Politics

Previously thought to be limited to HTTP and HTTPs web traffic, the touted Australian Internet filter will also target P2P traffic. In response to a comment posted by a user on his department’s blog, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy has admitted that BitTorrent filtering will be attempted during upcoming trials

In a detailed open letter to Senator Conroy, the System Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) said today that it couldn’t support the proposed net filtering scheme on technical grounds

Wikipedia functionality has returned for Brits after the country’s internet watchdog reversed its decision to prevent users in that country from visiting a Wikipedia page containing an image of a naked child

The Government’s plan to censor the internet is in tatters, with Australia’s largest ISP saying it will not take part in live trials of the system and the second largest committing only to a scaled-back trial. And the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has written to critics saying that the so-called live trials would be a closed network test and will not involve actual customers. Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said this was a sign the Government was slowly backing away from the heavily criticised policy

Community advocacy group Get Up says the Federal Government’s commitment to internet censorship will slow down speeds and hurt the economy. The Federal Government will place mandatory filters on the internet as part of its cyber-safety plan, but Get Up says it will bring speeds to a crawl and limit productivity. Meanwhile, Telstra chief operating officer Greg Winn says the federal Government’s attempt to censor the internet is akin to trying to boil the ocean

The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation’s telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans’ private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. At issue in the high-stakes showdown are the nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program in the years following the 11 Spetember terror attacks. The lawsuits claim the cooperation violated federal wiretapping laws and the Constitution

An analysis of ISP filtering schemes in Europe has shown that none have adopted mandatory filtering — a claim Senator Conroy has used to justify such a scheme in Australia. With the limited exceptions of Germany and Italy, mandatory ISP level filtering is not a feature of any of the countries reviewed, Tom Edwards and Gareth Griffith wrote in a special research note published by the NSW Parliamentary Library Service

Michael Malone, managing director iiNet, said he would sign up to be involved in the ridiculous trials, which are scheduled to commence by 24 December this year. Optus and Telstra both said they were reviewing the Government’s documentation and would then decide whether to take part. But Malone’s main purpose was to provide the Government with hard numbers demonstrating how stupid it is — specifically that the filtering system would not work, would be patently simple to bypass, would not filter peer-to-peer traffic and would significantly degrade network speeds. They’re not listening to the experts, they’re not listening to the industry, they’re not listening to consumers, so perhaps some hard numbers will actually help, he said. Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we’ll be publicising it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we’ll be publicising it. Malone concluded: This is the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed

The leaders of three of Australia’s largest internet service providers — Telstra Media’s Justin Milne, iiNet’s Michael Malone and Internode’s Simon Hackett — have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why ISP-level filtering won’t work. Critics of the policy also say that users will have no way to know what’s being filtered — via Slashdot

The Federal Government is planning to make internet censorship compulsory for all Australians and could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia. Australia’s level of net censorship will put it in the same league as countries including China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea, and the Government will not let users opt out of the proposed national internet filter when it is introduced. Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy admitted the Federal Government’s $44.2 million internet censorship plan would now include two tiers – one level of mandatory filtering for all Australians and an optional level that will provide a clean feed, censoring adult material. Despite planning to hold live trials before the end of the year, Senator Conroy said it was not known what content the mandatory filter would bar, with euthanasia or pro-anorexia sites on the chopping block

Family First Senator Steve Fielding wants hardcore pornography and fetish material blocked under the Government’s plans to filter the internet, sparking renewed fears the censorship could be expanded well beyond illegal material. The Opposition said it would take a lot of convincing for it to support the controversial mandatory ISP filtering policy, so the Government would need the support of Senator Fielding as well as the Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon to pass the legislation

The Federal Government is attempting to silence critics of its controversial plan to censor the internet, which experts say will break the internet while doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child pornography. ISPs and the government’s own tests have found that presently available filters are not capable of adequately distinguishing between legal and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86 per cent. Documents obtained by us show the office of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, tried to bully ISP staff into suppressing their criticisms of the plan

New Zealand is known for sheep, rugby and dramatic filming locations. However, it will also be known for being the first place in the world with a 3-strikes law for copyright infringement. The Copyright Amendment Act 2008 gained royal assent earlier this year, and goes into effect at the end of February 2009. Opposition to this bill, despite being signed into law, is still growing though

The Communications Data Bill (2008) will lead to the creation of a single, centralised database containing records of all e-mails sent, web sites visited and mobile phones used by UK citizens. In a carnivore-on-steroids programme, as all vestiges of communication privacy are stripped away> The BBC reports that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says this is a necessity — via Slashdot

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government’s pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say. Under the government’s $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material. Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether