about blocking child porn, and it is bound to be extended into other areas so freedom of speech will become a thing of the past for us in Australia. Apart from slowing down our already sluggish Internet speeds, if it is introduced it is likely to be extended down the track to include all manner of sites; possibly even political dissenters... if they get away with this and they'll add more and more sites to the list to the point where we may one day envy the freedoms that the Chinese have! Really the child porn issue is just being used as an emotional ruse to effect censorship controls because the purveyors of such material for the most part would most likely use VPNs and other evasive methods to avoid detection, as such their heinous activities will be totally unaffected by the filter. How about the government catch these crooks and lock them up instead of punishing all of us with this net-nanny filter. By and large the Filter will be way more detrimental to the average honest Internet user and the child pornographers will just sit back and laugh at the stupidity of Australian government. for more info see: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25773857-953,00.html http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/312845/statistics_experts_label_isp_filtering_trials_unscientific?fp=16fpid=1 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/careful-big-brother-is-editing-you/story-e6frg7go-1225792964441 http://www.openforum.com.au/content/firewall-lies http://libertus.net/liberty/ http://www.efa.org.au/censorship/mandatory-isp-blocking/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8AZ21hCkIg and as always there's a Downfall video on the subject! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH35CVig3fQ cheers, Meryl -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
After a quick scan through the restricted classification database on the censors site, from which it appears that detailed instructions on the production of homemade gun silencers is rated RC, I managed to find a random YouTube video showing such details, and submitted it to see what the process is like. As expected, it's a fairly trivially automatable process, with a single captcha to prevent automated submission. This should be pretty trivial to wrap in a website, so that we'd just need to build a URL list in advance, ask random interweb volunteers to look at and solve catchas, and the rest would be done more or less automatically. I know some of the filtering systems will use DNS to prefilter HTTP requests, resolving all sites present in the block list across to the proxies that do the more detailed filtering. This, by the way, is how half of the UK appeared to be arriving at Wikipedia from the same IP address earlier in the year. Assuming this test complaint gets approved, something similar should happen to all Australian traffic going to YouTube for any ISP using that kind of filter system. We'll see how it goes, and I'm sure we're rapidly getting to the point where we should move this discussion off the SLUG list... Adam K 2009/12/17 Daniel Pittman dan...@rimspace.net: The ACMA process is documented on their website and, yes, does apparently involve a human review of the details. This existing system is used as the basis for the updated mandatory component of the system. ...and you could probably overload that with a few thousand items a day, personally, since it is not designed for high volume use; they envision less than 20K to 30K items on that particular list. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 16:08 +1100, Adam Kennedy wrote: Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? .. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... Political problems need political solutions: the technology needed to do fast lookups on a 100 million plus string corpus already exists; all you'd do is push the price up (and probably centralise it to one nation wide solution). False positives, broken applications induced latency are much more concerning technical aspects than filter size. The fundamental issue though, is that Australia is already censored: the debate about whether the internet should be censored is a bit misguided IMO: a better debate is that films are already censored: there isn't a strong argument why the internet /shouldn't be/, unless you consider the film censoring a problem (I do). Really, what I think we should be pushing for is: - RC material is abolished as a catch all category - Adults are required to ensure their children are not permitted access to adult only material, but the means is left to the parents to achieve. - This would apply to movies, magazines, etc. No more special treatment for canberra :) -Rob signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
I'm not suggesting this be the ONLY way of dealing with the issue. If it's possibly to at least remove all the excuses that it's cheap and easy, and demonstrate an ongoing series of high profile false positives, and the resulting latency issues, and that the whole thing is ungodly expensive. Surely taking the problem we know exist and making those problems real, immediate, high profile, and tangible, would provide some benefit to the people doing the more serious political work. Adam K 2009/12/17 Robert Collins robe...@robertcollins.net: On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 16:08 +1100, Adam Kennedy wrote: Is anyone aware of any groups taking more direct technical action against this proposal? .. I'm pondering the idea of automating the web trawling process to find NC content, and then just submit all 100 million NC content URLs to the people that maintain the blocklist... Political problems need political solutions: the technology needed to do fast lookups on a 100 million plus string corpus already exists; all you'd do is push the price up (and probably centralise it to one nation wide solution). False positives, broken applications induced latency are much more concerning technical aspects than filter size. The fundamental issue though, is that Australia is already censored: the debate about whether the internet should be censored is a bit misguided IMO: a better debate is that films are already censored: there isn't a strong argument why the internet /shouldn't be/, unless you consider the film censoring a problem (I do). Really, what I think we should be pushing for is: - RC material is abolished as a catch all category - Adults are required to ensure their children are not permitted access to adult only material, but the means is left to the parents to achieve. - This would apply to movies, magazines, etc. No more special treatment for canberra :) -Rob -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Australian government to censor your internets
On Thu, 2009-12-17 at 18:24 +1100, Adam Kennedy wrote: I'm not suggesting this be the ONLY way of dealing with the issue. If it's possibly to at least remove all the excuses that it's cheap and easy, and demonstrate an ongoing series of high profile false positives, and the resulting latency issues, and that the whole thing is ungodly expensive. 10's of millions is already ungodly expensive ;). Surely taking the problem we know exist and making those problems real, immediate, high profile, and tangible, would provide some benefit to the people doing the more serious political work. It may simply backfire by making 'the problem' more tangible measurable and accessible to the fearmongers, permitting them more draconian plans and more money wasted. -Rob signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
