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The Internet Censorship Government News

Australian Net Filter Gets One Step Closer 129

Posted by Soulskill from the put-down-the-kangaroo-and-write-a-letter dept.
Condobolin sends in an update to the Australian government's ongoing efforts to implement ISP-level filtering. One of the hurdles they had to overcome was to build a system that would allow them to filter content without impairing other internet usage. A trial of the system has just concluded, and the results are positive — at least, for the government. Quoting: "More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems. Of the nine participating ISPs, iPrimus, Netforce, Webshield, Nelson Bay Online and OMNIconnect told ARN they had seen no slowdowns in Internet speeds or problems with the filtering solutions in place. Of the remaining four ISPs, Tech2U and Highway1 were unable to respond by time of publication while Unwired and Optus refused to comment. ... 'From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory Internet filter based on or around an Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist or subset thereof, then it can be done without any impact whatsoever to the speed of the Internet,' [said Webshield managing director Anthony Pillion]."
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Australian Net Filter Gets One Step Closer More

Australian Net Filter Gets One Step Closer

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  • Yeah, but they have to actually implement it before they can find out whether it can withstand all the attacks that will be launched against it. That's where it's likely to really cost them. :)
    • And they'd have to actually trial it on an ISP that has more than twenty subscribers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

        Or an ISP that is not in league with the ruling Nazi party.

      • Welcome the Great Firewall of Australia!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by dov_0 ( 1438253 )

        And they'd have to actually trial it on an ISP that has more than twenty subscribers.

        Actually some of those ISP's listed are huge. Optus and iPrimus would be amongst our largest ISP's over here. Do your research BEFORE you comment please.

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          Actually some of those ISP's listed are huge. Optus and iPrimus would be amongst our largest ISP's over here. Do your research BEFORE you comment please.

          Or you could RTFA yourself: "Optus refused to comment".

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by dov_0 ( 1438253 )
            Read parent post which I most helpfully even quoted. It referred to the size of ISPs used for the trial, not whether they commented or not. I did RTFA, so I know the iPrimus, which has a huge market share, did comment. Please read comments before responding.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
              The statements were about the legitimacy of the results. Since Optus "refused to comment", saying they were "used for the trial" is true, but irrelevant to the issue. It's also misleading to cite the size of the ISPs without noting they only used a very small, self-selected group of "testers".

    • Re:Yeah, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by PenguSven ( 988769 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:01AM (#28816633)
      The only ISP of any size who are saying it's all find and dandy is iPrimus. They had the filtering trial as an Opt In. There is of course also the fact that the company is run by fucking idiots. Before the trial started, when the public debate about the filter was first firing up, the CEO of Primus Australia tried to do a cosy deal with Stephen Conroy to allow Primus to make a profit from the whole thing.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        iPrimus only joined the filter becuase that the time they joined their parent compnay was trading at 2 cent... they simply did it to get free hardware via the grant...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by dwywit ( 1109409 )
        Interesting thing about iPrimus - they use Optus' feeds in a lot of areas. So, how valid are the data that Optus and iPrimus base their judgements on?

    • Re:Yeah, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by donaldm ( 919619 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @05:39AM (#28817159)

      Yeah, but they have to actually implement it before they can find out whether it can withstand all the attacks that will be launched against it. That's where it's likely to really cost them. :)

      I think the main attack is going to be the voter especially if the opposition groups can get a good logical argument going and definitely not any disobedience which will play into these peoples hands. The problem you have here in Australia is many people vote for a party (Liberal or Labour) not the man and even if you have a minister cultivate a small moustache, wears knee high boots and walks in a funny way many will vote for him because he is a member of the party that that person votes for.

      This is the sort of action that slowly erodes basic human freedoms by effectively having the Government gradually take over thinking for you and you really have to be stupid or just plain lazy not to see this. I have seen and heard arguments from various Government ministers on the so called internet monitoring and they initially sound rational with quotes like "Think of the children" and "We are against child porn" but behind the faÃade you really do have to worry.

      A very good quote comes to mind here. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".

  • Aus can sleep peacefully now... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by heretic108 ( 454817 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @02:25AM (#28816531)

    Yeah right.

    Results of filtering - bearing in mind that the incumbent Labor federal government is largely ruled by the Catholic-dominated right wing faction:

    • Child porn sites.... gone (except for tech-savvy paedophiles ie most paedophiles)
    • Gay advocacy sites... going
    • Abortion advice/counselling sites... going!
    • Teenage sexuality and health sites... going!
    • Anti-Catholic sites... endangered

    This is a huge worry. The blacklist will not be subject to public oversight. As an Aussie expat, I'm glad to be residing across the ditch in New Zealand (where ISPs are allowed to opt out of the filtering).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Norsefire ( 1494323 ) *

      I'm glad to be residing across the ditch in New Zealand (where ISPs are allowed to opt out of the filtering).

      Can but ain't. They're all queuing up to opt-in; we've got Telecom's CEO saying the Internet needed this years ago. It's the fallback for John "The Internet is the Wild West" Key's three-strikes-filesharing-bill, I'll bet money if they can't pass that they'll just use the filter to block the likes of the The Pirate Bay. Hopefully we IPREDator before we get the filters.

      • Re:Aus can sleep peacefully now... (Score:4, Informative)

        by heretic108 ( 454817 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:15AM (#28816695)

        Can but ain't. They're all queuing up to opt-in;

        Some ISPs, including one of the market leaders Orcon [orcon.net.nz], have clearly stated they will opt out and instead offer voluntary filtering software to their subscribers.

        Hopefully we IPREDator before we get the filters

        Sorry, but IPREDator in recent discussion [itnews.com.au], has been flagged as not quite the knight in shining armour. Best we fall back on the likes of Tor [eff.org] or I2P [i2p2.de].

        • That's how ALL government programs should be - voluntary.

          - You want gov't healthcare? Sign-up at age 18 and pay taxes the rest of your life. Don't want government doctors? Then don't pay the tax.

          - You want retirement benefits? Sign-up to pay SS taxes at age 18. If not, then don't pay the SS tax and create your own savings account for the age 70 and up years.

          - You want internet filtering? Then sign-up for it. Don't make force everyone to adopt your medieval backwards puritan morality. I prefer my int

          • - You want gov't healthcare? Sign-up at age 18 and pay taxes the rest of your life. Don't want government doctors? Then don't pay the tax. - You want retirement benefits? Sign-up to pay SS taxes at age 18. If not, then don't pay the SS tax and create your own savings account for the age 70 and up years.

            I'd prefer that over the system we have now, in which I have to pay taxes but have no health care, and have to pay for social security that will be gone by the time I qualify for it. For the internet filtering, in my short existence, I have never seen any filter that actually works. They're just adding a layer of inefficiency to the internet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by smchris ( 464899 )

      Worked with an Aussie expat here in the states. Still happy to talk about the stiff upper provincial lip in how they made her wear panties in the school colors in primary school. Something psychosexual going on there.

  • An ISP named 'Webshield'... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ....sure, they'd be entirely neutral.

  • Isn't It AMAZING !!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @02:44AM (#28816577) Homepage Journal
    The Australian Government sponsored testing of an "internet filter' (ie censorship technology).

    The participants were all
    • already in the business of selling internet filters ... or
    • tiny tiny ISPs ... or
    • respectably large ISPs who limited the "testing" to
      • a tiny fraction of their userbase
      • who were *willing to be filtered*

    And an the obvious (some would say FOREGONE) conslusion was "it works just fine".

    .... brought to you by the department of No!Really?

    Seriously folks, aside from all the dodgy (ie totally unscientific and statistically irrelevant) testing, this "internet filtering" is bad because CENSORSHIP IS EVIL!

    Always, in every case, by definition and in principle.

    Censorship is NEVER, ever, in any sense of the phrase, a good thing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by topnob ( 1195249 )
      agreed.

    • Why aren't you protesting against existing censorship in Australia? Unlike America our ratings system is run by and enforced by the government. This is why our highest rating for video games is MA and we why we have no R rating ("because the nintendos is for kids right?").

      Sad to say it but this internet filtering fits right in with general government and public belief that a minority should be able to control what material adults consume.

      Fire up your proxies gentleman!

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Like in the US, Australian protests are surrounded by clean faced people in strange clothing with cameras, walking up and down side streets, recording all licence plate numbers.
        Strange people in sun glasses and suits on street corners, teams on roofs with quality cameras.
        Australia has very few legal protections. If you write a book, your computer HDs can be mirrored and then smashed in front of you if a minister makes a call.
        Once you start the 'protest' path in Australia, life changes.
        You make new fr

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) *

          Like in the US, Australian protests are surrounded by clean faced people in strange clothing with cameras

          I think you meant "clean shaven" and in any event you don't see much of that here in the U.S., not anymore. Generally the Feds don't give much of a damn about protests, because We the People no longer give a damn about protests. Besides, don't you know that it's terrorists that are the big threat here now, not protesters, and we're on the path towards a UK-style camera-State anyway. They'll have us all on camera, all the time, so no point in sending agents around to make home movies of us.

          It was differen

        • Do you have paranoid schizophrenia by any chance? I've been on the protest path and have many friends who are rather radical in their beliefs and no one would agree with what you're saying.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by srjh ( 1316705 )

      Just remember - this is the senator who said that the previous trials were a success as well.

      Those previous trials showed an average 30% slowdown (87% for the most accurate filter), and still managed to block about 1% of the internet by mistake.

      The current trials are a farce - everyone knew they would be rigged from the start (one ISP - iiNet asked if they could perform a comprehensive double-blind test and Labor told them to go jump in a lake). We have an extremely tiny proportion of the population testing

    • The Australian Government sponsored testing of an "internet filter' (ie censorship technology).

      Thanks for clearing that up.

      Censorship is NEVER, ever, in any sense of the phrase, a good thing.

      As is blind faith in a single sentence principle (irony duly noted and accommodated for).

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Crypto Gnome ( 651401 )

        As is <censored> in a <censored> (<censored> duly <censored> and <censored>).

        There, fixed that for you.

        • There, I just weakened my argument, and made a complete ass of myself, specifically with by making evident my inability to distinguish between evidence and examples.

          FTFY.

          • There, I just weakened my argument, and made a complete ass of myself, specifically with by making evident my inability to distinguish between humor and examples.

            FTFY.

            • I'm not sure if your statement is fixable.

              I mean, did you really, honestly believe that I thought he was literally trying to censor my comment? I know he was trying to be funny, but if he actually tried to make a point, rather than pointless snarks, he might actually sound like less of a idiot.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by deniable ( 76198 )

      Funny thing is, we have a guy at work signed up for Conroy's media releases. Spam Assassin keeps blocking them and for rules that look odd from a government mail server. I'll have to scrounge one up and see what triggers it. Maybe the whole department are idiots.

    • CENSORSHIP IS EVIL (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      But its for the children.

      Seriously tho, i'm afraid LOTS of people out there believe that some censorship in exchange for their 'safety' is a good thing. Which is sad. Actually most of the world is ok with giving up rights ( that most never really had ... ) to their governments.

    • I would've agreed with you that censorship was never a good thing... Until I saw 2G1C.

  • yeah but look at the isp's (Score:3, Interesting)

    by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @02:59AM (#28816619)
    the 3 biggest ISP's which account for about 90% of the traffic didn't participate and are opposed to it... so the test doesn't do anything to gauge the impact on speed if you tried ramping this up to cover the whole country.

    then again, you can't expect to talk sense with the labor party....

    • Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:5, Informative)

      by PenguSven ( 988769 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:04AM (#28816645)

      then again, you can't expect to talk sense with the labor party....

      I hate this planned filter as much as the next guy, but don't think this is a labour-only special. The Coalition wanted to do the same thing during the late 90's.

      • Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:4, Informative)

        by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:20AM (#28816725)
        no, what they did was provide free filtering software to anyone that wanted it. a much better, cheaper solution for anyone concerned about billy seeing his first boobie.
        • Read what i wrote. I said they TRIED to implement this. They realised it's not feasible and chose the software option instead. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Porn-wars-episode-II/0,130061791,120273369,00.htm [zdnet.com.au]
          • read your own article, it's all about the australia institute trying to pressure the government of the time into implementing filtering, not any kind of grand plan to filter the internet on the governments part. they commissioned some research, found it didn't work, dropped the idea. perfectly reasonable.

            yet labour is STILL wasting money on trials and is STILL pushing this after protests in the streets and the 3 main ISP's rejecting it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nurb432 ( 527695 )

          But that really isn't what its all about, and the 'free filter' was just a way to get citizens used to the idea, and more accepting of content filtering under the guise of protecting their children.

          What its really about is the long term control of information, and knowledge, the general public can access.

      • Re:yeah but look at the isp's (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2009 @04:13AM (#28816871)

        I'm posting anonymously, as I work for an Australian ISP (and no, not the one indicated by my IP address).

        The previous government did have a filtering plan. Which it had been investigating for around five years. Every time they needed Senator Harridine's balance-of-power vote, they'd announce another inquiry into Internet censorship. And having got his vote they'd shelve the report. For all Senator Alston's lack of understanding of the Internet, he was superb at politics and he knew how to create the illusion of progress whilst making sure the rubber never actually hit the road. Which Alston was clever enough to know would lead to a showdown between the liberal (Costello) and conservative (Howard) elements in the party. A showdown which would damage the government, and thus to be avoided.

        Then Labor arrives. And hey, how inefficient was the previous government, making no progress on this for the past five years, despite all of that work? So the new minister tells the department that he want results this time. Without quite understanding what he is asking for. Again there's a rabid conservative religious nutter holding the balance of power. But the new minister lacks the political skills of the old, and has set the snowball rolling...

        Technically, the report is a farce. I don't care what a group of hick ISPs say about filtering not having an impact. They aren't the ones with multiple 10Gbps links to the USA, links so fast that any PC-based filtering just doesn't cut it. Those hick ISPs don't have customers that need a robust network, because people die when those customers websites go down. It's just the government fishing for the results it wants. If it actually cared, it would only ask the top five ISPs. And they've all said that filtering will hurt performance somewhat and hurt robustness a lot. And since CPUs aren't getting faster at anything like the rate at which links are getting faster, the performance hit increases over the years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      the 3 biggest ISP's which account for about 90%

      Try the 5 biggest. Telstra, Optus, iinet, internode and one other I cant remember. IPrimus is the 6th largest ISP but the other 5 make up 80-90% of Australia's ISP market.

  • Australians must be relieved, the government's censorship software is working just fine. Personally, I wanted this experiment to be a complete failure. The fact that censoring the internet is technically feasible is hardly "good" news.
    • it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

        it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.

        The whole point of censorship is to thwart opposing opinion, the ministers apparent asshattery should come as no surprise.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Norsefire ( 1494323 ) *

        minister ... commited to being a total idiot

        Person in Government is a total idiot, more news at 11.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Psychotria ( 953670 )

        it is a total failure, iinet has already provided the communicatino minister with ample evidence of this, but he's commited to being a total idiot it seems.

        Yes. But you see what is happening don't you? He (Conroy or his department) is playing with dodgy statistics to put his argument/proposal in the best probable light. "More than half" of the ISPs he surveyed said the filtering was ok. What does that mean? Does that mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs were little players without many customers? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are in the government's pockets? Does it mean that more than half of the surveyed ISPs are OWNED by the

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by davester666 ( 731373 )

      Yeah, all the citizens need to do is search the internet for the results of the trial, and they only get results indicating everything went great.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )

      Australians must be relieved, the government's censorship software is working just fine. Personally, I wanted this experiment to be a complete failure. The fact that censoring the internet is technically feasible is hardly "good" news.

      Good news everybody!

    • Unfortunately the experiment was a complete success.

      Unfortunately none of us realied that it was an experiment in shredding the last vestiges of our assumed "civil rights".

  • Would be to pick a trial region and see if the filtering with a statistical drop in the associated crime.

    Are there any markers for success?

    Well, let's look at hate crime. Most ISP sites already have TOS barring what they consider "hateful" content, and so theoretically, by blocking NAZI sites, you should see or should have seen a decrease in the amount of hate crimes out there. If you blocked web sites that hated white people, or hated black people, would crimes against either be reduced? I think that we

    • I agree with you that we need to measure the success of the filter in terms of some positive social benefit. I think there is an assumption that successfully blocking content has some inherent social benefit; I think this is debatable as it depends on one's beliefs. As an Australian who voted for the current government (after preferencing others - we use preferential voting here) I think Australia is divided in its attitudes towards censorship. Filtering should not be the outcome we measure; it should be so

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by JockTroll ( 996521 )

      And if we killed all humans, there would be no more murders.

      Shitting on your face would be a waste of crap, toilet reject. Censorship works on the loserboy principle that someone knows what's good for me better than I do and therefore has the authority to "protect" me.

      Newsflash: I didn't sign up for any "protection" and anyone who would do so is welcome to swim off to lobotomy island.

  • Time to (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vikstar ( 615372 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:42AM (#28816791) Journal

    move out of Chin..ahem.. Australia.

  • The thing that riles me most (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25, 2009 @03:42AM (#28816793)

    Are all my fellow countrymen who just don't care. Indeed, even my close family believe it to be a good idea, even after I've explained just why it isn't. They either think it'll stop them receiving spam, or think it'll stop some middle eastern type fellow from finding bomb plans on the internet and killing us (because we've had such a problem with that here).

    I'm tired of explaining these things to people only to have them throw it back in my face and ignore everything I say. I've sort of gotten to the stage where I just think "Fuck em. Let them implement their filter and we'll see what happens." If it fails miserably, perhaps we can finally get some interest from the every day Australian.

    • poeple on here don't really care because they know it'll be simple to defeat, and once joe six pack can't get his porn, it'll go away.
  • ...we'll evolve beyond governments.

  • More than half (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Psychotria ( 953670 ) on Saturday July 25, 2009 @05:01AM (#28817007)

    More than half of the Internet service providers (ISPs) taking part in the Federal Government's ISP filtering trial have reported minimal speed disruptions or technology problems.

    So, in other words, just less than half reported significant speed and technology problems. This entire situation pisses me off! I emailed the minister in charge of this and he didn't even have the decency to reply with a non-canned response. So, all the big ISPs are saying that this will result in big speed disruptions, but the other half (idiot home-run ISPs most likely) are saying it's fine. Gee, I wonder if it's because those ISPs have negligible traffic anyway!

  • Just out of curiosity, has anyone got the idea of where Stephen Conroy got the idea from? I'm thinking in terms of the bigger worldwide picture of who benefits from a lack of free speech, assuming that we are a guinea pig for a controlled internet in a western country. I'm sure that Conroy didn't come up with the idea himself and has very large incentives to see this plan come to fruition. So think of who is pulling the strings of our politicians, are there any readers knowledgable to answer this as I'm afr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by deniable ( 76198 )
      As already mentioned, it's to keep Family First Senator Steve Fielding voting with the government. Our best hope is that Steve keeps making George W. Bush look like Al Gore or refuses to stay bought and the whole stupid idea will go away.

      • I'll keep that name in mind, it seems like an awful way to go just for one senator's vote. Surely the other issues are trivial compared to this (assuming these people have not been bought and are not just using censorship as a cover).
        I wish I knew more about how the country is really run. I guarantee you there is something larger going on here though. I just hope the mainstream media's on our side.

  • Any iPrimus users out there? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I guess the 15 users of Nelson Bay Online would be able to help, but iPrimus seems to be the only notable ISP taking part.

    I'm interested in testing a few url combinations - so if you are using iPrimus, could you post the results for the following urls:

    http://redtube.com/ [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/ [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/terms [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/contact [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/privacy [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/dmca [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/usc2257 [redtube.com]
    http://www.redtube.com/?foo=bar [redtube.com]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title= [wikipedia.org]

  • Make something idiot proof and someone will build a better idiot. The problem with this filter is, those that want to get around it are probably not idiots.

  • Wonder what they have to hide (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As seen in countless examples where government officials state they have "high morals" and subsequently are caught abusing little boys or girls - I wonder if these same government officials pushing to censor the internet are cut of the same cloth.

  • I blame all those voters who voted for the people who wants to have this implemented. Now we have an economy who's budget is going into deficit after the previous government worked so hard to make it positive again, and now we also have censorship. I hope those people who voted for Krudd are the ones most affected by this. Personally I wont be, I only visit theage, slashdot and facebook so all good. This will never affect me. Also while they have this implemented I hope they can use it to catch all those pe

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by deniable ( 76198 )
      Actually, all of those people are what? 4% of the Victorian voters. And what's really annoying, if we get a double-dissolution causing an early election, Steve Fielding only needs half that to stay in the Senate. Bugger.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lunzo ( 1065904 )
        He got in on preferences from Liberal and Labour. The threshold for a senate seat is 16% of the vote and I believe he had about 1% of the primary vote with the other 15% coming from preferences. The senate voting is too confusing. If you ask me preferential voting should be scrapped and you just get one vote for whatever party/candidate you like.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by David Gerard ( 12369 )
      I blame that scientific genius Steven Fielding [today.com]. Bloody balance of power.

  • Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. "We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's future," he said.

    "Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we're still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia [today.com] Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won't go over your download cap."

    The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.

    "Not only are the contents of the list illegal," said Senator Stephen Conroy, "but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we're blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down."

    Calling it the "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens' net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.

    A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. "We're considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally," said Senator Conroy, "since he's the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it'll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon's bloody sane."

    • Mr. Rudd is holding out a carrot to you. His "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," is the main step of having the entire grip in the hands of 1984. I lived in Aussie for a number of years (way back when) and learned to respect and love the Australian way of life. Men were men and the women were glad of it. Please do NOT let them turn you into sheep baaing to be allowed what you have an innate right to, the right to choose what you will, or will not read for yourself. Government la

  • 'From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory Internet filter based on or around an Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist or subset thereof, then it can be done without any impact whatsoever to the speed of the Internet,' [said Webshield managing director Anthony Pillion].

    "From a technical perspective we're more than confident that if the government decided to roll out a mandatory train schedule for the jews around the thir

  • > iPrimus, Netforce, Webshield, Nelson Bay Online, OMNIconnect, Tech2U, Highway1

    Hah hah. I live in Oz and apart from Primus I've never heard of any of these. All the big ones like TPG, Telstra, Optus, AAPT have been left out. Primus is way down the list anyway.

    I can't wait for the next election. Now the Ruddcash handouts have stopped (paid for with a $40B loan from China) maybe the dopey mums n' dads who so greedily lapped them up will think twice about voting for Rudd.

  • Here is a picture of STEPHEN CONROY - Australian Censorship Minister:

    http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/kr8jhS0u3DZtbtndkmDUfA?feat=directlink

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