Internet Control By Government

NET NANNY IS SLOW AND MYOPIC

Andrew Bolt

TonyfromOz prefaces …..

This is a buzz topic here in Australia at the moment. The Government came to Office with the promise of installing high speed Broadband Internet access to every house in Australia, something that has not eventuated yet, and expressions of interest for the huge contract have only just closed, and the worrying thing is that it goes to the lowest bidder. That same Government also promised to install Internet filters and is trying to force ISP’s to filter content at their end, effectively slowing Internet access back to almost dial up speed.

Chris Berg is as unconvinced by the Rudd Government’s new net filters as am I:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority conducted tests earlier this year on six filters that could be imposed on internet service providers. Five slowed internet speeds by at least 20 per cent. And two of them crippled speeds by more than 75 per cent.

And this is before we look at their habit of falsely blocking legal sites. A 1999 trial of internet filtering (censoring the internet has long been a bipartisan goal) even accidentally blocked some government websites. Filters have improved since then but, as ACMA’s test revealed, it is a certainty that some sites will be incorrectly blocked — let’s be honest, the technology to efficiently and effectively censor the internet isn’t quite ready yet…

The biggest problem is a little word that Mr Conroy slipped out in the middle of a Senate committee hearing. The pilot filter program will not only target the existing blacklisted sites, most of which are child pornography, but will also target “unwanted” content, whatever that means.

The Government has developed a secret list of 10,000 unwanted sites (there are only 1300 on the current blacklist).

Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.

Read more excellent articles from Andrew Bolt.

TonyfromOz adds …..

An earlier iteration of a net filter was introduced to the public with much fanfare, a Government Minister in attendance, and cameras running while an eleven year old boy was shown sitting at the computer. To everyone’s horror and embarrassment, the boy then circumvented the filter within 75 seconds. Needless to say, this filter did not see the light of day.

That last line is the most worrying thing of all. That list of unwanted content is also worrying, as the list of sites will obviously contain sites critical of the Government. Comments on the National Broadcaster’s online news site and others are already being censored by ‘moderators’. The stupidity of filtering may be well intentioned, but with the broad brush of getting everything, ordinary words will lead to censorship. Words like Classic which contain the letters A, S, and S in sequence, words like ‘Alfred Hitchcock, and even a word that describes the current Government, ‘Socialism’, which contains the word Cialis, one of the medications pushed by the Drug Company spammers. If this is introduced here in Australia, then I guess that puts us on a par with China with regard to censorship. With only 1300 sites on the blaclist, one wonders where the Government found 10,000 sites to prospectively ban.