This is going to be an interesting ride.

Am watching and this page will change as I get thoughts. I am a mere citizen

Nick

Censorship of personal communication is viewed as 1984 totalitarian state material and a threat to the proper functioning of democratic state.

The issue with attempting to censor the internet is that on the ‘net there is no difference between mass media publication and personal communication.

The truth is, this blog has equal standing as wired.com on ability to be viewed, and thus requires an equal level of monitoring. But this site is just you ranting about stuff that matters to you to a bunch of your friends.

The collapse of this difference between personal commnuication and mass media publication leads to all sorts of insanity. Like 15 year olds being branded child pornographers for sending each other mms’s of themselves naked.

Censorship on the net won’t work, and any attempt to do so will just encourage people like myself to code around it. The leaf nodes are re-programmable. The age of being able to control the network by controlling the central nodes is over. That was actually part of the design requirements of the original ARPANET.

Welcome to the new world.

The child filter which my understanding the government will make opt-out (I didn’t read all of Mikes comment either so I don’t see the great difference other then if I default starting position. If by opting out I get to the same state as not opting in, no difference to me, yeah?) and the legal filter which won’t be opt-out of (and when you think of it, why should it be. I mean I can’t choose to opt-out of the .05 alcohol limit if I don’t like that).

I think a lot of people are against the legal filter, which I don’t get, but each to there own.

On the thought of “You can’t make it completely clean, so don’t do anything”, I am not sure that is a good argument. I mean we aren’t going to stop all the drugs coming into the country but I think we should make a reasonable effort to stop as much as we can.

Anyway. Just some thoughts from a partial read. Sorry if you touch on some of the points. I applaud that you are looking at the issue sensibly rather then comparing it to China like a lot of people do. Isn’t it funny that those people have a go against the pollies for scare mongering with things like Terrorism but then use the same tactic themselves?

JMTC
Molly

Yes, I will clear up and tighten the language of Opt-in. Opt-out is going to require a major investment by all ISPs *if* the Government is considering a Filter that approaches something that will actually work.

the Government will need to match their Filtering to the current best-practise in the industry. There are places where filters are implemented today: some Corpations, all Education Departments and Schools.

I do not think the Government has sought advice from the experts within these areas on the cost of management of Filters that work.

The “range” of filters is also an interesting point. Its is more than an on-off style problem.

Yes, if you really think about it — The Government has opened a Pandora’s Box here.

If the public expects a totally Kid-safe/Clean Feed as promoted by Senator Conroy, they will be disappointed in the cost.

Thanks for commenting.

Nick

My thought is that filtering must be opt-in, first because most of us don’t want to be censored; but also because it vastly reduces the resources required to run the system. The subset of people who want it will have slowed internet, everyone else is hopefully unaffected.

I’m also thinking the opt in needs some sort of graded options. eg. cut down whitelist-only access for young kids (ie. “we’ll deal with the walled garden nature of it”); whitelist+filter; blacklist+filter.

So as kids grow/mature their access can be changed. OR so households with different aged kids can cope — the little ones get lockdown, the teenagers just get the blacklist filter, etc.

The Conroy on/off model will be a real problem for some households, I’d guess. Younger kids in the house, but teens needing to research their uni assignments, etc.

It’s all a logistical nightmare and still won’t make kids “safe” in the way Conroy seems to suggest all the time.

Firstly, my argument is that to create an opt-in truly safe internet for kids requires a default no-censorship position for the adults. Not lawless, but as it currently exists.

Presently, Education Departments (acting In Loco Parentis) heavily filter internet access to their students. We should take the best practices here and provide the opportunity for parents to replicate this at home.

Of the Govt starts down this process, they will need to “certify” the linkage.

I agree the Authority, and the codes of conduct/filter list; policies and procedures should be transparent.

I am attempting to NOT make a technical argument as this is clearly political issue; but we in the No Censorship world may be failing in seeing the bigger picture — and are not offering a viable alternative

Nick

Obviously publishing blacklisted links to the public would somewhat defeat the purpose of not advertising them. So it would be best to involve reputable NGOs (multiples) to verify filtering and ISPs to confirm.

That said, I still don’t think the technology required for such filtering at ISP level is well thought out and tested for accuracy and performance. Which means a technology put in place that threatens democracy as well as reduces the ease of access to valid information.

A possible choking of the Internet’s arteries to cure a disease.

Thanks for the feedback and your brain cycles to read my meanderings.

After writing this, and reading your comments — I need to strengthen two things

- The pandora’s box is open, and the more you look inside, the darker and difficult it is to correctly filter.

- To beef up the filtering, the cost is a slower but relatively safer internet results

- The cost(s) of this is too great for all Australians bear

- do some more on the mechanism side

Nick

1 & 2 show the FUTILITY of filtering
3 points the the DANGER of breaking the internet (and the severe consequences for international competitiveness)

Second,
The ‘default’ state of any filtering is not a concession to be traded. There is a world of difference between Opt in and Opt out of mandatory filters at the ISP level. I know you are aware of the difference, but I’m not sure your language is clear/strong enough here (I was confused after first quick on screen reading).

So,
Can I suggest you tighten up the language in 14–20 to make it crystal clear that:
– 14 does not say its OK to filter every citizen’s ISP connection by default (you are suggesting that Web Savvy (?Certified — WSC!!) parents can be ‘licensed’ out of the entire regime of protections you suggest.
15– ‘child-like anaemic view of internet’ implies that rule 3 has been violated (and that it is possible to filter content without breaking the internet). Go spend some time at a uni or tafe campus and see how useless the wireless network is for connectivity to and participating in the social web — as exemplified in my recent keynote to tafe edayz08.
17– indeed — this is a statement of default=unfiltered, filtering=opt-in (which might be mandatory for non-savvy or ‘unlicensed’ families/educators?)
18-speed-tax — interesting sound-byte that needs solid definition. speed-tax metaphor holds true if and only if the default for internet connections is unfiltered and is then proportional to the number of people using filtered feeds. If the default for all ISP feeds is filtered then the internet becomes as busted-arse as it is on campus and it’s game over for international competitiveness (not because of performance or cost but because its BROKEN).
19. you bet — see above. We waste a lot of money putting filters at ISP’s, the performance hit slows our already abysmal bandwidth, the cool/emerging web practices are BROKEN & only geeks (and kids) can circumvent, many circumvention’s will require techniques like tunnelling which add another performance overhead. If internet connectivity is like the shipping lanes of old, we have just turned all our ports into shallow backwaters.
20. amen — filters must be opt in. don’t quite follow your argument for in loco parentis (made me instantly react to my loathing of encroaching nanny-state legislation — deflecting from a so far rational argument).

Good on ya for having a go at proposing a way forward.
I just wish the whole thing would go away so we can use the web to build international value in the approaching economic turmoil.
I remember being in a room with both Conroy and Coonan just before Coonan announced the liberal’s ‘free filter’ fiasco and wishing I could articulate some of this stuff in a way that would prevent all the churn and waste this this stuff has unleashed.

I think if I had that chance again, with the benefit of hindsight I might suggest something like:

“senator Conroy, if you want to save face now that you have opened Pandora’s box, and you really are serious about protecting children then you must look deeply into the role of technology in any solution (and nick hodge has some good advice there!). Do NOT break the internet for all australians and jeopardize our international standing. And, please, do not be fooled by the snake oil salesmen who say they can sell you technology that will take care of your civic responsibility.

Fang — Mike Seyfang

There needs to be some cool hard logical thought applied at a Policy level; and an Industry solution to defining on what a Kid-Safe Internet is.

The current comments from Senator Conroy seem to not follow industry best practise.

Nick

Print this post, sit down over a bowl of cornflakes and work on a considered response to this significant work in progress.

UncleMike