Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie #7: The filter will not make the internet more expensive.

The filter itself is pricey. The Government has set aside $44m for the scheme for four years. In 2004 a government report said “given the limited benefits of an ISP-level filtering system, the costs of a mandated requirement to filter do not appear justified.”  The same Government report estimated that a filter of this kind would cost $45m to establish (the equivalent to putting over 300 AFP officers on the online beat) and $33m each year there after. Because much of the burden of maintaining the filter may fall to ISPs it isn’t unfeasible to imagine the costs being passed on to consumers.

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Like an Ipad in a blender.

“When you see something that screams VIRAL, you’ve gotta post it before even breathing.” raincoaster.

So here it is. Direct from a twitter feed close to you.

Will it Blend? The Ipad test!

Just don’t breathe the dust and dispose of the remains thoughtfully.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie #6: The ISP filter is similar to ones in other Western democracies.

Senator Conroy made this claim and then later admitted that in fact no Western democracy has a mandatory ISP level filter designed like Australia’s. Surely we don’t want to join countries like Iran, China and Saudi Arabia with their harsh and ineffective censorship approach.

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie #5: This plan is no different to what is already done with books and films.

OK, so that’s a little bit true. But that’s the problem. We don’t use books and films to communicate one to one or store our family photos. A mandatory filter would give the government permission to scrutinise a space which is both public and private in a way current censorship laws could never allow. The mass concerns of the hundred thousand plus Australians who’ve taken action on this issue are beginning to be heard with the Government appearing to cave in on whether Government officials or classification board members review websites that find themselves on the list. But here’s the point – while with movies we can keep an eye on the classification board and what they are blocking, there’s no way to know which sites will be on the blacklist under the Government’s current proposal. Informing the public of which url’s are on the list may have its own problems. Clearly then, censoring the internet just can’t work (and we’re only half way through our list).

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie #4: The filter has been proven in Government trials.

Testing and scaling are two very different things when it comes to filtering mass amounts of content. On top of this Stephen Conroy’s test criteria appear to only have been formulated after the test began. With that kind of logic we should be glad Conroy isn’t designing the national curriculum.

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie #3: Conroy’s filter will stop your kids viewing harmful stuff online.

The filter is designed to block material which is defined Refused Classification by the classification review board. This means that the ISP filter won’t help you protect your child from viewing things that you might prefer they don’t see—- only parental control can do that. It’s a bit like hiring a really expensive babysitter who lets your six-year-old watch whatever they want. On the internet you simply can’t outsource parenting.

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Today’s Date

For those of us who live in the real world, where dates are written logically, you know, like dd/mm/yy, today’s date is –

310310

Just thought you would like to know.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Lie # 2: The filter won’t slow connection speeds.

The filter is not equipped to process large bandwidth sites such as YouTube or ABC iView. Google, owner of YouTube, has said that filtering such volume sites is not technologically possible, without an extremely serious impact on internet access speeds. Why? Imagine a tub of yoghurt. In this tub there are a few billion bacteria- almost all of which are good for you. But just one of those germs is believed to be salmonella. In order to get rid of the bad one but keep the billions of good ones, every single germ has to be checked for nastiness. And meanwhile you’re still waiting for your smoothie. No wonder this kind of a filtering won’t work.

from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Top 10 Internet Filter Lies in Australia

Australia will soon be subject to the same kind of internet filter as China, Iran and North Korea.

It is being done under the guise of “Protecting the Kiddies from Internet Porn.” Something parents should be doing, not a Government which has not been accredited as being “Kid Safe”.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be publishing a Government lie, most days, from an article by by Eliza Cussen on “The Punch”, an online discussion forum.

Lie 1;   The filter will help in the fight against child pornography.

I wish this were true. But it isn’t. Even child protection group, Save The Children, has come out exposing Conroy’s plan as unworkable and the wrong way to protect children online. The filter will not (and Stephen Conroy admits this) work for the areas where unwanted material actually lives, namely: peer-to-peer networking, instant messaging, torrents, direct emails and chat rooms.

Pi Day

Spirit

We leave the saga of Drama Cow for a far more meaningful strip.

Randall from xkcd has struck a chord here and raises an important ethical question.

Dimensional Analysis

Randall from xkcd is to blame!

It is always fun to run your cursor over a xkcd cartoon. Sometimes I do that with my photos – – –

§hit Happens

Blog No Evil

The True Goddess Revealed

I have been thinking about the presentation by Brian Greene which I posted on Friday.

If the Universe is made up of little super strings then it must mean that someone knotted them all together.

It could be time to recognise and worship that Supreme Knotter. Just in case She decides to unknot it all as a punishment for our unworthiness.

For the Super String Universe is Hers and it is, truly, all about Her.

By a wild coincidence She happens to be my cyber-Sis and has Her own blog.

Although I wonder at how she was able to knot planets and people and placemats so neatly it does leave the question of all those bugs and many legged beasties which also live in the universe. Or was that, perhaps, her Great Adversary?

Oh dear, could I have just created a new religion?