Even China can't make Net-side filtering foolproof

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 09 June 2009 04:00

IT Industry - Strategy

Australia's shadow communications minister, senator Nick Minchin, has seized on reports that China plans mandatory PC-based filtering as evidence that the Australian Government's plans for mandatory ISP-side filtering of Internet content is a futile exercise.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Chinese Government will require all PCs shipped to customer in China from 1 July to include, pre-installed or on CD, an application developed by a Chinese software company, Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co, that is designed to reference a central repository of 'undesirable' sites and block users' access to these.

The official position is that the move is designed to protect children from pornography and other undesirable content. However, according to the WSJ, "China already operates an extensive Internet filtering system, commonly called the Great Firewall, which blocks access to a range of content, from pornography to politically sensitive sites...But that system blocks content at the network level, and many users circumvent it."

Minchin commented: "This is very telling; for a country that went down the path of network-level Internet filtering from the very beginning and probably has the most advanced system in the world...While the Chinese are conceding that ISP-level filtering is not a panacea for restricting access to online content, the Rudd Government is spending millions of dollars to pursue this very approach...While technology advances at a great pace, [communications minister] senator [Stephen] Conroy has so far failed to demonstrate that a mandatory ISP-level filtering regime can be implemented without adversely affecting the online experiences of law abiding Australians."