mandatory Internet censorship in Oz

[Eugen Leitl]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081016-net-filters-required-for-all-australians-no-opt-out.html

'Net filters "required" for all Australians, no opt-out

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: October 16, 2008 - 11:14AM CT

Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering
initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to
come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal"
content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic
material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing
stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out
entirely from content filtering.

The Australian government first revealed its filtering initiative in 2007,
which it expected to cost AUS$189 million to implement. That money would go
toward imposing filtering requirements on ISPs, who would have to use the
Australian Communications and Media Authority's official blacklist, which is
in turn based on the country's National Classification Scheme.

Australia moved forward with its plans despite widespread public outcry and
began testing the system in Tasmania in February of this year. At the time,
the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that the
filters would be enabled by default and that consumers would have to request
unfiltered connectivity if they wished to opt-out of the program.

Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true.
Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able
to opt out of the "additional material" blacklistbwhich targets content
inappropriate for childrenbbut not the main blacklist that filters what the
Australian government determines is illegal content.

"That is the way the testing was formulated, the way the upcoming live trials
will run, and the way the policy is framed; to believe otherwise is to
believe that a government department would go to the lengths of declaring
that some kind of Internet content is illegal, then allow an opt-out," Newton
said. "Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block
it, then it will be required to be blockedbend of story."

A spokesperson for the Australian Communications Minister seemed to confirm
this revelation by saying that the filters would be required for all
Australian citizens.

Assuming this is in fact the way the scheme is implemented in practice, it
raises plenty of troubling questions. "Illegal" is a broad definition,
leaving users wondering exactly what kinds of content will end up falling
prey to the government's apparently mandatory filtering restrictions. Will
Big Content be ringing up the Aussie government soon to have tracker sites
added to the blacklist? What about sites that discuss topics like at-home
bomb making, or something a little less explosive, like DVD decryption tools?
And how about those sites that advise users on how to get around the filters?
Will various Wikipedia pages be blocked?

Australia continues to ignore its own government-funded studies from 2006
that show ISP-level filtering to be ineffective and costly. The Australian
government's disregard for those prior studies suggests that the driving
force behind the current plan is more political than technical.