AUSTRALIAN INTERNET FILTER
AUSTRALIAN INTERNET FILTER
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The Australian Federal Government has proposed and begun
trialling an internet filtering system that would see an to
freedom for Australians on the internet, filtering thousands of
adult websites and some subjects like euthanasia and racism.
What’s an internet?
SENATOR CONROY
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Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications
and the Digital Economy has repeatedly lied when referring to
the overall acceptance of the Filtering policy both amongst the
ISPs and the general public and has been caught without
understanding key elements on the filter.
In late 2009, a website www.stephenconroy.com was registered
and used by pranksters to speak out against Conroy and the
filter, the domain was taken down within 24 hours. This caused
further concerns for many who already opposed the filter.
In May 2010, Senator Conroy stated that 85% of Australian
ISPs support the proposed filter, although his sources for this
information are completely unknown and invalid.
PROBLEMS
SPEED
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The internet filter could cause internet speeds to drop by
between 2% and 80%, depending on the amount of content
that the Australian Government wants to block .
This alone could cause the fibre-based NBN(National
Broadband Network) to be made completely useless, dropping
its speeds to current ADSL2 speeds.
PROBLEMS
COSTS
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The filter is set to cost tens of millions of tax payer’s dollars to
implement, with millions more in ongoing costs.
Ongoing costs for this could include having a 24/7 support
centre that would deal with complaints regarding mistakenly
blocked websites. Also a team of technicians and programmers
to stop and correct cracking attempts will be needed.
The cost of the average broadband connection in Australia
would also increase, with ISPs needing more money to support
the filtering infrastructure.
PROBLEMS
FREEDOM
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The filter would give the Australian Government unprecedented
control over all information on the internet and will allow them
to add any website they wish to the blacklist of blocked
websites.
Added to this, the fact that freedom in Australian would
essentially be gone, something that a Democratic government
should stand for.
PROBLEMS
EFFECTIVENESS
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In 2007, a teenager was able to crack an 84 million dollar filter
that was given away to families in only a half an hour, this trend
is similar across the world, with internet filters cracked in a very
short time.
Any Internet Filter currently on the market can easily be
bypassed with Google’s webpage caching service or using a
VPN service.
The true effectiveness of the proposed filter is in question, all it
could turn out to be is a speed limiter for anybody determined
enough to bypass it.
CONCLUSION
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For now, the Labour government’s Internet Filtering plan has
been postponed for atleast a year, but the possibility will always
exist.
A Liberal government has promised to not go ahead with the
current government’s proposal if elected.
Only time will tell if the filter is eventually made a reality.
THANKS FOR LISTENING!