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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.

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Australia, blocking and filtering, censorship, Child Protection, social networking

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.

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Australia, blocking and filtering, censorship, Child Protection, senator kate lundy

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.)

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Australia, copyright infringement, Copyright Policing, ISP liability, Piracy

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.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Australia, blocking and filtering, censorship, censorship news, curiouser and curiouser

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.’

Posted in Parental Control News No Comments Tags: Anonymity, Australia, blocking and filtering, censorship, Hacking