[LINK] ACMA Internet Filter List Leaked

[Jan Whitaker]

At 01:58 PM 19/03/2009, George Bray wrote:
>WikiLeaks (if you can get to it)
><http://www.wikileaks.org>

Nope. Doesn't connect. Someone's put up a block, it seems.

This how daft the thing is and why a secret list is dangerous:

Web blacklist outcry: dentist, tuckshop on official 'hate list'

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/03/19/1237054973414.html
Asher Moses
March 19, 2009 - 2:35PM


Latest related coverage

    * 
<http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/leaked-australian-blacklist-reveals-banned-sites/2009/03/19/1237054961100.html>Leaked 
Australian blacklist reveals banned sites
[the Age article about the leak above]

The Queensland dentist included on the Australian communications 
regulator's blacklist of prohibited websites has demanded that the 
list be cleaned up, as he is now being associated with child porn 
peddlers and sexual violence sites.

Whisleblower site Wikileaks 
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/19/1237054961100.html>published 
the top-secret ACMA list today.

Websites contained on it will be blocked for all Australians once the 
government implements its mandatory internet filtering scheme - 
originally pitched as targeting only "illegal" content - later this year.

But, as experts have long warned the government, having a top-secret 
blacklist of banned sites is dangerous because there is a real danger 
that Australian businesses could be added to the list in error, with 
little recourse.

Inevitable leaks of the list, as happened today, mean those innocent 
businesses' websites could be associated with child porn repositories.

"Any person or corporation that would be identifiable on the list 
would potentially be deemed by the general public ... either a child 
molester or at least in the same category as child molesters," said 
University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt.

"In effect, this could be interpreted by some as a government 
sanctioned hate list.

"Even if the list is not leaked directly, it may be possible to 
reverse engineer the list and find out its content."

Alongside child porn, bestiality, rape and extreme violence sites, 
the list also includes a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, 
regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia 
sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish 
sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a 
Queensland dentist.

Other Australian sites on the list are canteens.com.au ("Tuckshop and 
Canteen Management Consultants") and animal carers 
MaroochyBoardingKennels.com.au.

The dentist, Dr John Golbrani, was furious when contacted to inform 
him that his site, dentaldistinction.com.au, appeared on the blacklist.

"A Russian company broke into our website a couple of years back and 
they were putting pornographic listings on there ... [but] we changed 
across to a different web provider and we haven't had that problem 
since," Golbrani said in a phone interview.

He said the fact that he hadn't been removed from the list was 
"criminal" and he was scared potential customers may avoid him.

"The government needs to get in and clean it up," said Golbrani.

Daniel Purser, who runs a web hosting and web design company out of 
NSW called Startcorp, was also shocked to learn that his site had 
been blacklisted.

He said there was "no chance" any of his customers were hosting child 
porn or other questionable content.

"We only host our own customers that we've done designs for and most 
of them are referrals from our own customers or referrals from my 
family," he said.

"Our service provider in Australia wouldn't tolerate it either, 
they've got a very definite anti-pornography rule.

"Obviously somebody needs to have a look at the list and actually 
make an assessment on whether it's a legitimate complaint or not 
because obviously no investigation has been done at all."

Colin Jacobs, spokesman for online users' lobby group Electronic 
Frontiers Australia said: "The prospect of mandatory nation-wide 
filtering of this secret list is pretty concerning from a democratic 
point of view."




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

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

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