Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Your Rights Online: US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter

A really interesting conversation thread on Slashdot about the US Government's concern over Australian ISP filter proposals, and Conroy's denial that his office has been contacted. Posters discuss net neutrality, US and Chinese interests, ACTA, practical realities of filter implementation etc.:

Monday, March 29, 2010

US reveals concerns over Conroy’s net filter plan

A great article on the Punch yesterday about Australia's planned ISP filtering censorship:


From the article:
The US State Department has told The Punch its officials have raised concerns about the filter with Australian counterparts, as America mounts a new diplomatic assault on internet censorship by governments worldwide.

Asked about the US view on the filter plan US State Department spokesman Noel Clay said: “The US and Australia are close partners on issues related to cyber matters generally, including national security and economic issues.

“We do not discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials.”

Punch writer Paul Coglan also points out - and many of those involved in the protest movement against the ISP filtering do too - that the filtering will be quite easy to circumvent. Coglan goes on to say that even now, before the filters even exist, you can google work-arounds by searching "how to bypass the Australia ISP filter", which i did, and here are some results:



What's interesting about these links is that they're not from obscure sources - the first is from the Sydney Morning Herald, and the second is from PC Authority magazine. This indicative of the widespread disdain for the ISP filter project in the media and private sector. The PC Authority article even has a sponsored link to the No Clean Feed protest site.

Next post, I plan to write up a pretty comprehensive review of and guide to the No Clean Feed site, as it is one of the most organized and comprehensive resource sites for anti-ISP filter campaigners.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

R18+ protest in Sydney, Saturday 27/3/10

Not strictly my topic on the protest movement against the Government's proposed ISP filter censorship plan, but nonetheless indicative of the slow and unsophisticated Government reactions to new media regulation:

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Crib Sheet: Google Vs. China (Vs. Australia?)

Some great analysis and summary from Fast Company on Google pulling the plug on their Chinese search engine, and how this relates to their submission to the Australian Government regarding their proposed ISP filtering.

If you're not familiar with Fast Company, this is how they modestly describe themselves:

"Fast Company sets the agenda, charting the evolution of business through a unique focus on the most creative individuals sparking change in the marketplace. By uncovering best and "next" practices, the magazine and website help a new breed of leader work smarter and more effectively.
Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and create the future of business."

Monday, March 22, 2010

Submissions on ISP filtering released today

"Australia's biggest technology companies, communications academics and many lobby groups have delivered a withering critique of the government's plans to censor the internet." (quoting smh, 23/3/10, 4.40pm)


Including Google's submission:

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The protest movement against internet censorship in Australia

There is a very active and passionate protest movement against the Australian Federal Government’s proposed ISP-based filter, which aims to block material deemed inappropriate for children. In other words, censorship of the internet for Australia.

Background:

A comprehensive history of Internet censorship in Australia has been compiled on Wikipedia. Here is a brief summary of the key milestones:

  • 1999: Federal Government fails to get internet censorship regime together as part of the sale of Telstra
  • 2001: CSIRO examines internet content filtering. Report evaluates the effectiveness of client-side filtering schemes (deemed ineffective) difficulties of ISP-based filtering
  • 2006: Labor party (in opposition) commits to requiring all ISPs to implement a mandatory Internet blocking system applicable to “all households, and to schools and other public internet points” to “prevent users from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority”
  • 2007: Labor now in government, announces intention to introduce ISP-based filter with an ‘opt-out’ provision for adults
  • 2008: government commences $82m “cybersafety plan” including additional mandatory filter with no ‘opt-out’ provision.
  • Jan 2010: a Labor senator lobbies her party to include the "opt-out" filter when the legislation is debated in caucus, describing it as the "least worst" option

Protest Action:

To date, the protest actions which have received the most national and international media coverage are the cyber attacks on Government websites by the activist group Anonymous. The first attack occurred on 26 March 2009, when visitors to the Australian Government Classification website were redirected to a hacked version of the site’s content. Then on 9 September 2009 Anonymous initiated a Distributed Denial of Service attack against the website of the Australian Prime Minister, in a campaign called ‘Operation Didgeridie’. Then on 10 September 2010, the Australian Parliament’s website was endured a distributed denial of service attack for over two days, as part of a wider campaign that included ‘blackfaxes’ (solid black pages faxed to various government offices), prank calls and spam emails. This campaign was dubbed ‘Operation titstorm’, referring to the Government's banning of pornography featuring small-breasted women.

Protest movement:

These are the sites I’ve found so far that are either directly concerned with the issues of protesting Australian internet censorship or feature ‘3rd party’ reports/content about the issue:

Civil liberties, anti-censorship and protest sites:

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

http://openinternet.com.au/

http://opennet.net/

http://www.myspace.com/nocleanfeed

http://www.internetblackout.com.au/

http://www.thegiftofcensorship.com/

http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/12/how-to-protest-against-internet-censorship-laws/


Pages about Australian internet censorship issue and/or protests:

http://amyclaire01.tumblr.com/post/403295185/regulation-of-the-internet-and-how-this-will-effect

http://www.infowars.com/internet-censorship-protest-shuts-down-australian-government-websites/


Government and pro-filtering sites:

http://www.dbcde.gov.au/internet/online_content_regulation

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD..PC/pc=PC_311304

http://www.iia.net.au/

http://www.familyfirst.org.au/policy/policypornography.pdf


International comparisons:

I think it will be worthwhile to look at the US and China’s internet censorship policies and issues as part of a comparative analysis of the Australian situation, so I’ve started with the links below and will explore further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States

http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/internet-censorship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/


So that’s some initial research and broad areas of interest defined. In future posts I’ll take a more in depth look at some of the sites listed above and the issues they cover.

Topic assigned - protest movements

ok, finally this blog has a purpose! I've been assigned the topic of 'protest movements' to write about, and I need to post at least 1 link per week on the Diigo group for the course too.

As this is a course on Internet Cultures and Governance, I'm going to focus on the recent and ongoing protests against proposed internet filtering legislation - the so-called 'clean feed'.

Watch this space...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

ARIN 6902 Internet Cultures & Governance

...is the course I've set this blog up for. Its an elective unit of my Masters of Media Practice at the University of Sydney: www.sydney.edu.au/arts/digital_cultures

Have also had to sign up to diigo.com, soup.io and even Twitter(!) - i know, I know...

Not sure what we'll be using the blog for yet as there's only been one intro seminar, but it looks like it'll be a very interesting course and I'm looking forward (no, really) to using all these online tools I've thus far managed to avoid and/or have had nor use for...

First past the post

well here we go; a reluctant blogger, wary of content for content's sake, needs to set up a blog as part of course at University...