back to article Google and Yahoo! join Oz protests

Google and Yahoo! have joined a pressure group which seeks to stop Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's doomed attempt to filter Aussie web traffic. Conroy wants to stop access to all material which would be Refused Classification if it was a film or book. But Google, Yahoo!, the Australian Library and Information …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Conroy vs Australia

    Note that the original idea was to give parents the ability to censor the internet for their kids. Conroy extended it to censor the internet by Conroy for adult Australians.

    As Parents are to Children, so Conroy is to Australians.

    Nanny Conroy knows best, and if you don't agree you hate children.

    1. sandman

      Confused

      What about if you don't like Conroy but aren't that fond of rug rats either?

  2. Steen Hive

    Money talks.

    "Secondly, focus police attention on areas like p2p networks where real child sex abuse images are exchanged and sold."

    Huh, there is an ecommerce solution for p2p networks?

    The only way to tackle problems like these - as ever - is to follow the money and not the content per se. Shut them down and lock them away forever.

    1. Anonymous Hero 1
      Coat

      Interesting

      I suppose technological innovation often comes from unlikely places. But surely this business model has applications outside the niche paedo market.

      I wonder how it works exactly, handling online payment must be especially challenging when you're dealing with an illegal product.

      And then there's the piracy problem. How do they deal with that? Make up for it in volume? Honour system? DRM?

      Inquiring minds want to know.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone is a little confused...

    The 16yr old broke the filtering software the previous government offered for download, the current scheme would be installed on ISP networks...

    1. Combat Wombat
      FAIL

      It was broken in less time,,

      I had a friend who signed up for the filter, because we wanted to see what a joke it was.

      HTTPS proxy bypasses

      outside DNS sever bypasses

      Pretty much any DNS or Proxy gets past it..

      It's a joke.

    2. Lee T
      FAIL

      and the new filter is even easier to bypass entirely

      a few choice words...

      • proxy

      • ssh

      • tor

      you get the idea anyway.

      <- my blasted government, and particularly Conroy the Clown.

    3. Nick Stallman
      Thumb Down

      Correct

      That was software installed on say the home computer.

      Everyone knows that it takes more like 30 seconds to get past the national filter.

  4. RW

    Make the internet safer

    At least when King Canute ordered the tide to turn back, he knew perfectly well that it wouldn't.

    The internet was built for adults, not children. If you are so foolish as to let your little ones (and the prudes, bluenoses, and hysterics) go into an adult-oriented arena like the internet, don't be surprised, alarmed, or upset when they themselves are surprised, alarmed, and upset by evidence that adults enjoy sex in enormous variety, have no restraints on their choice of vocabulary, and get a kick out of seeing nekkid ladies and gents consorting with one another in every conceivable combination, and a few that are inconceivable.

    The idea that the internet is (or can be made) "safe" except for selected "adult" sites is nonsense. The internet is de facto unsafe for tender minds unless a site is specifically intended for their consumption. It's not a matter of putting adult sites on a blacklist; it's a matter of putting kiddie-oriented sites on a whitelist. And then enforcing that whitelist only for children.

    PS: The internet and the ready availability of online porn went mainstream about 1995. We must now have a large cohort of young adults who have been viewing porn since well before puberty. Has anyone done a study to find out if doing so has fried their brains wrt sexuality?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      yes

      I'm one of those adults from the last paragraph and yes it has "fried my brain wrt sexuality" but I wouldn't have it any other way. If it weren't for my unfiltered net access I am sure I'd be a mindless office drone right now. But of course that's what they want isn't it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: ps

      I did start a study (even got funding!) to look into the long term effects of porn,

      unfortunately I got as far as pornhub and haven't stopped wanking yet. I hope to complete the studies once ..... oooh teen 3somes !

  5. Combat Wombat
    Pirate

    I hate Conroy, with the fire of a thousand suns...

    This filter was never about the children, it is about a right wing cath o lic, kissing up to the Australian Christian lobby, because of a vote preference deal he did with them before the election.

    The is no opposition to the filter from the liberal (Ha ha ha slap thigh) party. They have been aching for this sort of filter for ages, but didn't have the balls to implement it.

    They will let labor take all the heat, but vote for it anyway.

    Not even the so called Green Left party is against it, they are putting forward candidates who only oppose it on technical grounds, not on the basic grounds of free speech, and not having the state decide what we see and hear.

    I am putting my money where my mouth is, and I am signing up to the Australian Pirate party as of today.

    It's sad that the are the only true alternative party in Australia nowdays, given the implosion of the Democrats, and the selling out of the Greens.

    I do not want my country to turn into a fascist censoring theocracy.

    If I want to to look at fetish stuff, in my own home, with my wife, I should not have that censored by a government.

    1. Kurri

      Agreed.

      I wonder if we'll ever have a government in power that isn't drunk on power.

      Conroy is sly and very backwards thinking.. scary combination.

      I hope the pirate party is strongly supported by the sane (& computer literate) people of Australia.

      Good luck freedom fighters.

  6. Mike Flugennock
    Grenade

    Google? Yahoo?

    P'ah. Fucking hypocrites. They're on nobody's side but their own.

    Any Australians down there fighting for free speech and free access to news and info are strongly advised to watch their backs.

  7. Mark 65

    It'll never work

    "First educate children and parents on keeping safe online and avoiding inappropriate material. Secondly, focus police attention on areas like p2p networks where real child sex abuse images are exchanged and sold."

    Common sense? Government? Never shall the two meet. I mean, who would votards turn to for nannying if they had to actually take on personal responsibility? You mean I have to bring up the kids as well? I thought I just had them and claimed benefits etc.

    1. Chris Reynolds
      Black Helicopters

      Five large.

      ...and in Australia you get over $5000 for each one you bring into this world.

      http://www.familyassist.gov.au/Payments/fa_payment_rates/Pages/default.aspx#5

      But that's off-topic. Previous commenters have pretty much summed things up, but I'll toss one more thing in by way of adding my support.

      Ways around this firewall will be passed around the playground at school. The ones left clueless will be the responsible, older, middle-class folk who get told that the (probably legal) site they're viewing has been blocked and will be left fretting that black helicopters will soon circle over their house and take their computers away for examination.

  8. Winkypop Silver badge
    Stop

    Australian Inquisition

    Noooooobody expects, etc..

    This is just politicians pandering to crazy religious groups (there are other kinds?).

  9. Neal 5

    From an alternative point of view

    I actually think of this as an absolutely smoking idea. Just see it this way, if the outside world cant get in, then like all filters, the Aussies can't get out. Now that does make me feel a whole lot safer. It's kinda like the wall the Yanks are building across the Mexico border. Most Mexicans are saying thank f+++, something to keep the goddam yanks out at last.

    Rock on Conroy, save the rest of the worlds children at least, never mind Australias.

  10. Tony Paulazzo
    Pirate

    The morality of purity

    >Nanny Conroy knows best, and if you don't agree you hate children.<

    I don't agree, and I do hate children, they're spoiling everything (stamps foot in nerd rage).

    It's like the Americans killing God by invoking His name to kill foreigners who have oil but want water, bad adults invoke the name of children to destroy the internet, interesting sex and any form of free thought.

    So I don't really hate children, just the adults who use and abuse them for their own pleasures - ie, politicians...

  11. Violet
    Unhappy

    @Neal 5

    Dear Mr 5,

    Being who i am i am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and trust that your post was sarcastic in nature...If not,well,I shake my head at your words.

    You know what i hate?,Elvis,can't stand him,I think that anything to do with this person should be banned off of the Internet and if i had my way and was in that position of power i would.

    And mango's,rotten foul smelling things,block all images,recipes and mention of mango's

    off the web,why not?I consider mangos and Elvis to be as inherently vile as porn of any sort and

    think that the world will be a better place without them.

    You may think that i am an advocate of porn,well i am not,never looked at it on my Magic Toaster,never will,don't like it,detest it in fact,but, Slippery slopes and all that,

    once you start down that path then it is not far to the bottom and when someone has the power to remove what you think is fine then i am sure that you would have a different view.

    I don't want my government telling me what i can/can't read,look at,listen too,I am not their peon and never will be,It is my responsibility to police what i and my children do on the internet,I am well capable of doing this and do not need a mob of bureaucrats who are absolutely clueless

    about much more than when their next snout in trough session will take place thank you very much.

    First they came for the Jews...

    Regards

    Violet

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