[LINK] Rudd online porn-free plan questioned

[Rick Welykochy]

Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

> Rudd online porn-free plan questioned
> Sue Dunlevy
> January 02, 2008
> Australian IT
> http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22997228-15306,00.html

Hrmmm ... this one got past the spam filters? What is going on?


> Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the clean feed will be 
> achieved by getting the Communications and Media Authority to prepare a 
> blacklist of unsuitable sites.

The devil is in the detail.

If the blacklist is by IP address, it will definitely fail. IP addresses
change all the time. That is one reason we have a DNS with lifetimes
stamped onto the names.

If the blacklist is by domain name, it will definitely be inadequate
and also too broad, e.g.

(*) unclean material is found on users.bigpond.com.au/badboy ...
    if the domain users.bigpond.com.au is blacklisted, hundreds of
    thousands of bigpond user sites will be blacklisted by mistake

(*) similar applies to huge hosting services that store thousands
    of users under the one domain name

(*) similar applies to blogging and social networking sites

(*) similar applies to file hosting services such as rapidshare


> This is because every time you type a request into your search engine it 
> will have to be checked against all the sites on the blacklist, he said.

More devilish detail. NOTE: web links != content ...

I doubt that the results of all search engines, let alone google, will be
censored and "rewritten" on the fly. Google does self-censor in China ...
is this what Labor wants? If so, why don't they say so?

Regardless, there will always be search engines that do not self-censor.
There are now and always will be 'clean' websites with links to objectionable
material that contain links on the blacklist. So let's not get confused
here: search engines aside, LINKS TO BLACKLISTED SITES cannot possibly
be censored or cleaned. That would require analysing all content, including
encrypted content. as it is sent to the clean feed.

Note that an industrious user could re-assemble and publish the
list of names on the blacklist simply by a process of elimination whilst
using the clean feed. Would this be an offense? If so, why? I repeat:
links != content


> In Britain where a clean feed policy is being pursued, only between 200 
> and 1000 child pornography sites have been included on a blacklist.

No wonder Britain can claim that their safe feeds are not slowed down
by blocking. Although, if you think about it, a list of, say, 1000000
domains can be searched with a max 21 lookups using binary search, or
on average about 11 lookups. Think about that. Every web request, every
domain, ftp, email, etc request, will require an extra step of on average
11 lookups in a table of 1 million names.


> A 2005 pilot study carried out by the former Howard government found a 
> clean feed approach could cut down speed of accessing the internet by 
> between 18 to 78 per cent depending on what was being blocked.

Eh? What does it mean to cut down the speed by 50%? By 100%?

cheers
rickw



-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

You got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the
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