Internet Censorship, Blogs, And The Government View

Many believe the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s idealistic quest for ‘clean feed’ filtered Internet connections to all homes and schools will not protect children from pornography, will slow down the Internet and will cost taxpayers money.

The independent industry body Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) says Senator Conroy’s idea is to censor the Internet of pornography and other ‘inappropriate material’ however it goes further than the previous government’s policies, by requiring individuals to ‘opt out’ of the scheme rather than request filtering from their service provider (ISP).

EFA chair, Dale Clapperton says the plan ignores serious technological problems and,

“Furthermore, Australia is supposed to be a liberal democracy where adults have the freedom to say and read what they want, not just what the Government decides is ‘appropriate’ for them.”

Apparently:

“Various state governments have laws that theoretically ban the transmission of any material ‘unsuitable for minors’. They have never been enforced, and in the opinion of EFA are completely unenforceable.”

Exactly WHAT Is Going On?

It seems the idea is to protect us from two lists:

1. All the sites that contain material children shouldn’t see
2. All the sites that adults shouldn’t see.

To continue our current free Internet access adults will have to physically opt out of the protected state. It will not be a matter of deciding you want protection and then requesting this from your ISP.

Clearly the moral and social issues here are huge.

Some Questions

• WHO decides the lists?
• Realistically how long would it take to visit ‘all sites’ to check out their bona fides?
• What happens to the readership of community-based blogs like PWF – whose readers enjoy receiving grassroots info not readily available through mainstream media – if the opt out policy is adopted and people just don’t receive their fortnightly bulletins?
• Do we really want a third party in between us and our internet banking?

What Does Senator Conroy Say ?

In December 2007 Senator Conroy was reported saying:

“The scheme will better protect children from pornography and violent websites. Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road..

If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree..

Anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service..

The Government will work with the industry to ensure the filters do not affect the speed of the internet..

There are people who are going to make all sorts of statements about the impact on the [internet] speed…The internet hasn’t ground to a halt in the UK, it hasn’t ground to a halt in Scandinavian countries and it’s not grinding the internet to a halt in Europe.

That is why we are engaged constructively with the sector, engaging in trials to find a way to implement this in the best possible way and to work with the sector.”

Online civil libertarians have warned the freedom of the internet is at stake, but Senator Conroy says that is nonsense.

When I rang the Senator’s office recently I was informed that whatever the Government did it had to comply with Australian laws, that filtering IS operating overseas and there is an awful lot of scaremongering going on.

On reflection…WHY doesn’t Senator Conroy’s office clarify the situation and in so doing answer the question:

Shouldn’t there be a difference between something being illegal and something being censored?

More Opposition To Internet Filter Announced November 2008

Glen Mulcaster writing in The Age reports on Internet activist groupNetchoice setting up an Australian chapter:

“This filtering plan has been widely criticised and now international lobby group Netchoice wants to weigh into the debate.

Netchoice is backed by members including eBay, publisher AOL Time Warner, some heavyweight trade associations in the US and software house Oracle.

Netchoice said it would recruit Australian online retailers and internet players to its cause…

In a statement last week, Netchoice foreshadowed its opposition to the Government plans to filter internet content…

Last week the System Administrators Guild of Australia criticised plans to introduce a filter system…

Guild president Donna Ashelford said those who created objectionable material already used encryption methods that would not be stopped by filtering.

Australian internet lobby group the Internet Industry Association has taken a more moderate stance. It said it welcomed the Government’s evidence-based approach to cyber safety.

However, association spokesman John Hilvert said the group would welcome more clarification about the Government proposals.

The association worked closely with the Howard government to set up guidelines to ensure internet providers could offer “family friendly” internet services and to bypass plans for all internet service providers to adopt clumsy internet censorship measures that had been feared by the business community.”

About The Tasmanian Filtering Trial

FYI the following transcript states two sides of the filtering trial’s assessment:

What Senator Conroy says: The performance or ‘network degradation’ for one of the tested products was less than 2%, whilst three products were less than 30% and two products were in excess of 75%.

What the report really says: The filter that showed less than 2% network degradation was also one of the least accurate filters at identifying illegal and inappropriate sites. The more accurate filters showed a larger drop in network performance.

What Senator Conroy says: Successful blocking (the proportion of illegal and inappropriate content that should have been blocked that was successfully blocked) was between 88% and 97% with most achieving over 92%.

What the report really says: It probably won’t take anymore than 12 or 13 clicks before a filtered user can access a site containing adult or inappropriate content.

What Senator Conroy says: Overblocking (the proportion of content that was blocked that should not have been blocked) was between 1% and 6%, with most falling under 3%.

What the report really says: Even if you choose the best result (1%), out of every one million websites, 10,000 will be be blocked when they shouldn’t be.

What Senator Conroy says: All filter products tested were able to block traffic entirely across a wide range of non-web protocols such as instant messaging and peer-to-peer protocols. However, most filters are not presently able to identify illegal content and content that may be regarded as inappropriate that is carried via the majority of non-web protocols.

What the report really says: The only way the filters could block traffic on non web protocols was to ban access to them completely. That means if you want to chat to Gran about her garden or drinking habit on Messenger, you wouldn’t be able to. No matter how innocent.

And there’s more:

1) Load testing was based on just 30 simulated users. Large ISPs have hundreds of thousands of customers and even small ISPs have thousands. Any network performance testing based off 30 users is not reliable when the plan is to filter every Australian’s Internet connection.

2) During the trial, only 3930 URLs were filtered. When you consider Mr Conroy wants to block ‘inappropriate content’ to children, 3930 URLs is simply too low and doesn’t show the potential real impact on network performance or filtering effectiveness. The Internet contains hundreds of thousands of websites not appropriate for children by our classification standards.

3) The report claims all but one of the six filters was able ‘filter’ HTTPS traffic. This is unlikely, considering HTTPS traffic is secure. The filters can probably only blanket ban access to such traffic. Nobody wants their banking and online purchases monitored by the Government.

4) There is no analysis of circumvention methods and that’s crucial to understanding why filters – ISP and software based – are ineffective. Filtering can be bypassed in minutes by a savvy net user and in hour by anyone following instructions.

5) There is no analysis of the costs of deploying and implementing a filter at ISP level, nor is there any analysis of the associated costs that will be passed onto customers.

With a live trial, we might get a bit more information about what the Government is proposing?