Marxist Dictatorship Downunder Leads to Censorship - Internet Filters

[Rev.Cambeul]

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/australia-issues-wikileaks-linking-fine-warning-585894

Internet News
Australian Government adds Wikileaks to banned website list
Linking to flagged sites will cost you

The Australian communications regulator has issued a stark warning that websites who link out to 'banned' hyperlinks are liable to fines of up to Aus $11,000 a day.

The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website.

Wikileaks blacklisted

One of the newest additions to Australia's 'blacklisted hyperlinks' list is Wikileaks; the website that publishes anonymous submissions of sensitive info on everything from corporations, religion and governments.

The blacklisting of certain pages of the site has come about after Wikileaks posted a list of websites at the tail end of 2008 that comprised the 'secret internet censorship' list for Denmark. On this list were over 3,500 sites that were censored or banned in the country.

Disturbing picture

While Australia's list of blacklisted sites currently stands at 1,370, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that that list could increase to around 10,000 sites – most of which are of illegal pornographic content, but could also includes sites that house incendiary political discussions.

"The Government is embarking on a deeply unpopular and troubling experiment to fine-tune its ability to censor the internet," said communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam of Australian opposition party Greens.

"If you consider this kind of net censorship in the context of Australia's anti-terror laws, it paints a disturbing picture indeed."

On its website, Wikileaks, which leaked the news that the government had banned it for leaking information, simply said: "The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship."

Currently, it is not illegal for internet users in Australia to click on the sites found on the web blacklist. The people targeted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) are webmasters linking out to the sites that the government have flagged up as inappropriate.

This could all change, however, if a mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented – something that is being debated at the moment.

Via Sydney Morning Herald
By Marc Chacksfield

Can anyone else see http://wikileaks.org ? I'm in Australia and I can't.
Either the site is down because of too much traffic, or I'm blocked by the Oz JOG.

@Cailen.

[Maritz]

In South Africa the site is working

[Rev.Cambeul]

Thanks to those that checked. I'm able to see the site now. Didn't even know about it until the local media started harping on about it. A little research about Wikileaks has revealed exactly what it is. It's a whistleblower site alright, but be warned; it's also a whistleblower against "racism." Wikileaks recently made available lists of B&H forum members and BNP members and supporters that were gained by red computer hackers. Highly illegal almost everywhere in the world except for Germany and Israel - but don't expect an investigation or charges to be forthcoming. Australia, the US, Britain and most of Europe signed a 1960's UN treaty to illiminate "racism." Those nations that signed the treaty are obliged to provide assistance to anti-racist groups and temporary discriminatory laws to be enacted against pro-majority groups, along with temporary affirmative action type laws to advance minorities to equal status with the majority. ~ As long as our countries are part of the UN, those laws will never be lifted.

@Cailen.



A Blacklist for Websites Backfires in Australia

By Belinda Luscombe (Time Magazine) | March 22, 2009

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. If you want to reduce citizens' exposure to dangerous and illegal activities online, why not gather up all the URLs for sites that promote such acts — child pornography, extreme violence, weapon-making and so on — and have Internet Service Providers (ISPs) simply block them? Wouldn't that make the internet safer for families and children?

Actually no, as the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is finding out the hard way. The ACMA, Canberra's equivalent of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, put together such a list and sent it to more than a dozen companies. It was part of a trial program to develop software that would allow Australian ISPs to block the sites. But to ACMA's evident surprise, at least one person who received the list handed it over to Wikileaks, an online clearinghouse for anonymous submissions of sensitive material. The ACMA "blacklist", as it became known, was promptly posted online, becoming a handy compendium of internet depravity in one convenient package — courtesy of the Australian government. After it was posted, a surge in traffic caused Wikileaks to crash temporarily.

"It's the most ill-conceived pile of stupidity by the biggest bunch of cretins that I've ever seen in my life, " says Ross Wheeler, CEO of Albury.net.au, a regional ISP, referring to the web-filtering plan. "Every ISP that I know of has either publicly or privately said it's technically and practically impossible." The leak was further black icing on the cake. Among its more than 1,000 entries were URLs for child porn, rape and bestiality sites as well as online gambling (some forms of which are illegal in Australia) and gay and straight pornography. But many sites appeared to have been blacklisted almost at random. A dentist from Queensland, whose website had once been hacked into by a Russian purveyor of pornography, was on the list. So was pet care facility MaroochyBoardingKennels.com.au and canteens.com.au, a site belonging to a school cafeterias consultant. "The only thing I can think of [that got me on the list] is that I have e-mailed schools telling them about my book and CD resource How to Have a Healthy and Profitable Theme Day," owner Jocelyn Ashcroft told the Sydney Morning Herald.

And while the list in many cases appeared arbitrary at best, some selections appeared politically motivated at worst. Sites advocating legal euthanasia, Satanism and even Christianity were blacklisted. Initially, the minister for communications, Stephen Conroy, denied that the list on Wikileaks and the ACMA blacklist are the same, a denial that rang a little hollow when one of its partners, the Internet Industry Association (IIA), publicly condemned the release and posting of the list. "No reasonable person could countenance the publication of links which promote access to child abuse images, irrespective of their motivation, which in this case appears to be political," said IIA chief executive Peter Coroneos.

More recently Wikileaks updated the list and the Minister acknowledged the similarities, but stood firm on proceeding with testing the internet filtering software. "Does the [leaked blacklist] mean we are going to stop blocking access to the sites? No. People can continue to put up the lists if they are proud to do that," he told a press conference in Sydney. "It is completely untrue that the leaked blacklist contains political content. This is a list which contains sites that promote incest, rape, child pornography and child abuse."

As a result of the scandals, several of Australia's biggest ISPs have now pulled out of the filtering software trials and urged the government to drop the plan. "It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the Government simply describes as 'unwanted material' without an explanation of what that includes," said Michael Malone, Managing Director of iiNet, an Australian ISP. He added that his company only agreed to participate in the trial to demonstrate that the policy was "fundamentally flawed, a waste of taxpayers' money and would not work." Critics of mandatory Internet filtering point out that in some countries, including China and Thailand, it's not only used to block morally objectionable content but those that are critical of the government. More to the point, many internet providers say blacklists don't work anyway: most illegal activity online happens via peer-to-peer networking, which Web filters can't block. "It's almost trivial to get around the filters," says Wheeler. "But I can't tell you how, because the government has now made that illegal."


First seen in Time Magazine. Thanks to Belinda Luscombe and Time Magazine for covering this issue. Copyright remains with the aforementioned.

[Rev.Cambeul]

The outlook for online freedom in Australia continues to be less than stellar as the Rudd government's plan for mandatory Internet censorship gains momentum, with computer games now in their sights. In the meantime, EFA received a link deletion notice – under threat of an $11,000 per day fine – for a discussion on the politically sensitive nature of blacklisted content.

Source: http://www.efa.org.au

[SisterAmber]

I can access that site