This may have some relevance to the Australian crypto regulation thread a while back. -Allen From: IN%"rre@weber.ucsd.edu" 12-FEB-1996 23:51:48.10 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 18:28:44 -0800 From: madanmohan rao <rao@IGC.APC.ORG> To: "Multiple recipients of list india-gii@cpsr.org" <errors@snyside.sunnyside.com> Subject: Internet news about Asia, India Hello folks - Here are excerpts from this week's edition of my column, "International Internet NewsClips." The full version plus archives are at MecklerMedia's Internet World site (http://www.iworld.com/netday/NATW.html). You can also find my reviews of books on Internet-related subjects at this site. Comments, feedback, etc. most welcome as always. - madan ______________________________________________________________ Madanmohan Rao (rao@igc.org), Communications Consultant, United Nations Inter Press Service bureau. -------------------------------------------------------------- [...] Internet Legislation To Be Formulated In Australia -------------------------------------------------- 1996 is probably going to be a watershed year in Australian Internet history. Decisions are going to be made about what is and is not allowable on-line. Concerned users will have a chance to express their opinions to the Australian Broadcasting Association's On-line Services Investigation, by February 16. The ABA's is the second similar investigation in the last six months. A Senate report last November argued that it should be an offence to "transmit, obtain possession of, demonstrate, advertise or request the transmission of material equivalent to RC (refused classification), R or X categories." But this would mean that the on-line world would be restricted by tighter standards than the off-line world. The ABA has issued a comprehensive Issues Paper for its inquiry (http://www.dca.gov. au/aba/olsissue.htm). Available since December, the paper deals with the concepts of codes of practice, the development of a representative industry body, the establishment of an independent complaints-handling body and other mechanisms for controlling access in the on-line environment. It also looks at consumer and Australian content issues on the Net, provides a handy guideline to censorship classification, and a summary of the findings of the Office of Film and Literature Classification's own informal search of the Net - 27 hours of porn hunting yielded the discovery that "restricted and refused classification material was difficult to find, at times difficult to download, and was more prevalent on Usenet newsgroup files than on the World Wide Web." The ABA accepts submissions by e-mail (online@aba.gov.au). (Sydney Morning Herald; February 6, 1996) Nations See Internet As Cultural, Political, Economic Threat ------------------------------------------------------------ Nations are discovering that data sent via the Internet can be every bit as threatening to a country's laws or its culture as the armies of yesteryear. "Nation states are trying to assert themselves with increasing aggression into cyberspace," said Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's not just cultural or social sovereignty that governments worry about. The power to tax is also being eroded by the increase in economic transactions that take place over the Internet, some of it encrypted so that prying eyes of the tax department could not read them. "You can't control it, it's uncontrollable," said MIT's Nicholas Negroponte. "If someone tells you that you can, they are probably smoking pot." (Toronto Globe and Mail; February 3, 1996)