Australian Government and web filtering

[sean_s_oreilly]

The Australian Government is well intentioned, but hopelessly misinformed in its continuing intention to apply web filtering technology. The government will not stop the type of people that want to access extreme illegal pornographic material.

People that want to look at the illegal extreme pornographic sites can bypass the government web filtering technology using encrypted VPNs (Virtual Private Networks).

Ironically, forcing these people to use VPNs will make it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to detect illegal activity. Also, inevitably once an automated cross match between an Australian Government sanctioned DNS server is done with an external DNS server, perverts will have a handy list of illegal sites to visit, kindly selected by the Australian Government!

Learn from past experience?

Example 1. When Facebook was blocked in Vietnam recently, many users just changed their DNS settings (eg OpenDNS).

Example 2. The Howard government's million-dollar expenditure on its "net nanny" software available for free download to the public. This quickly became embarrasing when a teenager cracked the software soon after release. On one estimation, the taxpayer-paid software ended up costing hundreds, if not thousands, per installation.

Example 3. High definition DVD decryption was cracked despite the industry's best efforts.

[Kempy]

Hear hear.

Some say ignorance is bliss. It could easily be argued otherwise.

Whenever this topic is discussed, I'm plagued by images of waky Warner Brothers cartoons and zany Road Runner Vs Wile E. Coyote Scenes. For example, it might be raining anvils and a newly delivered ACME box labeled "Anvil Protection" is eagerly being opened by Wile E. Coyote, only to reveal... A parasol. Not even an Umbrella. A parasol. Past experience should provide some guidance I'd think (just like Seans comments in the previous post), but for some reason, Coyote is confident in the ACME brand, and dashes out in his perpetual pursuit of the Road Runner thinking he is now protected from falling anvils (and maybe pianos). It's not until Coyote comes stamping back home all crumpled up like an accordian and maybe a bump on his head that he realises a parasol is no protection from falling anvils. No matter what marketing is used to suggest otherwise.

My fear for the government filtering plan is the safety of the ignorant. Coyote gets away with a bump on the head and it's funny. But what will happen to the people who are going to misinterpret the Governments well meaning parasol... I mean filter, as a saftely net. Especially for their children. "The kids are safe from the evils of the 'net, because my Government is protecting them. I know this because I heard something somewhere about a government Internet filter!" They then let their kids use the internet with minimal or even no supervision.

Those that know, already know what to avoid and how to avoid it, what they want and how to get it. Accidents happen, but lessons are learnt. Those that don't know, are going to fall victim to their own ignorance and confidence in something that is only providing perceived protection.

So much of what is made available to the general consumer today was yesterday in the mystical realm of the IT department, and now we're talking fibre to the node and even potentially the home. Networking and computing technology is advancing and becoming available faster than the greater population and especially our governing bodies can cope with. Who hasn't heard the phrase uttered by some technophobe "What are you going to do with speeds like that?" The technology's here, the public don't even know what to do with it!
It's in Vendors best interests to make networking functionality as easy to set up as possible so the consumer has an easy experience in getting "on-line". The trade off is security and on-line safety in many cases.

Education is clearly the key. It's no small ask, but we all need to take care in the internet space. Graeme touches on this area often, but the point needs to be made again and again until it sinks in. The Internet can be a dangerous place, just like being out in public, walking down the side of a road, driving a car etc. Kids need to be supervised rather than relying on an third party filter to do the work. A responsible parent holds their kids hand or buckles them in rather than relying on a certain Senator to come along and do it for them, because they know better.

The internet can also be a wonderful place. Full of entertainment, information, social networking, education and (for the time being) a place to voice an opinion on a global scale!! If the population can be educated to this end, we would all have a much safer on-line environment which we can all enjoy and benefit from.