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Archive for the ‘Australia’ Category

AU – Internet censorship agenda slammed by tech giants: (Sydney Morning Herald)
Australia’s biggest technology companies, communications academics and many lobby groups have delivered a withering critique of the government’s plans to censor the internet. The government published most of the 174 submissions it received relating to improving the transparency and accountability measures of its internet filtering policy. Legislation to force ISPs to implement the policy is expected to be introduced within weeks. The filters will block a blacklist of ‘refused classification’ websites for all Australians on a mandatory basis.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Google, Yahoo Object to Australia’s Plan for Internet Filtering – WSJ

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, 23.03.2010

Google and other tech giants are making waves today over Internet censorship in a place people might not expect — Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Google, Yahoo and others ‘delivered a withering critique’ of government plans to force Internet service providers to block certain content.

The Australian government has been putting its censorship plans in place for more than a year now. And it plans to introduce legislation this year that will require that ISPs use filters to block content such as child sex abuse, bestiality, detailed instruction in crime or anything advocating terrorism, according to Australia’s Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

In its response to the plan, Google said its ‘primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.’ Although the company said it already has a global ban on all child pornography, it said that it also has a ‘bias in favor of people’s right to free expression.’

The company’s objections don’t end with its free-speech concerns; it says that such large-scale filtering ‘appears to not be technologically possible’ and would ‘negatively impact user-access speeds’ in a serious way.

Yahoo expressed similar misgivings about ISP-level filtering, pointing out that the proposed rules could block content such as anti-abortion Web sites, sites that advocate safe drug injection and Gay forums that discuss sexual experiences. ‘Clearly some of this content is controversial and, depending on one’s political beliefs, rather offensive,’ the company wrote, but it added that there was ‘enormous value in this content being available to encourage debate.’

In some other democracies, such as Canada and the U.K., content is filtered at an ISP level, Australia has pointed out. But Google argues that in these countries, the filtering applies only to child pornography.

The Australian government, which had solicited input on the plan, posted comments from the Internet giants and others online and told the Herald that there would be more consultations with ISPs.

Conroy slams internet enemies report

March 15, 2010
www.manlylodge.com.au

AAP

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has hit back at a new report listing Australia as a potential internet enemy.

Press freedom advocacy group Reporters without Borders released their Enemies of the Internet report last Friday, to coincide with World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

It found Australia should be kept ‘under surveillance’ for signs that internet freedom may soon be curbed.

The federal government wants all internet service providers to ban refused classification material hosted on overseas servers.

Senator Conroy said listing Australia as a country that may be an ‘enemy of the internet’ – alongside South Korea, Turkey and Russia – showed Reporters without Borders were seriously mislead about what Labor wanted to do.

‘What we have indicated we will block is refused classification content,’ he told parliament on Monday.

‘Material that is not currently available in a newsagent, in a bookstore, on a DVD, at the movies or on television.

‘Material like child pornography, pro-rape websites, pro-bestiality websites and material of that nature.’

Senator Conroy disputed that he ever dismissed critics of his plan as advocates of child pornography.

He said the material cited by Reporters Without Borders had been supplied by the group Electronic Frontiers Australia who had been challenged publicly to produce a quote where that was said.

‘I challenge each and every one of you to come up with such a quote, because it does not exist,’ he said.

‘Electronic Frontiers Australia have one of the most disgraceful misinformation campaigns and have misled Australians.’

© 2010 AAP

Net filters to hit social networks

March 1, 2010

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would consider introducing an internet ombudsman after Facebook tributes to two dead children were defaced with pornography.

Rudd said he would look into an idea put forward by Independent Senator Nick Xenophon to appoint an official who would be responsible for taking complaints and action against such material.

‘We actually need to do everything we can to combat cyber crime,’ Rudd said.

‘The role of cyber crime and internet bullying on children is, frankly, frightening and we need to be deploying all practical measures.’

Memorial pages on the social networking site for eight-year-old Trinity Bates and Elliott Fletcher, 12, who were allegedly murdered in separate incidents this month, have been vandalised with offensive material.

Rudd said responsible governments were obliged to act to protect children.

‘And this is where we get into this really stupid debate with what I’d describe as extreme civil libertarianism, which says any such move in that direction means the imposition of Soviet Communism a la 1980,’ Rudd said.

‘Look, it’s not like that. It’s not perfect, but we need to reduce the problem.’

Rudd also defended the government’s proposed internet filter, which is designed to block child pornography, terrorist material and other extreme and offensive information, saying it was in line with how movies and videos were censored.

He said the filtering, which will be carried out by Internet service providers, slowed the speed of web-surfing but only to ‘the equivalent to 1/70th of the blink of an eye.’

‘It’s not perfect, but let me tell you I will not stand idly by and allow this sort of muck to be put online without making an effort to reduce it, given the enormous impact it has on the safety of children,’ Rudd said.

The move has proved controversial among internet user groups as well as web giants Google and Yahoo!, and prompted activists to launch an attack shutting down government sites earlier this month.

Stephen Conroy’s Internet Filter Opposed by MPs

Opposition grows to internet filter
ARI SHARP COMMUNICATIONS CORRESPONDENT
February 25, 2010

Senator Conroy has won the backing of cabinet and is awaiting debate about the internet filtering plan in the party room next month. Photo: Andrew Meares

BACKBENCH MPs on both sides of politics opposed to the government’s internet filtering proposal are vigorously lobbying their colleagues, creating a potential roadblock to the plan backed by the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy.

A group of four young Liberal MPs – Simon Birmingham, Alex Hawke, Michael Johnson and Jamie Briggs – are leading the charge against the filter within the Coalition, while the Labor senator Kate Lundy is putting a case to her colleagues in favour of an optional filter.

Senator Conroy has won the backing of cabinet and is awaiting debate in the party room next month, while the Coalition is waiting for more detail. With the Greens indicating their opposition, the Coalition’s position is likely to decide the filter’s fate.

The government’s proposal involves internet service providers blocking access to websites that appear on a blacklist because of content that falls foul of Australia’s classification guidelines, including portrayals of sexual violence and instructions on committing crime.

Mr Hawke said his biggest objection was that the mandatory nature of the filter took control out of the hands of individuals, while he also had doubts about filtering’s effectiveness.

”The government’s stated aim of filtering child pornography is not something that many people could disagree with, but the point is it won’t achieve that end,” he told the Herald. ”People will still be able to access that illegal content … and it will do all sorts of other things such as slow down the internet, plus potentially there will be lists of things censored that we don’t really want censored.”

One Liberal MP said older members of the party room were more sympathetic to the government position, while another claimed the issue was resonating with the electorate.

Despite the vocal opposition, McNair Ingenuity research released a fortnight ago found support for the filter running at 80 per cent.

On the Labor side, Senator Lundy has put forward an alternative ”optional filtering” proposal, by which households will be able to indicate to their internet service provider whether they want a filter rather than having one automatically put in place.

Senator Conroy remains resolute in his support for the filter, and through a spokeswoman noted the legislation was scheduled during the autumn session of Parliament, which runs until next month.

”The government believes this content has no place in a civilised society,” the spokeswoman said, noting the filter would bring overseas hosted internet material in line with Australian internet content and offline material such as DVDs and magazines.

The shadow communications spokesman, Tony Smith, said the Coalition supported measures to protect children from inappropriate online content.

ISP did not authorise customers’ copyright infringement, says Australian court: “An ISP was not liable for the copyright infringement of its customers, an Australian court has ruled, in what the judge claimed was the world’s first full trial of its kind. Australian and UK law on copyright liability are very similar.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Curiouser and curiouser: Aussie gov censors the censorship news: “

Now we’re not allowed to know who is responsible

Debate over internet filtering in Australia is rapidly descending from high comedy into total farce, as Communications Minister Stephen Conroy ploughs on with his interesting approach of never committing just one gaffe – when he can so easily commit two.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

BBC News – Cyber attacks against Australia ‘will continue’

By Zoe Kleinman, Technology Reporter, BBC News
12 February 2010

An activist group that temporarily blocked access to key Australian government websites plans to continue its cyber attacks, the BBC has learned.

The group, known as Anonymous, was protesting against the Australian government’s proposals to apply filters to the internet in the country.

A man claiming to be a representative of the group said that around 500 people were involved in the attack.

The method they are using is known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).

DDoS is illegal in many countries including the United Kingdom. There is no indication that the attack was carried out from within Britain. DDoS attacks typically call on machines in many different nations, making them hard to trace.

The sites were intermittently blocked on 10 and 11 February. The action has been condemned by various bodies including the Systems Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and Electronic Frontiers Australia.

‘All it takes is a few people to basically send junk traffic to their websites which is causing them to be offline,’ the man, calling himself Coldblood, told BBC News.

‘The people who are currently attacking (the government websites) are planning to keep doing it. It will probably keep happening until either they get bored or it gets sorted out.’

The sites are currently back online but the domains of individual politicians, including that of Stephen Conroy (minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy), were among those targeted.

Web filters

Anonymous is protesting against Australia’s plan to apply a country-wide filter to block certain content in 2011.

In trials already carried out the technology behind the filter has proved to be 100% effective in preventing access to designated sites.

The banned sites would be selected by an independent classifications body guided by public complaints, Senator Conroy has said.

He said the aim of the filter is to make the internet a safer place for Australian children.

Speaking to the BBC, Coldblood said that the activists did not support the creation of illegal content but that banning it would not tackle the issue.

‘If something is illegal which is done on the internet the government should try and prosecute them,’ he said.

‘If they ban it it will just appear somewhere again. What they really need to do is go after the people who are making this content.’

The group consists of ‘a few thousand people’ based all over the world Coldblood said.

They staged cyber attacks on Iran following the election protests and have publicly protested against the Scientology movement.

This was sparked after the Church of Scientology requested the removal of a clip from YouTube featuring Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.

‘One of our main missions is against censorship on the internet,’ said Coldblood.

The group had not had any direct contact with the Australian government, he added.

SAGE-AU said the attack was ‘the wrong way to express disagreement with the proposed law.’

‘The impact of DOS attacks is frequently felt less by government agencies than by system administrators, many of them SAGE-AU members, who are responsible for managing websites and servers,’ continues a statement on its website.

YouTube in Australia

Senator Conroy has also contacted Google requesting that the company begins to filter YouTube content in the country.

Google says that while it complies with the laws of the individual countries in which it has a presence, it would only investigate and consider removing content after receiving a ‘valid legal request’ about something already posted on the site.

‘We first check that the request meets both the letter and spirit of the law, and we will seek to narrow it if the request is overly broad,’ said a spokesperson.

‘YouTube is a platform for free expression. We have clear policies about what is allowed and not allowed on the site.’

Is it art or is it pr0n? Australia decides it’s ALL filth: “

Won’t someone think of the pictures of children?

Australian painters and photographers may soon need to watch their step, as an overhaul of child pornography laws in New South Wales looks set to remove the defence of ‘artistic merit’ from the statute books.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Aussie censor balks at bijou boobs: “

Gets confused about other female bits also

The proposed Australian Government clampdown on smut just got a whole lot broader, as news emerged of a ban on small breasts and female ejaculation in adult material.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)