LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Mark Newton <newton@atdot.dotat.org>
  To  : Sam Silvester <silvest@capri.net.au>
  Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 18:29:47 +0930 (CST)

Re: A question on net censorship

Sam Silvester wrote:

 >     What would happen if I tried to access one of these websites after
 > the filtering is put in place in Australia? Will there be a 'HTTP Error
 > 404 Not Found' or will we get a message saying 'This site was blocked by
 > <name or something> as per the net censorship laws' or something like
 > it?

It'd depend on the censorware your ISP had to use, but by and large
they do advertise themselves, so it'll be pretty obvious that you've
been censored.  I'd imagine most ISPs will provide you with a link
to send a complaint to the Government, too.

 >     It would be much better if we could find out that it is the
 > filtering software that is preventing children at school in Health and
 > Physical Education from looking up road deaths due to alcohol because
 > alcohol is on the banned list.

It's important to note that the way this legislation works is
particularly underhanded, in that the Government doesn't say "Ban
everything that mentions breasts," because that'd cause a monumental
uproar; it instead says, "If you're using an approved alternative
access prevention scheme (where approval is granted according to
ministerial discretion and ABA guidelines) you won't necessarily be
subjected to $27,500 per day fines unless we really feel like it."
The upshot of that is that ISPs will flock to "alternative access
prevention schemes," such as the kind of censorware that bans anything
that mentions breasts.  If they don't?  Well, those fines look kinda
onerous, don't you think?

I feel that even more people would be up in arms about this law if
they understood the sneaky, underhanded way it works.

At the end of the day nothing ISPs do can actually make the slightest
difference to your ability to use the net.  There are so many ways
around online censorship that there's no real point in imposing it
(does anyone feel like using server push to implement a HTTP proxy?
It'd suck bandwidth like it was going out of fashion, but it'd get
through even the most facist censorware filter... If it hasn't been
written yet, trust me, it will be.  A bit more work can produce a 
client-server application which uses server-push as a transport layer
for an IP tunnel :-).

The only results this law will have will have will be to make things
slower, more expensive, less secure, and more difficult to use.

   - mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem,                    newton@atdot.dotat.org
     but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----

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