[LINK] the Bill Henson 'mistake' - Conroy

[Kim Holburn]

On 2009/Mar/27, at 4:00 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> At 11:58 AM 27/03/2009, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>> it was a "technical issue".
>
> I recorded the ABC program and watched it this morning. Honestly, I
> didn't think Senator Con did a bad job.

Yeah, not too bad.  It's a pity no-one managed to ask the important  
question that was suggested by Irene on this list.  So I'll ask it now:

If Australia had a banned book "index" it wouldn't be acceptable that  
it be a secret list.  It needs to be public and the publisher needs to  
be at least told that they are on it and why and have a chance to  
object.

This list, on the other hand, is secret, so there is no due process at  
all and from that program apparently there are "mistakes".  Surely we  
can work out some way of making the list public that doesn't give away  
the URLs.  Here we have the minister talking about the Russian mob and  
ACMA's "mistakes" and it is also clear that the list has to be pretty  
dynamic.  If someone's website gets hacked they could end up on the  
index for a long time and not even know it?  This is not exactly great  
for business.  Shouldn't hacked websites be a job for people like CERT  
or AUSCERT rather than ACMA?  ie someone to help fix the problem  
rather than someone to put it on the banned list.

He didn't address a lot of the other issues like the gambling sites on  
the ACMA list.  Were the gambling sites R-rated?  His argument that  
the first lists weren't ACMA's has been addressed elsewhere: It seems  
like the ACMA list has had a lot of sudden housecleaning.


> [ducks flying bricks from
> some Linkers] By 'technical', it wasn't a computer type technical as
> he explained it. It was more a screw-up between the Classification
> board determination and someone in ACMA who missed the change.
>
> That SMH story is pretty weak. For example:
>
> Three of Australia's biggest internet service providers have
> withdrawn from the government's proposed internet service filter,
> including Telstra.
> ------
>
> Uh, no, they didn't withdraw from anything. They just didn't choose
> to participate in the trials. Conroy said Optus has agreed to
> participate in future. Anyone here know the facts on this?
>
> re:
> But the minister admitted that a PG-rated site, featuring images of
> children by controversial photographer Bill Henson, was wrongly
> blocked because of a "technical issue".
>
> Political lobby group GetUp! says this demonstrated the failure of
> internet filtering.
>
> "The minister's comments have proven internet censorship just won't
> work," GetUp! national director Simon Sheikh told AAP.
> -----
>
> Uh, no. It demonstrated that a list of banned URLs can be leaked. If
> they were in operation in a border filtering system, you could click
> all you wanted and not get through to them UNLESS you activated a
> bypass of some sort. It demonstrated that wrong URLs can be added to
> the list, meaning over blockage.
>
> That story is unattributed and must be written by a junior. It reads
> like that, too. Just an AAP attribution.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
Ph: +39 06 855 4294  M: +39 3494957443
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