[LINK] ACMA Internet Filter List Leaked

[Kim Holburn]

The site is down or not routable from outside Australia.

Happens a bit to wikileaks.  It offends a lot of people for a lot of  
different reasons.  There are a number of different DNS names like  
wikileaks.com to name just one.


On 2009/Mar/19, at 5:27 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> 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
>
> _ __________________ _
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
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-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
mailto:kim at holburn.net  aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request