[LINK] Govt backing down? no live trial with real people

[Jan Whitaker]

[sorry if this was already posted; I don't recall seeing it]


Labor plan to censor internet in shreds

http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/labor-plan-to-censor-internet-in-shreds/2008/12/09/1228584820006.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Asher Moses
December 9, 2008 - 3:31PM

The Government's plan to censor the internet is in tatters, with 
Australia's largest ISP saying it will not take part in live trials 
of the system and the second largest committing only to a scaled-back trial.

And the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has written to 
critics saying that the so-called "live" trials would be "a closed 
network test and will not involve actual customers". Greens Senator 
Scott Ludlam said this was a sign the Government was slowly backing 
away from the heavily criticised policy.

The live trials, scheduled to kick off before Christmas, were 
supposed to provide a definitive picture of whether the filters could 
work in the real world, after lab tests released by the Australian 
Communications and Media Authority in June found available ISP 
filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, 
incorrectly blocked harmless content and slowed down network speeds 
by up to 87 per cent.

But now Telstra and Internode have said they would not take part in 
the trials. iiNet has said it would take part only to prove to the 
Government that its plan would not work, while Optus will test a 
heavily cut-down filtering model.

The Government plans to introduce a two-tiered censorship system of 
filtering from the ISPs' end. The first tier would be compulsory for 
all Australians and would block all "illegal material", as determined 
by a blacklist of 10,000 sites administered by ACMA.

The second tier, which is optional, would filter out content deemed 
inappropriate for children, such as pornography. Experts say this 
second tier will have the most marked effect on network performance 
because every piece of traffic handled by the ISP will need to be 
analysed for "inappropriate" content.

Optus confirmed it would start a live pilot early next year but 
stressed it would test only the first tier and even then it would 
only block the current ACMA blacklist of 1300 URLs, as opposed to the 
Government's expanded 10,000 URL list.

Details are scant but the trial will operate in a specific 
geographical area and customers will be given the option to opt out.

Senator Conroy's office could not explain why it was telling people 
that the trials would not involve actual customers, which would give 
little indication of the real-world impact of the filtering plan.

Senator Conroy himself has consistently dodged questions about his 
policy in Parliament.

"How on earth could you conduct a 'live' trial if there are no 
customers to assess?" Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said.

"The minister also continues to be deliberately vague and cryptic 
about the definition of unwanted content and now he is unable to 
clarify how this so-called live trial will be conducted, even though 
he wants it to start before December 24."

The Greens today called on the Government to abandon its internet 
filtering trial, saying it was flawed and doomed to failure.

The plan is opposed by the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, 
some child welfare advocates, consumers and online rights groups. 
They fear the blacklist will be expanded to include the blocking of 
regular pornography, political views, gambling and pro-abortion sites.

"This trial is simply all show. It won't give any meaningful 
indication of how mandatory internet filtering would work in 
practice," Senator Ludlam said.

Colin Jacobs, vice-chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, said 
<http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/wikipedia-added-to-child-pornography-blacklist/2008/12/08/1228584723764.html>yesterday's 
incident in Britain, in which virtually the entire country was unable 
to edit Wikipedia because the country's Internet Watch Foundation had 
blacklisted a single image on the site, illustrated the pitfalls of 
mandatory ISP filtering.

Senator Conroy has said that, under his filtering plan, Australia 
would sign up to the same IWF blacklist.

"In Australia, not only would the Government have the ability to 
secretly add any site to our blacklist, but an unaccountable 
foreign-based organisation would as well," Mr Jacobs said.

"Given that the traffickers of genuine abuse material will not let 
themselves be slowed down by a filter and are already covering their 
tracks, the net result that will be achieved here is exactly this: 
inconvenience, chaos and expense with absolutely no dividend for the children."

Senator Ludlam said in a phone interview he believed Labor would drop 
the mandatory filtering policy in the new year once the now 
scaled-back trials were completed.

He said the Government could not abandon it now "without losing 
significant political face".

This Saturday anti-censorship protesters are planning to 
<http://wiki.efp.org.au/index.php?title=Main_Page>picket in 
Australia's capital cities, including Sydney's Town Hall and 
Melbourne's State Library.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
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blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

Writing Lesson #54:
Learn to love revision. Think of it as polishing the silver for 
guests. - JW, May, 2007
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