Broadbanned Revolution - fight the philterphiles that be.

It is about censorship and it does matter.

2010-01-26T19:11:00.002+11:00

Some commentators would have you believe that the only reason to be worried about the proposed mandatory filter is that a) it will be ineffective and b) it might cost something. They urge us to back away from the censorship arguments because these are the "least effective" arguments for opposing the filter.

This is rubbish.

Apart from anything else, mere ineffectiveness is not going to motivate Australians to resist the filter. The Government runs many worthy, if ineffective, anti-obesity campaigns. People won't actively resist public expenditure on an ineffective project unless they actually object to the project in principle. Assuming that the Australian public cares enough about an ineffective proposal to vote against it for reasons of ineffectiveness alone is assuming a level of care that, frankly, has no basis in reality.

Yes, some comparisons which suggest that Australian filtering will be identical to that imposed Iran, China and Saudi Arabia are somewhat overblown. However, as I argue in another post, these examples do serve to illustrate limiting cases and help to remind us that Australia is planning to move far closer to these examples than any other western democracy.

However, to suggest that censorship concerns as a whole are ill-founded is extremely dangerous to the cause.

If your only opposition to the filter is that it is ineffective, then you have little reason in principle to resist an effective filter.

Make no mistake, the Government will implement an ineffective filter, if it is given a chance. However, an ineffective filter will never survive long term. Once the Government has established the right to filter, this or future governments will inevitably use the very ineffectiveness of the filter to argue that a more obtrusive filtering regime is required in order to address the deficiency. Any suggestion that the Government will suddenly be overcome by free-speech zeal and rollback an ineffective filter is pure fantasy - Governments rarely, if ever relinquish a power once granted.

The point of resisting the filter now is not because the practical consequences of the filter being implemented are dire - most people simply won't notice, precisely because the filter will be utterly ineffective. The point of resisting the filter now is to oppose the principle that the Government has the right to decide for itself what Australians may and may not read on the Internet.

If we don't resist now, then when?

If we accept the Government's right to filter ineffectively now, then we will have no reason - in principle - to resist a Government attempt to filter more effectively in the future. If we concede the right to filter now, we will never claw it back.

That's why censorship arguments matter. That's why they matter now.

The relevance of comparisons to Iran, China and Saudi Arabia

2010-01-23T19:35:00.004+11:00

In the campaign against mandatory ISP-level filtering, much has been made of comparisons with Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.

In truth, much of this rhetoric is over-blown. If the mandatory ISP-level filtering is implemented it is unlikely to be as heavy handed or as arbitrary as these regimes.

On the other hand, these regimes still serve as a useful marker - try to name another Western democracy that is attempting to impose a mandatory ISP-level filter against such a broad range of material, and you will be hard pressed to find one.

Australia may not be marching to exactly the same place as Iran, China and Saudi Arabia - it may well stop before it gets there. But let's be clear - there is no other Western democracy standing between Australia, where it wants to go and where Iran, China and Saudi Arabia already are.

If it goes there Australia will be leading other western democracies down a path of increasingly authoritarian interference in online media consumption. This is not healthy, especially when the Government has yet to demonstrate any social utility whatsoever for the mandatory filter.

Re: Google Blocks Site Containing Disparaging Joke About Kevin Rudd

2010-01-16T12:19:00.007+11:00

Back in October 2008, a correspondent reported that a Google search for "Kevin Rudd" produced a Google result set that included some filtered results.

I was intrigued by this and wondered whether it might be possible to use Google to discover more about the contents of the page. I documented what I discovered in this post: "Google Blocks Site Containing Disparaging Joke About Kevin Rudd"

In light of the recent news that Google had decided to filter out a search result containing a link to a page on Encyclopedia Dramatica that allegedly contained racist remarks about Aborigines, I decided to see what the Google search I performed back in 2008 revealed.

Interestingly the result set for "Kevin Rudd is a bureaucratic" contains two forum posts neither of which are now blocked. One from a site called Chess Chat and another from a site called Let's talk dirty

What's interesting is that the post on "Let's talk dirty" dates from around 12 October 2008, which was a about a week before my investigations started. When I visited the site today, it contained banner ads linking to sites that offered incest material. I note, however, that the moderation guidelines for the site itself which were last revised on 23 April 2009 exclude material that roughly correspond to the Australian Refused Classification criteria.

Given the apparent nature of the "Let's Talk Dirty" site, and the close correspondence of dates, it seems at least plausible that it was "Let's Talk Dirty" that was the subject of the October 2008 results set filtering performed by Google.

Visualizing the issues

2010-01-04T21:44:00.002+11:00

Alison Ruth has created a pictorial representation of the filtering topic space. This might be useful when thinking about any answers you get to the 10 questions about the mandatory ISP-level filter..

A curious case of government pressure

2009-12-30T08:00:00.009+11:00

NFUDYTYZCJPT

News today of an attempt by the Canadian government to get a German ISP to censor a political parody site that was critical of the Canadian Government.

I'd be wary of making too much of this in relation to the Australian debate for several reasons.

The Canadian Government agency does not have jurisdiction over the German ISP and there is no suggestion, as far as I can tell, that they asked the German Government to assist with the censorship action. In other words: the Canadian Government wasn't using its monopoly on the use of force on Canadian soil to force the German ISP to act in a certain way.

Secondly, the collateral damage caused to the 4500 sites is most likely the result of incompetence on the German ISPs part, rather than the Canadian Government's part.

Yes, it does illustrate the dangers of a Government that thinks it can throw its weight around, but it doesn't really have too much to say about the Australian debate since it wasn't a case of the state acting against a commercial entity within the state. It was a case of an agency of a state asking a commercial entity of another state for assistance. One can argue that the German ISP should have told the Canadian Government to bugger off, but that is a different argument.

10 Questions About The Mandatory ISP-level Filter

2009-12-30T03:36:00.011+11:00

Readers might like to consider using this list of questions as the basis of a letter to their local Labor MP or Senator.

Has the probability of inadvertent exposure to Refused Classification material by adults been quantified? If not, is this probability judged to be: low, moderate or high?
Have the consequences of inadvertent exposure to Refused Classification material by adults been measured? Are these thought to be minor, major or serious?
Has the quantity of potentially Refused Classification material in existence on the Internet been estimated in either absolute or relative terms?
Does the Government have an estimate or measure of the percentage of potentially Refused Classification material on the Internet that is currently Refused Classification? What is that estimate?
Does the Government have a coverage goal for the Refused Classification list in terms of the percentage of potentially Refused Classification material that is actually refused classification? What is that goal?
Is the Government concerned that in exempting X-18+ material from the specifications of the mandatory filter that it may be implicitly condoning the consumption of X-18+ rated materials by Australian adults?
Does the Government believe it is acceptable for Australian adults who encounter X-18+ or potentially Refused Classification material on the Internet to treat such material as not Refused Classification until such time as ACMA makes a definitive decision otherwise?
Does the Government believe that Australian adults who encounter such X-18+ or potentially Refused Classification material should use their own judgment to decide for themselves whether they should remain exposed to such material?
If the Government does believe that all Australian adults should retain for themselves the responsibility of deciding what material is, and is not, acceptable to view, why is the mandatory filter required?
What political benefit does the ALP gain by successfully sheparding enabling legislation for the mandatory ISP-level filter through both houses of parliament?

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Government blessed smut?

2009-12-30T00:43:00.019+11:00

According to the Government's latest FAQ, one of the measures the Government is now proposing is:

(The) Introduction of mandatory internet service provider (ISP) level filtering of content that is rated Refused Classification (RC) in order to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure.

Without presenting any supporting evidence whatsoever, the Government would have us believe that the probability of inadvertent exposure by adults to refused classification material is high or that the consequence of that exposure, should it occur, is serious. Or both. Otherwise, why would such a draconian measure be necessary?

Suppose we suspend disbelief at the sheer flimsiness of the premise for a second and assume that it is true that adult Australians are, in fact, placed in peril by inadvertent exposure to Refused Classification material like Ken Park or euthanasia texts like "The Peaceful Pill".

Let us suspend disbelief even further and assume that ACMA will eventually discover all the potentially Refused Classification material that exists on the internet. ACMA, however, is not a machine and we are assured that all classification decisions will be subject to due process. Due process, being what it is, takes time. Evidence suggests that ACMA can currently take as much as 64 days to action a complaint.

So, at any given moment, there will be a lot of X-18 rated material (which is not subject to the mandatory filter) and as yet refused to be classified material that adults may be inadvertently exposed to.

Suppose now that an adult Australian is inadvertently exposed to this material. Should they:

report the material immediately to ACMA and let ACMA decide whether the material is Refused Classification, or,
assume that any material not blocked must, by definition, not be Refused Classification and is therefore ok to view

An adult electing to report material without first carefully considering whether the material is RC would be highly irresponsible. Apart from anything else, this would flood the ACMA classification machinery with material that probably won't be classified as RC. If the ACMA classification processes are overloaded, they may well fail to detect actually illegal material that should have been referred to police.

Equally, an adult who assumed that any material not blocked is implicitly not Refused Classification, is unlikely to find support from a court which will insist that, as an adult, they are entirely capable of making responsible judgments for themselves.

Furthermore, the Government would surely be distressed if Australians came to believe that X-18+ material, not being subject to a mandatory filter, had an implicit blessing from the Government as being acceptable for Australian adults to view.

Given that abdication of responsible use of the Internet by adults is unacceptable, the only option left (by definition) is for the Government to assume, and indeed, require that all adult Australians who are inadvertently exposed to potentially "Refused Classification" material must act responsibly and decide for themselves whether it is appropriate to remain exposed to such material.

What, then, is the point of the mandatory filter?

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Revealed: Donald Rumsfeld's influence on Australian censorship policies

2009-12-25T00:02:00.010+11:00

As Donald Rumsfeld once said:

There are classified classifiables. These are things we have classified as classifiable. There are the classified unclassifiables. That is to say, there are things that we have classified as unclassifiable. But there are also unclassified unclassifiables. There are things we haven't classified that are unclassifiable.

And Rumsfeld's influence goes deeper. As @frankfil has pointed out, a Rumsfeldian analysis neatly explains the inner psyche of the ALP:

we know you want to view it, we know you know we don't want you to view it, we know you know you think we think we know best

One very lucid mad cow

2009-12-24T14:39:00.007+11:00

This comment on Crikey (http://tinyurl.com/smokinmadcow) from "Mad Cow" was so fricking well done (no pun intended) that I have quoted in full, without permission, the original text in order that as many people as possible can read it. If the original author would prefer that I did not, s/he is welcome to contact me and I will remove it.

Well done, Sir/Madam - a damn fine read!

Jon Seymour - who is very definitely not the Mad Cow.

Let me cut through this entire debate in the following way.

Senator Conroy has another option. That is to abandon the classification law and instead to base the blacklist on the following:

1. The blacklist is based on laws that clearly and objectively define illegality. We know exactly what this means and if this were the case, a host of objections to the content of the list would vanish.

2. The blacklist is compiled by law enforcement, subject to independent oversight and maintenance and subject to judicial review. This dispenses with issues of secrecy, personal taste and corruption.

Now, what is striking about this entire debate, Senator Conroy, is the fact that given this alternative, you don’t grab it with both hands. You clearly are sacrificing your Party’s good will, and if you are absolutely honest about wanting to block ONLY illegal content, you have absolutely no escape from this proposition.

Imagine if the Senate were to move an amendment to that effect - to divorce the blacklist from the classification system and to give it to those best able to judge illegality - the police and the judiciary.

How would you vote, Senator Conroy?

Dear reader, it is very obvious that this entire debate is built upon one central lie. And that is that the Senator wants to block only illegal material. No more, no less. But the reality is that if this were the case he would neither inherit from the censorship laws, nor would he hand the task to public servants whose task is to judge taste. He would have no option but to abandon classification law and to vote for the above amendment.

The sad thing is, that to the extent that blacklisting child porn and violent web sites has any effect at all (it will have next to none - and I’ll explain why in a moment) the objective of child protection will be endangered by cluttering the same list with what is mostly harmless rubbish that does no harm at all to normal adults. Indeed, the bigger you make the list, the more you make it a target for deliberate leaks, and the more you make it easier to reverse engineer the list - and in so doing you simply raise the probability of publishing the addresses of (what were) child porn sites.

Senator Conroy has all along tried to lead people to the inference that if something is banned, not only is it “bad” but it is “illegal”. Now that he is losing this debate, when it is pointed out that most RC content is legal to view, in most places (with some obvious exceptions), what he does instead is point out that RC content is illegal to distribute.

What that argument actually does does is to highlight the objectionable nature of the classification law itself. That we have laws that stop adults from seeing things (and in order to see them you have to obtain them) that are not illegal or harmful but are simply what some other people don’t want us to see. This is the core of what censorship means. The internet allowed people to bypass the blocks on distribution of RC material, and this is precisely what offends those who wish protect us from impure thoughts.

The movement to oppose gay marriage despite overwhelming public support and the campaign to extend censorship law into the internet, have something in common. They reflect the angst of those whose religion tells them to “correct” the thoughts and behaviour of non believers and if necessary to interfere with the laws of the land.

Senator Conroy, I am sure you have read “The High Price of Heaven” by David Marr. How the Church has repeatedly tried to interfere with the State, about the victimisation of homosexuals, and about the driving forces behind censorship. I suggest you have a long hard think and realise that even if the Christian Lobby has votes, you’re still here to govern for the majority.

Now to the technical detail. It would be a reasonable guess to surmise that within the current blacklist, those sites that are, or more correctly were, of child pornography, were submitted via law enforcement channels. Its also well known that when such sites become known to law enforcement they are promptly taken down. So to the extent that the blacklist contains child pornography or other sites that are genuinely illegal, it is also a fact that such sites are almost certainly defunct even before they even get a chance to be on the list. And to my knowledge, no URL on the leaked blacklists pointed to a functional child porn web site.

The next absurdity in this whole debate is the fact that the blacklist as it stands is really a sample. Its based mostly on public submission. The fact is that if you were to gather together the entire content of the web and send it to ACMA (even ignoring the prompt mass resignations) the material that would theoretically be classified as RC (or in this case might merely be written up as potentially RC but not yet submitted for formal classification) would amount to conservatively, some tens to hundreds of thousands of URLs.

No filter is capable of this task. The reason is simple. Those filters that appeared to do well in the trials rely upon features built into common routers, where traffic to certain IP addresses is directed or copied to a separate interface. The problem here is that every single IP packet address has to at least be compared to all of those IP addresses in the list. As this list grows, the router reaches hard wired limits. And without going into even further detail (my formal training is in computer engineering) you’re either going to get a massive speed degradation, or the filter will break, or the router will simply cease to function. And the limits will typically be reached at a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of addresses.

The filter trials were purposely designed not to expose such limits. The filter trials were purposely designed not to expose a number of other technical limitations.

Those of us who understand the technology know quite well that the filter will not scale. It cannot even remotely serve its stated purpose.

Senator Conroy what you are doing robs resources from law enforcement, makes life harder for genuine child protection agencies, muddies the issue, distracts the public debate from important issues such as parental education and so poisons the well that even if you now propose to merely filter only illegal material and turn your back on the censorship law, that it will be hard for people to believe you.

What you are doing Sir, requires an astonishing act of sheer gall. You’re trying to sell a lie to three groups of people:

You’re telling one group of people that RC material is all illegal, and if you can’t do that you’re trying to fool as many people as possible that RC material if it isn’t illegal, is at least horribly objectionable, nasty and perhaps immoral. No, it isn’t

You’re telling another group of people that it will be safe to leave their young kids alone with the internet. This is not only a hoax, but a cruel one.

and at the same time…

You’re telling yet another group of people - those who see it as their god given right to protect us from ourselves - that the filter will stamp out all the horribly morally objectionable things that a lot of us just plain enjoy. And when they finally figure out that the net is bigger, much much bigger, than your filter - you can guess what the Christian Lobby is going to do next…

Originally written by "Mad Cow" as a comment on Crikey. Reproduced here without permission.

The Trouble With RC

2009-12-23T13:27:00.011+11:00

There is something slightly pythonesque about Australia's National Classification Code. In addition to the classifications that classify content, there is a classification, paradoxically named "Refused Classification" for classifying content that is otherwise refused classification.

"Wait a minute, didn't you say these things were not to be classified? How come you just classified them? Bertand, I think we may need your help here."

It is interesting to reflect on how other countries address the paradox of the classifying the unclassifiable with an oxymoronic classification.

Like us, France rates content such as film with a scheme that roughly correlates with age of people for whom the content is suitable. There is a category suitable for everyone (like our G), a category for under 10's, under 12's, under 16's and under 18's. And then there is everything else. Perhaps they name this category, perhaps they don't. Unlike Australia, they don't attempt to classify material suitable for adults any further. They may ban it, they just don't attempt to apply the weight of their film and literature classification bureaucracy to the task of classifying it. Or should that be the task of refusing to classify it. Anyway, they don't spend too much time thinking about. If a film is just wrong, they just ban it. They are French. They have no need to think further about such vulgarities!

The US is similar. The industry rates films, the market decides. America being the somewhat puritanical market that it is, will typically not buy anything rated NC-17 so the industry tries very hard not classify things that way. The idea that there could be something more perverse than NC-17 is a foreign, dare I say French, concept to the average American consumer. Of course, there is something more perverse than NC-17. That's labelled obscene. If your film is labelled obscene, and the court agrees, you will go to jail.

Australia loves its classification without a name (or rather, its classification without a sensible name). More particularly, Australian politicians love it. For them, the Refused Classification non-classification is a secular equivalent of Cardinal Pell. Instead of calling on the Lord to get them out of a fix, Australian politicians call on the great Too Hard Basket in the sky - the "Refused Classification" classification (or is it a non-classification, I keep forgetting).

Politicians can use RC to hide all sorts of trouble. Child porn, slap an RC-rating on it. Adult-oriented games, slap an RC-rating on it. Margaret Pomeranz's taste in American social commentaries - slap an RC-rating on it. They love the fact that innocuous things like adult-oriented games and vile things like child porn have the same label. It makes it so much easier for them to label their opponents as purveyors of filth.

The best thing about RC is that its all so much easier than making things actually illegal. If you start making things actually illegal, the people are going to get ticked off. Sure, you have made it slightly harder for people to get the material that is classified that way, but the people will still get it. That's not the point. By brandishing your moralistic credentials in front of the public at large you can claim whatever votes you believe that's worth and get back to whatever it is that politicians do on those long, cold nights in Canberra.

So if you wonder why Australia is planning to line its film and literature classifiers up along side the police forces of the world in the fight against child sexual abuse, wonder no longer. The RC has got Australian politicians out of a fix before and, as long as we let them, it will get them out of a fix again.

Update: In another conversation it has been pointed out to me that in order to protect the integrity of the ACMA complaints system, ACMA may refuse to accept a public complaint. Now, whether this is best characterised as refusal to classify or refusal to refuse to classify, I am not sure. However, it does seem like this is the only actual way a content item can actually be refused classification by the system. I think you will agree, this is really quite remarkable.

ALP's new campaign messages to support improved content classification (and fight child abuse)

2009-12-23T09:45:00.005+11:00

Every good promotional campaign needs a good one-two punch. Hence, these are the messages that the ALP can use to promote the merits of its film and literature classification-lead approach to the problems of child sexual abuse:

Fight child sexual abuse: support ALP's decision to divert AFP resources to ACMA

ACMA: fighting child abuse - one content classification decision at a time.

Inadvertently exposed: the ALP's obsession with universal censorship

2009-12-23T01:14:00.016+11:00

When you are a Government of a Western nation about to introduce a mandatory censorship regime unlike anything else in the Western world it is a good idea to try to play up comparisons with social democracies like Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and our Commonwealth cousins the UK and Canada. It is also good to downplay comparisons with authoritarian regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia or China.

So, naturally enough the Government's FAQ about their current filtering policy attempts to do this by asking the rhetorical question: "How does Australia's approach compare with other western democracies?"

It's a good question, but sadly for the Government the answer only serves to emphasise what is so wrong about the Government's proposal. In all the countries listed, not one has a mandatory filtering scheme. In all the countries listed, not one attempts to filter anything other than strictly illegal child abuse material.

Just as revealing is the list they did not enumerate - the list of 30 or so Western democracies which, like Australia, do not presently have any filtering regime.

And, of course, it is no surprise to learn that the Government does not list the countries that do have mandatory filtering regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia and China.

Comparing Australia's proposed policy with other Western democracies actually highlights how draconian this policy is. Why is it that Australia is the only Western demoncracy to propose a mandatory filter? Why is it that the scope of Australia's filter is so uniquely broad that it will include material that is actually legal to own and view?

Part of the problem is that Australia is trying to do with 'taste' police, what other countries do with real police. Other countries treat child abuse as what it is: a horrific crime against children. Australia is trying to deal with the problem of child abuse by dealing with it as a content classification problem. The Government would have us believe that it can do something meaningful about the problem of child abuse by devoting more effort to content classification and then ensuring that content classification decisions are riguourously enforced at our digital borders (e.g. on the other side of the pipes into your living room).

Or, at least, it used to believe this. It is clear that the Government now understands that a mandatory filter can't contribute to fighting child abuse because it now states that the purpose of the mandatory ISP-level filter is merely to "reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure" to Refused Classification material. It readily admits that a technically competent user with the motivation to do so can circumvent a mandatory filter.

However, even this more modest aim is still far more draconian than those of other Western democracies that have some kind of filtering policy. These countries seek only to minimize inadvertent exposure to illegal child sexual abuse material which is a far more restricted category of material than that which is rated Refused Classification by the Australian National Classification Code.

Consider this: in 2003 Margaret Pomeranz, the ABC's film reviewer, attempted to give the Refused Classification film "Ken Park" a screening before a crowd in Balmain, Sydney. Police physically intervened to prevent her breaking the law. Yet it is exactly material of this kind that will be subject to Conroy's censorwall. Is Stephen Conroy prepared to call Margaret Pomeranz, a purveyor of "the worst of the worst" kind of internet filth? Or is she instead a decent person who strongly believes the National Classification Board made an error when it gave "Ken Park" an RC rating?

The ALP's policy on ISP-level filtering has changed on numerous occasions since it was first drafted in 2006. At that time the policy was about mandating that ISPs offer a cleanfeed to families that wanted it. In December 2007, it was about mandating that ISP's impose a cleanfeed that people could opt out of. In 2008, the policy changed again and opt-out ceased to be an option.

All along we were told that a mandatory filter was necessary to prevent Australians who seek child pornopgraphy from viewing it.

The Government has since learnt that a filter will be utterly ineffective for that task, primarily because most child pornography is traded on networks that are invisible to an HTTP-based filter. It now, at least, readily admits that the filter can be technically circumvented with ease. So, in recognition of these cold hard facts, the Government now insists that the mandatory filter is no longer about preventing criminal access to illegal material. It is now merely about preventing inadvertent exposure of ordinary citizens to Refused Classification material.

Think about that.

The Government insists that it must filter your Internet connection to prevent you being inadvertently exposed to material, such as the movie "Ken Park", that the National Classification Board has deemed unsuitable for any other classification.

How paternalistic. How patronising.

There would be less (but not much less) disquiet about the mandatory filter if the Australian government chose to target, like the European governments it wants to compare itself to, only strictly illegal material. Yet the Government, despite the wriggle room afforded by changing its position once more, has explicitly decided not to go down this path. It has deliberately chosen to continue down the path of ensuring that the National Classification Code is uniformly and universally applied to citizens as if each and every one of them were themselves film and literature distributors.

People who are "inadvertently exposed" to films such as "Ken Park" are at little risk of abusing children because of that exposure. People who deliberately access child sexual abuse material are. Making it more difficult for Margaret Pomeranz to download "Ken Park" from the web does precisely nothing about the problem of child sexual abuse, irrespective of Minister Conroy's persistent angry insistence otherwise.

People wishing to publish this in other fora should contact the author to obtain permission.

On the limitations of using content classification as a crime fighting technique

2009-12-22T22:12:00.004+11:00

Originally posted as a comment here.

There are some key differences between the European filters and the proposed Australian filter.

First, the European filters are all currently voluntary. Second, the European filters all approach the problem of child abuse as an extension of law enforcement efforts. The approach for the Australian filter is quite different: it is trying to tackle child abuse as if it was a content classification problem.

Whereas the decision procedure for the European filter is: "is the material to be blocked illegal", the question for the Australian filter is: "has this material been refused classification by the body that assesses film and literature".

One would have thought that the European filters are at least tackling a criminal problem as a criminal problem. The Australian Government is attempting to tackle child abuse as a problem of good or bad taste.

Any guesses which approach might be more effective?

The Karma Sutra Of The ALP's filtering policy

2009-12-21T20:33:00.008+11:00

So, the Government's mandatory ISP-level filtering policy has morphed once more.

Back in 2006 when Big Kim was the great white hope of all Howard fearing liberals, the ALP introduced a policy to mandate that all ISPs offer a cleanfeed to families that wanted it.

As far we can tell, the ALP took this policy to the 2007 election (having changed horses in the mean time).

It came as a shock to us all when the Australian Christian Lobby's representative in cabinet announced, in the dying hours of 2007, that the new Government intended to mandate filtering of all residential ISP connections.

In the early days of this policy the Minister did offer an olive branch to those with free speech concerns - those perverts that were prepared to declare themselves as such could opt out.

When it became apparent that a large portion of the population was prepared to take this risk and opt-out, the flexible Minister changed his position once more and insisted that all Australians would be subject to a filter for which there was no opt-out option.

This was necessary, the Minister insisted, to combat the scourge of child pornography that was flooding, uninvited, into Australian homes.

Oh, really, Minister?

And then there was a lull as Government set about to concoct a trial that would demonstrate to a disbelieving public that the policy might just work. The trial was delayed for various reasons, the main one being a shortage of suitably compliant ISPs. Eventually a trial was established.

In the pressure to get the trial started, the department "forgot" to define success criteria for the trial, an oversight that the Minister thought was irrelevant since he would be in a much better position to determine what the success criteria were once the results were in.

The results came in. And had a nap. For months.

But during the extended nap, the results impregnated the Minister with new understanding. The filter cannot possibly be effective at the stated goal of ridding Australia of child pornography because of the ease of availability of "technical circumventions".

The newly impregnated Minister was worried. How can we sell this turkey to a disbelieving public?

"Change the scope, change the scope!", yelled the pragmatists.

So now we have it: the ALPs current policy on mandatory ISP-level filtering:

"Introduction of mandatory internet service provider (ISP) level filtering of content that is rated Refused Classification (RC) in order to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure."

Gone is the fantasy that a mandatory filter can do anything about criminal access to illegal material.

In its place we have the objective of: "reducing the risk of inadvertent exposure" to Refused Classification material.

Does anyone have any evidence whatsoever that a) the probability of inadvertent exposure is high or b) the consequences to the individual or society of inadvertent exposure to refused classification material are serious?

Any evidence at all? Let alone quantified evidence that would allow some rational assessment of costs and benefits.

Apparently not. And why should we expect such a thing? The ways of the Karma Sutra are not to be understood by the uninitiated. We are mere citizen-playthings of the single-minded ALP-ACL beast.

jon.

A post to Kate Lundy's blog

2009-12-21T19:38:00.012+11:00

[ Originally posted at Kate Lundy's blog. ]

Kate,

The Government's policy with respect to mandatory ISP filtering is currently:

"(The) Introduction of mandatory internet service provider (ISP) level filtering of content that is rated Refused Classification (RC) in order to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure."

This policy is explicitly not about using filters to prevent criminal access to illegal material as the Government quite freely admits that such filters are easily circumvented with technical measures.

What then is the policy about? Let the words speak for themselves: "in order to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure" to refused classification material.

Does the Government have any evidence that inadvertent exposure to refused classification material is an actual problem? Is there any evidence that inadvertent exposure to refused classification material causes lasting harm to either the viewer of such material or to society at large?

It is not even clear that the problem the Government is trying to solve is an actual problem in the first place.

Deploying a heavy weight censorship mechanism that has the potential to distort the health of Australian democracy for generations is hardly a rational policy response to a problem that hasn't even been demonstrated, let alone quantified.

Can you point to a single example of another Western democracy where the scope of the filter is broader than strictly illegal material?

What makes Australian citizens unique in the Western world that adults are not entitled to decide for themselves which legal (but refused classification) material they should be able to view?

Does not the Government's insistence on denying Australian adults this choice fly directly in the face of principle 1a) of the National Classification Code:

(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;

A commentary on the DBCDE FAQ

2009-12-21T04:34:00.003+11:00

I've annotated the DBCDE FAQ with commentary.

Click through the image to read more: .

Anyone wishing to prepare and publish their own annotated commentary can download a zipped version of the files and make their own edits as desired.

Yes, he really said that

2009-04-07T22:06:00.004+10:00

Via @NewtonMark

For Bernadette, it will always be ground hog day

2009-02-26T19:04:00.005+11:00

For Bernadette McMenanmin, it will always be ground hog day - perhaps tomorrow, despite all evidence to the contrary, will be the day that delivers the perfect ISP-level 'filter' which blocks only that which is 'right' to block and nothing more.

When she is not accusing opponents of mandatory ISP-level censorship of advocating child pornography, she likes to question why technologists have failed to use their imagination to derive effective technical solutions to the problems of child pornography.

Bernadette, it is not for lack of imagination. We know exactly what an effective technical solution would look like. It is precisely this imagination which forces us to raise our voices in protest and warn those less technically literate than ourselves that we really do not want go there.

The measures would not be cheap, nor would they perform well and they would be horribly inaccurate. They would not even be 100% effective at denying access to illegal material, but they would be far, far more effective than what is currently proposed. And surely, if we are to think of the children, effectiveness should be our only concern.

A technical and legislative solution that is effective would have these characteristics: use of a whitelist to deny access to all sites not positively certified as acceptable; the outlawing and blocking of unregistered protocols particularly those that can be used to implement tunnels; the outlawing and blocking of all unlicensed uses of encryption; the outlawing and blocking of all use of VPNs and anonymous proxies; the outlawing of the acquisition and use of server equipment located outside Australia; the outlawing and blocking of all P2P protocols; the outlawing of the use or possession of all pornography that depicts persons below the age of 30.

Not one of these technical or legislative measures would be acceptable in a democratic 20th century economy, let alone one that has pretensions to be a "digital" economy - one with a National Broadband Network, or not.

Yet all of these measures would be necessary to effectively deal with the problem of adults that seek child pornography. If just one of these measures is not adopted, the resulting filter would be vulnerable to subversion by those sufficiently motivated to subvert it.

If the current 'filter' is implemented, it will be utterly ineffective: vulnerable children will still be abused by adults; the flow of the associated child pornography will continue unabated; those that 'think of the children' to the exclusion of every other rational consideration will demand yet more obtrusive and draconian controls on Internet usage.

We know the current proposal will fail to achieve the desired objectives; we know that child protection advocates of the kind represented by McMenanim will not cease in their calls for ever greater Government meddling; we know this will be but the first round of futile but increasingly invasive attempts to replace civic morality with technical fixes.

As technologists we are pleading - stop this insanity.

Any attempt to eviscerate the citizenry's moral conscience by replacing it with a set of technical censorwall rules is deeply flawed on a technical level, but also on an ethical one. Citizens should accept responsibility for avoiding illegal material and should be accountable for any transgressions - they should not be freed of this moral responsibility by a paternalistic Government and its supporters.

Finally, a politician who has a clue

2008-12-24T11:24:00.004+11:00

I have to say, up until recently, I didn't have very much time for Senator Nick Minchin, representing as he does the decapitated rump of the Howard Liberal party.

But, boy, the man knows how to critique doomed ISP filtering policies.

Steve Cannane interviewed him on Radio National this morning.

The only disappointing aspect was that he didn't commit the opposition 100% to opposing any legislation. Mind you, he doesn't need to, given that their support for legislation seems to be conditional on the trial being proven, by an independent auditor, of being a success. And we all know how likely that is to be.

Why mandatory ISP filtering is a bad idea

2008-12-24T03:41:00.007+11:00

Stuart, a commenter on "Somebody Think Of The Children" has made this very simple point:

"The only reason that secrecy is required is the fact that filters don't work, and even those backing them know it. If your filter does work, then there is little harm in publicly listing a URL and a reason for blocking it."

There is a certain seductive truth to this, but there is one flaw. The filters that the Australian Government impose are not universal. Even if the Australian filters were perfect, the list would have to be secret to prevent the list being exploited in jurisdictions not subject to Australian law and hence filters.

Stuarts point would probably be better phrased this way: since filters will never be 100% effective and universal, the list must be secret.

The issue then is whether a democracy can tolerate a permanent lack of transparency and accountability, implicit in existence of a secret list. Relying on secrecy is never a good thing, because secrecy is very hard to sustain or, if it is sustained, it invariably leads to a lack of accountability and an abuse of power.

Why are supporters so confident that the lack of accountability and transparency implicit in the existence of the ACMA blacklist won't eventually lead to corruption and abuses of power in this case?

Merry Xmas, Senator

2008-12-23T12:32:00.007+11:00

It was December 31, 2007 as I was preparing to head up the coast to see my favourite band, Mammal, kicking arse in Newcastle at a NYE gig when I caught a NewsRadio interview mid way through.

The interview appeared to be with some conservative nutcase who thought that censoring the Internet would be a good idea. It then became apparent that the nutcase being interviewed was the Minister For Broadband, Communications and The Digital Economy, Senator Conroy talking about his plan for mandatory ISP filtering.

My jaw dropped. What a sneaky time to announce this - the day before the day of the long hangover, when no-one will be thinking too hard about stuff. Still, I banged off my letter to editor and hopped on my train upto Newcastle.

So it is somewhat fitting, I think, that nearly a year later, the SMH chooses to put this on the wrapper page of its December 23-25 edition. Something for the punters to talk about over the Xmas turkey. "Web Censorship Fiasco", the banner screams.

And it only gets better on the actual front page

Merry Xmas, Senator. Stay away from the cranberry sauce, lest someone mistakes you for dinner.

And a very Merry Xmas to Asher Moses and the editorial staff at the SMH - gentlepeople and scholars all.

Why don't we know which commercial entities are involved with ACMA?

2008-12-22T03:20:00.006+11:00

I'd like to ask a very simple question:

Why don't we know which commercial entities are currently being consulted by ACMA in relation to the Government's ISP filtering plans?

The lack of this information presents a serious difficulty to our side of the debate. The pro-filtering vendor camp, who have a strong financial interest in the Government deciding to impose an ISP-filtering regime, have detailed knowledge of their own strength and weaknessess.

The anti-filtering camp doesn't even know who the vendors are and how far advanced their plans are. Without this knowledge, we can't effectively marshall our resources to do our own analyses of solutions being proposed.

I'd also like to know on what basis the CEO of iPrimus Ravi Bhatia can claim it is "It's easy for us to do it," when other ISPs don't even know if their EOIs have been accepted. Has iPrimus been working with ACMA in advance of the trial being announced? Does it already have filtering infrastructure built and in place? Or will it, too, be scrambling to build the infrastructure between now and when the trial is due to start on Wednesday?

"Mike The Participant", whoever he is, uses his position as an insider within part of the industry to accuse others, like Mark Newton, of being "ignorant". This is quite a call from someone who hurls insults from behind a pseudonym and is a beneficiary of a system that seems designed to keep us ignorant of what is being proposed.

Blatherings about commercial-in-confidence arrangements, particularly in a debate that goes to the core of what it means to be a free society in the 21st century, simply don't wash. Surely citizens contemplating the imposition of such draconian social controls as mandatory ISP-level filtering, deserve fully transparent disclosure and vigorous debate about the respective merits of the solutions being proposed?

Write to your Senators. Write to your local MPs. Write to the paper. Demand to know which commercial entities are working with ACMA and what the extent of their dealings have been to this point.

It is your right. This is, after all, still a democracy.

With Netsweeper installed, the thought police will be unnecessary

2008-12-21T23:44:00.014+11:00

Since October 2008 is has been clear that the Government intends to implement a 2-tier filtering regime. The first, mandatory tier, would involve URL blacklist filtering according to a blacklist specified by ACMA. The second, optional (as in opt-out) tier, would be used to filter additional material not on the ACMA blacklist that the Government thinks that Australians should be protected from.

By definition, the second tier of filtering will not use a blacklist, or at least, not an ACMA blacklist. The Government has not talked about a second ACMA blacklist. Instead, the sort of filtering performed by the 2nd tier would be more like the filtering already done in schools, corporations, and by dedicated ISPs that already offer clean feed services. It is not clear what parameters bound the operation of this second tier and how much control individuals will be given over the filtering decisions made by the second tier.

Let's suppose that an ISP grants the user some control over what is blocked on their feed. webshield already does this, for their customers. Products like Netsweeper also have a category list and any ISP that used Netsweeper could potentially offer a configurable filter to their customers.

How would configuration work? Presumably, the adults in the household could select which categories get blocked by the filter. Here's a document that lists the categories that Netsweeper uses. And here is a definition of category 23 pornography.

This category contains URLs that reference, discuss, or show pornography, pictures, videos, or sexually oriented material. This category includes nudity, soft and hard-core pornography, sadomasochism, bestiality, child porn, fetishes, stories, adult magazines, toys, or any sexual related purchase. This category excludes sex education sites.

Which is fine. What is unclear is why Netsweeper classified (on December 21) "The Porn Report Book" as class 23, pornography?

This is a site which is about a book which is about pornography. It is not a site that contains pornography itself.

Worse, here is a page which offers a review of "The Porn Report". On December 21, Netsweeper classified this page as:

Journals and Blogs [1]
Arts & Culture [2]
General News [12]
Pornography [23]

In other words, Netsweeper has decided that a site advertising "The Porn Report" and a site offering (an unflattering) review of "The Porn Report" are themselves pornographic.

What are the implications of this?

Anyone subject to a Netsweeper filter who was interested in educating themselves about the role of pornography in Australian society would be denied access to the site that promotes the book if they have the "pornography" classification switched on - which they surely would, otherwise, why are we having this debate?.

Not only that, anyone in this unfortunate condition who wanted to read reviews of the book, would have their access to some reviews of the book blocked by the same filter.

Promotional websites and book reviews are critical elements that help to sell books. It is an obvious consequence of this inadvertent censorship, that publishers of the Porn Report will lose revenue due to lost sales from a large portion of the Australian population. Furthermore, the voting public won't be as educated about the issue of pornography as they otherwise could be.

What are the publishers of "The Porn Report" meant to do?

Do they prostrate themselves on bended knee before Netsweeper and the other vendors and ask them to remove the "Pornography" classification from the site? Possibly, but why should it be their responsibility to do that? And even if the filter vendors deign to reclassify the site, that doesn't solve the problem. The publishers simply won't know where all the reviews of the book are and whether they have been blocked. Whose responsiblity is it to locate every last blocked review and get the classifcation fixed? Is it the publisher? Why?

This is why filtering for pornography is so unlike any existing censorship mechanism. It doesn't scale to the volume of material and doesn't deal with the contingent and transient nature of publishing on the Internet

So here we have a very real example of how the opt-out filtering policy will place a very real restraint on the trade of people who have conducted serious studies about the role of pornography in Australian society. Furthermore, such a filter will directly interfere with the quality of social and political discourse within this country.

This is quite simply unacceptable for a democracy. The Government should not be setting up a censorship mechanism that censors by default and is fixed by exception.

What a joke.

Readers are invited to discover for themselves what other sites Netsweeper regards as pornography using this test site.

Classifications reported by Netsweeper were accurate as at 21 December, 2008. Subsequent results may vary, presumably in response to the level of community outrage.

Mike The Participant wades in

2008-12-20T20:26:00.003+11:00

People who read this blog may think that I am rather blind about the problem of child pornography and one-eyed about the need to protect freedom of speech. To help address this imbalance, I decided to help an acquaintance, "Mike The Participant", set up his own blog. For some reason, Mike wishes to remain behind a pseudonym. Anyway, his collected words say it all - enjoy.

Shame, McMenamin, Shame!

2008-12-16T01:12:00.012+11:00

From today's Australian:

Ms McMenamin was equally critical of the past weekend's protests and the DLC's plans for future action.

"Let the 300 people march on Canberra because it looks pathetic," he [sic] said. "It looks pathetic and shameful because most of these people are not fully aware of the facts and secondly, those who are aware are, in effect, advocating child pornography."

[An image of a cowering Bernadette McMenamin. She really has nothing to fear. The person on the otherside of the door is a photographer whose job it is to help sell her vision of moral panic.]

A woman who has to violate the Conroy Rule in her every utterance on this subject is in no position to describe others as pathetic.

Bernadette McMenamin is a living, breathing disgrace to the Order of Australia of which she is a member. If she can't put her case without accusing others of being supporters of child pornography, her case must be exceedingly weak indeed.

We already know exactly how loose McMenamin is with facts and statistics. We know how clueless her grip is on the technical details. But even with this poor grip, she admits that the proposed filter will do almost nothing to stop hard core consumers of child pornography. She fails to consider the unintended consequences and is willing to pay any price in support of a solution that can never attain the objectives set for it.

Bernadette McMenamin's business is moral panic. She has a vested interest in it. From her point of view, an ineffective filter is actually a very good thing, because it means the oxygen that sustains the flames of moral panic, and her organization ChildWise, will never disappear.

Perhaps this is uncharitable. Perhaps McMenamin and ChildWise have done worthy work in the past. Perhaps they do some now. But why should anyone continue to be charitable about a person who unapologeticly accuses her opponents of being witting or unwitting supporters of child pornography. That is a completely despicable accusation as McMenamin herself should well know - if her tears about the plight of abused children mean anything at all.

Bernadette McMenanim, AO, is a scoundrel. Australians who are outraged that she continues to slander her political opponents as supporters of child pornography should use every opportunity they have to remind her how despicable that is.

Oh, and don't forget the March on Canberra in March 2009.

Update:Link to her e-mail address removed. I do encourage people to write to her and express their contempt. But please, try to do it without excessive vitriol since that will not, in the end, help our case. Point out we have tried to reason with her in the past but that we are dismayed that she continues to use the same slander. Remind her that her slander denigrates "Save The Children" as much as it does anonymous targets of her contempt.

Updated 28/2: I recently drew Bernadette's attention to this post. In response she pointed out that she does not herself make a habit of personal attacks against opponents of the filter and that I only gave one example of where she has made use of the slander that upset me so much. To the extent that I implied that she makes a habit of doing so, I retract that implication and apologise for generalizing from but one example. The fact remains, however, that the Australian reported her as making the remark on this occasion and she has yet to publicly deny that this was an accurate record of her remarks.

With Adults Controlled Like This...

2008-12-14T00:41:00.003+11:00

I had a chance to speak at the end of the Sydney rally on December 13 so I figured I would present the argument I wrote up on "Somebody Think Of The Children" last week - "With Adults Controlled Like This, Child Protection Can Wait"

Here's what I said:

On reflection, I should have concluded: "it's about what they view", but hey reality's edit functions are rather poor!

UK ISPs who resist cleanfeed

2008-12-11T21:23:00.005+11:00

This is a reprint from a contribution to a mailing list. The author of the contribution would prefer to remain unattributed for the purposes of this post.

We knew that ISP filtering in the UK is voluntary, and it now looks like the Wikipedia matter may be having some ramifications for censorsing ISPs. Seems some other ISPs have discovered/decided it's 'safe' to advertise that they don't censor.

This page led me to find a couple of UK ISPs with guts, so now we have proof that not all UK ISPs censor (I'm pretty sure there's a lot more than these two - but most probably haven't wanted to risk drawing political attention to themselves):

AAISP

"...

Censoring

It is not our role to try and censor what you do with the internet. We do not try and log or limit what you are accessing. It is your responsibility to stick to the laws that apply to you. We have no intention of putting in place any censorship systems or using censored transit feeds.

Censorship systems are usually introduced under the guise of some emotive topic such as stopping child abuse which nobody could argue with. Such systems are very very unlikely to have any actual impact at all on the actual problem they claim to solve. Such systems often break or hinder the normal working of the internet, as seen by wikipedia recently. They are usually easy to circumvent. If they work at all then they just drive the offensive use underground and using encryption so making it harder to find and deal with. They are also the thin end of the wedge as once a system is in place then adding more is easy. Bear in mind most ISPs using such systems then have no control over what is censored or why. If we accept censorship for child abuse, then we have to accept it for terrorism, and then maybe political extremist views, and then maybe not so extreme views, and maybe wrong thinking, and "then they came for me and there was no-one left to speak out" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came... )

Black boxes

We have no so called black boxes to covertly monitor traffic and/or pass traffic monitoring to the authorities or anyone else. Obviously the law is such that we may have to add such black boxes, but we would resist as far as possible. We may even find we are not allowed to change this web page if ever that happens. However, I, as director, am happy to answer direct questions on this matter on irc (user RevK) or on usenet and you can get paranoid if I refuse to."

UKFSN

UKFSN added the following to its home page in the last few days (reportedly in response to an enquiry from one of its customers):

"Statement of policy regarding censorship, Phorm/Webwise and other content interception

Our policy is that the electronic communications of our customers are private. We do not intercept, censor, scan or otherwise interfer with our customers' internet service.

UKFSN does not and will not have any dealings with Phorm, the company behind the Webwise system being deployed by some other ISPs to intercept customer internet traffic. We are firmly of the opinion that the Phorm Webwise system is illegal under UK and EU laws. We also believe it to be fundamentally unethical to intercept customer traffic in this manner. It will never happen here.

There is some suggestion that the UK government would like to mandate some form of interception and possibly censorship. We would encourage all interested persons to make it clear to MPs and the government generally that this is not acceptable."

Vote for Crikey Australian of the Year

2008-12-10T15:18:00.002+11:00

Here's a chance to thank Irene Graham for her tireless efforts to research facts that help douse the flames of moral panic of those who would censor us. She deserves a proper gong, but this would still be a pretty good way to say thank you.

You can also vote for the Crikey Arsehat of the Year. I won't say who I voted for, but close readers of this blog may be able to guess.

Nominations close this Sunday.

Divorce thyself from net censorship

2008-12-10T14:36:00.006+11:00

The message I sent with my contribution to this GetUp! campaign. Tweaked a bit to add additional rhetorical flourish that I didn't think of at the time.

Dear Government,

It's a real shame that you have undermined your own credibility on human rights by so strongly supporting a net censorship regime. A Government that doesn't trust its citizens to use its freedoms responsibly will be eyed with suspicion if it tries to enshrine those freedoms into the constitution. Which rights will be enshrined? Only those that a 5 year old can use responsibly?

This is your chance to show leadership instead of fanning the flames of moral panic.

Divorce thyself completely from your net censorship stance. Repudiate it completely. Use this experience as an example of why we need a human rights act and then perhaps people may grudgingly trust you.

Until then, any advocacy by you for an Australian human rights act will, rightly, be viewed with intense suspicion.

"Don't Panic" sunglasses For The 21st Century

2008-12-10T10:52:00.009+11:00

Zaphod Beeblebrox had a good way to deal with panic - sunglasses that went dark at the first sign of danger - what you can't see, can't scare you.

In this day and age, when society seems ever more determined to view the world from the perspective of the paedophile, we need a new version of the Joo Janta 200's. Glasses that go dark at the first sight of moral panic or other people's children.

Quite ironic really. In the 19th century, children were to be seen but not heard, in the 20th century fads for liberation of all kinds meant that children were not only to be seen but heard as well - sometimes even listened to. Now that some view the liberation struggles of the 20th century as a somewhat regrettable mistake, it is only appropriate that we have reached the 21st century, an age in which children may be heard, but not seen.

Good Cop, Bad Cop?

2008-12-09T19:52:00.005+11:00

The Government certainly knows its politics.

Stephen Conroy has been completely and thoroughly vilified by 11 months of rage against his ISP filtering policy. So, if you want to soothe the masses and take the heat out of this coming Saturday's street protests, why not choose a different minister, the likeable Lindsay Tanner, to host the Government's new "hang out and listen to the people" blog

If this is a sincere attempt to listen and not simply a snow job, then good on them.

However, I am yet to be convinced that we should be ready to trust this new touchy, feely Government. After all, this is a Government that doesn't trust its adult citizens to use the uncensored Internet responsibly. This is the Government that doesn't mind violating the Conroy Rule with gay abandon.

In my view, the Government must do at least the following: thoroughly and completely repudiate its previous support for a mandatory ISP filter. And, if it has the integrity to do so, it should apologise for continuously labeling opponents of the filter as supporters of child pornography.

Please don't stand down just yet folks. We need more than well-managed PR. We need a concrete repudiation of the Government's policy by the Government itself. Or, we need to see the trial fail, and let the Government sneak out the back door.

A courageous, principled leader would choose the former. A weaker, unprincipled one the latter. How about it, Kev? What kind of leader are you?

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Help Measure The UK Censorwall

2008-12-09T01:03:00.017+11:00

As Colin Jacobs points out, the recent Wikipedia censorship affair provides an excellent example of the kind of obstruction that will be routine once Australia implements a mandatory ISP-level filtering regime

And it provides not just rhetorical ammunition. This overzealous act of censorship provides us with a very real opportunity to legally gather cool, hard data on the performance impact of the 2nd stage filtering infrastructure of the UK clean feed mechanism.

Here's how.

With a simple script, we get users in the UK, Australia and elsewhere to regularly poll random Wikipedia articles and record URLs, response times, status codes and sizes

We keep running these scripts until after IWF and Wikipedia sort out their differences.

We then do a statistical analysis of the performance difference with 2nd stage filtering switched on and with it switched off. This should provide us with an accurate measure of exactly how much overhead 2nd stage filtering adds to typical response times.

I will be writing a small bash script that generates the requisite log files and publishing it here. Please follow this blog entry and the #ukaucensorwall topic in Twitter for further updates. I can be contacted via @jon_seymour in Twitter or jon.seymour at gmail.com

If anyone else can provide technical expertise to assist with this measurement exercise, please post a comment here or to the Twitter topic with contact details.

For now, please:

follow @ukaucensorwall for updates
post to #ukaucensorwall to contribute
poll this page http://tinyurl.com/6rwsec occasionally for future updates
enlist others to the cause (particularly in the UK, but elsewhere would be good too - it will provide a useful control)

Update (2008-12-08 16:05 UTC): Need to think about this for some more so there won't be a script to run, if at all, for 16 hours or so.

Revised Plan 2008-12-08 22:00:00 UTC

A simple script isn't going to do the job because of the risk of inadvertently DDOS'ing WikiPedia should I get too many volunteers.

That said, I do have a simple bash script available which I will share with a restricted number of users in the UK and Australia if there is interest. This could be used to collect some stats right now, just in case the 2nd stage filtering is switched off before I finish the final implementation. You need either Mac OSX, Cygwin + Windows or Linux + wget to run it. Contact me by e-mail if you are interested in running it - the script MUST NOT be shared with anyone because of DDOS risks if it went viral.

Current thought is to either use BOINC or write a custom Java client that communicates with a governing servlet. This will allow tight control over the load WikiPedia gets subjected to and better control of which URLs are tested (which may help with the analysis). I'll probably go with Java rather than BOINC since Java is what I know best unless there is someone who knows how to do BOINC implementations.

I am not going to be able to spend any time on this until later this evening (Sydney time), however if you can lend a hand before that, please let me know and I can do the cyber equivalent of waving my hands in the air to sketch the plan in more detail.

If anyone who can assist with these tasks or issues, let me know:

BOINC implementations
java programming
tomcat + apache hosting
statistical analysis - particularly to help plan the test method
legal and ethical considerations
enlisting UK volunteers - we really need them :-)!
enlisting other Australian + international volunteers - useful controls

Revised Plan 2008-12-09 00:41:00 UTC

IWF has backed down so we can't measure the 2nd stage filter this way anymore. However, if get prepared, we will be in a better position to do it if a similar issue occurs in the future.

The Principle Of Least Farce

2008-12-08T21:17:00.019+11:00

Is it possible that the reason that the Government prefers censorship over law enforcement is that they are trying to respect the Principle of Least Farce?

This is the principle which states that when confronted with a moral panic, a Government should choose the option least likely to cause farce or, if all options will cause farce, the one likely to cause the least farce.

Consider the three incidents today:

the man arrested for posting a link to an extremely distasteful video **
the man sentenced for depicting a scene of incest within "The Simpsons" family
large parts of the UK losing access to the visual depiction of the cover art of a 70's German heavy metal band

And consider the case of the Henson art gallery seizures.

I would argue that of the 4 cases, the one that generated least farce was the one that did not involve law enforcement. Annoying yes, but farcical, not so much.

And with that, perhaps we understand why the Government is so reluctant to use law enforcement in issues of moral panic.

Utter cowardice.

Strong, principled governments demonstrate leadership by dousing moral panics thereby allowing law enforcement to concentrate on the prosecution of real crimes.

Weak, unprincipled ones exploit it. But that exposes law enforcement to the possibility of being placed in farcical prosecutorial positions. Understandably, they don't like it. Which leaves the Government with but one weapon in its kit bag - censorship. Less farce, less fuss.

Governments that refuse to bow to moral panics could protect law enforcement agencies from being exposed to the need to pursue farcical prosecutions. This would improve law enforcement effectiveness and reduce the need for censorship. By caving into moral panics, the Government creates the conditions that make technical censorship seem like an attractive policy option. Even if it doesn't totally eliminate the possibilities for farce.

** or perhaps not. Apparently the clip has aired on US television so it can't be that extreme.

Announcing A New Blog - Filtering Fallacies

2008-12-07T18:50:00.004+11:00

I've created a new blog to document filtering fallacies. Each entry will document a particular filtering fallacy and will generally link to the best current expositions of the fallacy, though it may occasionally set forth the description of the fallacy itself.

Feel free to submit the fallacies that you think need to be addressed as comments to the welcome post and examples of good expositions of the fallacy.

With Lego Like This, Who Needs Imagination?

2008-12-07T17:34:00.008+11:00

Arguably, this post will earn me an ACMA takedown notice. Consider this:

the photo depicts simulated sexual activity between synthetic adults [ my god, I hope they are adults!!! ]
it appears on a site which does not use age verification technology.
the fiend responsible for linking to the image is me, an Australian citizen, living in Australia. I have no idea who created the image, but I suspect it was one of those Nordic-types who have such strange ideas about pornography.

Go on, ACMA, take me down. I so much want to replace this image with your take-down notice.

Two Ways To Think About Pornography

2008-12-06T17:35:00.015+11:00

There seem to be two different ways to think about pornography and the danger it represents to society. The pro-censorship camp views pornography as a dire threat that society needs to be actively and aggressively protected from, the anti-censorship camp views some of it as a problem, but a problem which is confined to a relatively small fringe, well away from the experience of the bulk of the population.

I think the above graphic helps to conceptualize the differences. With the "Sphere" conceptualization, most of the population interacts with G-rated content and may occasionally take excursions away from the centre of the sphere into R- and X-rated content. Many are happy to stay in the centre of the sphere. There are some extremists who seek material that has been refused classification, but there is no inexorable force dragging the bulk of the population into the Refused Classification zone - on the contrary most of the the population is grounded by the gravity of common sense and shared moral values.

On the otherhand, in the "Vortex" conceptualization, the Refused Classification zone is a vortex or black hole into which society will inevitably and tragically be dragged unless there is active resistance.

The anti-censorship lobby thinks of the spherical world of content as being somewhat analogous to Mother Earth itself, dangerous in parts but mostly life-affirming, whereas the pro-censorship lobby is clearly committed to the more exotic vortex-shaped conception of cosmic and moral doom that one might expect to find in a bad sci-fi flick.

This, of course, is just a happy coincidence of the way I drew the analogy and not indicative of any selection bias whatsoever. Well, ok, maybe some.

A Letter To My Local Member

2008-12-04T10:01:00.004+11:00

Here is a letter I wrote to my local member, Tanya Plibersek. I included the text of my recent SToC post.

If you also agree with my line of argument, I encourage you to also draft a similar message to your local MPs and Senators be they Liberal, Labor or Green.

Tanya,

Thank you for your reply to an e-mail I wrote you regarding my concerns with the Government's ill-conceived plan to introduce mandatory ISP level filtering.

Your statement that the government has no intention to stop adults viewing material that is currently legal would appear to contradict the following facts:

Senator Conroy has stated that the filter would block inappropriate and unwanted material and has thus far refused to clarify the meaning of these terms
Senator Conroy has stated that the filter would be based on the ACMA black list
the ACMA blacklist already contains material which is legal for adults to possess and view (e.g. X-rated videos, nudity)

Having been mystified as to why the Government was proposing a solution that is guaranteed to be technically ineffective, I think I now understand why. The objective can't be to block access to extreme and illegal pornography because that aim is easily defeated. No, it is clear that the objective of this filter is to moderate the porn consumption habits of middle Australia. This objective may even be somewhat effectively achieved as the experience of the Chinese firewall shows.

I explain why this thesis is more reasonable than the explanation being proffered by the Government in a piece that I have included below.

I think the Australian public will easily identify with this argument, in which case the Government's policy will fast become toxic to the political interests of the Australian Labor Party. If, having read my thesis, you agree, I encourage you to lobby your colleagues so that you may rescue the political fortunes of the ALP before it is too late. If you don't, I am sure the Greens and the Liberal Party of Australia will gladly assist.

Sincerely, ...

With adults controlled like this, protecting children can wait

2008-12-03T22:08:00.003+11:00

In this article on "Somebody Think Of The Children", I think the light finally dawns on why a technically ineffective filter is being proposed.

If you agree, or even if you don't, I encourage you to distribute a link to this argument far and wide. I explicitly would like to see it picked up by opinion leaders and the mainstream media because I believe that exercising rationality in pursuit of moral clarity is a very fine thing indeed.

With Extremists Like These, Who Needs Moderates?

2008-12-02T00:46:00.011+11:00

Since Clive Hamilton's Crikey article of November 20 in which he tried to characterise Electronic Frontiers Australia as "representing the most extreme strand of libertarianism", the following organisations and people have taken a stance which is consistent with that of Electronic Frontiers Australia

With extremists like these, who needs moderates?

On Monday, Clive Hamilton wrote another piece for ABC Online. One would have thought that he might respond to EFA's Colin Jacobs subsequent Crikey piece or use his intellect to take the above organizations and individuals to task for their irresponsible opposition to the Government's proposal.

But no. Clive Hamilton, public intellectual, avoided direct confrontation with his public opponents but chose instead to represent the opposition to the Government's proposal by selectively quoting utterances from random, unidentified opponents which he presumably found with a lazy Google search.

Really, Clive, one has to ask what on earth is going on with public intellectuals such as yourself.

If the only people you are prepared to debate are sock puppets, what does that make you?

See also Geordie Guy's and Syd Walker's takes on Hamilton's latest.

Since writing this it has been revealed that another extremist organization, NSW Young Labor, unanimously passed a motion at a recent conference which is consistent with the EFA's position.

Sydney Protest - December 13

2008-12-01T00:14:00.006+11:00

Here's a link to the Facebook event for the Sydney protest rally on December 13. For those without facebook accounts and no desire to acquire one, the rally is scheduled for 11am at Sydney Town Hall.

Facebookers please RSVP and invite your like-minded friends! Everyone else, just turn up with your like-minded friends!

Links for events in other cities are available here.

Updated: The correct time is 11am

More on the dangers of implicit approval

2008-11-29T21:47:00.009+11:00

In this article on the ABC's Unleashed forum, Melinda Tankard Reist wrote:

"If this material is allowed to be sold - and sold so openly - the Classification Board is sending a message that its okay to want sex with real 'live young girls'."

If we take this argument on face value, then this supports a contention I made earlier this week about one of the possible unintended consequences of attempting to filter extreme porn from the web at the ISP level using an ACMA blacklist.

Given that the Government's filter will inevitably be much less than 100% effective, users might equate availability of incompletely blocked material as some sort of tacit approval by the Government that it is ok to view it, thereby relieving the viewer of the moral responsibility to decide for themselves if they have crossed a line they should not have.

Also, I think an unintended consequence of creating very strict censorship rules for printed or video pornography is that it will drive users of such material to the Internet where there is a much more diverse range of material available.

The problem with that is that there is almost no ability at all to control what people consume via the Internet, everyone knows that and it remains true despite the Government's deeply misguided desire to impose mandatory ISP level filters. Ironically, if we are to deal with the problems of freely available pornography we may have to rely much more on people exercising their own inner freedom to choose the right thing to do, something that can only "occur through consent and never through coercion". [ See Clive, I've been reading your book ].

If I was Melinda Tankard Reist I would be careful about what I wished for.

A succinct visual rebuttal of the book censorship analogy

2008-11-28T19:41:00.006+11:00

This complements Syd Walker's detailed rebuttal of Hamilton's appeal to the TV < - > Internet analogy. Personally, I think Hamilton's use of the TV < - > Internet analogy is great because of the absurd conclusions it leads to.

The Conroy Rule

2008-11-26T13:40:00.007+11:00

There has been a rule in USENET for many years, the so-called The Hitler Rule.

This rule states that the first person to mention Hitler in a flame war, loses.

Given the heat of the Mandatory ISP Level Filtering debate, a new rule is needed

The first person to equate free speech with an unrestricted right to access child pornography, loses.

It seems only fair that since this phase of the mandatory ISP level filtering debate was opened by Senator Conroy in just this fashion, the rule should be named after him, hence "The Conroy Rule".

Update 29/11:For those that wish to quote the rule in other places, I think I prefer David Vaile's more concise statement of the rule that he included in the notice to participants of the Cyber Law forum. To wit:

The first person to equate free speech with child pornography, loses.

The reason the simpler wording is preferred is that the original statement could be twisted by some to suggest that there is a case being put for restricted access to child pornography on free speech grounds. This is not the case and anyone who is making such a claim should be prepared to back it up.

Thank you Liberal Party, thank you Greens

2008-11-26T00:56:00.003+11:00

It would appear that the Labor party's ISP filtering policy may be doomed until the next Senate is elected, thanks to strong opposition from the Liberal Party and the Greens.

No thanks to GetUp! No thanks to all those ALP members who either did not reply to our letters of protest or who replied with robotic form letters.

There is still work to do - we need to get the ALP to repudiate this policy, once and for all - and not give them our Senate votes until they do.

Government approved illegal pornography

2008-11-25T00:40:00.015+11:00

Suppose the Government implements filtering.

The filter fails to be 100% effective - well d'oh!

Some rape and child pornography sites still get through the filters.

However, by this time the populace has been relieved of the responsibility to decide for themselves what is acceptable and non-acceptable pornography. Some may think that if the filter has not blocked it, it must be ok to view and so no further moral judgement is required on their part.

Could the problems the anti-porn people worry about actually get worse, precisely because of the implicit Government authorisation that an ineffective filter will give to material that isn't blocked?

This risk is separate from the risk that by making necessary use of encryption and tunneling to evade filters it may be harder for authorities to monitor and control the activities of Australian paedophiles.

And this risk is separate from the risk, that having adopted encrypted tunnels to pursue their sexual interests, some users may feel secure enough to indulge in even more extreme material than they might have before the filters were imposed.

Given the importance of evidence based policy to this Government, how will success be measured? Will a reduction in web traffic to porn sites mean a reduction in usage of porn, or an increase in usage of p2p traffic and tunnels? Will a reduction in conviction rates for child pornography offences mean a reduction in offence rate, or a reduction in detection rate? What methodology will be used to decide these questions?

Just how many faceless, uncountable children are McMenamin and Hamilton prepared to sacrifice on their altar of state-enforced moral purity?

Why even one?

Is there any evidence these intellects have even considered these questions? If not, perhaps they should commission another NewsPoll.

The sources of anger and other responses.

2008-11-23T16:54:00.014+11:00

This post is a response to Clive's reply to my rather barbed attack on his credibility as a public intellectual.

I do need to apologise for certain mistakes I made, particularly in drawing attention to one of his trivial mistakes in parsing an article. I knew at the time he had made a mistake, perhaps because he hadn't read the paragraphs carefully enough. I had rather cynical rhetorical reasons for drawing attention to it - and I did so deliberately in full knowledge it was cheap shot. However, I do now acknowledge it was a cheap shot and not really indicative of any significant failing on Clive's part. I should also apologise for using the term intellectually shoddy. I should have used the term intellectually unsound.

That said, that cheap shot was merely 1-arm of 3-armed argument that led to the conclusion that Clive was "displaying contempt for principled, honest and logical intellectual debate". I am not going to withdraw that accusation at this point in time because I believe the accusation can be sustained on the basis of the other 2-arms of the argument alone. I will expand on this point below.

I am also not going to withdraw the charge of intellectual dishonesty unless Clive admits that his dichotomy is false and that it was an honest mistake. If he does that, we will have come a long way in this debate. It should be noted that he still believes his dichotomy is valid. I still disagree for reasons I will explain later.

I am also not going to withdraw the charge of Clive arguing in a manner that brings disgrace not only on himself but on the entire profession of public intellectual unless and until Clive ceases to imply or suggest that net libertarians are in some way sympathetic to the view that people should have an unconstrained right to view illegal material such as child pornography. We are not. We never have been. Any attempt to twist our arguments to suggest that we are will always remain intellectually disgraceful and I will not resile from naming it as such.

In his reply, Clive asked a very good question:

I wonder whether you ever reflect one why you become so enraged about proposals to regulate the internet?

This question is very easy to answer. There is the personal explanation that relates to my psyche and there is my answer as one of those much denigrated net libertarians.

First, the personal answer. I get angry when I perceive others are behaving irrationally when claiming to be rational. I get angry about this because I think logic should be enough to persuade another of the correctness of my view point. However, logic alone doesn't work in the face of irrationality - it can never work. This reveals itself as frustration and then anger on my part. Sometimes I am the one who is wrong about some axiom and when I eventually realise that I feel a little bit sheepish about getting so upset - sorry Dad - but sometimes other people really are behaving irrationally. It is perhaps a fortunate thing indeed that I thus far have never been a violent person - who knows what the next (first) brain injury will do! Instead, as I have got older I have started to appreciate the value of rhetoric as tool when dialectic has failed. My rhetoric certainly has an element of the bully to it, and that undoubtedly can be tied back to elements in my psyche. C'est la vie. ps: If anyone chooses to quote this paragraph, please do it in full.

But that's me. Why do we as a class - the net libertarians - get angry? We get angry because from day one of this phase of the argument (30/12/2007), our opponents have consistently tried to misrepresent our arguments against net censorship as arguments for child pornography. There should be no further need of explanation about why that makes us angry.

To Clive's specific points. I have already apologised for the cheap shot. The second arm of the argument was the point about the selective quotation, the third arm was the point about implying by omission.

Clive stated that his point about "individuals who live in cyberland often display a contempt for social rules and moral norms that would put post-modern academics to shame" could be sustained on the basis of Hackett's comment "We live in a world of multiple sets of morality, all of them equally valid." alone.

I would agree with Clive if Hackett had been referring to a world which included the views of NAMBLA and Zen Buddhists and one is comparing these systems with another system of morality, such as that of secular humanists. With respect to secular humanism, the views of NAMBLA very definitely are not equally valid. However, Hackett wasn't talking about that world. He was talking about a world that included: Anglo Saxon protestants, Muslims and people who hate Scientologists. There is very definitely a sense in which these systems are equally valid. A Chinese Australian of the Buddhist faith probably regards them as equally valid alternatives to his own choice. It is not the choice he has made, for sure, but in terms of choices other people might make, they are equally valid.

Neither Hackett, Malone or myself are French post-modernists for whom I do have contempt [ they abandoned anything resembling rationality long ago - see Sokal and Bricmont ]. By omitting to put the full context of the quote into his article, Clive left open the possibility that he thought we were arguing like French post-modernists. That's insulting enough. But it gets worse, since we are involved in a debate where terms like beastialty, rape and child pornography get thrown about with homosexual abandon, Clive left open the charge that we believe that NAMBLA has an equally valid morality. Let's be clear: we are geeks, not French post-modernists and we are definitely not NAMBLA supporters. As far as I am concerned the charge that Clive "displayed contempt for principled, honest and logical intellectual debate" still stands.

As far as Clive's second point in defence of the statement:

Logic without moral clarity is not logic at all.

The confusion here lies with the way Clive used the term logic. If Clive had said:

A logical system without moral clarity is not a logical system at all

I would would have objected because some logical systems contain no moral view point - for example, arithmetic.

If Clive had said:

A system of morality without moral clarity is not a system of morality at all.

I might have quibbled that it was not a useful system of morality, but it was still a system of morality.

But that's not what Clive said, he said:

Logic without moral clarity is not logic at all.

Let's clarify what I mean by logic. Logic is the set of rules of a logical system. By rules, I mean the way propositions of the system are combined to produce new propositions. I do not mean the axioms or resulting theorems themselves. In the Western tradition, the rules of logic have been known for a very long time and are not in dispute. If the logical system is a system of ethics, then the axioms and conclusions may or may not have "moral clarity" (what does that term mean, anyway?) but the rules of the ethical system themselves are value free. An implication is still an implication, even if it leads to a morally ambiguous conclusion.

I think Clive could help clarify this question greatly if he could explain exactly what he means by the terms: "logic" and "moral clarity". Until then, I believe the charge of unsound intellectualism still stands.

I completely reject Clive's third point. The position: "It is a problem, the Government should do something, but that something is not net censorship" is part of the "should not filter" case and is not a part of the "we should filter, but we can't so let's do something else" case. It simply isn't, and unless Clive accepts this point I may well get angry.

So, let's be very clear. There is a valid position in the "should not filter" case which is this.

there is a problem
the Government should do something
we should not use mandatory ISP filtering, even if we could
we do not believe people should access child pornography

This is certainly my position and it is easy to defend. If Clive really believes I need to do so, I will do so in another post. But let's be clear, this position is not in anyway equivalent to this very different (and objectionable) position:

there really is no problem
there should be no mandatory ISP filter
we believe people should be able to access child pornography with out any form of social restraint

The problem with Clive's position is that he believes that if we can do it, we should do it. That's a valid position, but it is not our position. We believe the unintended consequence of giving the Government control of a net censorship apparatus is simply too great a price to pay. I would contend that everyone involved has a price for "protecting the children" which is too high to pay - that is ours.

Perhaps Clive does not agree that this is an acceptable position to take, and Clive is free to argue that case. However, it is definitely a position in the "should not filter" group and as such by omitting it Clive was presenting a false dichotomy.

So, unless Clive admits he made a mistake and that his dichotomy was actually false, the charge of intellectual dishonesty still stands.

Finally, it should be made clear that I was using the term "barbarian" in a figurative sense. I don't really believe Clive is a barbarian. I was using the term "public intellectual" in the literal sense but Clive is free to correct me on this if he believes that is incorrect.

Yep, that was a cheap shot. Sorry.

A reply from Clive Hamilton - public intellectual.

2008-11-23T14:17:00.007+11:00

Clive Hamilton has generously agreed to let me publish his reply in full on my blog. I would like to thank him for that for several reasons. First, it gives me an opportunity to apologise for the cheap shot I made about him confusing a statement by Hackett, for one by Malone. More importantly, though, it allows the debate to continue in a public forum. I will be responding to most of the points raised here separately.

Clive's reply in full.

From: "Clive Hamilton" 
To: "'Jon Seymour'" 
Subject: RE: With public intellectuals like this, 
who needs barbarian?
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:58:23 +1100

Jon

Increasingly I find it difficult to distinguish between "left-libertarians" and right-wing libertarians. In practical terms I can see virtually no difference.

I'd make three specific points about your article and one general one.

1. I did mistakenly attribute the quote to Michael Malone when it should have been attributed to Simon Hackett. I misread the quote as being from the person who was being quoted just beforehand, thinking it was running on and missing the reference to Hackett. I should have been more careful. Yet this simple error is the basis for you to accuse me of "contempt for principled, honest and logical intellectual debate". What an extraordinary over-reaction. Why on earth could it strengthen my argument to attribute the quote to the head of one ISP rather than another?

As for the accusation that I quoted "selectively", the words selected are not out of context. The rest of the quote only reinforces the point about unthinking moral relativism.

2. On the logic and morals question, logic is not just a disembodied cognitove process, like a computer whirring away. Every logic text will ask you first to set out your premises. So an argument always depends on the assumptions underpinning it, including the moral assumptions. Tech geeks are like neoclassical economists -- they think what they say is somehow "value free". This is a delusion entertained by people who lack an explicit philosophical perspective, and therefore remain captive to an implicit one. My replies to my critics have been an attempt to get them to be clear about their ethical positions. Because most are unaccustomed to thinking about morality and the role of the social they have great difficulty doing this.

3. On the accusation that I have attempted to constrain the debate in way that suits my argument, I only point out that your "one other choice" is precisely that one I offered second in my list of three.

I wonder whether you ever reflect one why you become so enraged about proposals to regulate the internet? Look at the words you have used to attack me -- "desperate", "wild claim", "contempt for principled, honest and logical intellectual debate", "intellectually dishonest", "an intellectual disgrace of the highest order, "intellectually shoddy", "dishonest and disgraceful", "should be ashamed of himself", "barbarian".

Really, Jon, one has to ask what on earth is going on with net liberatarians such as yourself.

Clive

With A Public Intellectual Like This, Who Needs Barbarians?

2008-11-22T20:22:00.003+11:00

Mike Meloni kindly invited me to write something for Somebody Think Of The Children. We agreed that I could publish it here also - thanks Mike!

In a year or two from now Australians may wake up to find themselves living in a country unique amongst Western democracies - a country that has imposed mandatory filtering on all residential ISP feeds. It is unlikely that most will notice anything unusual about that particular day - any reports of unusually slow Internet connections will be written off as the ravings of a paranoid minority for that is surely what they will be. After all, a single sample on a single day does not a trend make.

That morning may see protests, possibly on the streets. For a brief while the dissent will capture the attention of the media and editorials will be written cautioning the Government that they would do well to treat their newly enacted powers wisely. A few days later, the controversy will die down as the Ritalin-deprived eye of the media wanders onto the next most appealing outrage. Dissent will have been silenced, temporarily.

Several years later, as some wonder why they aren't getting better than 12Mbps out of their now much larger National Broadband Network pipes, others may wonder why the war on child pornography hasn't been won yet. As the calls are raised again for yet more effective filtering of pernicious Internet porn, some may also notice the similarity in the arguments being put forth to argue that anorexia sites should be added to the ACMA blacklist - "it's for the children, after all". This despite the previous assurances that this would not happen. Bloggers in forums such as this will still be bitterly reminding those that read them: "We told you so".

When this situation comes to pass, who should Australians thank for the state they have found themselves in? Perhaps it will be current Minister for Communications, Broadband and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy?

No.

The person that all right-thinking Australians will thank is the founding (and now former) executive director of a left-wing Australian think tank - The Australia Institute - Professor Clive Hamilton. As recently as this week, Hamilton unashamedly claimed moral rights to the architecture of the policy when, during a talk-back program on ABC Radio National, he stated: "We were the first to advocate exactly this sort of system back in 2003". And it is undoubtedly true: the blueprint that the Government has adopted for its mandatory ISP filtering proposal is virtually unchanged from the model set forth in Flood and Hamilton's Australia Institute discussion paper "Regulating Youth Access to Pornography". Senator Conroy may currently be the proposal's leading proponent but he is hardly the intellectual force behind the endeavour. That honour surely, and deservedly, goes to Flood and Hamilton.

One would like to believe that the course of time and rational argument would have disposed of Flood and Hamilton's proposal as a temporary aberration in the output of otherwise respected public intellectuals, particularly ones with such fine progressive credentials. Alas, although the arguments were superbly debunked by Irene Graham in 2003, this is not the case. Not only has this lunacy become official Government policy, at least one of its principal authors still proudly proclaims his ownership of it.

That being the case, one would have expected that in the intervening years Hamilton would have refined his arguments. If anything, his rhetoric is looking more desperate. Take this quote from a recent post on Crikey.

The individuals who live in cyberland often display a contempt for social rules and moral norms that would put post-modern academics to shame. Attacking Labor’s filtering plans, the CEO of iiNet, Michael Malone, declared: “We live in a world of multiple sets of morality, all of them equally valid”.

To substantiate his claim that "individuals who live in cyberland often display a contempt for social rules and moral norms that would put post-modern academics to shame" Hamilton uses a quote allegedly from Michael Malone. Since the source wasn't quoted, one can't be certain what it was, but it seems likely it was this article. In fairness to Michael Malone, here is a more complete quote from the article.

"If the Federal Government says we are going to stop certain sorts of objectionable content, what on earth is the definition of bad here?" asks Hackett. "Is it the Federal Government's definition of bad? Is this going to be a white Anglo-Saxon protestant filtering system? Is it going to be a Muslim filtering system? Is it going to be one that doesn't like Scientology? The problem is we live in a world with multiple sets of morality, all of them equally valid."

"For some parents, they may consider information about homosexuality to be a real problem," says Malone. "But for some other parents they might consider that to be entirely appropriate. Nudity in art may be appropriate for one set of parents, not for another. Those things are household decisions."

So, here we have Hamilton selectively quoting Simon Hackett, attributing that quote to Michael Malone and then implying by omission that this quote displays "a contempt for social rules and moral norms that would put post-modern academics to shame". I challenge anyone to explain how Hackett and Malone's statements substantiate Hamilton's wild claim. The only contempt on display here is Hamilton's own contempt for principled, honest and logical intellectual debate.

All moral standards are equally valid. Electronic Frontiers Australia, which represents the most extreme strand of internet libertarianism, has argued that filtering will impose one set of sexual standards on others who don’t share them and this makes all net censorship invalid.

Logic without moral clarity is no logic at all. If EFA truly believed this then it would support abolition of all restrictions on films, television, books and magazines. Every perverse and sick practice that could find a market would be available, including child pornography.

Hamilton's statement about logic's correctness being dependent on its moral clarity is astonishing for someone who has just accused others of moral relativism. How can logic have moral clarity? Logic is value free. It is precisely this quality of logic that enables logic to be used to rationally debate the different merits of alternative moral systems. This is why ethics is a discipline of philosophy and not a branch of applied religion. One would think, at the very least, that a professor of ethics would understand this vital distinction between logic and morality.

Hamilton's article drew a lot of criticism to its comments page. In response to these criticisms, Hamilton wrote:

As I see it, there are only three types of position to take on mandatory filtering.

We should not do it (end of story, as practicalities are irrelevant)
We should do it but we can't (because filters don't work well enough, so we have to put up with the problem or seek other methods).
We should do it and we can do it (so let's go ahead).

If you believe we should not do it (i.e. your position is 1) there are two types of reasons for it:

It's not a problem
It is a problem but it's not government's job to intervene to tackle it.

In the above quote we have a public intellectual attempting to frame the debate in terms favourable to his argument by presenting a false dichotomy. There is, of course, at least one other choice: it is a problem, the Government should do something about it, but that something should not be mandatory ISP filtering. However, Hamilton appears so stuck in the intellectual hole he has dug himself that he can't even admit the possibility that there are other solutions to the problem that do not involve mandatory ISP filtering. He also appears convinced that the problem is a technical one (the existence of an uncensored Internet) and thus requires a technical fix (eliminate the uncensored Internet).

Let's illustrate the flaw in Hamilton's arguments by drawing an analogy between the Internet and church choirs:

Internet	Church choirs
The uncensored Internet allows unrestricted access to websites containing illegal pornography.	Church choirs provide pedophilic priests with access to young boys.
Eliminate the uncensored Internet.	Eliminate all church choirs.

While it is undoubtedly true that church choirs do provide pedophilic priests with access to young boys, the problem isn't the church choirs, it is the pedophilic priests and that is what needs to be fixed - not the existence of church choirs.

The analogy with the Internet is clear: the problem is not the uncensored Internet, it is with the websites that contain illegal pornography, the illegal pornography itself and the effects on the the people who consume it. And similarly, the fix needs to be directed at the problem, not the medium.

Imposing mandatory ISP filtering does nothing about the illegal websites, it does nothing to restrict access to those sites by people who want it, and it does nothing about the effects on those people. It is the wrong fix for the wrongly identified problem.

One can agree with everything Hamilton has written about the risk that Internet-sourced pornography poses to children and still not agree that mandatory ISP filtering is the only way to address the problem.

While it is intellectually dishonest to present a false dichotomy, it is an intellectual disgrace of the highest order to use that false dichotomy to argue that opposition to mandatory ISP filtering implies supporting "the abolition of all restrictions on films, television, books and magazines. (Implying that) Every perverse and sick practice that could find a market would be available, including child pornography."

Clive Hamilton is one of the intellectual fathers of the mandatory ISP filtering proposal the Government is now advocating. His continued arguments in support of it are often intellectually shoddy and are at times dishonest and disgraceful. He should be ashamed of himself.

With a public intellectual like this, who needs barbarians?

Jon Seymour is a left-libertarian geek who cares for Englightnment values, both his own and those of others. He is thankful he briefly studied philosophy at university and deeply regrets the fact that Clive Hamilton did not. He blogs about this and similar issues at "Broadbanned Revolution - fight the philterphiles that be."

This article may be reproduced, unedited, in other forums. Requests for permission to publish edited reproductions of the article should be directed to the author.

The Analogy Between TV and the Internet

2008-11-22T19:20:00.003+11:00

In the relatively small pro-censorship lobby much is made of the analogy between TV and the Internet. "Society accepts censorship of TV programming", so the argument goes, "so why should it not also accept censorship of the Internet?"

And with that, they turn to their supporters in audience give them a high-five, and return to grin at their opponents. "Respond to that one, if you dare".

So let's look this analogy more carefully. If the Government were to censor TV as it intends to censor the Internet, it would do this:

Install a device in everyone's home that could turn the TV off on the whim of a faceless Government bureaucrat
Monitor TV broadcasts and, if someone decides that something worse than naughty is being aired, switch off everyone's TV set.
Leave the source TV stations and program producers unobstructed by effective law enforcement action, except for the occasional token raid.

Not only would this mechanism be incredibly wasteful, it directs the wrath of a faceless Government bureaucracy against the wrong target - the innocent family at home watching TV and leaves the source of the filth completely unscathed.

All socially acceptable censorship mechanisms have worked by censoring at the source. That's why the possession of porn is not illegal, but the sale of it can be. The deep conceptual flaw with the mandatory ISP filtering proposal is that it attempts to censor at the receiver.

History has shown that all such mechanisms are futile and inspire a great deal of resistance. The same will be true of this proposal.

Clive Hamilton's advocacy of the abdication of parental responsibility.

2008-11-20T19:01:00.011+11:00

This is a response to a recent posting by Clive Hamilton on crikey.com.au. I have edited it slightly to fix certain typos and errors of expression the original post. I also use this opportunity to expand on points I could not previously express because of space constraints on Crikey.

In the comments of his original post, Clive wrote:

> 1. The implication is that if parents want to screw up their children then that's their business alone.

The implication of your argument, Clive, is that all parents want to screw up their children.

If this wasn't an implication of your argument, there would be no reason for a mandatory ISP filter. You know that is true because you have actually written statements to this effect in other places.

If your arguments have any validity at all, and I am not granting that, then the strongest case they build is that adults with children should have their ISP feeds filtered.

Filtering everyone's feed because it conveniently absolves you of explaining to Australian parents that they are all irresponsible reprobates who can't be trusted to bring up their own children without Government help is not sufficiently good grounds to filter my internet connection or anyone else's.

BTW: in your scheme, will households with children be allowed to opt out of the optional filter? If so, on what grounds? Who gets to decide that a parent is sufficiently responsible to monitor their own children's internet use?

As for the allegedly theoretical nature of the threat of censorship. You are proposing the construction of censorship apparatus that will censor sites about anorexia as easily as it will censor porn. This is the practical outcome of your proposal. Whether it actually will censor it doesn't matter - the infrastructure will be there, ready to be switched on the next time a regressive Government takes power.

There is no benefit in filtering my Internet connection. Unlike others who apparently need to do it for their job, I have no reason to view child porn, online or offline. The imposition of a mandatory ISP filter on my connection provides zero practical benefit to me, or to anyone's kids.

> It's not viewed as another useful mode of communication but as the source of ultimate freedom. Home alone in front of my computer I can travel where I like and evade my responsibilities to society.

As to your argument that we seek to evade responsibility, that is rubbish. The only person in this debate advocating abdication or evasion of responsibility is you, Clive.

Our argument is that adults are absolutely responsible for their own Internet use and should not be relieved of this responsibilty. Similarly parents should be responsible for the Internet use of their children and, unless they are incapable of it, should not abdicate that responsibilty.

You have consistently argued busy parents must be relieved of this responsibility and that adults without children must bear the consequences of this abdication.

To characterise our position as an evasion of responsibility is absurd, considering your own position.

The analogy of rape and access to child pornography

2008-11-08T00:27:00.021+11:00

In a comment on the "GetUp!" blog I accidentally pasted the text of an earlier post on this blog (in addition to the copy I intended to paste).

In response to this comment I was challenged about the validity of the analogy I drew between access to child pornography and rape

Jon, you wrote:

'We don't force drunk men in the presence of scantily clad women to be chained to a pole because rape is illegal. We prosecute actual transgressions of the law.'

I want to point out that being in the presence of scantily clad women does not cause men to choose to rape, or have any influence over a choice to rape. Rape is about power. That analogy is inappropriate in a number of ways.

Firstly, any viewing of child pornography is harmful- it results in the creation of more child pornography.

Secondly, relating sexiness to rape does men and women (and sex!) a disservice.

Thirdly, it would be a good thing if child pornography could be blocked by technical means, as this would remove a market for something that is infinitely cruel and harmful.

It is very clear that this will not be achieved by filtering the internet and the governments idea is incredibly stupid and unhelpful.

However analogies like the above are not helpful either.

I responded with another comment in which I laid out the analogy explicitly.

freedom to enjoy sexiness	<->	freedom to enjoy uncensored access to the Internet
rape	<->	access to child pornography
physically restrain all men to prevent some men raping sexy or vulnerable women "because" they are there	<->	censor the Internet for everyone, to prevent some accessing child pornography "because" it is there
most men don't rape	<->	most internet surfers don't view child pornography
freedom to enjoy sexiness does not license rape	<->	freedom to enjoy uncensored access to the Internet does not license access to online child pornography
prosecute actual occurrences of rape	<->	prosecute actual access to child pornography
treat all men as rapists who cannot be trusted to not rape	<->	treat all Internet surfers as pedophiles who cannot be trusted to not view child pornography

This post discusses these points more discursively.

> I want to point out that being in the presence of scantily clad women does not cause men to choose to rape, or have any influence over a choice to rape. Rape is about power....

Agreed. Likewise, in my analogy, freedom to access the uncensored Internet does not cause people to view child pornography. The freedom to use an uncensored Internet does not license access to child pornography any more than the freedom to enjoy scantily clad women licenses rape.

> Firstly, any viewing of child pornography is harmful- it results in the creation of more child pornography.

I never claimed that access to child pornography is harmless. Indeed, in my analogy, accessing child pornography is equivalent to rape. Access to child pornography is harmful. Rape is harmful.

> Secondly, relating sexiness to rape does men and women (and sex!) a disservice.

There is a (perverted) relationship between sexiness and rape. Likewise there is a (perverted) relationship between freedom to access an uncensored Internet and online access to child pornography.

But, again, one does not license the other. There is no license to rape in the existence of the freedom to enjoy sexiness just as their is no license to view child pornography implicit in the freedom to access to an uncensored Internet.

Freedom to enjoy sexiness is good. Freedom to access to an uncensored Internet is good. Neither rape nor access to child pornography is justified under any circumstance.

We don't presume that all men are rapists even though some are. We therefore do not pre-emptively deny all men their liberty (by chaining them to poles) even though there is a risk that some of them will rape in the presence of the temptation of sexy or vulnerable women. Likewise we should not impinge upon the liberties of all people by creating a censored Internet because some people may abuse that freedom to view child pornography.

An unconstrained man is no more free to rape a vulnerable woman than an unconstrained net surfer is to view child pornography. The lack of a restraint is not license to offend, nor should it be, in real life or online.

With my analogy I was also trying to highlight the fact that in real life we deny liberty to sanction actual abuses of the law, not potential abuses.

Let's be clear, viewing child pornography is a crime. Rape is a crime. Neither is justified under any circumstances. However, we don't chain men up because rape is possible. We chain men up if they rape.

The same should be true with the Internet and child pornography. Prosecute actual use of the stuff. Don't interfere with everyone else's access to the Internet because some people might abuse that freedom to view child porn.

> Thirdly, it would be a good thing if child pornography could be blocked by technical means, as this would remove a market for something that is infinitely cruel and harmful. It is very clear that this will not be achieved by filtering the internet and the governments idea is incredibly stupid and unhelpful. However analogies like the above are not helpful either.

If there was a drug that rendered all men incapable of rape, would it be a good thing if we forced all men to consume it? Surely it is better that we respect men who, by choice, do not rape and punish those that do.

Denying the freedom to act responsibly is denying freedom itself.

Treat the criminals as criminals, leave the rest of us alone

2008-11-06T23:59:00.004+11:00

What's wrong with the proposition that convicted sex offenders are forced to consume a strictly filtered feed provided by, say, the NSW education department? Any attempt to use a non-filtered feed would be a criminal offence with appropriate penalties.

This would constrain the deprivation of liberty to convicted sex offenders, would make good use of existing, 99% effective - if draconian - filtering infrastructure and would achieve the stated objective of denying the evildoers access to illegal material.

The NSW education department's highly effective filtering infrastructure already exists. The incremental cost of adding convicted sex offenders to its client base would be minimal.

Some might think that such totalitarian control over the Internet consumption of convicted sex offenders is a bit harsh for a Western democracy. Perhaps it is, but if so aren't the Government's plans to impinge on the liberties of innocent Australians who have committed no crime an even greater affront to civil liberties?

As it stands, the Government's current proposal treats the entire Australian population as a band of pedophiles who are so morally irresponsible that they cannot be trusted to stay away from illegal material on their own accord or even with threat of legal sanction. The Government apparently believes that Australians must be physically restrained from consuming illegal material - this can be the only justification for not relying on moral and legal sanctions.

Just how depraved does the Australian Government think we are?

How does the Government think it can maintain such a low opinion of us and stay in office?

A summary of recent articles about the filtering proposal

2008-11-02T12:38:00.003+11:00

This Wiki on Overclockers provides a good summary of recent articles about the abomination which is Conroy's filtering proposal.

The fundamental objection

2008-10-29T23:55:00.007+11:00

Stephen Conroy has stated: "Currently, some material is banned and we are simply seeking to use technology to ensure those bans are working."

I object to the principle that because something is illegal, it must be blocked by technical means. We don't force drunk men in the presence of scantily clad women to be chained to a pole because rape is illegal. We prosecute actual transgressions of the law.

The idea that the Australian public is so perverted that, unless it is physically prevented from doing so, it will become a habitual consumer of child pornography is deeply offensive to me. The Australian Labor Party may have individuals of this type, but I refuse to have this standard applied to me as should other normal Australians.

Google Blocks Site Containing Disparaging Joke About Kevin Rudd *

2008-10-19T03:20:00.020+11:00

Googlers will be amused to note that in response to a search like ***:

"Kevin Rudd" site:org

Google will display this message:

In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 2 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org.

Upon visiting the link, one finds a letter which indicates that the result has been removed because it contains child pornography.

Intrigued by this, I started to wonder what other terms were blocked and I found that the following queries were also blocked:

"Julia Gillard" site:org
"Stephen Conroy" site:org
"Australian Politics" site:org
"Australian Politics" October 2008 site:org
"John Howard" site:org

but not:

"John Faulkner" site:org
"Malcom Turnbull" site:org
"Australian Politics" August 2008 site:org

I found that this search:

site:org "Australian Politics" "illegal" "rudd" "October" "2008" "terrorist" "July" "Gillard"

yields 7 hits and one block. I then wondered if I could work out what text was on the blocked page by trying various phrases that invoked the filter. Including:

"Kevin Rudd is a" site:org

This yielded several results and a block, so I substituted in text from a non-blocked site. Eventually, I found that this:

"Kevin Rudd is a bureaucratic" site:org

produces exactly one hit and one block. Here is the full text of the non-blocked result:

A platoon of Aussie soldiers were patrolling north of Fallujah when they came upon an Iraqi terrorist, badly injured and unconscious. On the opposite side of the road was an Australian soldier in a similar but less serious state.

The soldier was conscious and alert and as first aid was given to both men, the Platoon Leader asked the injured Australian what had happened. The soldier reported, 'I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway here, and coming south was a heavily armed insurgent.' We saw each other and both took cover in the ditches along the road. I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable, lowlife scum bag who got what he deserved. He yelled back that Kevin Rudd is a bureaucratic, good-for-nothing, right wing labor dickhead who knows bugger all about running the country.'

'So I said that Osama Bin Ladin dresses like a frigid, mean-spirited lesbian and acts like one too!' He retaliated by yelling, 'Oh yeah? Well, so does Julia Gillard!'

'And so there we were, in the middle of the road, laughing and chatting away when a truck hit us.'

Searching for any phrase from that joke, causes Google to report a blocked result. Add the criteria: +conroy like so:

"Saddam Hussein was a miserable, lowlife scum" +conroy site:org

and Google reports that all results for this query are blocked.

The conclusion, therefore, is that Google's filter is blocking a site that contains a disparaging joke about Kevin Rudd and some reference to Stephen Conroy.

* Of course, the presence of a disparaging joke about Kevin Rudd is almost certainly not the reason Google is blocking the site, but the fact remains the site contains a disparaging joke about Kevin Rudd and it is being censored. Not a good look for a government wishing to impose a mandatory filtering regime on the country's Internet feeds.

** to duplicate this result you need to have disabled Google's strict content filtering in the preferences page of the Google search page.

*** since writing this post, Google's search engine is behaving differently on the less specific queries listed above. However, as of 20/10, this search still causes Google to report a blocked result.

site:org "Stephen Conroy" "Australian Politics" "Kevin Rudd"

**** As of 21/10, none of the above Google searches listed above yield an indication of a blocked result.

***** Updated 16 January, 2010: See "Re: Google Blocks Site Containing Disparaging Joke About Kevin Rudd" for an update to my findings in relation to this search.

The Perverted Perspective Of Our Prime Minister

2008-06-01T16:22:00.004+10:00

In times of crisis such as these, I think that a pithy, highly replicable meme can come in handy. Here's mine, with thanks to Irene of the STOP censorship mailing list for drawing my attention to Amy Adler's insightful analysis of these questions.

I find it disturbing that when confronted with the image of a naked 12-year-old girl our Prime Minister instantly interprets the image as a paedophile would - as the depicition of an object of forbidden sexual desire. He could have chosen the interpretation the artist intended, but he chose not to. Perhaps Prime Minister Rudd's reputation as a nerdy intellectual is undeserved after all.

The futility of censorship in the Internet age

2008-01-16T02:13:00.000+11:00

It was a relief to read that at least one advocate of censorship in the current debate, Bernadette McMenamin, has been prepared to quite firmly state that her call for censorship is strictly limited to depictions of child sexual abuse and further that she seems genuinely interested in understanding the anger of the opposing camp. No doubt this maturity and openness to other points of view is symptomatic of the qualities that have seen her receive many plaudits and gongs in her career.

In the interests of mutual understanding, it is probably worth highlighting the things about which we do agree so that we can tightly focus the remaining debate on the issue of difference - the merits of a technical censorship regime.

I think it is fair to assume that everyone in this debate who is not made of straw would strongly agree with the following statements:

child sexual abuse is morally wrong and should be illegal
making, viewing or distributing depictions of child sexual abuse is morally wrong and should be illegal (legal censorship).

Where we start to differ is with this statement:

if an activity is morally wrong and/or illegal then depictions of this activity must be blocked by technical means (technical censorship), whatever the cost and no matter how futile such attempts will be

It is disagreement about this statement which is the major crux of the debate and the source of most of its heat. There are some in the anti-censorship camp that are opposed to technical censorship on philosophical grounds; there are others who are repulsed by the utter futility of any attempt to impose a technical censorship regime ; there are those who are frustrated by the ignorance of those who insist on imposing such a regime despite its inevitable futility.

For reasons of completeness, I will briefly mention one other source of heat in the debate - whether a mandatory technical censorship regime should apply to depictions of legal sexual activity between consenting adults. However, I will leave discussion of this issue to a later post. Again, it is pleasing to learn that Ms McMenamin has made clear she does not wish to participate in this aspect of the debate.

Without wishing to be patronising and in part because Ms McMenamin has demonstrated a willingness to be informed, I would like to explain one reason why any attempt to censor child pornography with an ISP-level filter is utterly futile, no matter how socially desirable such a filter would be.

It comes down to a technology called Tor that Mark Pesce recently introduced into the public debate.

Like many powerful technologies, and like the Internet itself, Tor is a technology which brings with it powerful potential for achieving a social good while at the same time presenting distressing potential for aiding and abetting a social ill.

I will focus briefly on the good Tor can bring, just to illustrate there is some. Then I will focus on the bad so as to shed some light on why ISP-level filtering will be so utterly ineffective at dealing with Internet-based distribution of illegal content.

Tor works by thoroughly disguising the ultimate origin of traffic that hits an Internet server. In this way it can be hard for an observer to prove that a given client even communicated with a server, much less determine what was communicated. This is a far stronger protection than simply hiding the contents of the connection which is what the familiar SSL-encryption provides.

If you are a whistleblower or dissident, the ability to cover your tracks like this can be quite useful. It allows you to send e-mail with a very much reduced risk that the e-mail can be traced, by technical means, back to its physical source.

Technology, however, is agnostic to its uses. The very capability that can be used to assist dissidents and whistleblowers can be used by consumers of illegal content to cover their own tracks, thereby helping them to evade detection and prosecution by law enforcement authorities, even if law enforcement authorities have tapped the server-end of the connection.

It gets worse, however. Tor has a feature called hidden services in which both the client and server remain hidden from each other yet are still be able to exchange content. In this case, law enforcement authorities that are tapping a client connection can't determine the IP address (much less the physical location of) of the server that a client is communicating with. The reason is - the client simply doesn't know and what you don't know, you can't reveal.

It is worth pointing out that Tor's hidden service feature can also be used for good. For example, by dissidents to organise resistance to a tyrannical regime. The fact that the Internet and Tor can be used for both good and bad purposes should be an unremarkable fact about Tor, the Internet and indeed technology in general. This fact has been true of every technology ever invented and it should be no surprise that this remains true for the Internet and technologies like Tor that it has spawned.

The power inherent within technologies like Tor is ultimately why ISP-level filtering is so futile. Technologies like Tor establish overlay networks which are effectively invisible to the regular internet. Even if there was such a thing as a perfect ISP-level filter that blocked every single bit of adult content on the regular Internet, illegal content flowing on a Tor overlay network would still be unimpeded because such traffic is literally indistinguishable from regular encrypted content of innocent nature.

Presumably some people reading this are thinking. Well that's simple - just block and outlaw Tor. The problem is that although you can frustrate a public Tor network you can't realistically block Tor or technologies like Tor, since Tor traffic is indistinguishable from other Internet traffic that is used to secure Internet banking, amongst other things. To defeat Tor you would have to outlaw all use of encryption and then solve the impossible problem of detecting and blocking covertly encrypted traffic.

The Internet itself was designed to route around brutish physical damage which is what makes ISP-level filtering policies technically challenging to implement. Attempts to surveil and censor the Internet have lead to the creation of technologies such as Tor and these make attempts at ISP-level filtering irrelevant, since ISP-level filters effectively can't see Tor-level traffic.

As John Gilmore said, and it really is no joke, "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it".

If proponents of a technical censorship regime do not believe it is futile, then it incumbent upon them to demonstrate with reasoned argument why this is so. If they are unable to do this they must at least explain why society should commit itself to such an expensive, counter-productive programme in full knowledge of its likely futility.

Attack of the Straw Person

2008-01-14T22:57:00.000+11:00

This is an extended response to a Deborah whose identity (and blog) you can determine if you read the rest of the blog. I quote from her recent response to an item on my blog. She found this posting via a comment of mine on her blog, a comment which she subsequently deleted for reasons she attempts to justify below.

Firstly, there is nothing revolutionary about your blog. You want to maintain the status quo on the web--what is revolutionary about that?

Touche. I think most readers would have realised that "Broadbanned Revolution" was a pun that referred to the Government's promised "Broadband Revolution". Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain it to others who don't understand that rather simple play on words.

Secondly, you obviously haven't grasped the concept of CP80 and I recommend you do your research before making such wild accusations. I suggest a thorough reading of the CP80 website.

I haven't grasped the concept of CP80, eh? I haven't read the CP80 website thoroughly, huh? What, pray, is the evidence you present for that absurd claim? I think if you actually read my post, you will find that I acknowledge that it is, in part, a consumer opt-in solution and that this is, indeed, an improvement over the current opt-out proposal of the Australian Government. You will also note that I read it with sufficient thoroughness to highlight an apparent inconsistency - a claim that the proposal will reduce the bandwidth consumed by porn-viewers. Yet, nothing in the technical description suggests that this is, in fact, so. I then suggest that this inconsistency reveals a hidden agenda on the part of the proponents. If you think this analysis is faulty, I encourage you to put forth a reasoned argument why this is so. I leave it for others to judge why you have not chosen to do so.

The CP80 initiative will create Community Ports. All porn and violence will remain on Port80 (the open port), so those of you who want your porn won't have to do anything different to what you are doing now. Because the system will be 'opt-in' you will not have to identify yourselves to any government authority.

In the quote above, you make the patently false claim that port 80 would remain an "Open" port. Read the technology section and look at the screen capture in Figure 8 and you will see that Port 80 is designated as a Community Port. I ask: which of us has read the proposal more thoroughly?

For the record, my exposure to and consumption of online porn is relatively minor. In fact, given the concern that others have demonstrated about the extent of the problem, I'd hazard a guess that it is even less than the proponents of a censorship regime. As a friend said: "What pleasure would a starving man take in a photo of the banquet? And, if one has a seat at the banquet, who needs the photo?". To state this again: my opposition is inspired not by the content that is being blocked but by the mechanism being built to do it and, at least in part, by the obnoxious self-righteousness of those who would block it.

I claim that CP80 is still a censorship proposal. Its proponents propose real legal sanctions for violating the proposed content restrictions on Community Ports. If you don't believe me, I invite you to read the proposal. Just because the domain of censorship is more restricted than all 65535 ports doesn't mean that it isn't censorship.

As I've already explained on my blog and if you did your research on the CP80 website, you would know that this proposal is just like having different channels, like you get on cable TV. No censorship, Jon, just giving internet users a real choice for the first time. Afterall, you wouldn't expect an XXX rated program on a kid's TV channel would you?

Comparing the Internet with a broadcast medium like cable TV simply demonstrates the poverty of your imagination. You insist, no doubt, that this is the only possible analogy that can be drawn. I would counter that this is, in fact, not the case. I would argue that it actually makes far more sense to draw a limited analogy with the physical world.

In the physical world, there are a variety of domains. Some of which are safe for all comers, some of which are not. Individuals can choose to visit unsafe domains or choose not to. Only infrequently in the real world do societies choose to build concrete walls around the "unsafe" domains. The Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin this way, Israel does the same with the West Bank.

CP80 is, I claim, an attempt to corral objectionable content into a porn ghetto whereupon it can be later gassed with traffic shaping. If this was not the case, why would a simple blacklist not be sufficient? Why is there a need to make unsavoury use of port 80 strictly illegal?

Perhaps you object to the extreme analogy? If so, I ask you to respond to the analysis of the quote I mentioned which suggests that the proponents of the CP80 proposal do, indeed, intend that the traffic of porn-viewers be shaped so as to reduce its impact on so-called "normal" consumers.

Consumers of the Internet today currently have the maximum possible choice. You misleadingly claim that CP80 increases choice. It either doesn't change the choice available to consumers (c.f. your statement: "those of you who want your porn won't have to do anything different to what you are doing now") or it reduces it. It certainly doesn't increase it. You and I already have the choice not to consume pornography. It is a mystery to me why you and your kind claim to be completely incapable of exercising it. Is this an unrecognised feature of the censorious personality that needs to be subjected to further scientific analysis?

In regards to your final point, the CP80 is a grassroots initiative started by a group of private citizens. So there is no hidden agenda, Jon. I am not affiliated with any religious or political groups. I am campaigning as a private citizen for the government to investigate the CP80 initiative option. There is nothing more to it than that.

I accept that you have your own reasons for supporting the proposal and that there are no doubt other grassroots supporters of it. I find it interesting that the CP80 website doesn't mention the office holders. From what I can tell, CP80 was initiated by a citizen, Ralph Yorro III, who has close links to the conservative Republican party (Orin Hatch, Mitt Romney) and its office has the same address as a corporation that has a financial interest in net filtering software. Obviously such a corporation stands to gain financially from any legislatively-imposed cleaning of port 80 by ISPs. I ask you to demonstrate that, at its core, CP80 is a grassroots initiative. Where is your evidence of this? Or are you happy to make this assertion in face of evidence that this initiative is sponsored by a corporation that has a vested interest in its adoption?

I notice that you have completely ignored my claim that initiatives such as CP80 are completely irrelevant to the Australian context. This is a serious point, which perhaps explains why you chose to ignore it. Corralling adult content off port 80 in Australia is pointless - Australia already has far stronger laws in place that require sites that host adult content must establish the age of their consumers by shielding such content with a logon prompt - whatever port it it hosted on. Therefore, casual users of the Internet cannot be exposed to pornographic material on Australian-hosted sites. In the US, similar laws to the Australian laws were struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. And, again, unless the whole world adopts the same laws, quarantining port 80 for clean content is pointless. The only viable solution for Australia is a simple opt-in solution whereby consumers delegate blacklist responsibilities to their ISP. I agree with that half of CP80. The part of CP80 I disagree with is the insistence that the Government (or anyone else) is required to censor the content of traffic flowing on port 80.

BTW, this will be my only response, I have no wish to debate this issue with you yet again. No point trying to link to my website either. I no longer approve comments from those who oppose any changes to the Internet, so this group are no longer visiting my blog and you will no longer find support there.

I'll leave others to judge how childish that statement looks. Especially in light of this comment on your blog:

I learned the hard way you can’t have a rational debate in the public domain with these people. The most effective way to deal with this small but vocal group is to deny them a forum where they can confuse others with their scare mongering about censorship.

The main reason you can't have a rational debate with these people is that you refuse to engage in one. In both my attempts to debate you on this issue you have not seriously attempted to rebut my arguments even once. You seem more interested in throwing about wild allegations of poor research than in doing research yourself. And when all that fails, you have that old chestnut to fall back on - censorship.

Your argument is based on your personal opinion. It is your right to voice your opinion, but it doesn't mean the rest of us have to read it.

You are free to maintain a community of yes-people on your blog if that strokes your ego in a particularly pleasurable way. I'd just point out that doing so somewhat undermines your pretence of being an opinion leader with something useful to say. If your arguments can't stand up next to criticisms of those arguments, how good are those arguments?

It amuses me that a proponent of censorship so willingly deploys censorship to defend her own arguments in favour of censorship from scrutiny.

We are blessed indeed that you hold no political power.

CP80: designed by Americans, for Americans

2008-01-09T22:16:00.000+11:00

CP80 is a proposal being promoted in the United States as a means of "cleaning up" the Internet. Under the proposal, it would become illegal, under US law, to host adult content on port 80 and a number of other designated "Community Ports". Individual consumers could then choose to block access to "Open Ports" and to "Community Ports" of IP addresses with non-compliant content. This blocking would be enforced at the ISP-level.

On first glance, this proposal is apparently an improvement over the current Australian Government proposal because it is an opt-in solution for individual consumers. It does, however, impose a censorship regime on the so-called "Community Ports". The proponents of CP80 indicate that parties who violate the content restrictions of "Community Ports" will be liable to prosecution.

It is clear that the intent of this proposal is to drive adult and other non-acceptable content onto other ports where it can then be more easily attacked by traffic shaping and filtering technologies. Evidence that there is a hidden agenda of this kind is clear from this quote:

No longer will non-porn viewing consumers be forced to subsidize porn-viewing consumers—because the average porn-viewing consumer uses a considerably more bandwidth than non-porn viewer.

This statement would be true, if and only if, CP80 also contained an explicitly specified proposal to filter or otherwise shape traffic generated by porn-viewing consumers. However, this is not stated explicitly, which suggests that the proponents do in fact have a hidden agenda to do this, perhaps with a later proposal. Their failure to directly mention this in their current proposal suggests they are afraid of scaring the horses with an explicit proposal to involuntarily filter or shape "Open Ports". Their self-righteous sense of moral indignation, however, has caused them to subconsciously reveal their hand.

The CP80 proposal creates a "zoning" fallacy which suggests that there is a direct correspondence between IP ports and local government zones.

This is a very shoddy analogy. In the real world, if the place next door is zoned in such a way to allow a brothel to operate, then the neighbours of that brothel have their amenity directly and seriously affected. This is not true with adult content distributed over port 80, despite the fear mongering of the pro-censorship lobby.

To be clear, just because a someone else on the Internet is using port 80 to view porn doesn't mean that you have to - your amenity is not anyway affected by what that other person does. The quality of your own Internet experience is directly determined by the regions of the Internet you choose to visit and what you choose to view. The notion that your own amenity will be substantially improved by censoring adult content on port 80 is absurd, since the net change in porn you consume will be zero.

If people want to opt-in to IP address based blacklists of their own choosing, then let them do that. Censoring forces should not expect the forces of freedom to support them in their attempt to shove their moral standards down other peoples throats which is exactly what the policy of traffic shaping is about.

And before you attack me with hysterical claims that it is pornographers who are shoving pornography down everyone else's throats, please step back and take a reality check. If pornography is currently "wheedling" it's way into your household via port 80, it is because you or someone in your household has pulled it there. Pornographic material accessed by HTTP doesn't just appear in your browser. It gets there because the user of the browser is insufficiently careful about which sites they visit. If your innocent children are exposed in this way a PC-based filter will adequately address the issue. If your children are not so innocent to be trusted with a PC-based filter, then lobby your ISP to provide you with a sufficiently totalitarian filter that provides you with the level of censorship you desire - just leave mine alone.

In the Australian context, the CP80 policy is irrelevant. Australia already regulates its own adult content providers by demanding that adult content is shielded by a logon prompt. Admittedly, this doesn't deal with material hosted overseas, but then Australia doesn't have any jurisdictional authority over material hosted there.

From a personal view, my main concern is that a proposal like CP80 would enable mechanisms by which other unsavoury content could be effectively censored by socially regressive forces in the USA. As a hypothetical example, suppose it was deemed that pictures of dead Palestinian babies shot by Israeli soldiers wasn't acceptable on Community Ports. Media organizations would be free to publish such pictures on "Open Ports", but anyone blocking these ports would not receive the images, thereby effectively censoring them from a large proportion of the "morally upstanding" community.

Is that scaremongering? Perhaps, but then the CP80 proposal is very vague about how the acceptable content rules would be determined. It is also very vague about who the ultimate proponents of the initiative are. True, many respectable corporations have put their names to the proposal but it is far from clear that these corporations are the original instigators of the proposal.

I think it is a reasonable question to ask. Who is behind CP80 and what is their agenda?

Deconstructing Stephen Conroy, peddler of filters.

2008-01-06T15:26:00.000+11:00

In this article, I analyse the recent announcement by the Australian Government to impose a mandatory filtering requirement on all Internet service providers. I show how the tactics of spin, fear and distortion are used to attack critics of the proposal and I question whether, if child pornography is the target, a policy of improved monitoring might be more effective than one of censorship.

At the moment we view this as an extra safeguard. Wer'e not suggesting for a moment that this is the only thing that the Government should be doing. We have already seen home-based filtering being championed by the previous government, we need education campaigns and we need increased policing. But, as the 16 year old who wasn't an expert computer hacker demonstrated, he could disable the home-based filters in 30 minutes. This is something that parents understand that there is parental responsibility necessary but the Rudd government was elected on a policy that we will be working with the industry to introduce mandatory ISP filtering, so that sites that involve child pornography and truly violent material can be blocked at an ISP-level.

Senator Stephen Conroy, ABC News Radio, 2007/12/31

Senator Conroy motivates the discussion for the need for mandatory ISP-level filtering by using the example of a 16-year old who could subvert PC-based filters in 30 minutes and suggests, by implication, that this is a problem that the Government needs to solve. He then states that mandatory ISP-level filtering is required to block access to "child pornography and truly violent material" as if the two problems are the same thing.

Senator Conroy's attempt to conflate, by juxtaposition, the problem of child access to adult pornography and adult access to child pornography is intellectually dishonest in the extreme. The two problems are very different and require very different solutions. Yet the Government is offering only one blunt solution - mandatory ISP-level filtering for all residential feeds by default

Senator Conroy also betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the technical capability of ISP-level filtering - any reasonable ISP-level filter could also be subverted in under 30 minutes, so introducing mandatory ISP-filters will do nothing to prevent childrens' access to adult pornography or adults' access to child pornography. Stronger filters might reasonably do a better job but only totalitarian states like Saudi Arabia and China have the power to implement these for the entire population.

The question is reasonably asked: is the Minister proposing an ineffective filter or a totalitarian one? Despite the Minister's pleading to the contrary, there is no such thing as an effective and democratic filter. The Minister must choose between freedom and effectiveness. If he is only offering an ineffective filter, then his policy is fraudulent and deserves to be exposed as such. If he is offering a totalitarian filter, then that too should be exposed.

There is some evidence that the Government wants a totalitarian one. When asked to respond to the charge that Australia was proceeding down a path similar to China and Saudi Arabia he pointedly did not deny the charge. Instead, he tried to evade the charge by calling attention to the most extreme forms of pornography he aims to filter and postured as if this is the sole target of his policy. From this posture, with spin Goebbels would be proud of, he attempted to tar anyone who criticises the policy on free speech grounds as an advocate of free access to child pornography.

Well, we make no apology for wanting to block sites that contain child pornography and truly violent material that is out there. If looking at child pornography is defined a free speech then we are going to take issue with that. We are committed to working with the industry. We are going to fund a trial to see how this can work. We've said that we will find the best possible way to work with the industry to ensure that this disrupts the world of the Internet is as minimal a way as possible. But people shouldn't confuse peddling child pornography with freedom of speech.

The Government's plans are apparently to block a far wider range of material than simply child pornography. If this were not the case, why is there an opt-out option and why did he motivate the discussion by pointing out that children can disable PC-level filters?

Whatever the targets of the Government's policy, its critics on free speech grounds are concerned about the mechanism by which the censorship will be achieved not what material will be blocked. The only person in this debate equating free access to child pornography with free speech is the Minister himself and he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

To be very clear, no-one is arguing that access to child pornography should be free and unrestricted. On the contrary, such access is, and should be, illegal. The debate is about whether a liberal democracy requires such access to be physically blocked by an all-pervasive censorship mechanism that is necessarily opaque and inherently vulnerable to abuse by this and future governments.

The Government's policy also betrays a fundamental lack of trust in the moral integrity of the entire Australian population. A Government that distrusts its citizens is necessarily one that can be justly accused of totalitarian paranoia. Although, as the saying goes, if you have a choice between cock-up and conspiracy, cock-up is usually the better explanation.

The people who peddle this sort of filth are very smart individuals. They spend their time trying to wheedle away into people's homes and push this material onto people.

With these words, the Minister attempts to incite hysteria about the danger of pornography by claiming that pornography is pushed into Australian homes by nefarious peddlers of filth. This is an appalling rhetorical fallacy. If there is pornography in Australian homes today, it is largely there because it was pulled there by willing consumers of it.

While it is true that there is a small risk of receiving an unsolicited invitation to view pornography that is pushed onto unwilling recipients by e-mail, this problem is already quite effectively dealt with by spam filters and the simple mechanism of switching off the "display images" feature of one's e-mail client. Or, rather, not switching it on in the first place. It is also a problem that won't be dealt with by filtering HTTP connections. The fact of the matter is that 99.9% of pornography that enters into Australian homes does so because it is pulled there by consumers who want to view it. Despite the Minister's claims to the contrary you don't have to be very smart to sell pornography - it sells itself. That's why there is so much of it. It is also why any effort to block access to it will be futile.

People who want to consume pornography can and will use the numerous covert channels which are already available. Children who are not intent on subverting an ISP-based filter are already more easily and better protected by existing PC-based filters, since these filters can aggressively deploy content-based analysis which can detect a far broader range of material than a URL blacklist ever will; children who are intent on subverting an ISP-based filter will easily be able do so as anyone who has a basic understanding of the technology knows.

Given the Minister's slippery use of the term "filth", perhaps I have misunderstood which "peddlers of filth" the Minister was talking about in this instance. Perhaps he was only talking about the really evil kind, the peddlers of child pornography. These people are, admittedly, quite smart. They rarely, if ever, conduct mass marketing campaigns for their perverted wares for the very simple reason that to do so would draw unwelcome attention to themselves from law enforcement authorities. So, this kind of filth is even less likely to be pushed into Australian homes. The sad fact of the matter is, if it is there at all, it was pulled there by someone who should be charged under existing legislation. However, while this may be an argument for improved monitoring and effective law-enforcement, it is emphatically not an argument for censorship. In fact, censorship may well be counter-productive since it would cause every deviant who is not already using covert channels to start using them. If this happened, the job of law enforcement would be made even harder than it is today.

If the Minister is really serious about tackling child pornography he should be advocating mechanisms that will effectively confront it. As I suggested above monitoring, not censorship, is likely to be far more effective at dealing with child pornography and censorship may actually be counter-productive. If the Minister really is concerned about protecting children from this scourge, why isn't he advocating the best possible policy for job? Why is he advocating the potentially counter-productive policy of censorship instead?

Is the Minister, in fact, a philterphile ^*?

^* philterphile(n): one whose obsessive totalitarian tendencies leads them to advocate mandatory filtering of everyone else's Internet feed.

I would like to unashamedly request that anyone who can give this analysis a wider distribution than this blog, to please do so. While there is undeniably a vain reason for wanting this, I do somewhat immodestly believe that my arguments are well-reasoned and should be placed in front of as wide an audience as possible.

An Annotated Response to Deborah Robinson

2008-01-05T15:44:00.000+11:00

In her blog posting, which I have quoted in full and annotated here, Deborah Robinson sets forth her advocacy for the Government's proposal to impose mandatory filtering responsibilities on internet service providers. This posting is my response.

On December 31st 2007, Federal Telecommunications Minister, Stephen Conroy announced the government’s plans to introduce a clean internet feed into every home and school in Australia.

Rather than relying on traditional content filtering which uses ‘keywords’ to block websites, the government has elected to create a ‘blacklist’ of websites which are inappropriate for children. This will bypass the problem of inadvertently blocking those websites which are not providing pornography but rather, discussing the issues surrounding pornography, sex and violence. But in a decision that has upset internet civil libertarians Electronic Frontiers Australia, Mr Conroy says that the clean feed will be ‘opt-out’, meaning anyone who wants access to the blacklisted websites will have to contact their Internet Service Provider and ask for unrestricted access to the web.

They could do that, but exercising the opt-out option will only be for individuals like myself who are prepared to stand-up against this proposal and face-off the accusatory stares that advocates of this proposal are so quick to adopt.

I feel that I will have to restate this many, many times:

Our opposition to this proposal is not motivated by the filth they are trying to block, it motivated by the mechanism they are building to do it.

Until you understand and accept this, all your carefully crafted rhetoric will do nothing other than slice the arms off straw men.

You also need to realise that the UK clean feed proposal only targets the most extreme kinds of material. Such a system will do nothing to filter out the vast bulk of pornography that most concerns parents. In other words, if you really are swimming in a sea of porn today, then a system akin the UK clean feed proposal will not empty that sea by one drop. To be of any use, the blacklists would have to be increased by a factor of between 100 and 1000 in size. There is no proof at all that the system would continue to operate efficiently at those volumes, nor any published analysis of how many irritating false positives would be generated.

If you want a clean feed, you have to accept drastic reductions in freedom and performance since you have to start filtering the feed much, much more aggressively than the UK clean feed system attempts to do. You may even have to be prepared to let ISPs filter all your Google searches, so that people cannot access graphic content like the following graphic example using a very simple Google search.

The simple truth of the matter is that you can't have fast and free access to the internet and a clean feed. You can have fast and free access to the internet. or a clean feed, but not both.

I do support the ’opt-out’ system because it will just brings the internet in line with every offline form of media such as; television, newspapers, books, magazines, etc. When we turn off the computer, we have the choice of whether we want ourselves and our kids exposed to pornography and violence. This choice is taken away from us when we enter cyber space. As Traci Beagley from the CP80 initiative so eloquently put it in her response to my articles posted at Australian Women Online:

“Everything from magazines to adult sex shops are regulated. It’s time to do the same with the Internet. If we choose not to enter adult sex shops, we don’t have to. With the current Internet, we have lost the choice whether or not to view pornography.”

The above statement is absurd unless you use very loose definitions of "choice", "view" and "pornography". If you are choosing to visit web-sites that present you with pornographic images and you then choose to view them, then I am afraid you have chosen poorly, but the choice was always yours.

I also support the opt-out system because it will force all other websites to clean up their act. A friend of mine who is a school teacher recalled recently how her husband, also a school teacher, found himself having to explain to the private school board why there was a link to a pornography website embedded in every email he sent out to parents. Wishing to avoid a situation where work will impinge on his private life, he chose to use a free hotmail account to send the emails and it hadn’t even occurred to him that MSN would advertise pornography via user accounts.

No, it won't. If you think an American corporation is going to change its business practices because the Australian government is filtering my internet connection, you have a strange understanding of causality. A question for you: are you proposing that ISPs aggressively filter e-mail as well? If so, you may as well forget about using e-mail to discuss anything of a gynaecological nature with your friends and associates.

In another example, in November 2007 a website owned by Australia’s largest internet service provider, Telstra had to perform some ‘emergency maintenance’ on their WotNext website after a newspaper reported the site targeted to teenagers, was allowing uploads of soft porn to the unrestricted website. Telstra, which was given a Family Friendly ISP rating by the Internet Industry Association in Australia, had allowed unrestricted access to this smut for more than 9 months before it was reported in a Sydney newspaper.

This example only shows that Telstra needs to be prosecuted under existing legislation. It does nothing to support your argument that my internet connection should be subject to Government-mandated filtering.

My strongest objection to having an ’opt-in’ clean feed is that it sets a low standard for our society. Since when did pornography become a normal activity of daily living? I know millions of people watch porn, but a majority of the world’s population do not. So why should the minority who watch porn on a regular basis be able to force their personal tastes on the rest of us? Australia is a western democracy and by definition alone, you can argue that majority rules in a democracy and therefore, the clean feed should be ‘opt-out’.

The quality of your morality is determined by what you let your children watch. The quality of my morality is determined what I choose to watch. The argument that the implementation of a technical block on pornographic material instantly improves the populations' moral quality is utterly false. If anything, by treating responsible adults as children, it relieves adults of the responsibility to make their own considered ethical and moral decisions about how they conduct their own lives. As Peter Chen wrote in the Age:

"The underlying belief that computers can perfect our morality smacks of a strange mixture of technological ignorance and faith."

Australia is also market economy. If, as you claim, a majority of Australians want a clean internet feed, then surely by now someone would have floated an ISP that provided exactly that. As far as I am concerned, the fact that this has not happened thoroughly debunks your claim that there is huge demand for it.

Remember: you can have a "clean" internet feed right now - purchase a PC-based filter. If you have not done that already, one has to ask how much value you place on this. And if you think a blacklist-based ISP-level filter is going to be significantly more effective at providing you with a "clean" feed than a PC-based filter you are seriously misinformed about the capabilities of both technologies.

If you believe a PC-based filter is inadequate because there are members of your household that actively subvert it then, yes, you have demonstrated why you need a ISP-level filter. However, this does nothing to demonstrate why I must have one too.

The reality is we can no longer trust the internet industry to monitor and regulate itself. With the rise of raunch culture in our society and the advertising industry’s mantra of ‘sex sells’ governments around the world have to step in and regulate the internet. The internet industry may be up in arms about the clean feed solution proposed by the Australian government now, but they only have themselves to blame. For far too long the world wide web has operated in a culture of ‘anything goes on the internet’ and I applaud the Australian Labor Party for having the guts to tackle the issue head on.

Who is saying we should let the industry regulate itself? For your information, the Government already regulates the Internet industry. It has an authority called ACMA which does it. Are you aware that existing legislation already makes it illegal to view, store or distribute child pornography?

Since I came out in support of the clean feed proposed by the government, my website Australian Women Online has been inundated with comments from individuals who strongly oppose this attempt to clean up the internet. Most of this opposition is coming from within the blogosphere, a large group of people who are fundamentally opposed to any limits being placed on the internet. Most of these people are angry and a few have attacked me personally on the web just because I support ISP filtering of pornography. Many of those who have spoken out against the clean feed being introduced in Australia believe ISP filtering is about limiting freedom of speech. They are looking for a hidden agenda, but ISP filtering of pornography is about restricting access to pornography online and nothing more.

Whenever there is a choice between cock-up and conspiracy, choose cock-up. I personally think that this is an Alston-class cock-up by an immature Government which is profoundly ignorant of the capabilities of the technology it seeks to promote.

What these individuals fail to realise is that the decision will be decided offline by men and women who are not part of their cyber culture. As difficult as it is to fathom for those who spend hours each day on the web, the vast majority of the world’s population do not spend a significant part of their day online and horror of all horrors, there are millions of people on this planet who have never used the internet. If those who oppose the clean feed want to achieve anything in regards to this issue, they will have to turn off their computers, step outside and meet the ‘real world’. But they won’t, will they?

Personally, I don't think that "the millions of people on the planet who have never used the internet" much care about whether you censor my internet feed. Not surprisingly to most readers, I hope, this issue is primarily of concern to those people such as yourself and myself who do use the internet. Admittedly, your attempted slander is a little bit more delicate that Stephen Conroy's - you are only accusing us of being geeks, not paedophiles - but it is still slander. If this is really the strongest way to conclude your advocacy, I have to say, it's going to be a walk-over. On the streets. Outside.

Jon Seymour

PS: would this post be blocked under the Broadbanned Revolution? It does, after all, use the word cock-up three, no four, times.

A proposal that might just work...

2008-01-05T00:37:00.000+11:00

Not wishing to be entirely negative and having considered the technical difficulties of the Minister's current proposal, I have drafted an alternative policy that might just work. I have e-mailed the Minister the details of the proposal. To save time, I also spent a moment to create a draft of the press release. The text of that press release follows here:

Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy announced Mark II of the Government's plan to rid the Internet of filth. The Minister said:

"After detailed consultation with the industry, the Government has refined its previous proposal to rid Australian homes of child pornography. The improved proposal will impose minimal administrative overheads on ISPs themselves and is guaranteed to have no performance impact. In fact, I have been advised by my department that this proposal may in fact speed the world of the Internet up - at no additional cost to the ISP subscriber or the tax payer

"Henceforth, each ISP will publish the IP address, URL and ACMA-rating of each site a subscriber visits - together with the subscribers name, e-mail address and phone number - in full public view on the web. This will be a mandatory policy. Subscribers may opt-out, but in this case the IP address and URL they actually visited will be substituted with an IP address and URL picked at random from the list of ACMA-restricted sites.

"The Government believes by making everyone's browsing patterns available for everyone to peruse, a sense of shame and community pressure can be used to do the rest. In fact, I confidently predict that within 2 weeks of the policy becoming operational, there will be no pornography, especially child pornography, available in Australian homes.

"In today's busy world, with both parents working, parents simply don't have the time to look over their childrens' shoulders as they browse the Internet. With the Governments proposal, they won't need to - Nanna and Grandpa can do it instead, even if they live in Coffs. If they are not available, the secretary of the local morals committee will always be able to find a spare moment in the evening to check that peddlers of filth are not weedling their way into your home. The ALP promised a broadband revolution and, as this policy shows, we intend to deliver one.

"I know that some people might object that publishing everyone's browsing habits on the web is a violation of privacy. To these people I say - if people equate a right to privacy with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."

ps: since the Minister hasn't quite got that e-mail thingamajiggy working quite right yet, please assist by distributing far and wide...

An alternative policy (v0.2): Filtered Network Providers (FNPs)

2008-01-03T23:01:00.001+11:00

Since it appears that the only way this absurd public policy is going to be abandoned is to propose a better one, I guess I better write down (off the top of my head) a better one. I may edit this post over the next few days as I refine it. Any significant edits will be noted.

First, let's document what I understand the Minister's objectives to be:

to assist parents in their struggle to block their children's access to web-based pornography
to prevent adults with deviant sexual behaviour from accessing the most extreme forms of pornography and violence, including, but not limited to child pornography
to do so without appearing to have totalitarian intentions
to do so effectively.

I simply don't believe there is any value specifically blocking children's access to child pornography since there isn't a scintilla of evidence that Australian children desire, seek or encounter such stuff. However, if the Minister would like to prove me wrong on this, then he is welcome to point me in the direction of the studies that show it.

There is currently no evidence that the Minister cares about points 3 and 4 but perhaps this campaign will bring him round. He also appears to want to technically block responsible adults' access to child pornography. Why this is necessary is beyond me - after all, that's why we call them responsible, um, adults. Perhaps the Minister doesn't believe there are many responsible adults in the Australian electorate.

We need a policy that recognizes there are 3 classes of subscriber: parents with children who are concerned about the material their children might be confronted by, convicted sex offenders and all other adults.

The grotesque flaw with the Government's proposal is that it doesn't make a clear distinction between convicted sex offenders and all other adults. As far as the Government is concerned all other adults are potential sex offenders who should be treated as if they were convicted sex offenders.

Why they think this is good politics is beyond me. But that's for another post. The goal here is to recognize that there are 3 classes of subscriber and to propose a solution that recognizes this reality.

Let's consider the requirements of each group in turn.

parents with children: The primary concern of this type of subscriber is to minimize exposure to pornography of all kinds and to violence. To achieve this, the subscriber (if not all the users of the connection) is willing to be censored and is willing to trade some performance for "cleanliness"
convicted sex offenders: Having previously transgressed social and legal boundaries, society has asserted its right to restrict this class of subscriber's freedoms in various ways.
all other adults: This class of subscribers has committed no offence against the law and, in a democracy, is entitled to be treated with respect. In this class there are users who are opposed to censorship on principled grounds and those who are opposed to it only if it becomes personally oppressive. Inevitably, this group, as does any sufficiently large group, will contain sex offenders who have not yet been charged or convicted of a crime.

The Proposal

One or more commercial organizations set up one or more filtered networks. These organizations would be known as filtered network providers - FNPs. ISPs may also be FNPs or FNPs may be standalone entities that offer services to a number of ISPs

ISPs may offer subscribers who opt-in, tunnels into a filtered network of the subscribers choice. All IP traffic originating from the subscribers end-point is unconditionally and transparently tunnelled into the filtered network. This is the end of the ISPs responsibility, with respect to filtering.

The filtered network is firewalled off from the Internet in much the same way as a corporate network is. All inbound access is blocked. Outbound access it limited to a restricted set of protocols and may require proxy authentication. All access to and from the network is (or can be) logged.

Convicted sex offenders would be required to have their ISP connections tunneled into a special filtered network as directed by order of the judicial system. Supervisional authorities would be entitled to review any access logs to ensure that offenders were complying with their parole conditions.

ISPs will not be required to block access to ACMA restricted sites but will be required to log such access in a way that can be correlated with a subscriber if later required by warrant of a court. ISPs would be required to report a summary of such access to authorities on a regular basis and these reports might be used by investigating authorities to motivate an investigation.

Unfiltered subscribers who a court determines are guilty of ACMA violations may be subject to control orders which require that their ISP enforces unconditional tunneling to a filtered network

All other internet users would continue to have unobstructed access to the internet that they currently enjoy. As importantly, they will retain the dignity and respect of their Government that citizens of a democracy are entitled to expect.

Discussion

ISPs responsibilities with respect to filtering are reduced to setting up tunnels to filtered networks for individual subscribers and logging and reporting on access to ACMA-restricted sites. ISPs may compete on the flexibility that subscribers have in choosing and configuring their FNP. FNPs would compete on performance, transparency of their filtering policies, effectiveness of their filtering, range of protocols offered and so on.

In the interests of transparency, the filtering policies of each FNP should be public and subject to review by a board of respected citizens.

Since the subscribers of FNPs are requesting control of their network connections the filtering can be much more aggressive than is appropriate for the general network. As such, while it won't be bullet proof, it can be far more effective than otherwise. FNPs can more effectively attempt to block covert channels and can lock down the protocols that pass the firewall to a restricted number (e.g. HTTP and HTTPS, but not SSL).

Performance of subscribers using a filtered network is necessarily reduced w.r.t. raw network performance but this is a trade-off that presumably parents are willing to make. Parents either want an effective and secure porn-filter or they don't. Parents would be free to choose the FNP that offers the best performance/effectiveness trade-off. They would also be free to choose an unfiltered network connection.

FNPs could offer parents summaries of the internet activity of their children so that parents could review it and counsel their children if required. Such summaries might flag attempts to use covert channels.

Unlike the Government's proposal, this proposal doesn't create an all-pervasive censorship platform that can be re-purposed at will, thereby reducing fears that the Government has totalitarian tendencies. However, it still presents some risks. If ISPs have, by normal operational means, the ability to transparently tunnel individual subscribers to filtered networks of their choice then it is possible that this capability could be abused unless there are suitable safeguards in place to prevent this abuse.

Government authorities will only be entitled to inspect records relating to individual subscribers of unfiltered networks under strict court supervision. The Government will only be allowed to censor the access of citizens found guilty of violating a law. All other citizens will remain unmolested by censorship.

The fact access to ACMA-restricted sites is not blocked is actually an advantage if the goal of Government policy is actually to detect, investigate and prosecute sex offenders. A pattern of continual access to ACMA-restricted sites is far more convincing evidence of guilt than a single attempt that is blocked. The existing policy drives all sex offenders to use untraceable covert channels that are more difficult to trace and investigate simply because that will be the only way to get access to their filth. At least this way, it will be easier to catch the less sophisticated consumer of ACMA-restricted material. Of course, the more effective it is in catching criminals the less effective it will become since self-preservation instincts will force remaining offenders to exclusively use covert channels which cannot easily be traced.

The ISP industry will have to comment on whether it is technically viable to transparently tunnel subscribers to a foreign network on an end-point by end-point basis. It would not surprise me if this was as expensive as the Government's proposal, however, at least the ISPs would be relieved of the filtering responsibility; there responsibility would end once they have setup the tunnel.

This policy, in order to be effective, would imply the use of content-analysis style filtering. This will require lots of server hardware to provide the CPU-grunt necessary (disclaimer: I work for a hardware manufacturer).

Due to the amount of hardware required, it's hard to see how FNPs would be financially viable. This is especially true since existing PC-based filters are already just as effective as FNPs, in absence of an undisciplined child who attempts to subvert them. This presumably makes the market for FNPs reasonably small. It is also unclear how much parents would be prepared to pay for rights to use an FNP or how deeply committed the Government would be in subsidising it.

Existing ISPs would still likely resist this proposal for very good reasons: the tunneling requirement would still be expensive for them to implement and they would cop damage to their reputations as service providers if their subscribers blamed them for performance or access issues caused by the downstream FNP. As such, it is likely that FNPs would have to own the customer relationship effectively becoming, in some sense, ISPs themselves.

Concluding Notes

Even though I drafted this policy, I continue to have deep reservations about it.

Although I believe it does not hold as much potential for totalitarian abuse as the Government's proposal, it is still a step in this direction. If this policy was ever subjected to formal development one could see that it might get perverted by changes made in the name of technical or financial viability and these changes might produce a bastard child that was as dangerous as the Government's present proposal. To paraphrase the Minister's comments about a different threat - constant vigilance is required to protect us from those dark and perverted forces who threaten our liberties.

Every adult who has been prevented from getting something done by the brain-dead policies of the corporate firewall administrator knows how frustrating that is. At least, with free access to uncensored residential internet connections, we know what freedom means. Proposals such as this deny this freedom to an entire generation of Australian children; these children will grow up expecting to be filtered, monitored, controlled and censored. Is this what we really want to teach them? Much better, I think, to teach them that freedom brings with it both dangers and responsibilities.

It is also massive overkill - the only problem it solves which isn't solved by existing PC-based filters is the problem that PC-based filters are relatively easily subverted by children. Do we really need a solution any more complicated than a little bit of old-fashioned parental discipline? If parents don't have the respect of their children, the battle is surely already lost.

Finally, I'll close with this quote from Peter Chen's recent article in the Age:

The underlying belief that computers can perfect or protect our morality smacks of a strange mixture of technological ignorance and faith.

Revision History

0.2 (04 Jan 2008): Rewritten policy. Clearly identifies filtered network provider as a separate concept and delineates the responsibilities between ISP and FNPs. Makes explicit the role of courts in imposing controls on and permitting surveillance of subscribers. Added note about lack of pervasive censorship platform. Added note about financial viability. Added notes about technical viability. Expanded concluding notes. Added note about likely resistance from ISPs.
0.1 (03 Jan 2008): Added the idea of signing a declaration of responsibility in lieu of requesting a filter.
0.0 (03 Jan 2008): Initial revision of policy

Transcript of Conroy Interview 2007/12/31

2008-01-03T11:59:00.001+11:00

The following is a partial transcript of this ABC audio file. This file contains an interview with the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy. The interviewer is John Barron of ABC NewsRadio. The interview was conducted on Monday, December 31, 2007. If you spot an error or omission in this transcript, please post a comment.

John Barron (00:00): Now this is something that's been talked about over the years - blacklist filtering at the ISP-level. Why do you think it will work?

Senator Stephen Conroy (00:07): At the moment we view this as an extra safeguard. Wer'e not suggesting for a moment that this is the only thing that the Government should be doing. We have already seen home-based filtering being championed by the previous government, we need education campaigns and we need increased policing. But, as the 16 year old who wasn't an expert computer hacker, demonstrated he could disable the home-based filters in 30 minutes. This is something that parents understand that there is parental responsibility necessary but the Rudd government was elected on a policy that we will be working with the industry to introduce mandatory ISP filtering, so that sites that involve child pornography and truly violent material can be blocked at an ISP-level.

Barron (01:08): How would that work? What would the technology be? Do you need to know the web address of all of these nasty sites and to keep updating the list as new ones emerge - otherwise they will get through?

Conroy (01:17): ACMA will have responsibility. They are the content regulator they will have responsibility for updating and maintaining this list. It will be coordinating with international agencies and other bodies that actually already have similar style lists and this information will be provided to the ISPs. But as I said the people who peddle this kind of filth are very smart individuals and they are always seeking to change their names and addresses so this is something we need constant vigilence on.

Barron (01:53): What do you say Minister to those that say that as soon as you give a government authority the power to tell internet service providers "you gotta block these websites", well that is one step towards the kind of internet you have in Saudi Arabia and China. Freedom of speech is dead.

Conroy (02:10): Well, we make no apology for wanting to block sites that contain child pornography and truly violent material that is out there. If looking at child pornography is defined a free speech then we are going to take issue with that. We are committed to working with the industry. We are going to fund a trial to see how this can work. We've said that we will find the best possible way to work with the industry to ensure that this disrupts the world of the internet is as minimal a way as possible. But people shouldn't confuse peddling child pornography with freedom of speech.

Barron (02:52): In past years Stephen Conroy the then Howard Government was accused of pandering to conservative Senator Brian Harradine. Is this you just doing the same to secure Steve Fieldings vote now.

Conroy (03:06): Well this is a policy we've been championing for the last two years. We went to the election campaigning on this policy. There are a whole variety of other areas in terms of cyber-safety that Kevin Rudd campaigned on during the election campaign and this is a policy we were elected to implement.

Barron (03:27): Is there a danger at the ISP-level and the PC-level that parents who ultimately would have to be greatest filter for what their children do and do not see on the Internet will just sort of - a bit like a pool fence - will think that's taken care of I don't have to worry about it.

Conroy (03:44): Well that's why we've got to ensure that we have educational programs for both parents and children. As I have said, this is not in anyway to replace parental supervision and parental education. We hope to promote and continue to promote these education aspects and we want to work with the industry on the best way to do that.

So, we are not for the moment suggesting that parents should step back and simply now say: "Right, that's fixed it", because this isn't the case. The people who peddle this sort of filth are very smart individuals. They spend their time trying to weedle away into people's homes and push this material onto people. So, we are very supportive of educational programs as well as this mandatory ISP filtering as a way to give an extra level of protection.

Barron (04:37): And do you think the industry will be receptive to this - the onus being put onto the ISPs?

Conroy (04:41): Well, I think that they will have some concerns and that is why we are committed to working with them, to work through the details of this. As I said there is a trial we will be conducting here in Australia. Overseas there are a number of countries that have got similar type systems: BT in the UK, a couple of Scandanavian countries and other countries in Europe that are actually working with this model. So we wil; be keen to be work with industry so that we can introduce this way in the least disruptive way to the world of the Internet.

Barron (05:17): Many thanks indeed for your time this morning.

Conroy (05:19): Thanks very much.

Barron: Communications Minister Stephen Conroy joining us on NewsRadio this morning.. Well let's find out how receptive industry is likely to be. Peter Coroneos from the Australian Internet Industry Association is with us. Peter, good morning....

Interview continues with Peter Coroneos. Transcript ommitted, refer to audio for more information.

E-mail to Senator Fielding

2008-01-03T04:41:00.000+11:00

Senator Fielding, To be up front about it, I am committed atheist who, frankly, has very little sympathy for your religious beliefs but I would like to invite you to review a policy proposal that addresses serious flaws in Stephen Conroy's current proposal to impose mandatory filtering on all residential internet feeds. I believe my proposal would be far more effective than Senator Conroy's policy and is also likely to be more acceptable to a broader range of Australians. If you could give my proposal some consideration, I would appreciate it. link to policy Jon Seymour minor typos in original e-mail corrected here

An alternative policy: 3-classes of feeds (v0.1)

2008-01-03T01:49:00.000+11:00

I've archived this version. For the current version, refer to An alternative policy (v0.2): Filtered Network Providers (FNPs)

A notice to the Minister

2008-01-03T01:40:00.000+11:00

Please be advised that I intend to wage a fierce public campaign against your decision to introduce a mandatory filtering regime on Australian ISPs.

I intend to reveal the plans weakenesess including its logical flaws. While I don't believe you actually have any draconian intent at this point, I will demonstrate the ways in which this system could be abused by a future Howard-like government.

I will even try to offer some constructive suggestions about how your policy could be changed to make it better public policy. More importantly - more effective public policy.

Please be put on notice that if you ever accuse me in a public forum of being an advocate of free access to child pornography I will sue for libel. Even though I am not a lawyer, I believe I would have an excellent chance of winning.

http://broadbannedrevolution.blogspot.com/

Broadbanned Revolution - fight the powers that be*

Catchy name, huh?

cc: Tanya Libersek (local MP)

* missing from actual e-mail due to typo

A notice to my ISP

2008-01-03T01:27:00.000+11:00

Please forward this to your communications director and to your accounts department. Consider this a notification that I want to apply for any opt-out policy that my ISP creates in response to the government's recent proposal to extend the coverage of the ACMA blacklists and the intention to impose mandatory filtering requirements on all ISPs. I wish to make it crystal clear that I have not, do not and will not consume child pornography nor do I harbour any secret desire to. To demonstrate my good faith in this matter, I will consider applying for any voluntary service that you offer that restricts access to material of this kind, provided the performance of my feed is not affected and that all editorial decisions are made by a board of well-respected Australians from a broad cross-section of the community and that all deliberations of the editorial board that result in blocking decisions are fully transparent and absent of covert or overt or Government influence. I would also ask that my ISP does what it can in the public sphere to resist these potentially draconian changes to Australia's internet access. If you are unable to respond positively to this e-mail within the two weeks, I will be seeking to transfer my business to another ISP who will. Yours Sincerely, Jon Seymour cc: Stephen Conroy (Minister), Tanya Plibersek (Local MP)

Welcome To The Broadbanned Revolution!

2008-01-03T00:38:00.000+11:00

This blog has been inspired by exactly one reason - the attempt by Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to extend the ACMA rating system to include material currently only filtered by voluntary PC-based filtering systems and to impose a mandatory filtering requirement on all school and residential internet feeds. Under his plan, uncensored feeds would only be available for consumers who explicitly ask for them. More on this in subsequent posts.

For an audio of the interview that contains the Minister's brain explosion, refer to this ABC NewsRadio interview. For a copy of my initial response, and boy it won't be the last, refer here - published on the SMH letters on Jan 1, 2008. I will repost it here too.

Facebook users may wish to join the group Australian ISP filtering plan is stupid!

Wrong way, go back: Conroy takes poor approach to filtering porn

2008-01-01T20:00:00.000+11:00

I am deeply concerned about the proposal of the Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, to impose mandatory filtering responsibilities on internet service providers in an attempt to restrict children's access to pornography. I write as one with some technical literacy in these matters and no financial interest in the ISP industry.

In his announcement Senator Conroy stated that under the proposed laws all residential and school internet feeds would be clean by default and anyone wishing to have unrestricted access would have to negotiate an opt-out with their service provider. Presumably this will be achieved by ticking the box requesting a smutty feed.

Senator Conroy claimed that "if people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree". In doing so, Senator Conroy has attempted to smear any opponent of his plan as an advocate of free access to child pornography. This is deeply offensive and he should withdraw or clarify his statement immediately.

While I understand the Government's desire to support parents in their struggle to shield children from unsavoury web content, the proposed solution is a very poor way of going about it. Filtering at the ISP level will be utterly ineffective at preventing curious young minds from seeking access to pornography, and it will necessarily wind back some of the so-called speed advantages of the promised broadband revolution. What the Government gives with one hand it takes away with another. The unusual aspect of this decision is that both hands belong to the same minister.

Incidental users of the internet are highly unlikely to be confronted by extremely graphic pornography, especially child pornography, unless they actively go looking for it. But filtering at the ISP level will not stop determined consumers of pornography from obtaining it because of the numerous ways of subverting filters. It is not just a joke that it was once said "the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it". It is a simple fact of the technology that cannot be avoided.

By advocating such a policy, an immature Government that promised a broadband revolution makes itself look foolish. It betrays a profound lack of understanding of the technology it seeks to promote.

SMH Letters/2008/01/01