Whilst it appears you are the only Labor party member with any sense, may i say that i will never vote for a labor member again. Im a 23 year old gen y male, and within 1 term of labor being in power we see the damage their party does.

They are not attacking democracy with data browsing retention and an internet censorship program to rival Chinas……

This is disgusting, and whilst i respect your position of being against the censorship or atleast providing a opt out option, my view on labor and no doubt a very large portion of internet users is one of hatred.
Do you realise how many people i can reach within one post on facebook? i personally can inform upto 400 people… Who in turn can inform more.. I will continue to educate all my friends on this tragic policy.

I do hope labor enjoyed their one term…. Bittersweet as it may have been.

Regards,
Chris

Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is Conroy’s proposal. It is Rudd’s, Conroy is merely the delivery boy.

- Justin.

http://libertus.net/censor/rdocs/ispblocking-rc-ncb-govclaims2010.html

Why are we still even debating this? the government, and particularly (but not only) Senator Conroy, is incapable of telling the whole truth about what he plans, consistently misrepresents what will be blocked, what is legal, and what the filter is actually capable of achieving.

Will you, Kate, take up the initiative and *please* ask Senator Conroy the and party decision makers *why* they feel the need to *constantly* lie to the public about this policy? and for that matter, we still haven’t had *any* explanation from the government of what *this particular* part of the government’s cyber-safety initiatives is supposed to achieve, and neither have we seen any evidence that some of the things it is supposed to do are actually problems at all (children stumbling across RC? Adults stumbling acros RC? we already know that it *cannot* stop intentional access, and we also know that (given the respective sizes of the filter list and the internet in general) it won’t have even one percent of all potentially-RC sites on the list, and is therefore more-or-less useless at stopping accidental access to RC rated pages as well). In order to meet Senator Conroy’s continued claims of “evidence based” policy, we need to (and haven’t) see a few things. First, evidence that people, whether children or adults, *ever* come across material which would be rated RC – we need to see how often it happens, as well (if at all). Then we need *proper* evidence that accidentally coming across *specifically* the material which people stumbled upon, causes lasting harm. By specifically, i mean that the study must not take the worst found by adults and apply that to the harms-children test, it must be grouped according to which group found it. IF and ONLY IF it is found that there is a significant chance that Adults *will* come across material *accidentally* (because if they are specifically looking then the filter is absolutely not going to stop them) on the internet that *will* cause them *lasting* harm THEN and only then can you look at a mandatory-for-adults filter, at which point the line of *likely to cause harm* has to be drawn (again, RC-on-the-net but actually-offline-it’d-be-Category-1-or-2-restricted is almost certainly the wrong definition) and the further question has to be asked which is “will the filter significantly reduce the occurances of harm” – take note again of the point i made above about how much material there is on the net, and how absurdly tiny a proportion of potentially-banned sites a complaints-based filter can ever expect to list. against that has to be weighed the potential harms of introducing the filter. None of this has been done. Even Senator Conroy’s old standby “we’re introducing it cos parents don’t know how to install their own filters at home” has been shown to be a lie *by ACMA research!*
http://libertus.net/censor/ispfiltering-au-govplan-p2.html#s_8

I can understand the uphill battle you face regarding this policy – it is supported at the highest levels within the party. But please don’t give up.

also posted on the “My thoughts on the Safer Internet Group statement” page on this blog.

The Labor government is moving into important areas such as education and hospitals long overlooked by a previous cautious government. The insulation problems were unfairly reported with the (ir)responsible contractors being let off the hook. Now NSW, for one, is bringing overdue prosecutions under consumer protection legislation to pin the blame where it lies, but will that activity be reported with the same gusto, even by the ABC which led bulletins with the insulation problem for weeks?

After Grocery Watch and Fuel Watch, two ambitious programs of doubtful utility, won’t the media be on the lookout for problems with Net censorship? And when they are uncovered, as they surely will be, does it make sense for a government with general reform in its nostrils to take more flack for a program of doubtful benefit?

Isn’t the term these days Risk Assessment? Has one been made?

How many times will the govt have to amend the regulations? Once a year? Twice a year? Every other Tuesday? Will the law have to be vague to allow maximum flexibility in drafting regulations? How far could the filter be expanded just by executive fiat?

I have written to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation to ask him whether his department has even considered what kind of regulation this will entail.

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2010/s2832254.htm

Otherwise, any RC page on an HTTPS site would imply blocking all pages served using HTTPS at that IP address ie the entire secure portion of the site.

As a software engineer I often encounter software “problems” that have been “solved” with convoluted and idiotic “solutions”. Conroy’s filter is the greatest of all software engineering WTFs, in the vein of http://TheDailyWTF.com