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ZDNet / Filter / Story
Conroy explains his magic filter
Twisted Wire
Tune in weekly for Twisted Wire, Phil Dobbie's weekly podcast on the tangled mess that is Australia's telecommunications industry.
Topics
filter, nocleanfeed, stephen conroy, iia, primus, ravi bhatia
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In today's Twisted Wire, we put the screws on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy about his controversial internet filter policy.
Among other things, Conroy says the filter was always intended to stop people inadvertently encountering internet nasties, and that there was never an intention to use the Australian Communication and Media Authority's full blacklist.
That sensitive list, Conroy says, will only ever have a few thousand sites on it, updated regularly, and the government is open to discussion about how it will be implemented.
Conroy is copping a lot of flak for the policy but is intent on it as one of a range of approaches to try and limit access to child pornography and other nasty material. For most of us it shouldn't matter, so why are people getting so hot under the collar about it?
Well, there are three reasons. The first is the question of speed. If we believe the trials, both the Enex TestLab trial and a separate one conducted by Telstra, and if we're only talking about blocking a few thousand URLs then there will be a negligible impact on the performance of the internet. No big deal!
The second reason is the fear of precisely what it is we are blocking. Professor Catherine Lumby from the University of NSW joins the discussion, suggesting if the filter is to proceed we need to look at how we classify material. For more, read the report she co-authored, Untangling the Net: the scope of content caught by mandatory internet filtering.
The third reason is "everything else". As Peter Corenous, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association explains, there could be many inadvertent issues that need to be examined. The cost burden of applying the filter could be one of them, particularly for smaller ISPs.
Ravi Bhatia, CEO of Primus, is another industry supporter. I ask him if he can see any problems with the approach, or is Senator Conroy right to push ahead regardless of the vocal opposition from the anti-censorship brigade.
What do you think? Whatever your views on the subject, don't let it ruin your Christmas! And yes, we'll squeeze in one more Twisted Wire before then. You can also read the consultation paper on measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material.
Talkback
Your right Steve it isn't a silver bullet.
It's a suppository.
Eric Pinkerton December 17th, 2009The biggie...
Scope creep. Successive governments will expand the scope of the filter there is absolutely nothing to prevent them from doing so.
The filter as it stands to be implemented at present, will be used to block politically contreversial subjects and content (euthinasia, and abortion awareness sites) if this does not qualify as a restriction of political freedom I don't know what does.
Most importantly of all, it won't work. Its a colossal waste of tax payer money that should be spent on Australia's ****-poor hi-tech crime units. The filter wont prevent kids from being abused, it wont help those that have already been abused and wont assist in the capture of those who sponsor or distribute it. It's a complete and utter failure as a policy.
Anonymous December 17th, 2009Testing Censorship
Let's see if http://www.fuckkevinrudd.com becomes blocked.
Anonymous December 17th, 2009I love how...
Conroy talks about "mis-information" as one of the main reasons why so many people are against the filter. Um, Conroy is the leader of mis-information given the way he changes his tune to suit his own argument/agenda.
A 10% drop in speed may not seem like much to him but our "broadband" is already laughable compared to other developed countries. A 10% drop is still a 10% too much when our speeds are already relatively slow.
There are so many flaws in this trial. As already pointed out, the testing was never carried out on speeds above 8Mbs. The effect of the filter above that is unknown, which is of great concern given the goverments pledge for the NBN with a speed of 100Mbs.
How many customers took part in the trial? How can these results be extrapolated to a much larger sample size and a larger load on the filter?
Conroy constantly talks about other countries having implemented their own filters. How many countries have made it mandatory?
At the end of the day, the filter will simply not work. People will be able to by-pass the filter with ease. What a complete waste of tax payers money.
Daniel December 17th, 2009Filter anything to do with Catholics
Can we please have every reference to word "God" or "Catholic" and replace it the word pedophile.
I would like to see the whole bible blocked as I find its existence very offensive. Why don't they get a Christian Ubuntu as it has all the filiters already in it.
They are probably all too stupid to know how to use it.
The internet is not like TV or radio.
Anonymous December 17th, 2009Extra latency no big deal???
Dear Phil Dobbie,
Are you stating that extra latency is no big deal? Try adding extra latency to your packets that carry voip, gaming or trading orders.
Given the technically questionable results of the Enex tests, I think the latency will be far worse than what they've reported.
Anonymous December 17th, 2009Home Filter
It's up to parents to watch their kids. Parents should have computers in a main area of the house. They can easily lock it down and those who try to circumvent the software would circumvent Conroy's clean feed anyway. There's no reason to have a national filtering scheme. It's becoming too much of a police state.
Merari Schroeder December 17th, 2009Parental scrutiny is the only option.
My nephew had a computer relatively unsupervised in his bedroom. As a teenager he had downloaded topless images of Amanda Tapping from "Stargate SG-1" and similar. Knowing full well that a teenager is able to access this sort of information faster than I can track it, I allowed this on the condition that if I ever found anything more "controversial" his hard-drive would be remotely wiped without warning.
Interestingly, the only times we ever had virus trouble on his machine were:
- his birthday, when a couple of friends tried accessing more dangerous material
- one of his sisters visiting and playing a SIMS style game that looked safe enough, until you complete the game, and the avatars then copulate on screen!
At no time did an audit of the machine reveal that my nephew had been responsible for visiting RC type sites, or has playing "Halo" online suddenly been forbidden?
I am of the strong opinion that the wowsers behind this scheme are those same kids who used to get busted at school for passing around "dirty magazines".
Mic December 17th, 2009bah
You should have interrupted when Conroy made 1 proposition instead of rambling on for 5minutes then trying to argue against all the points.
Anonymous December 17th, 2009Filter.
We're OUTRAGED by this filter proposal.
Did you know that some of the TOP 25 web sites used by Australians will be blocked when the filters in place, sites even more popular than the Australian portal to Google.
This is such a bad plan, if it becomes law, Labor will lose my vote forever.
Simon Shaw December 17th, 2009sensorship
a real worry when the Govt gets control on what we read, who knows what is done with this data
Anonymous December 18th, 2009It's a waste of time money and WILL hinder investigations of online crime
I as someone with NO criminal intent will be buy a VPN connection in a 'safe' country and be doing all my surfing from there! So if I'm going to do it do you think the information will be easy enough on chat forums to find out for pedophiles? and other criminals? Labour needs to start listening to the IT industry before going off half **** and thinking they know all about all!
Anonymous December 18th, 2009Free VPN
if you can stand a few ads here and there just get Hotspot Shield from hotspotshield.com
Free VPN, unlimited bandwidth.
So much for the filter LOL
Daniel du Prie December 20th, 2009Ravi, are you serious?
Ravi, where do you come to the conclusion that most Australian's want this? The previous Govt's downloadable personal filter was barely downloaded and used by anyone. In fact that's the reason why the current Govt removed it in the first place.
Not sure if you've been reading any of the news on this (funny that they tried to sneak it through at Christmas time AGAIN), but the whole proposal is getting a smashing across anywhere that has comments. For your uneducated reference:
- http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-truth-about-net-filtering/
- katelundy.com.au/2009/12/17/my-thoughts-on-the-filter/
Anonymous December 18th, 2009My problem with it? Conroy.
Again Conroy is using non-technical terms to describe what will be blocked in an attempt to glaze over his real intentions.
What are "Nasties" and who will be defining what is nasty? Bad words, naughty pictures, talk about abortion and euthanasia, anti Catholic websites?
He just needs to come right out and say that sites like Red Tube will be completely blocked, then the public can decide for themselves if they want this censorship to invade their lives.
Anonymous December 18th, 2009it all comes back to Conroy
How the hell can someone who
knows absolutely nothing about IT
and the way the internet works
make these decisions!
its absurd??
This filter will NOT stop anything
except for really stupid people who
wouldnt be on the net for dodgy reasons anyway
Anonymous December 18th, 2009Wasted opportunity
Conroy answers questions so rarely. What a shame he wasn't asked why he's blocking all of RC instead of just the illegal sub-categories within it. Also a pity he wasn't asked about why the trial was only testing speed impacts under 8mbs, which is about 1/12 of the expected speed under the NBN.
Mark G December 18th, 2009Conroy's NewSpeak
The lead issue, the headline-grabbing first mention in most of Conroy's ramblings is that the filter will block pedophile sites.
Pedophile sites are, quite rightly, illegal now and always have been. Where Conroy appears to show his ignorance (or venal desire for an eyecatching headline) is that pedophile sites are already blocked as a matter of policy by most ISPs, so they are not floating around the public domain at all. In other words, the Great Australian Rabbit-proof Firewall will make no difference here.
So, Senator, your Plan B is? Resign?
Anonymous December 18th, 2009Conroy admits his filter doesn't work.
"Inteviewer: So it's not necessarily a secret list? You're open for discussion on that?
Stephen Conroy: Ah... look the problem, the problem with, ah publishing the list. And this is, this is one that we've really struggled with, because this is a real conundrum. When ya publish a list of the names of books that are banned, ya don't provide the access to the content in the book. If you publish a list of URL addresses, you're providing access to the content. and that's, that's where the challenge is."
Ummm, I'm sorry what? People only need the URL of the filtered website to access it? Then what the hell does your filter do?
Gerard Caulfield December 18th, 2009Red Herring
Thanks to the tag team of Conroy and Atkinson, I guess we won't even be able to read a _review_ of an RC game like Aliens Vs Predator or L4D2?
I find it extremely distasteful that a government wants to filter my information through their criteria/mechanism and feel the whole "filter the filth" line they are using is a diversion to the real issue that, according to the government, Australian adults must be treated like children.
Anonymous December 19th, 2009A Political Weapon
A filter is a political weapon which will definitely be used and abused whoever is in power and most likely be a source of corruption. Imagine how many lobby groupswill try to influence which gets into the list!
Whoever wants to access illegal materials can easily do it anyway. Will they block proxies as well and foreign based vpn as well?
Wrong solution to the wrong problem? Can they not concentrate on (1) making internet faster. My ISP say that my spead can reach 24 mbps but the line speed is less than 5 mbps and a lot probably in the same boat. And (2) can they not make it more affordable including the mobile broadband?
And lastly, by implementing a filter, you just simply made paedophiles more creative in trying to traffic illegal materials. Without a filter, they will just resort to conventional means and you can easily catch them. With a filter, you take them to an arena which you can barely wrestle!
Anonymous December 20th, 2009Misunderstood??? Bull@#$%
He thinks we are misunderstood, what a complete idiot.
Anonymous December 20th, 2009Mandatory censorship will always lead to evil
If only he was as keen to roll out the labour fibre network as promised at the election. I think that was used pretty successfully to win people over. This filter would be a good idea if it was optional and not compulsory. Mandatory censorship is just wrong in any democracy. And the fact that the censorship list is in itself "censored" is very alarming. Any site if deemed by the labour government to not be in their interest can be censored and nobody would be the wiser. That is a very serious issue. More than any child porn, etc as evil as they may be. Democracy is paramount to a free country and censorship is the tool of a dictatorship.
Anonymous December 21st, 2009this makes me sooo mad.
So he is basically saying this will only affect innadvertent users, people who are innocent who have accidentally gone to a site, these people will then have their traffic logged and guilty till proven innocent, excellent. So where do I buy my lighter fluid and RC books to get the burning going.
Conroy is an IT illiterate, I have been in IT 10 years, managing proxies for about 8 of that. They are fine for businesses looking to reduce costs, leaving the idea their that if a user wants to look at something blocked they can do it from home. This removes a lot of this, gay's, and straight people who simply want to look at porn, or sexually explicit articles, pro-abortionists, anti-abortionists all will have their right to access information blocked. Fine block this at work, it is not appropriate, but what you do in your own home if it harms no one else so-be-it.
If this doesn't actually catch the crooks, only the innadvertent users it is a waste of money. I will protest this decision for the rest of my life, but I am technical enough to easily get around it, my concern is the users who can't, and can't access legal information that is simply RC due to the workload the classifiers will have.
Let me also say I have children, and I would prefer they innadvertently went to a hundred RC sites than couldn't learn something due to a single blocked site. I viewed my first RC material at age 7, and I don't think there is anything wrong with me, I am not into animals or kids. I am married, with kids, and pay a fair whack of taxes, yet I already know some of the sites I visit from my home will be blocked, some of these are related to my IT security job, some I find amusing, removing these sites will affect my job, and affect my leisure time, how about we ban the violent, incest ridden bible, or the violent and pedophelic Koran, or the violent and disturbing Torah, or sexual Sutra's and denying Smritis and Shrutis.
If it was only the abhorent child porn, beastiality etc I would be fine, but you are a fool to think it will be.
Anonymous December 22nd, 2009Conroy's filter foolishness
What a big waste of public money and public time. With so many things wrong in this country, why the hell does this govt waste time pandering to the church and people too lazy to get off their backsides and manage their own children appropriately?
If the govt really want to stop child porn, then prosecute the perps, the people who make the content. Also, when there is no longer access to the IT illiterate paedophiles, no doubt they'll stop with the virtual CPorn and move on to the real thing. How is that a good thing for Australia?
The filter is Orwellian in the extreme, more obnoxious than "children overboard" and the worst piece of legislation since the "terra nullius" declaration during the white invasion. Hope you are proud Conroy!
Simon December 22nd, 2009used car salesmen look good
How can anybody take Conroy seriously, even within his own party?
Apart from his palpable ignorance about his portfolio area, he artfully claims there won't be many sites on his secret censorship list - at the same time as he is inviting every single-issue fundamentalist to come up with more things for him to ban.
He is an embarrassment to the Labor Party, and should resign or be sacked now.
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Is it any wonder...
that he's copping flak? If this is "one of a range of approaches to try and limit access to child pornography and other nasty material. ", it's time to look at something else.
His proposal simply - DOESN'T WORK - in this respect. It is a complete waste of public money and as a "side effect" it just happens to allow the government to control access to information.
How many times does this have to be pointed out to this luddite?
Agreed...
I don't care about the free speech issues anymore. They are totally irrelevant as the main point about this proposal is that it will be totally useless and a BIG WASTE of our money. That's what makes me angry. That money could go to any number of worthwhile causes yet it's going to wasted because Conroy is in bed with Australian Christian Lobby. It's a strange day indeed when I have to vote Liberal because they have become become the more progressive party, but hey, times change I guess.