When Exit International wanted to ensure its members could access its pro-euthanasia material, set to be blocked under the government’s proposed Internet content filter, it turned to the Pirate Party of Australia. The Pirate Party hates the Internet filter and readily put Exit International in contact with member David Campbell, from Newcastle IT shop ClearComputers. The brief? To teach 70-year olds to bypass the Internet filter. Campbell accepted the challenge, and proved breaking the filter is not just child’s play. Your grandma can do it too
Google should not expect to be beyond international criticism while it offers the US Government access to its data on request but lambasts other governments for interfering with the rights of online users
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users. The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network
Anyone who plays FarmVille knows it is critical to harvest your crops on time. But maybe it’s not as important as administrating the second-largest city in Bulgaria. Dimitar Kerin was voted off a committee assignment by the Plovdiv City Council for his inability to stop tending his virtual crops on the Facebook game during meetings
The US government says it has concerns about Australia’s plan to introduce a mandatory internet filter. The Federal Government wants to force internet service providers to block offensive material, including child pornography and instructions for criminal activity, from overseas web sites. The Government is facing growing pressure from anti-censorship and internet groups to drop the idea. Now the US government has added its voice to those expressing concern
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 today 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
web sites for all Australians on a mandatory basis
US regulators have unveiled the nation’s first plan to give every American super-fast broadband by 2020. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has submitted the plan to Congress, said broadband was the greatest infrastructure challenge
. It estimates that one-third of Americans, about 100 million people, are without broadband at home. The FCC’s goal is to provide speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to an average 4Mbps now
Internet filtering won’t prevent people deliberately looking for inappropriate material from accessing blocked content, according to security vendor, M86 Security. Six of the nine ISP participants in the URL-based Internet filter trial last year used M86’s R3000 filtering kit. The technology was originally developed for the education sector and was then applied to enterprise businesses
The Department of Internal Affairs has admitted that the internet filter is now operational and is already being used by ISPs Maxnet and Watchdog. It appears that Maxnet have not told their customers that they are diverting some of their internet traffic to the government system to be filtered
A top media rights watchdog has listed Australia along with Iran and North Korea in a report on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship. Paris-based Reporters Without Bordersput Australia and South Korea on its list of countries under surveillance
in its Internet Enemies report. Australia was listed for its government’s plan to block access to websites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse. Critics say the plan is a misguided measure that will harm civil liberties
Doctors were accustomed to alcohol poisoning by then, the routine of life in the Prohibition era. The bootlegged whiskies and so-called gins often made people sick. The liquor produced in hidden stills frequently came tainted with metals and other impurities. But this outbreak was bizarrely different. The deaths, as investigators would shortly realise, came courtesy of the US government
The Senate has comprehensively defeated a bid to legalise gay marriage, although a third of the senators did not turn up for the vote. Before the gay pride Mardi Gras in Sydney this weekend, the bill was rejected by 45 votes to five, with only the Greens voting to liberalise the marriage laws. But some of the senators who were absent from the chamber are uncomfortable with their party’s official policies opposing a move to let gay couples marry
The Tasmanian Greens Party has announced a $300,000 pilot of Wi-Fi on Launceston’s Metro bus fleet. The trial will last 18 months and will evaluate the viability of wireless technology on public transport in Tasmania
According to the New South Wales state government, the Sydney Morning Herald, a local newspaper, attacked the government’s web site firewall security
for two days to research a recent story. The affected government minister said that the website was accessed 3,727 times, and that this is akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents
. The matter has been referred to the police, who are now investigating. But how did the paper hack
the web site? They entered the unannounced URL. Security by obscurity at its finest — via Slashdot
Following widespread objections, New Zealand’s Section92A guilty upon accusation
anti-piracy law was scrapped last year. Today, The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill will be introduced, which repeals Section 92A and replaces it with a three-notice
regime, backed up by $15,000 fines and 6 month Internet suspensions
Early results from broadband information site Whirlpool’s annual survey has found that 91.8 per cent of respondents do not support the idea of mandatory internet filtering, with most believing the government should focus on educating parents and children instead
French lawmakers voted Tuesday to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic, a measure the government says is intended to catch child pornographers. The bill will now go on for a second and final reading. Critics of the catch-all Bill on direction and planning for the performance of domestic security
say that filtering won’t stop the spread of child pornography — but could allow the government to censor other materials. The bill, known as Loppsi II in French, was approved by 312 votes to 214 in a vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday. The government has a large majority in the Assembly; two of its deputies abstained, with the others all voting in favour of the bill
Michael Atkinson says his family is more at risk from angry video gamers than outlaw motorcycle gangs. The South Australian Attorney-General revealed in an interview aired last night that a threatening note from a gamer
was placed under his door early one morning
Electronic Frontiers Australia today launched a new campaign against the Rudd Government’s mandatory Internet filtering plan. The Open Internet campaign emphasises that Australians want an Open Internet that is free from an impractical and costly policy of Government imposed mandatory Internet filtering
Iceland could become a journalism haven
if a proposal put forward by some Icelandic MPs aided by whistle-blowing web site Wikileaks succeeds. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI), calls on the country’s government to adopt laws protecting journalists and their sources. It will be filed with the Althingi — Iceland’s parliament — on 16 February.—If the proposal succeeds it will require the Icelandic government to consider introducing legislation
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