Comments on: No Opt-Out for the Great Firewall of Australia http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia The Thoughts and Feelings of a Melbourne Person Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:34:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: david smith http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-54102 david smith Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:38:31 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-54102 As most Australian are aware that we are blessed with the Biggest smart arse scum politicians in the world and there got nothing. As most Australian are aware that we are blessed with the Biggest smart arse scum politicians in the world and there got nothing.

]]> By: Chris http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-49342 Chris Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:16:24 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-49342 Might be worth pointing out that both Tor and other VPN tunnel-out solutions work well EVEN IN CHINA. Furthermore, it is continuously possible to access Western sites on ongoing scandals in China, such as the melamine scandal, FROM WITHIN CHINA - even without tunnels or anonymity software - because the filters aren't updated fast enough to keep up with the changes on the net. I know, because I just spent 3 months over there during the melamine scandal. After the Olympics my VPN tunnel-out solution to the US got really slow and nearly unusable. It took about 30 minutes to sign up for another one that wasn't yet blocked and my unobstructed service was restored. The simple truth is that government cannot police these matters. Legislative processes are slow - technology almost always responds faster. The Internet is global and by its very design originating in defence technology conceived to re-route and bypass obstructions (multiple redundancy) whereas all governments are bound by local jurisdiction. This is the essence of why policing the net would only be possible if the same laws existed in every country. This would make tunnelling out pointless. However, we need to realize that governments are under immense pressure from associations such as the RIAA and other media content providers to clamp down on the money that is being lost through piracy. This I think is the real issue. Legitimate content will get caught up in this as well. However, if the people of Australia don't wish to see filtered internet, the way to achieve this is to get users to employ anonymity and tunnelling on a massive scale now. Obsolete government plans before they bite. Get a mail account in a another country and use encryption to connect to it. This makes email data retention laws in your own country pointless. Get a high speed OpenVPN connection to a gateway in another country. Service providers are abundant. Start using Tor. If you use P2P, switch to the encrypted variants of P2P. Take the bone away from the dog before it wakes up, and it won't bite you ! Might be worth pointing out that both Tor and other VPN tunnel-out solutions work well EVEN IN CHINA. Furthermore, it is continuously possible to access Western sites on ongoing scandals in China, such as the melamine scandal, FROM WITHIN CHINA – even without tunnels or anonymity software – because the filters aren’t updated fast enough to keep up with the changes on the net. I know, because I just spent 3 months over there during the melamine scandal. After the Olympics my VPN tunnel-out solution to the US got really slow and nearly unusable. It took about 30 minutes to sign up for another one that wasn’t yet blocked and my unobstructed service was restored. The simple truth is that government cannot police these matters. Legislative processes are slow – technology almost always responds faster. The Internet is global and by its very design originating in defence technology conceived to re-route and bypass obstructions (multiple redundancy) whereas all governments are bound by local jurisdiction. This is the essence of why policing the net would only be possible if the same laws existed in every country. This would make tunnelling out pointless. However, we need to realize that governments are under immense pressure from associations such as the RIAA and other media content providers to clamp down on the money that is being lost through piracy. This I think is the real issue. Legitimate content will get caught up in this as well. However, if the people of Australia don’t wish to see filtered internet, the way to achieve this is to get users to employ anonymity and tunnelling on a massive scale now. Obsolete government plans before they bite. Get a mail account in a another country and use encryption to connect to it. This makes email data retention laws in your own country pointless. Get a high speed OpenVPN connection to a gateway in another country. Service providers are abundant. Start using Tor. If you use P2P, switch to the encrypted variants of P2P. Take the bone away from the dog before it wakes up, and it won’t bite you !

]]> By: dave http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-47792 dave Sun, 02 Nov 2008 08:27:49 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-47792 Might Interst Wouldn't special interest groups feel obliged to pressure the government to include their own black list into the filter? Unless the blacklist is backed by specific legislation, there is no way this is going to have a positive outcome for Conroy and his fellow right-leaners Might Interst Wouldn’t special interest groups feel obliged to pressure the government to include their own black list into the filter? Unless the blacklist is backed by specific legislation, there is no way this is going to have a positive outcome for Conroy and his fellow right-leaners

]]> By: Aronzak http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-46952 Aronzak Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:53:59 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-46952 That wouldn't have much effect, people would just start sharing all of their illegal material in P2P LAN or WAN setups. I think it was Ted Stevens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes) that said something like: "If you got rid of the porn, there'd be one website; "bring back the porn"" That wouldn’t have much effect, people would just start sharing all of their illegal material in P2P LAN or WAN setups.

I think it was Ted Stevens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes) that said something like:
“If you got rid of the porn, there’d be one website; “bring back the porn”"

]]> By: Spaulding Smails http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-46936 Spaulding Smails Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:42:06 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-46936 We're screwed. We’re screwed.

]]> By: Guest http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-46916 Guest Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:37:18 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-46916 Encouraging everyone to visit this website and pen a letter to the government. http://nocleanfeed.com Encouraging everyone to visit this website and pen a letter to the government. http://nocleanfeed.com

]]> By: H3g3m0n http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-45681 H3g3m0n Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:51:43 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-45681 No matter what they implement, it will be defeated within 30 seconds by Tor or some other system which will continue to allow people access to 'illigal materials' while slowing down the connection for the rest of us. I wounder if they will have that 15 year old TV on again who bypassed the last one. It might also be worth directing people to http://nocleanfeed.com/ (Run by the EFA, the Aussie version of EFF). Says where you can take action with letters and such. I get the feeling this is also aimed at allowing monolopies on digital content distribution for giants such as Telstra and MSN to sell TV eps online, blocking places like PirateBay and Mininova which could be conisdered 'illigal' would be failry necessary with most people just downloading TV shows free from such places. I also wounder if Wikipedia will be blocked, some of the images for entries like Ejaculation and Masterbation have images that are basicly porn. Hopfully more webservers will start to allow https for all traffic. No matter what they implement, it will be defeated within 30 seconds by Tor or some other system which will continue to allow people access to ‘illigal materials’ while slowing down the connection for the rest of us.

I wounder if they will have that 15 year old TV on again who bypassed the last one.

It might also be worth directing people to http://nocleanfeed.com/ (Run by the EFA, the Aussie version of EFF). Says where you can take action with letters and such.

I get the feeling this is also aimed at allowing monolopies on digital content distribution for giants such as Telstra and MSN to sell TV eps online, blocking places like PirateBay and Mininova which could be conisdered ‘illigal’ would be failry necessary with most people just downloading TV shows free from such places.

I also wounder if Wikipedia will be blocked, some of the images for entries like Ejaculation and Masterbation have images that are basicly porn.

Hopfully more webservers will start to allow https for all traffic.

]]> By: Simon Rumble http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-45636 Simon Rumble Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:50:25 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-45636 The ACMA report is: http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310554/isp-level_internet_content_filtering_trial-report.pdf A good summary: http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/why-the-tasmanian-filtering-trial-is-a-failure/ The ACMA report is:
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310554/isp-level_internet_content_filtering_trial-report.pdf

A good summary:
http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/why-the-tasmanian-filtering-trial-is-a-failure/

]]> By: Chris Samuel http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-45633 Chris Samuel Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:13:44 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-45633 Simon, do you know if they'll publish the false positive & performance results for these tests ? Simon, do you know if they’ll publish the false positive & performance results for these tests ?

]]> By: Simon Rumble http://www.csamuel.org/2008/10/14/no-opt-out-for-the-great-firewall-of-australia/comment-page-1#comment-45605 Simon Rumble Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:49:21 +0000 http://www.csamuel.org/?p=1357#comment-45605 That false-positive rate was for the best system, which was also the slowest system. So you can have fast and inaccurate, or slow and a-bit-less inaccurate. What this means for you is you’ll have more expensive broadband, that runs slower and inexplicably blocks random things that it shouldn’t. By way of comparison, the filtering system at my work blocked the OpenCMS Wiki until I got them to whitelist it. Something I need for my work, and certainly nothing controversial. That false-positive rate was for the best system, which was also the slowest system. So you can have fast and inaccurate, or slow and a-bit-less inaccurate.

What this means for you is you’ll have more expensive broadband, that runs slower and inexplicably blocks random things that it shouldn’t.

By way of comparison, the filtering system at my work blocked the OpenCMS Wiki until I got them to whitelist it. Something I need for my work, and certainly nothing controversial.

]]>