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
Google may strive not to be evil, but the company works directly with typosquatters to help them — and Google — make money, according to a class action lawsuit. The suit, filed by Harvard Business School professor Benjamin G Edelman, says that Google and the companies that are engaging in typosquatting are taking advantage of existing trademarks and should be stopped
Interpol chiefs will propose the use of automated facial-recognition technology at borders to flag up internationally wanted suspects. The UK already has airport gates equipped with such technology, intended to remove the need for a human border guard to check that a passenger’s face matches the one recorded in his or her passport. Interpol database chief Mark Branchflower believes that his organisation should set up a database of facial-recognition records to operate alongside its existing photo, fingerprint and DNA files
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society
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
Airport security in America is a sham — security theatre
designed to make travellers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items — as Jeffrey Goldberg did with ease
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
Defendants can’t deny police an encryption key because of fears the data it unlocks will incriminate them, a British appeals court has ruled
Gordon Brown last night abandoned his parliamentary battle to allow police to detain terror suspects without charge for up to 42 days, after the Lords overwhelmingly rejected the proposal by 191 votes. In an emergency statement to MPs tonight, Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, said that the counter-terrorism bill would continue its journey through parliament without the 42 day measure
If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you’ll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion. The first is the number of US jobs supposedly lost to intellectual property theft; the second is the annual dollar cost of IP infringement to the US economy. These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus
eBay will lay off about 10 per cent of its workforce, the company announced Monday in the US, and said third-quarter results will come in at the low end of expectations. The company also announced plans to acquire online payments business Bill Me Later for US$820 million in cash and approximately US$125 million in outstanding options, as well as Danish classifieds specialist Den Bla Avis and vehicle site BilBasen for approximately US$390 million in cash
A research group in Canada has discovered that Skype and its partner in China TOM Online have been spying on its users, eavesdropping on chat sessions and deploying software that searches for keywords. The revelations, in a report written by Nart Villeneuve at the Citizen Lab unit of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, have horrified Skype users and could result in a user backlash against the service
Radiohead have joined FAC, which seeks to give artists greater control over their music. More than 60 artists, including Radiohead, Robbie Williams and the Kaiser Chiefs, have announced they have banded together to seek more rights over their music and break free of record labels
Since being released from prison eight years ago, Kevin Mitnick’s brushes with the law have consisted of a few parking tickets and a citation for driving without a front license plate — that is, until he returned from a trip to Colombia two weeks ago. After landing at the Atlanta airport for a security conference, Mitnick was detained for four hours for reasons still not fully explained. To make matters worse, while customs officials in Atlanta were busy inspecting his cell phone, laptop, and luggage, police in Bogota were ripping open a package he had mailed to his US address on suspicion that it contained cocaine
The federal Government says it may be flexible with mobile internet providers in its mandatory ISP filtering policy. The Australian Communications and Media Authority is planning to test internet filtering technology in a live environment after trials by the agency were deemed successful
A pair of alleged scammers who made millions from unsuspecting Internet users have been outed, resulting in the disappearance of all their scam sites. Matt and Jake Dylewski infamously ran fullreleases.com, which sold monthly subscriptions in exchange for standard search results from popular torrent sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay
Blind-rights activists had noticed that blind people couldn’t independently access iTunes or the iTunes U service. Jim Denham, the assistive technology coordinator at the Perkins School for the Blind, is looking forward to spending this rainy weekend, at home, on his computer. Thanks to a technological advance, Denham, who is blind, can sit at home by himself and browse among the thousands of audio books, podcasts and albums digitally stored on Apple’s iTunes
Crimtrac’s planned automatic number plate recognition system could become a mass surveillance system, taking as many as 70 million photos of cars and drivers every day across a vast network of roadside cameras. State and federal police forces want full-frontal images of vehicles, including the driver and front passenger, that are clear enough for identification purposes and usable as evidence in court
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