Oz censorship debate censored on Comms minister's website If you’re planning to censor free speech on the internet, what better approach to take than to, er, censor debate about how you’re planning to censor free speech on the internet? Brilliant. That, according to one sharp-eyed Register reader, is the game being played by Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, whose …
The filter issue has been an ongoing source of embarrassment for the Australian government, the sensible thing to do would be to drop it and forget about it but they wont, their motives for the filter aren't about the children at all. The other thing is this filter is a big distraction too, people should be optimistic about the new NBN but no one really cares, it's like ordering an awesome steak only to find a bunch of disgusting hairs all over it. that's your filter, you'll eat those hairs and like it Australia. too dumb and stupid to vote any other way. congratulations you've just given other governments in the rest of the "free" world ideas on how they should censor the Internets... btw I'm finding it quite hilarious that this was discovered by a Whirlpool member, most censored forum on the internet complaining about internet censorship lol. Only in Australia, only in Australia.
Really odd looking code, the list of search terms is too regular to be human entered, but then why include "ISP Filtering" at all? We can count the entries ourselves, "ISP Filtering" occurs about 20 times, compared to about 30 for "Cyber-Safety" which is the biggest looking word.
var a = 'NBN; Broadband; National Broadband Network; ABC; Broadcasting; National Broadcasters; SBS; Digital Switchover; Broadcasting; Digital Television; Youth Advisory Group; ISP Filtering; Cyber-Safety; Internet; Budget; ISP Filtering; Cyber-Safety; Internet; E-Health; ...
The post was too long to continue.
1) Why isn't "ISP filtering" just omitted from the variable "a"?
2) Why is there a variable called "mullet"?
Actually, this code should probably be on The Daily WTF. It looks like this "search cloud" is generated by counting the number of occurences of a string in the variable "a". Wonder which poor bastard has to keep that updated?
Since the search terms are aggregated at the server, not at every client, I'm guessing you'll find something like the following* in the server-side code:
var a='<?= $searchTermList ?>';
Why they don't do the actual math on the server as well and simply output the HTML cloud is beyond me, but that little snippet would answer both of your techincal questions.
As for "mullet", that word has been used to (disparagingly) describe tag clouds. My guess is that some tagtards** have (much like the archetypical US redneck) taken it upon themselves as a badge of honor (or honour, if you prefer.)
* I'm assuming PHP and not, e.g, Java or .NET, for the backend due solely to its popularity among the Web 2.x crowd. And yes, I realize there'd be a bit more to the code to make it secure from JS injection; I've kept it simple for the sake of illustration.
** copyright, trademark and patent pending 2010. Don't even think of trying to use it without paying me a hefty royalty.
var a = '<?echo $searchTermList;?>';
if it was PHP? Just being pedantic of course, but then you have to be when writing code! ;)
As to the main issue, if ever we needed concrete, empirical proof that Conroy intends to censor political commentary as well as RC content, you have it right there.
Even if he takes it off now, he's shot himself in the foot properly this time.
I'll see your web-geek-Über-pedant and match it with my IT Manager directive: no short tags in my company's PHP .ini files because they encourage sloppily written and illegible code... Yes it may be valid PHP, but I would call any employee who used it on the carpet for doing so! ;)
My team does call me a code Nazi when they think I can't hear them, because of my insistence on longhand code and correct spacing and indenting. But it's paid off more than once, when new team members have had to familiarise themselves with our codebase and its proper layout has greatly simplified their task!
from watching a YouTube video, it's more likely because of YouTube's geolocation or if not, some other cause, because the Internet censorship hasn't been brought in yet. It hasn't even been passed into law yet, it's still before the Senate - much less actually implemented.
If you want to get vocal, there's rallies (or "CyberSafety picnics") on this Saturday week on March 6th in the major capital cities:
Adelaide: Victoria Square, southern end, 12 noon
Brisbane: still working on a location
Melbourne: State Library, 12 noon
Sydney: Parramatta Park, 12 noon
Perth: Forrest Place, 12 noon; Stirling Gardens, 3pm
More information: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=213225102082
Don't wear Guy Fawkes masks, and don't do anything stupid. See you there!
Some of the worst looking code i have ever seen, and i get to review code generated offshore in india.
A comment in the middle of a for loop parameter set? seriously? I,also, really hope that the whole layout has been screwed by posting it and that it isn't like that at source.
This is one of the cases where i'd have my coding standards document specially bound, in leather with the brass corners, especially to beat a developer with who submitted code to me looking like that!
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