Stephen Conroy dodges abandoned internet filter election promises

I can't see that he actually answered the question...

Stephen Conroy says... (SBS News 6 June 2010)

Senator Conroy showing that he has NFI about what he wants to protect us from...

There's a staggering number of Australian's being in having their computers infected at the moment, up to 20,000, uh, can regularly be getting infected by these spams, or scams, that come through, the portal.

Google's regrets for what it calls a mistake

Google's regrets for what it calls a mistake: "The federal Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said yesterday: ''If … you were doing a banking transaction or transmitting personal information, they could have hoovered it up, sucked it into their machine.''"

Senator Conroy shows his ignorance about all things communications again. If you're doing your banking you'll be on HTTPS so the data will be encrypted as outlined Here.

Filter Conroy

Filter Conroy

Make Senator Conroy choose between his Internet filter and his job - http://filter-conroy.org

Cindy Gallop: Make Love Not Porn

Ms Gallop is advocating better sex education. Porn's always been here and always will be. Abstinence only education is useless in a world with freely available porn. Real sex education will neutralize the effects of porn. Luckily a theist fv(#tard contributed some bible quotes to the comments section. Didn't they realise that the grownups were talking?

Alain de Botton is talking about porn being based in offices now whereas much of the porn made in 18th century France was based in nunneries.

The truth about Opus Dei | World news | The Guardian

Some were helped by a celice, a spiked ring, worn so tightly around their legs that they would bleed, in order to suppress desire.

The truth about Opus Dei | World news | The Guardian

Calls for internet access to be enshrined as a fundamental right

Calls for internet access to be enshrined as a fundamental right:

"Internet use has become so woven into everyday life that some technology experts say online access should be legally protected, even to the point of considering it a human right."

Imagine this Labor government allowing this. The only rights they are interested in are those of their religious right puppet masters.

A new search engine for ''privacy-conscious'' Australians, Startpage Australia, will be launched this week as an alternative to Google.

SMH

This article doesn't look very promising at the start but it ends as above. I'm glad I grit my teeth and read to the end.

StartPage doesn't sound very promising to begin with. How many Google Killers have we seen come and go? Anything saying Australian Google Killer just makes me think of the Sensis flop. Anyway, StartPage isn't an Australian startup... or up start. StartPage is Ixquick's search engine offering. They say:

We want to extend a warm welcome to the people of Australia, and invite them to use the Startpage search engine as a tool to protect their privacy and anonymity.

From: ITWire

Filter goes ahead regardless

Filter goes ahead regardless:
There's a poll over there for fun.

"Unacceptable Website"
I find religious websites that say things like:
. Scientists will go to hell for accepting the Theory of Evolution
. Women are less than men because god said
. Homosexuals should be stoned to death like the bible says
Can I get them banned? I don't want to but if this filter is in and it is stopping me from seeing sites I want, reporting sites using religion to generate hate will be a full time occupation for me. If we live in a society that lets me get sites banned because I am uncomfortable about their content (bearing in mind that there's no such thing as a child porn site - it all happens P2P).

$128 million!
Think of all the people you know. Now think of all the people they know. Now imagine all the tax that all of these people will work all of their lives to pay. This is the kind of money we are talking about wasting on a filtering system that cannot work but makes people like the Australian Christian Lobby feel like they are regaining control of people's sex lives. This is for a filter that can be bypassed permanently for USD20 per month.

iiNet? Telstra?
Didn't these 2 ISPs pull out of the trial?
iiNet's Michael Malone appeared on 4 Corners explaining why this was a bad idea. Is Conroy simply lying about ISP support for this idea?

If Jim Wallace and Bernadette McMenamin say it's a brilliant idea run away! If the US Secretary of State, the US Ambassador to Australia, Google and Yahoo say it's a bad idea, run away! The moral of the story... Run Away!!!

Critics claim the policy will not result in any meaningful dent in the availability of harmful internet content, will create significant freedom-of-speech issues and will be prone to abuse by politicians.

Add to this the opportunity cost. Hundreds of millions of dollars that could pay for real policing and real care for real people who've been harmed by child abuse. We are letting children be abused while chasing the filtering rainbow.

Tweets aren't looking good...

Bernadette McMenamin:
Delimiter:
Somebody Think Of The Children:
And:

All she can do is denounce anyone who opposes her point of view as a child abuser. This is not an argument. This is an argument bomb.

Travellers red-faced over new customs porn rule | Courier Mail

POWERS allowing customs officials to search travellers arriving in Australia for pornography have been labelled as "sneaky" and an "invasion of privacy".

The first question on custom’s Incoming Passenger Cards has been changed to ask people if they are carrying pornography.

Those answering "yes" will have their material examined by customs officials.

Travellers red-faced over new customs porn rule | Courier Mail

Well, that should encourage people to stream all their porn in future.

It's Time To Tell Mum

Link: It's Time To Tell Mum

Talking Points:

#1: The entire list of what will be banned is secret.
The Australian Government has compiled a list of websites they believe Australian’s shouldn’t be able to access. At the moment the list doesn’t include thousands of the sites that should be banned, and includes sites that shouldn’t be banned, including a dentist and a tuck shop lady.

#2: The filter will block access to material that is currently legal to possess and view.
Any films, publications and games that the Government deems to be offensive will be banned. The Government should help Australian families make choices about what information we have access to, not decide we don't have access to perfectly legal films, books, or computer games.

#3: The methods the Government plan to implement will affect your mum's internet connections forever.
Even mums want an internet connection that's faster, cheaper and more secure, but the technology being forced on internet companies by the Government has the potential to damage all of these.

#4: The way they plan to implement the ban would not keep child pornographers from sending or receiving illicit material OR from making child pornography.
Of course it would be great if there was a way to make sure children were never exposed to child pornography, never used for child pornography, and for child pornography to end completely. But, internet censorship does not do this. It will in no way stop people from making child pornography, or stop them from distributing it. In fact, the filter will probably make it harder to catch people involved in these illegal activities.

#5: Internet censorship will not protect children from being exposed to the billions of other pages that are illicit, but not on their list.
There are too many dangers online for the filter to keep children safe from them all. The filter will create a false sense of security. If mums begin to rely on the filter to keep their children safe, rather than monitoring their children’s internet use themselves, children will actually be less safe than before the filter was in place.

#6: The filter does nothing to protect children from what mums are really concerned about, like online predators, cyber-bullies, spam, viruses, and other cyber threats.
The only safeguards to these kinds of threat are parental monitoring of their children’s activities online. Internet censorship will not keep children safe, no matter what the Government says.

Google SafeSearch

Senator Conroy wants to filter but Chrome comes with a SafeSearch function built in to keep kids away from adult content.

Conroy: We’ll block 50,000 sites – The Stump

Conroy: We’ll block 50,000 sites – The Stump

So... Senator, if you never had any intention of having a list of 50,000 sites on your black list, why did you ask the techs about it?

The whole black list thing... it's a bit of a zebra list given that a number of sites that really weren't that black and that it will make no difference to people viewing these sites.

Filtering by computer fails on judgment

The plan to filter the internet for material refused classification under Australian law is legally flawed. Australia's classification law is not compatible with the Rudd government's proposal, and in fact has its own problems that make it unsuitable as a basis for any internet ''clean feed''.

Publications, movies and computer games ''refused classification'' cover a wide spectrum. They deal with child pornography, explicit sex and extreme violence, and controversial areas such as euthanasia and abortion, which are outlawed in all or part of Australia.

SMH Link:

You know who's very quiet through all of this debate? The religious right. They don't need to argue publicly for the filter because Conroy and Rudd have already told them it's going ahead.

Minister slams Facebook breaches

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has attacked the social networking site Facebook and its former college student founder for what he says is its ''complete disregard'' for privacy.

Senator Conroy is under fire from many in the internet industry for his proposed mandatory net filter. He has previously attacked Google, a key critic of the filtering plan, but last night in a Senate estimates hearing turned his attention to Facebook.

''Facebook has also shown a complete disregard for users' privacy lately,'' Senator Conroy said in response to a question from a government senator.

BrisTimes Link:
Related Tweets:

This has to be a joke. Conroy has personified the invasion of privacy. He wants to determine what goes on in every bedroom in the country. Today it's no normal porn via computers. Recently the government introduced a "are you carrying porn" question onto the Australian visa applications. Tomorrow he'll be checking that sex is performed in Opus Dei approved missionary position.

His character attacks rolled forward in this session. Now he's after Google over their gathering of wireless network data while photographing for google maps. Again, unlike Conroy, Google stopped when the public objected. See this important step that you are missing, Conroy? It's the "listen to the public" step of democracy. Very important. You don't have the power to make laws and decisions, you have temporary permission. Fuck it up (like now) and you get voted out.

Ludlam says it best:

"The minister's on a bit of a hair trigger so anyone who's criticised the net filters becomes a target for character assasination, whether it be an advocacy group like EFA [Electronic Frontiers Australia] or one of the world's largest technology companies like Google," Senator Ludlam said.

"It comes across as really petulant - the guy's a minister of the Crown, you don't need to be bawling out technology companies just because they've taken a critical stand on his filter."

"I just think the minister's being a little bit oversensitive to criticism - it would be helpful sometimes if rather than shooting the messenger he listens to what he's being told."

Senator Ludlam and Colin Jacobs, chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia, both agreed that the Google Wi-Fi bungle was a serious matter but said Senator Conroy appeared to be beating it up for political gain.

"The Minister's hyberbole, bordering on hysterical, is counter-productive," said Jacobs.

Conroy delays internet filter bill - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Senator Conroy says if the filter was brought in, he would consider allowing child pornography websites to be left online for a short time to catch people maintaining or using them.

Conroy delays internet filter bill - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Conroy's perennial confusion is showing here:
Firstly, if the police need to view a blacklisted site they will use a proxy, like everyone else.
Secondly, child abuse material is traded via P2P networks (I'm trying to speak slowly for you, Senator).
Thirdly, so you admit that it will hamper police work?

Customs porn inquiry upsets Sex Party (SMH)

FOR years the adult industry has fought to keep the government out of your bedroom. Now it is fighting to keep it out of your luggage as well.

The Incoming Passenger Card for people entering Australia was recently changed to ask if they are carrying pornography. If passengers declare they are, customs officials will be able to conduct a search to assess whether the material is illegal.

The Australian Sex Party says the move marks a new era of official investigations into people's private lives. It notes the lack of a formal definition of pornography means that a variety of erotica may need to be declared.

Customs porn inquiry

Who invited this dreadful government into our bedrooms? If anyone imagined that the netfilter wasn't just a puritan power grab this should disabuse them of that notion.

For Conroy and co., "protecting the children" means protecting the churches and their anti-porn, anti-fun campaign. You know it's policy on the run when the Australian Christian Lobby, riddled with young earther denialism, thinks it's a good idea.

Travellers to be searched for porn

Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers' laptops and mobile phones for pornography, a spokeswoman for the Australian sex industry says.

Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex Party, is demanding an inquiry into why a new question appears on Incoming Passenger Cards asking people if they are carrying "pornography".

Patten said officials now had an unfettered right to examine travellers' electronic devices, marking the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people's private lives. She questioned whether it was appropriate to search people for legal R18+ and X18+ material.

Asher Moses' article

So now they want their filter nonsense at the airport. What is it with these people. Who cares if people have normal porn on their laptops.

The company Conroy keeps... Facebook Blocked in Pakistan Over Prophet Images

Pakistan's government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. (May 19)

This is the company we will keep. Some loons decide that something offends them and Conroy will ban it. This is essentially what this filter is. Some religious wingnuts decided that porn was bad for other people. If history is anything to go by, they probably use it but that's OK cause they're special and they can handle it (I'm looking at you, Haggard).

Julian Assange on Dateline

The WikiLeaks website is fast gaining credibility as a whistleblowing site for political secrets, but one of the people behind it, Australian Julian Assange, remains an international man of mystery.

His biggest coup so far has been obtaining classified video of Iraqi civilians and Reuters staff being gunned down by a US military helicopter, dubbed Collateral Murder, which has been watched over six million times.

The site also released what it claimed was the list of websites to be banned under the Australian Government’s proposed internet filter, before parts of WikiLeaks itself were blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

But Julian Assange does all this with no home or office, constantly travelling the world, so Mark Davis tracked him down to Norway, followed him to Sweden, where many of WikiLeaks servers are based, then to Iceland, where he was advising politicians on turning the country into a safe haven for whistleblowers, and finally to Australia, where he was told his passport would be cancelled amid WikiLeaks being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.

So what did he manage to find out about this shy former-computer-hacker-turned-investigative-journalist?

Link: SBS Dateline

Wikileaks is fighting this fight. I'm trying to contribute to their costs but paypal is stuffing up on me. I'll get there though. Best USD25 I'll ever spend.

ACMA's blacklist - Google Search

ACMA's blacklist - Google Search

Challenge To Existing Australian Censorship Rules Rejected

While we've been covering the ongoing back and forth about proposed new internet censorship rules in Australia we didn't quite realize that Australia already has internet censorship rules in place. Michael Scott points us to the news of Electronic Frontiers Australia (sort of an EFF for Australia, but with no official relationship between the two) challenging an attempt by Australian officials to censor a blog post EFA put together to highlight Australian censorship...

Link:

The Media Line

"According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

“To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist told The Media Line. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

“The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger,” she said. “The Hai’a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it’s all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react.”"

The Media Line:

The net at work. Saudi women are seeing that their sisters have it better then they do and they aren't gonna take it any longer. Brilliant!

Study casts doubt over net filter support

As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd attempts to fend off a slump in the Labor's approval rating, evidence is mounting that one of its key initiatives - mandatory internet filtering - may not prove as popular with voters as the government had hoped.

If Australia censors the web, what will the others do?

In February, a phone survey run by McNair Ingenuity indicated widespread support for the initiative among ordinary voters, but new findings from a study commissioned by the Safer Internet Group indicate that the more parents find out about the proposed filter, the less they support it.

The filter has been mired in controversy since its inception, with internet industry groups, academics and backbenchers labelling it heavy handed. The US State Department has also raised concerns about the plan.

Link:

Virtual tumbleweeds blow across NBN discussion website

Perhaps it's an idea just a bit ahead of its time.

A web discussion page established by the government to debate the recommendations of a study into the national broadband network has attracted just six brief contributions in its first week online.

The site, hosted by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy uses a wiki format to encourage users to proffer their thoughts on the implementation study as part of a broader public consultation.

Link:

"Ahead of its time"... really? Nothing new about government obfuscation and double speak.

What's the point of talking to Senator Conroy's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy? He will only listen to the religious right, his pet techs and the people who are spruiking the net filtering panacea.

He doesn't speak to or for people making a living online. I suspect he's never even met a netizen. I am part of the digital economy. I find the Senator's ignorance is disturbing. He's any industry's nightmare. A politician who is completely oblivious to his portfolio's needs and wishes and unwilling to listen to industry experts is incompetence at it's most dangerous.

The site mentioned site looks like it is designed to serve two purposes:
1) give other non-netizens a place to vent
2) create the appearance of consultation.
A third purpose would be to waste millions of dollars... but that serves no purpose.

The one piece of information that I really want is when the Senator is up for election. That is a piece of data I can hang my hat on.

The Government's 'Wiki'