I was talking to raena about that story, I gave her a really funny poem to recite to Shayne if that situation ever occurred 
:x
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Jacobs said: “Successful technology isn’t necessarily successful policy. We’re still yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on.”
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I agree with this. It seems ridiculous to spend so much money on something that can be done at a user level. We do not need the government to tell us what we can or cannot look at online. And if parents or christians are so concerned about what they or their families may potentially see online, then they should supervise or use software to either only allow certain websites or vice versa (creating a blacklist) or supervise children if they’re so concerned.
Ahh but you see the problem is education, most children are technologically smarter than their parents and can bypass that net-nanny style software with ease. This makes “protecting” your kids from the horrors of the web next to impossible, it’s a case of the parents not being educated enough to cope with the situation so it’s being taken out of their hands. I don’t agree with it either but alas, it’s the cheapest and quickest solution so it’s going to win votes. 
But the censorship being implemented in Australia isn’t aimed at children. All the nasties that the net-nanny software is designed to block will still be just as accessible. It is web sites that the Government don’t want adults to see that are being blocked. It also only applies to sites outside of Australia since it has been illegal to host those types of site in Australia since the web started. It has also been illegal to host them in most other countries as well and 99.99999% of people wouldn’t even try to look for the types of site that are being blocked.
The problem is that they are degrading the functionality of the entire internet in order to block access to a small number of web sites. A better solution would be to kidnap those who created those web sites and feed them feet first into a meat grinder - on second thoughts that’s being too kind to those depraved monsters.
Then those people should not have the internet. Far too often TV and the internet is used as a baby sitter for children. If people can’t supervise there children for half an hour while they research for homework online then maybe they should look at other avenues for their children to study and/or look for entertainment.
Like Felgall said though. The main aim of this filter is adults. I believe they should not be concerned with the people who are looking for whatever it is they’re making illegal. If people want that kind of thing they will always find a way to get hold of it. Instead, Concentrate on going after the people who are distributing this material.
The main target of the censorship is material that is illegal in Australia and where simply being found to have such material in your possession (such as in your browser cache) is sufficient to get you a 10 year plus sentence handed to you by the court. No person with even one brain cell working would ever knowingly seek out such material (unless they work for the police and are trying to track down the brainless idiots who collect such material).
I agree with stopping the Internet underworld but I think employing such tactics are a bad idea because it could easily escalate in them censoring other things if they feel it’s fitting or in the nations best interest. China followed the same kind of path initially and you know how that turned out (though Australia won’t go that far) 
I wouldn’t be so sure. Even during the testing some parts of the blacklist somehow got published and there were a few G rated sites that had somehow found their way onto that part of the list - including a site advertising a dentist.
I can’t see any way that they can ensure that innocent sites don’t end up listed by mistake - plus the filtering adds an overhead to accessing the 99.999999999999999% of what’s on the web that is supposed to be allowed.
People will figure out how to get round it anyway. In fact people taking part in the trials that certain ISPs have been taking part in (opt in consent by customers obviously) were able to get round it using a basic proxy.
I believe it will soon be common knowledge in the Australian community how to get around “Conroys Filter” anyway. Regardless of a persons mental capacity or age group. There is always a way.
Hopefully everyone who does that WILL receive a 10 year plus sentence and spend the rest of their life on the sex offender’s register. Anyone who would condone doing those sorts of things with children and animals deserves to be punished a lot worse than they ever will be. There’s no reason to try to get around it unless you are a mentally sick paedophile or worse since those are the sorts of sites the filter is intended to block. The only people with a reason to even try to get around it are totally brain dead and so it isn’t a matter of having the mental capacity to get around it. Anyone with a mental capacity at all wouldn’t want to get around it.
The filter has already been shown to be faulty so who knows what it will block? It may be out of necessity that they get around the filter.
It’s not just child pornography that is being blocked. It is a huge range of subjects. Who knows what Conroys brigade doesn’t want us to see. It could be subjects that, even perhaps you, would consider benign and not necessary to be blocked.
If you want to be told what you can and can’t lookup online, that’s up to you. But if want to be able to view what I want, when I want. Just like if I want to go out and buy a KFC bucket of chicken with a gallon of mash potato and wash it down with 3 litres of Coca Cola. You may think “Oh, the filter is just stopping perverts looking at kiddy porn” But this is a much, much larger issue then that.
You are getting two things mixed up. The filtering used in the test was shown to be faulty and was replaced by another far more limited filter with a guarantee that it will be constantly monitored by a third party to ensure that only sites that match the criteria are included in the block list. The sole purpose of the filter is to filter out illegal sites (of which child pornography is considered to be the mildest ones to be blocked by the filter) and so the third party monitoring should ensure that no site even remotely close to what a human being would wish to see will be blocked.
Having the filter start blocking anything beyond that is probably the quickest way of ensuring that the filter will be removed immediately after the next election since that would then be considered to be censorship and the Australian public would crucify anyone who tried to enforce that.
The only reason for anyone wanting the filter removed is because it will slow down all of the legitimate processing on the internet and no human being would want to visit any of the blocked sites anyway.