It's AU$11000.00 per day of infrengement, by the way.

Anyone ever watched Monkey Dust? Paedo-Finder General was my favourite character... Sounds a lot like the folks behind the firewall software. To paraphrase:

"All websites are innocent until speculated guilty!"

I'm not entirely sure but is the aussie firewall reaching some kind of new record?

From what it was advertised to a tool of political censorship?

... this makes your country look completely stupid. Way to go dudes....

In the global quest for equality, the OzGov has made progress. In this instance, they have managed to screw everyone equally by attempting to slow Internet speeds.

Even when there is a private organisation that ISPs voluntarily sign up to for standardised blocking, those people get it wrong too. With a government in control, there is no such thing as voluntary, there is certainly no such thing as efficiency, and they can never get things done right.

Of course, the real issue here is not Internet speeds or ineffectiveness, but rather private property rights and whether people actually have them or not. In this case, the answer is clearly a resounding "NO!" If people are not free to use their own property (computers) to access information stored on other people's property (servers), then private property means nothing here. But then, who's surprised about that?

It's a great shame that The Register did not compound the ACMAs problems by also including the blacklisted links in its article.

Its only by continuing to populate the WWW with the ACMAs banned links that the utter stupidity can be brought home to the majority of Australians who – to date – have been ambivalent to Minister Conroy’s proposals.

I would post the links here but fear they would be censored.

.... for about 3 years. Lovely place, lovely people. Mostly.

In a sweeping generalisation it seems there are the 'good, honest, open-minded proletariat' and then there's the politicians and their wannabees. For some reason these latter twunts seem to think they know better than any other fucker in the country and try to impose their will on the great unwashed.

I like the idea that we should all submit a site and see just what sort of mess they'll end up with. Can any of our Aussie brethren post the site or email address where you submit these? I wonder what would happen if someone submitted the censors site...

I'd never heard of Wikileaks until today. I went to the link because it mentioned a list of sites blocked by Danish ISPs. I don't see why they're complaining. I scanned over the list of sites blocked here in Denmark and all I see are dodgy sounding porn sites, likely harbouring kidporn like it says. I wouldn't visit sites with URLs like that anyway, so I don't care that they're being blocked. The Wiki page makes it sound like some huge conspiracy, which it's not. I don't see any legitimate sounding sites being blocked and the ISP clearly shows you a page explaining that the site has been blocked, i.e Piratebay, so what's the issue? They don't explain why it's an issue, they don't say which sites are being unfairly blocked or why. Conspiracy theory crap, in my opinion.

I think this is just a kneejerk reaction by the Australian government to the Fritzl case... You have to remember, we didn't even have internets when he started doing his dirty dealings...

Shouldn't the firewall be called The Web Barrier Reef?

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Australia_secretly_censors_Wikileaks_press_release_and_Danish_Internet_censorship_list,_16_Mar_2009

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship_list%2C_Feb_2008

This page? Or the comment on it? Well I just about feel like tearing up my australian passport. Glad I don't live there anymore. This is whole sham is disgraceful.

What are the rules for inclusion on this blacklist?

Rule 1: No pooftas

And is there a rule 6? We should be told.

Here's my suggestion: http://www.myfirsttime.com/

It's a collection of reader-submitted stories of people's first times (having sex, that is). Some of the stories might be considered, by some, to be paedophilic erotica, due to the ages involved. But who would regard honest, intimate accounts of people's first times as paedophilic? Erm, paedophiles, perhaps?

If it gets submitted, and then gets blocked, it'll mean that Australians can't be honest and open, on the web, about their first times, if they were a bit too young at the time. What will Aussies think of that? What will it say about the censors?

Does anyone have a handy link for making submissions?

Looks like its time to move - anyone know of an english speaking country in a non-tropical climate with reasonable infrastructure that hasn't turned into a bad parody of a 50's movie about life in comunist Russia?

I'm thinking either New Zealand or Canada but New Zealand makes me feel even more remote than Australia and Canada...well I'd be too worried about the people next door.

[REDACTED - by order COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT of AUSTRALIA]

It seems our old deported criminals have got a bit too inbred and turned too stupid for their own good.

Dear Aussies

As soon as it moves beyond removing pages with illegal images on them, this is the online equivalent of banning books.

I hope you have found a way around this. I would link to one but fear my comment might be banned.

PS Don't give our crazy govt any ideas, they love anything that costs too much money and demonstrates no understanding of technology. How long before you would have to insert your ID card to access the internet?

You can send complaints about websites directly to the ACMA from their website here:

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90102

Aparently you are supposed to be an australian in order to rais a complaint but thats just a piffleing detail.

Aparently banned subjects are the following:

"Any online content that is classified RC* or X 18+* by the Classification Board (formerly the Office of Film and Literature Classification). This includes real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act."

Who is going to be first to complain about google, I bet you can find most of that there.

I thought it was normal for prisons to have their communications regulated...

decided to post "Inappropriate links" to government websites and get them taken down?

First they came for the kiddyporn, but that was fine with me,that stuff is horrid.

Then they came for the gay porn, but I don't swing that way anyhow,

Then they came for the strait porn, but I have a big enough stash to last me.

Then they came for the politically inconvenient or controversial content, and that started to get me worried.

Then they came for everything else some right-wing nut-job thought could possibly be bad for someone somewhere, and the internet died.

At the rate this country is going, those in Oz will be laughing at us in the near future...

"You can send complaints about websites directly to the ACMA from their website here:

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90102"

I just thought up a belting use for the BBC botnet.

Stephen Conroy is Jaqui Smith's long-lost bastard twin and it was an anthropological disaster they both didn't end up gracing the pages of an anti-abortion site.

If the site is banned... then it will be filtered... what's the problem with links to it then?

It really boggles the mind!

On the other hand, as the list is secret... how come that people will know that they can't link to those sites?

You do a "Free Speach"...

Yes... and you also have "anti-terror" laws that would make the nazi regime of AH droll in appresciation...

And of course... you have the "homeland security", which some would rater call it Stasi...

;)

mmmkay, sure, <ahem> "maintenance".

Right.

Not because thousands of mischievous activists have been bombarding you with requests to ban every web site under the sun.

No, I'm sure it wouldn't be that.

Paris, because she has high maintenance requirements too.

Australians need to read-between-the-lines on this fiasco.

This whole internet filtering mess is due to the current government needing to appease the loony-right wing christians, in particular Senator Fielding, to help get their legislation through the senate.

I reckon that Conroy et-al, don't have a deep personal commitment to the filtering.

Of course, the delicious irony is that Senator Fielding recently voted against the governments alco-pops tax, leaving them with a major budget hole.

I expect there will be a major push on the internet filtering front very quickly by the government, to get Senator Fielding on-side for a 2nd attempt at getting the alco-pops legislation through the senate.

Good, I hope this ACMA witchfinder general can block this piece of Satan-spawned online gambling software that has been on almost every PC, Linux and Mac I have ever seen - SOLITAIRE!

Ban the personal computer! Burn them! BURN THEM!

I am in the UK, and BT is my ISP (no choice out here in the countryside) and, guess what, I can't access Wikileaks.

Are BT or the IWF or someone even worse blocking this site?

The error is:

Connection Interrupted

The document contains no data.

The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.

Anyone else get this?