[LINK] Green light for internet filter plans

[Jan Whitaker]

Thanks for that link, Rick.

There are some interesting points:

p4: In addition to the above blacklist, filtering a wider range and 
volume of material
to provide some level of protection to children using the internet.

"protection of children". ??? Is this supposedly in conjunction with 
the optional extra filtering or is this just a smoke-screen to mean 
"everybody".

p6: Customers expressed the view that it was important for there to 
be mechanisms for
self-management of the filter settings and improved visibility of the 
filter in action.

-- So even Customers want to know what's going on and have some 
controls. I wonder if that means they want to provide stronger limits 
or what? And what *does* happen when a site is blocked? Is there some 
sort of error message returned? Is it customisable by the ISP? Is it 
mandated by the govt. to say something about "stop being naughty and 
go do your homework"?

p8: For example,
distance from exchange/tower, condition and configuration of Customer Premises
Equipment and customer computer system(s), and the number of subscribers
connected to a service, versus the capacity of the upstream 
connection that the ISP
maintains, commonly referred to as the "contention ratio", will all 
affect performance,
and can do so at 40 percent performance degradation over theoretical 
maximum linerate,
or more in some cases.

So there WILL be performance degredation. They didn't perform a 
'real' test. They just applied to limited people so that line 
contention didn't come into play?

p15: This list was drawn from an existing database of URLs held by 
Enex. The content on
this list would likely be classified as MA15+, R18+ and X18+. A 
proportion of the
content considered to be strong M was regarded as being close to the
MA15+ classification, and was also included on the test list.

The blocking for 'bad for kids' was STILL a defined list of URLs. 
There's no dynamic anything there. Same with innocuous content used 
to test overblocking: "This third index was drawn from an existing 
database of URLs held by Enex." Why this would not be 100% is confusing.

p18: Performance: All tests were performed to/from a single Melbourne 
data centre with sufficiently high
bandwidth connectivity ensuring consistency in performance results across all
participants. This also ensured that no bottlenecks in the 
transmission performance or
latency were due to the test environment or tool.

Gee, they sure gave it a hard test, didn't they? whose performance 
impact are they really testing? The ISP's internal or the end-customer?

My eyes are glazing over. I quit.

Jan




At 06:46 PM 16/12/2009, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>Stilgherrian wrote:
>
> > The Enex TestLab report confirms that NONE of the filters tested would
> > block peer-to-peer traffic, instant messaging or chat rooms.
>
>In case anyone missed it, here is the (low res) Enex report which
>answers many question and raises many more. Lots to chew on.
>
>
>http://www.zdnet.com.au/story_media/339300056/ISP_Filtering_Live_Pilot_Report_low_res.pdf
>
>
>If the filtering legislation is passed, is there then an implied duty of care
>by the maintainers of the black list and the filter itself to the public, and
>more specifically to children? And if so, what recourse do parents have when
>this duty of care is breached?
>
>
>cheers
>rickw
>
>
>--
>_________________________________
>Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services
>
>38 is the last Roman numeral when written lexicographically.
>       -- http://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/numbers.html
>_______________________________________________
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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

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