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The Forum > General Discussion > The Great Firewall of Australia

The Great Firewall of Australia

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Our governments have tried their best to protect us from the horrors on Internet. So far they have failed, but maybe not this time.

In 2000 NetAlert was founded with an annual budget of $10m. It fielded complaints from the public and banned sites accordingly. At the end of 2001 NetAlert had put together a list of 220 URL's.

In 2007 NetAlert's budget was upped to $200m. $82m was spent on Australian wide licenses for filtering software, which was made available as a free download to all Australians. The bulk of the remaining $118m was spent on advertising. The effort became famous, not because of the advertising, but because a 10 year old boy by-passed it in around 10 minutes. Of the millions of household computers in Australia 6,000 used it for more than 3 weeks, so they were unlucky striking a 10 year old boy with that much nous.

We are now onto the third attempt. This time it will be mandatory filtering, done by your ISP. You can opt out by putting your name on a list, so it's not really mandatory. Some have praised the list as a way of monitoring potential sex offenders.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm

A trial of how well it world work nation wide has now been completed. It used 30 computers connected to a single server running various filters. Here is its report:

http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310554/isp-level_internet_content_filtering_trial-report.pdf

In summary:

* The products trialled can block anything the government deems "distasteful", not just illegal content.
* They slowed the Internet by about 22-30%.
* Only web pages can be filtered, not chat rooms, news groups or P2P. P2P (file sharing) is the usual way porn is downloaded.
* About 1-8% of URL's are blocked "by mistake".
* Cost was not "in scope".
* No "10 year proof" testing was performed.

The test has been pronounced a success. Presumably filters will be deployed shortly. The cost is to be borne by the ISP's, who are expected to pass it onto their customers.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24088205-15306,00.html

In the mean time the Government has been running a similar trial with its Parliamentarians:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23693253-5014239,00.html
Posted by rstuart, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 4:30:53 PM
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So much cost caused by ineptitude and inefficiency.... but then we only have to look at the John Howard internet legacy, and the 'brain drain' to know his government didn't like technology!

Besides, given Mr. Howard's demonstrated propensity for hidden agendas behind each policy/legislative release, do you really think his 'safe-for-the-children' internet policy was prompted by genuine concern?

Nah, more likely it had everything to do with his over the top security agenda to curtail freedom of speech by spying into every home! Dr. Haneef's rights violation was a demonstrated preview of what could happen to anyone of us....
Posted by wearyMum, Thursday, 31 July 2008 10:51:01 AM
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"And I object to the fact that someone else is deciding what is a morally appropriate website for me to observe and what is not."

Senator Allison said the filter had blocked completely innocent websites she had tried to access, including news websites.

Yes that is the trouble, but most of the Big Brother firewalls got thrown overboard with Howard

But just this month my learned Senate submission on the "de facto" Bill was "not allowed" at the Govt site

But it is at My site, which incidentally is a dot com site [as are all my sites] and not a dot com dot au, for obvious reasons

http://www.ablokesguide.com and goto the top of RHS list

sort of ironic that Howard had his cash for comment goons Pirate the E Book [and it didn't help him win election] but I can still tell the truth at my own site about REAL discrimination

Now I wonder if my site is one of those filtered off govt computers? - lol
Posted by Divorce Doctor, Thursday, 31 July 2008 10:56:31 AM
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rstuart, where do I find the list to opt out of filtering so that I can add my name to it?

I don't need politicians telling me what sites I can and can't visit. They're not the best examples to be given that power as can be seen by their behaviour and total lack of morals.
Posted by Austin Powerless, Thursday, 31 July 2008 2:46:24 PM
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While the computer people have their attention here can I divert the
discussion a little ?

Do any of you use Etax ?
I have run into a problem with it.
The ATOs technical "ëxperts" told me because of their security I should
turn off my firewall !

Really ?

Never had that problem in previous years.

Thanks for allowing the somewhat off subject.
Posted by Bazz, Thursday, 31 July 2008 3:03:02 PM
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Austin Powerless: "where do I find the list to opt out of filtering so that I can add my name to it?"

The filtering software hasn't been deployed yet, so there isn't a place you can sign up. Since it is your ISP that is implementing the filtering it's likely you will have to tell your ISP about your deviance's, not some government agency. If it was an agency it would cost the government money in wages and infrastructure. By forcing it onto the ISP they can make you pay for it and not raise taxes.

Bazz: "Do any of you use Etax ?"

Yes.

Bazz: "The ATOs technical 'experts' told me because of their security I should turn off my firewall ! Really ?"

Possibly it might make a difference - depending on what firewalling software you are using. The people at the tax office almost certainly don't know. They are following a script and at the step you are at it says "tell customer to turn off firewall".

Still, the only way you can get them to help you is do what they say. Turn off the firewall for a few minutes and see if it works. Regardless of what you think the likely outcome is it's standard problem solving procedure - identify the causes and eliminate them one by one, starting with the most likely. Turning off the firewall for a few minutes isn't that risky. Firewalls are a second line of defence. The first line is keeping your software up to date. If it is, you could probably get away with leaving the firewall off - although I would not recommend it if you are connected directly to the Internet. But its more likely you are sitting behind an ADSL router that does NAT'ing (Network Address Translation). If so its safe to leave it off all the time.

If it does turn out to be your firewall you will have to figure out how to tell it to ignore the ATO Etax program.
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 31 July 2008 3:42:36 PM
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