Today I sat my one and only exam for the semester: Property Law. After two hours of grilling questions on such things as leases, easements, fixtures, chattels and the Torrens Title System (shudder), I am free and my first year of university has drawn to an end.
However, this entry isn't to celebrate the sunset of this academic year, although congratulations do go out to all the Year 12s who have sat/are sitting their final exams. Only a little bit left guys and gals! It also isn't a recap, as whilst there have been many moments this year that have been very, very enjoyable, I can't remember them all and they would probably get very boring after a while.
That's the freedom part of this post. Now to the other half.
The big 'thing' at the moment is Rudd's plan to implement filters Australia-wide to keep our little darlings from stumbling across things they shouldn't see until they're much, much older. Unfortunately, Labor changes it's story a little, and now it seems that they're not so much concerned about our little darlings as they are keeping people from accessing child pornography. (1)
This isn't a 'new' issue however, Labor has been throwing it around since they came into power, and it looks like they might finally be on the road to putting the scheme into operation, despite a surprisingly large amount of public outcry. IT Experts are of the opinion that filtering will in fact do a lot more harm than good. Three of Australia's leading ISPs were interviewed by ZDNet.com.au regarding the proposed filter - Telstra Media, iiNet and Internode. Simon Hackett, managing director of Internode, commented (amongst other things) that,
"If the stuff goes a bit wrong it will start blocking other content. The trouble is, the internet's not just web browsers. Other applications that are using the internet may get mistaken for things that are pulling that content and might get blocked or messed with in strange ways..."(2)
Hackett also questioned exactly whose morals were being enforced in this situation, saying quite reasonably,
"Is it [the filtered content] the Federal Government's definition of bad? Is this going to be a white Anglo-Saxon protestant filtering system? Is it going to be a Muslim filtering system? Is it going to be one that doesn't like Scientology? The problem is we live in a world with multiple sets of morality, all of them equally valid."(3)
These are both very important points, not to mention that the filters that are meant to be targeting 'bad' sites could quite possibly block 'good' ones also. Ars Technica recently published an article citing such sources as SAGE-AU (The System Administrators' Guild of Australia) and Labor testing schemes themselves, revealing:
'The System Administrators' Guild of Australia, SAGE-AU, issued a statement again stressing its opposition to Internet filtering on grounds that it simply wouldn't work.'(4)
And,
'The government's own testing has shown that the filters still have serious problems with false positives...'(5)
Moreover, the government seems to be changing its stance on how Australians should react to the suggestions, with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy saying in January of this year that,
'...Internet users would be able to access uncensored material by opting out of the service and that the government would work with industry to ensure the filters did not slow down the service.'(6)
However, more recently Conroy has been arguing for mandatory filter across all Australian households, with Computerworld releasing an article in mid-October including the comment that,
'...advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.'(7)
Many critics have likened this to the current system operating in China, where sites such as Google are considered 'illegal', and cyberdissendents are quickly arrested and jailed. This does not seem to be far from the truth, with Conroy doing little to dispel such superstition, especially when he attempted to 'bully' ISP staff, and force them to keep any criticisms of the scheme unheard. (8)
But I believe the major problem with all of this is where it gets personal. Of course I believe that a world without child pornography, most pornography in general, drug information and details on how to construct weapons and explosives of all varieties would be a better place. However, this isn't the 'big picture'. Filters don't work on blocking specific sites unless one is willing to invest a lot of time and money hunting down individual web addresses - and a porn site often has multiple addresses to access it from. Instead, they work on IP addresses. Think of an IP address for a site as the general address for a block of flats; sure, one of the occupants might be a criminal, but you can't barricade the entire block from the outside world because the other tenants are suddenly without access. They are, without a doubt, fucked.
Another way of filtering is to block out keywords; it seems the government would probably use words such as 'naked' 'babies' 'rape' 'molesting' etc.
Consider a psychology student using an online article archive such as JSTOR, writing a paper on the psychological effects of child rape. Anything that could possibly aid them in their learning will be filtered. It's not just this situation, as a law student I am constantly looking up cases for the principles contained within, and often there is a principle that is not entirely related to the case. Should I be looking for a principle - unrelated to sexual incidents - but contained within a sexual harassment or assault case, and there were 'filtered' keywords in the case notes, I couldn't use it. This can be applied across almost every single academic discipline.
And in all honesty, shouldn't it be the parents' responsibility to watch what their children are hunting down on the net? I know there are home filter programs - even free ones - my parents had one for a time. The government is not everyone's nanny, and in pursuing something like this it is eventually the futures of the children they are attempting to protect, that will suffer.
________
However, this entry isn't to celebrate the sunset of this academic year, although congratulations do go out to all the Year 12s who have sat/are sitting their final exams. Only a little bit left guys and gals! It also isn't a recap, as whilst there have been many moments this year that have been very, very enjoyable, I can't remember them all and they would probably get very boring after a while.
That's the freedom part of this post. Now to the other half.
The big 'thing' at the moment is Rudd's plan to implement filters Australia-wide to keep our little darlings from stumbling across things they shouldn't see until they're much, much older. Unfortunately, Labor changes it's story a little, and now it seems that they're not so much concerned about our little darlings as they are keeping people from accessing child pornography. (1)
This isn't a 'new' issue however, Labor has been throwing it around since they came into power, and it looks like they might finally be on the road to putting the scheme into operation, despite a surprisingly large amount of public outcry. IT Experts are of the opinion that filtering will in fact do a lot more harm than good. Three of Australia's leading ISPs were interviewed by ZDNet.com.au regarding the proposed filter - Telstra Media, iiNet and Internode. Simon Hackett, managing director of Internode, commented (amongst other things) that,
"If the stuff goes a bit wrong it will start blocking other content. The trouble is, the internet's not just web browsers. Other applications that are using the internet may get mistaken for things that are pulling that content and might get blocked or messed with in strange ways..."(2)
Hackett also questioned exactly whose morals were being enforced in this situation, saying quite reasonably,
"Is it [the filtered content] the Federal Government's definition of bad? Is this going to be a white Anglo-Saxon protestant filtering system? Is it going to be a Muslim filtering system? Is it going to be one that doesn't like Scientology? The problem is we live in a world with multiple sets of morality, all of them equally valid."(3)
These are both very important points, not to mention that the filters that are meant to be targeting 'bad' sites could quite possibly block 'good' ones also. Ars Technica recently published an article citing such sources as SAGE-AU (The System Administrators' Guild of Australia) and Labor testing schemes themselves, revealing:
'The System Administrators' Guild of Australia, SAGE-AU, issued a statement again stressing its opposition to Internet filtering on grounds that it simply wouldn't work.'(4)
And,
'The government's own testing has shown that the filters still have serious problems with false positives...'(5)
Moreover, the government seems to be changing its stance on how Australians should react to the suggestions, with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy saying in January of this year that,
'...Internet users would be able to access uncensored material by opting out of the service and that the government would work with industry to ensure the filters did not slow down the service.'(6)
However, more recently Conroy has been arguing for mandatory filter across all Australian households, with Computerworld releasing an article in mid-October including the comment that,
'...advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.'(7)
Many critics have likened this to the current system operating in China, where sites such as Google are considered 'illegal', and cyberdissendents are quickly arrested and jailed. This does not seem to be far from the truth, with Conroy doing little to dispel such superstition, especially when he attempted to 'bully' ISP staff, and force them to keep any criticisms of the scheme unheard. (8)
But I believe the major problem with all of this is where it gets personal. Of course I believe that a world without child pornography, most pornography in general, drug information and details on how to construct weapons and explosives of all varieties would be a better place. However, this isn't the 'big picture'. Filters don't work on blocking specific sites unless one is willing to invest a lot of time and money hunting down individual web addresses - and a porn site often has multiple addresses to access it from. Instead, they work on IP addresses. Think of an IP address for a site as the general address for a block of flats; sure, one of the occupants might be a criminal, but you can't barricade the entire block from the outside world because the other tenants are suddenly without access. They are, without a doubt, fucked.
Another way of filtering is to block out keywords; it seems the government would probably use words such as 'naked' 'babies' 'rape' 'molesting' etc.
Consider a psychology student using an online article archive such as JSTOR, writing a paper on the psychological effects of child rape. Anything that could possibly aid them in their learning will be filtered. It's not just this situation, as a law student I am constantly looking up cases for the principles contained within, and often there is a principle that is not entirely related to the case. Should I be looking for a principle - unrelated to sexual incidents - but contained within a sexual harassment or assault case, and there were 'filtered' keywords in the case notes, I couldn't use it. This can be applied across almost every single academic discipline.
And in all honesty, shouldn't it be the parents' responsibility to watch what their children are hunting down on the net? I know there are home filter programs - even free ones - my parents had one for a time. The government is not everyone's nanny, and in pursuing something like this it is eventually the futures of the children they are attempting to protect, that will suffer.
________
(1) The Age [2/1/2008]: http://news.theage.com.au/technology/australias-plans-to-filter-internet-under-fire-20080102-1jwl.html
(2) ZDNet.com.au [30/10/2008]: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communications/soa/ISP-level-content-filtering-won-t-work/0,139023754,339292158,00.htm
(3) See above.
(4) Ars Technica [28/10/2008]: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-australias-internet-filter-could-legal-content-be-banned-too.html
(5) See above.
(6) The Age [2/1/2008]: http://news.theage.com.au/technology/australias-plans-to-filter-internet-under-fire-20080102-1jwl.html
(7) Computerworld [13/10/2008]: http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276;fp;16;fpid;0
(8) Sydney Morning Herald [24/10/2008]: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/labors-net-gag-worse-than-iran/2008/10/23/1224351430987.html
(2) ZDNet.com.au [30/10/2008]: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communications/soa/ISP-level-content-filtering-won-t-work/0,139023754,339292158,00.htm
(3) See above.
(4) Ars Technica [28/10/2008]: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-australias-internet-filter-could-legal-content-be-banned-too.html
(5) See above.
(6) The Age [2/1/2008]: http://news.theage.com.au/technology/australias-plans-to-filter-internet-under-fire-20080102-1jwl.html
(7) Computerworld [13/10/2008]: http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276;fp;16;fpid;0
(8) Sydney Morning Herald [24/10/2008]: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/labors-net-gag-worse-than-iran/2008/10/23/1224351430987.html
No comments:
Post a Comment