Internet filtering? Just say no

Stephen Withers
Monday, 10 November 2008 12:05

Opinion and Analysis

That seems to imply that AlwaysVPN uses HTTP or HTTPS, which we know can be filtered by the sort of product being considered by the government. Once 'they' have determined the domain name(s) or IP address(es) used by such a service, what's to stop the traffic being blocked? Nothing, as far as I can see - but set me straight if I'm wrong about the potential for blocking proxied and VPNed traffic. Just keep it nice, please.

Do I want to see mandatory filtering of Internet content? Frankly, no. Despite reductions in the incidence of false positives, filtering will inevitably result in 'unknown unknowns' - material you can't see and that you don't know exists, especially if the contents of the blacklist is treated as a trade or national secret.

On top of that, Australians have a tendency to elect governments without giving them a majority in the Senate. While this does prevent the whips pushing through every proposal along party lines, it leaves governments open to pressure from minorities to add their particular concerns to the blacklist in return for supporting legislation the government considers more important.

In the ABC broadcast, Conroy noted that "a number of new Senators have bought into the debate, the Greens, Xenophon, Fielding, and they've all got ideas about what they think should or shouldn't be on the blacklist."

And as for the argument about 'protecting the children,' when was the last time you accidentally stumbled across a porn site?

Go back ten years or so, and common search terms such as the names of popular performers and groups would yield links to porn sites. As far as I can see, search engines got wise to this ages ago.

Internet filtering? Just say no.