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Web powers fight Aussie Filter
The long talked about and much contested Australian mandatory internet filter has new opposition in the form of the "Australian Library and Information Association and Inspire Foundation". Dubbed the 'Safer Internet Group' and with members such as web giants Google and Yahoo! the group actually stand a good chance at achieving their objectives, which would see a revision of the legislation to better target illegal acts such as child porn while leaving the rest of the internet open, uncensored and free to use.
The filter works in the same way any home blacklist software on either your modem/router or home PC does. The government plan to place URLs of websites they and the public find which you wouldn't want a child to see onto the black list. Once on the black list no one in the country will be able to view the site or any pages listed on it. This I believe is why companies Google and Yahoo! are stepping in, because at the end of the day it would hurt their bottom line.
Take for example if the URL to a specific YouTube video was placed on the list, this would have the effect of causing ALL users who visit YouTube to pass through the filter leading to YouTube videos that aren't blacklisted under the filter not loading and a general slow down of the site. Independent testing by the government in Tasmania in 2009 showed the filter would also significantly slow down general web usage, dropping your speed by 30% during normal usage periods and during high traffic periods by up to 70%!
The Safer Internet Group is points out something I have argued since the inception of this filter, stating
"As a large proportion of child sexual abuse content is not found on public websites, but in chat-rooms or peer-to-peer networks, we know the proposed filtering regime will not effectively protect children from this objectionable material,"
and continuing
"In fact, the policy may give parents a 'false sense of security' encouraging them to reduce their supervision."
Under this filter arrangement websites of a criminal nature will NOT be mandatory passed on to the police, they will ONLY block the content under the filter and leave the matter there. The AMCA (the government body responsible for rating commercial TV and radio) will manage the filter and attempt to apply the same guide lines to the internet that apply to TV. Meaning if they find something you wouldn't want your 9 year old to see, then no one in Australia can see it either, regardless of age.
As I have already previously stated, if the goal is ultimately to stop cyber crime there are FAR better and more effective ways of achieving that goal than instituting a mandatory filter across the internet. Education is key, explaining to the general public internet safety, about email scams, phishing and so forth. It troubles me that there are still grown adults who will today fall for a Nigerian 419 scam (The ones where they say you've won a stack of money, but you need to give them a few grand to collect it). And the filter isn't designed to combat these types of problems, in fact it really isn't designed to combat ANY kind of truly harmful cyber crime.
Kiddie porn will still be just as prevalent as it is now, but legal porn won't be viewable. Everyone will still get just as many spam and scammer emails as they are right now, but watching a legitimate video YouTube will become slow and tiresome. Phishing websites will still continue to exist as often by the time anyone figures out it's a phishing website the phishers have already abandoned the site in search of the next prize. Yet internet banking will take forever (opening people using wireless internet to even future hacking attacks and fraud).
The ONLY criminal activity that I can see the filter would actually combat is the downloading of copyrighted materials such as music, movies, games and software through bit-torrent sites and so forth. But again, that will only stop the use of it in a web based way, it will NOT stop peer-to-peer downloading using software like LimeWire. Beyond that, it will all be business as usual to the cyber-crime world. The ONLY people who are impacted by this filter are the law abiding Australian public whom will lose their right to freedom of information. Not only will legal porn sites be blocked, but so will any sites which even so much as TALK about things that are "undesirable". This includes NEWS sites and BLOGS which are seeking to educate on the issues surrounding a criminal activity or just talking about a criminal activity in a negative light.
Think about it, all those websites giving you tips on how to avoid pedophiles getting in touch with your children, clearly community education groups, being added to a blacklist that no one can visit. How does that make logical sense?
Thankfully with the "safer internet group" lobbying the government, combined with the legal action the Australian Internet Services Association are taking to try and block the filter things should hopefully change on this front. Hopefully someone amongst this group can get Senator Conroy to understand he does NOT know what is best for Australians better than they do themselves, nor does he know what is best for our children better then we their parents do. Lets hope they move fast on this though, as the legislation only needs to pass through the senate before it's law and is already scheduled to be in place by the end of THIS YEAR!
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