Post by trog @ 05:25pm 24/03/10 | 24 Comments
Communications & Digital Economy and provided their feedback to the mandatory Internet filtering/censorship scheme. The full response (0.5mb PDF) weighs in at 24 pages. From the summary:
Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide. At Google we have a bias in favour of people's right to free expression. While we recognise that protecting the free exchange of ideas and information cannot be without some limits, we believe that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.The document goes on to explain the steps Google are already taking to deal with inappropriate or illegal material, and expounds on their other reasons that they have grave concerns with the scheme - the blocking of legitimate content, the negative impact on users, the potential for 'scope creep', the false sense of security, damage to our international reputation as a freedom-loving democracy, and, of course, the complete and utter ease by which the filter can be circumvented.
Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available – and we agree. Google, like many other Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material, which is illegal in almost every country, and we filter out this content from our search results and remove it from our products. But moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.
Another key concern is that the implementation of a mandatory filtering regime - across all of Australia's hundreds of ISPs, millions of Internet users, and billions of web pages accessed - is a massive undertaking which could negatively impact user access speeds.
As one would expect, it is a thorough and complete response that addresses many of the key issues. It is perhaps an unsurprising response, but if you have some spare time it's worth a read.
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Posted 05:36pm 24/3/10
.. and... .. are the two most glaringly obvious reasons, over and above the rest of the arguments.
Why do it if it's not going to work?
Actually, aren't there some ISPs already testing this? We should get someone reputable (I dunno, the ABC 4 corners or something) to go to a house where they can demonstrate a 13 year old circumventing the filter and looking at animal pr0ns or something...
BAM! Filter gawn!
:D
Posted 05:37pm 24/3/10
Posted 05:42pm 24/3/10
Posted 05:50pm 24/3/10
the government should listen to the large companies (such as google) who are providing advice on topics they are familliar with.
Posted 06:27pm 24/3/10
Posted 06:41pm 24/3/10
Are you suggesting that people on the network you administer actively contravene the filter? If so, and you it's an employment situation, those people should be terminated.
Posted 06:37pm 24/3/10
Posted 06:46pm 24/3/10
google, yahoo and microsoft are now obviously pro-child pornography!!
Posted 06:51pm 24/3/10
any one who uses any network i admin must agree to a number of policies before they can even go near a pc. they are all made well aware that their usage of the network and posibly the employment status is at risk if they breach these policies
like seriously this is pretty basic stuff, and remember always read any agreements before you sign or click that little "I agree" box
Posted 06:59pm 24/3/10
I didn't catch all of it, I'll checkout the podcast it seemed to be good discussion.
Posted 07:35pm 24/3/10
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh god thats hilarious.
Who do you work for dude? The devil?
That would involve firing half my office!!!! 100 people!!!
What a f****g laugh. Dude it's a office full of techies and IT consultants, if they want to view facebook during lunch and have a great way of circumventing my filtering and firewalls, I seriously dont give a s***.
They are great employees and get the job done, which is all I give a s*** about. Not trying to drag people through the '3 warnings then your out' hr bulls*** that you somehow think would stop people form circumventing the stuff in place at the moment.
Where the hell do you work dude?
Posted 08:00pm 24/3/10
but ill quote one of my lecturers for you
"you should setup internet filters and keep them monitored so that employees don't spend all their time sitting on facebook or myspace."
lol
Posted 08:05pm 24/3/10
Posted 08:10pm 24/3/10
(a lil off topic i know)
Posted 08:17pm 24/3/10
When people are totally accountable for what they post and visit and whatnot, watch as the internet settles down to more sociable acceptable limits.
Posted 08:19pm 24/3/10
... as of a couple of days ago when we told china to f*** off.
Posted 12:16am 25/3/10
That could/would lead to abuse by power-hungry governments, and is not too dissimilar to saying stick a camera in everybody's bedroom and toilet since only criminals have anything to hide.
Posted 12:21am 25/3/10
Just click the 'Post a reply' button on their post (easiest way).
Posted 12:35am 25/3/10
I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but often the buttons don't show up for me, and more often the avatars and sigs. Otherwise you can put < quote > around the text < / quote > in your message and it will be in a quote box, without the spaces.
Like this:
Posted 07:32am 25/3/10
yer i dont have any buttons show up that say post a reply..... but thanks for the advice people
Posted 08:05am 25/3/10
Posted 04:04pm 25/3/10
Posted 04:22pm 25/3/10
us: "why wont you make the list public"
him: "because then people will know where to get child pr0n, dur you child pr0n lover@!!"
us: "but if you are filtering it, we can't get it even if we know where to get it?"
him: "dur um you love child pr0n!!!"
^ ?
Posted 08:59pm 25/3/10