[LINK] the Bill Henson 'mistake' - Conroy

[Jan Whitaker]

At 08:46 AM 28/03/2009, Fred Pilcher wrote:
>Am I the only person who finds that site deeply disturbing?

Probably not any more than other educational materials. E.g. school 
age dictionaries with big print that leave out the 'bad words'. ;-)

Re the Henson thing, an article in the Age today [keep on it, Asher!] 
says it 'was' a 'technical', as in computer, error, according to 
ACMA. Mea culpa for my comment yesterday.


'Caching error' caused Henson blacklisting

http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/caching-error-caused-henson-blacklisting/2009/03/27/1237657133829.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Asher Moses
March 27, 2009 - 2:54PM

The communications regulator says a computer malfunction caused 
harmless Bill Henson images to be added to its blacklist, rather than 
an incorrect assessment of the content.

Online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said this 
painted an even scarier picture of the Federal Government's 
forthcoming internet censorship regime because it was now clear that 
not only human error caused sites to be incorrectly added to the 
blacklist but computer errors as well.

"It's already hard enough to imagine that a hand-edited blacklist 
could stay accurate and keep up with the internet, but now if their 
computer system is just so unreliable that sites are getting on there 
by mistake, then we really need to take a step back and look at 
another solution," said EFA spokesman Colin Jacobs.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said in a statement 
that a link to innocuous PG-rated artistic photographs taken by Bill 
Henson was incorrectly included on the list in the period December 1, 
2008 to February 19, 2009 as the result of a "computer system caching error".

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said it wasn't good enough for ACMA to 
blame a computer error for sites being accidentally added to the blacklist.

"Lets stop the conversation about mandatory net filtering right now 
and have an overhaul of the current system because clearly there's 
been a breakdown that we wouldn't have found out about without the 
work of people whom the [Communications] Minister [Stephen Conroy] 
has described as malicious," Senator Ludlam said.

ACMA's top-secret blacklist of prohibited websites has come under 
heavy scrutiny in recent weeks after it was leaked on to the 
whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Sites on the list will be blocked for all Australians when the 
Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, implements his mandatory 
internet filtering policy.

But while the policy was originally aimed at combating "illegal" 
material, the leaked blacklist has revealed scores of innocuous sites 
such as a Queensland dentist, a school canteen consultancy, an animal 
carer, euthanasia sites, abortion sites, fetish sites, gambling sites 
and regular porn sites.

"I think this highlights the point the Opposition has been making and 
that is there is no technological substitute for human involvement in 
relation to online safety," said Opposition communications spokesman 
Nick Minchin.

"Relying on computer systems, blacklists and filters to perform 
extremely complex tasks, under a mandatory system, in such a dynamic 
and constantly changing environment, is without doubt going to 
present many technical issues that could be difficult, if not 
impossible, to overcome."

ACMA said it had conducted a full review of additions to its 
blacklist for the period December 1, 2008 and February 19, 2009 and 
"found that this is the only URL where a caching error resulting in 
the URL being incorrectly added to the list".

"Over the last five months, ACMA has been actively looking at its 
blacklist administration processes to identify possible improvements 
and enhancements," the regulator said.

Sources said that ACMA read the riot act to filtering software 
vendors, warning them against leaking the blacklist in future.

ACMA tacitly acknowledged this, saying it had written to 
"family-friendly filter providers seeking information in regard to 
the measures they currently have in place to minimise the risk of 
information provided to them by ACMA being extracted from their 
filter products".

Simon Sheikh, national director of activist group GetUp, questioned 
ACMA's explanation that a computer caching problem caused the Henson 
photographs to be blacklisted.

"The failure of ACMA to adequately explain how this happened shows 
that we just can't trust this form of internet censorship," he said.

Unsatisfied with Senator Conroy's 
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/27/1237657120642.html>performance 
on ABC television's Q&A program last night, GetUp will this afternoon 
ask its members to submit their questions, which will be put to the 
Government in Parliament.

"Senators Nick Xenophon, Nick Minchin and Scott Ludlam have all 
agreed to ask questions on behalf of the Australian public ... when 
Parliament next sits," Sheikh said.




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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