[LINK] Fwd: [ PRIVACY Forum ] Brits' Failed Heavy Metal Censorship Attempt Disrupts Wikipedia Edits

[rene]

On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 18:27:57 -0800 (PST), David Goldstein wrote:

> The "system" in which the Wikipedia page in question was censored is
> not part of what Conroy is proposing.

Nonsense, David.

Some ISPs in the UK 'block' content on the IWF's blacklist. IWF put the 
Wikipedia page on its blacklist.

Conroy/Labor 'plans' that all Australian ISPs be required to 'block' 
content on the ACMA's blacklist, and that the IWF's blacklist content be 
imported into the ACMA's blacklist. 

> The page in question was reported to the Internet Watch Foundation's
> hotline. The "content was considered to be a potentially illegal
> indecent image of a child under the age of 18, but hosted outside the
> UK. The IWF does not issue takedown notices to ISPs or hosting
> companies outside the UK, but we did advise one of our partner Hotlines
> abroad and our law enforcement partner agency of our assessment. The
> specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided
> to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their
> customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent
> image of a child." See http://iwf.org.uk/media/news.249.htm.
>
> Clean Feed is a separate system developed by BT, using the IWF list.

Separate to what David? BT's Clean Feed is implementation of technology to 
'block' material on the IWF's blacklist. Other UK ISPs have implemented 
either the same system or a similar one to also block 'block' material on 
the IWF's blacklist.

> It is voluntary to be a member of the IWF and it is not compulsory for
> members to block sites. However the IWF was founded as a response to
> government pressure to avoid regulation.
>
> A shame the industry in Australia didn't follow the UK lead and we'd
> probably be avoiding the situation of Conroy's proposals now.

Nonsense. Conroy/Labor's blocking plan goes way beyond what some UK ISPs 
do. ACMA's blacklist currently includes material legal offline in 
Australia, including R18+, and even if it didn't it would be just as 
useless as UK ISPs' systems are in preventing access to 'illegal' material, 
let alone protecting children from sexual abuse. Meanwhile children 
continue to be sexually abused and images of the crimes against them 
distributed by means of P2P hosted chatrooms and filesharing, Usenet 
newsgroups, IRC, Instant messaging, email, FTP and so on, and law 
enforcement agencies around the world are insufficiently well funded and 
resourced to make much of a dent in that serious problem.  Nevermind 
though, throwing $AU44.5 million at so-called blocking will enable the 
government to claim they've "done something" when all they've done is hide 
the problem rather than fight it, thereby reducing public pressure on 
politicians to 'do something' effective, at least among people who are 
clueless enough about technology to believe that 'blocking' websites 
actually works and that the Internet consists only of web sites. 

Irene