jb_nc
Google "9-11" and "truth"
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Um, if you read what Michael Malone (CEO of iiNet) said it was because he wanted to opt-in and basically get the results which said "this is how fucking stupid your idea is" rather than them getting some ISPs with 50 users and garnering the results they want to see. It makes sense, really.chicky_pie said:LOLZ @ Optus & iiNet users.
Some moar media stuff:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24771009-15306,00.htmlTHE country's largest internet service provider has dealt the Rudd Labor Government a slap in the face by refusing to participate in content filtering trials.
Child protection group Child Wise said Telstra's decision was bad for Australia, but other groups welcomed the news.
Political activist organisation GetUp is even planning an advertising blitz to rally opposition to the filtering plans.
ISP Internode has also declined to take part, while Optus and iiNet will participate.
On November 10, the Government released details of its long-awaited call for expressions of interest on live content filtering trials for internet service and mobile providers.
Telstra, which through its BigPond internet service has millions of customers, showed its hand even before the clock struck midnight, the deadline for expressions of interest.
The blow was delivered in a succinct statement.
"Telstra is not in a position to participate in the Government's internet filtering trial, primarily due to customer management issues," a company spokesperson said. The company said it was separately evaluating technology that allowed blocking via defined blacklists.
"We will continue to work constructively with all stakeholders, including the Government, to help provide a safe internet environment for children," the Telstra spokesperson said.
Internode managing director Simon Hackett said: "We feel the policy is deeply flawed as it stands and further dignifying that policy with additional tests that will repeat the results of the tests done over the last decade will not turn a flawed policy into a good one."
Child Wise chief executive Bernadette McMenamin said Telstra's decision was a black day for Australia, and questioned the telco's commitment to protecting children online.
"This indicates that Telstra is not committed to banning child pornography and we should question its values," Ms McMenamin said.
It is unclear if Telstra's no-show will derail the Government's plans to introduce mandatory content filtering at internet service provider level, but Ms McMenamin said she hoped it wouldn't.
Telstra's decision came as no surprise as ISPs have warned there were problems with the call for expressions of interest.
One major issue is how service providers would choose participants, their customers, to take part in the pilot.
"Do we pick names out of a hat?" said one ISP staff member who declined to be named.
Another issue was the sample size. The call for expressions of interest does not stipulate how many internet users ISPs would have to enlist for the live trials to be credible.
Sage-Au, a not-for-profit professional organisation representing system administrators, said the figure should be in the millions.
"How do you choose these participants? To make these trials really meaningful, it has to be done in a real-world environment with millions of internet users," Sage-Au president Donna Ashelford said.
"The bottom line is live ISP content filtering is simply not feasible."
There's also the question of legal liability and who would be held responsible if something went awry during the pilot.
If the Government can back up calls for mandatory content filtering with legislation, ISPs may be more willing to play ball.
Meanwhile, GetUp national director Simon Sheikh said more than $41,000 had been raised to fund an advertising campaign against filtering slated to start next week.
The country's second-largest internet and mobile phone provider, Optus, has submitted an expression of interest application, but on its own terms.
"Our participation will be strictly limited to filtering only the Australian Communications and Media Authority blacklist, which contains URLs of illegal content," an Optus spokesperson said. There are 1300 web pages on the list.
"The trial is anticipated to operate in a specific geographic area, with customers given the option to opt out of the trial."
Details will be finalised closer to the trial launch and Optus will decide on the size of the sample and where the pilot will be conducted.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy declined to comment on Telstra's announcement, saying only: "A number of ISPs have indicated their intent to participate in the trial. We won't be commenting further until all responses have been received."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/tec...1228584820006.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1The Government's plan to censor the internet is in tatters, with Australia's largest ISP saying it will not take part in live trials of the system and the second largest committing only to a scaled-back trial.
And the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has written to critics saying that the so-called "live" trials would be "a closed network test and will not involve actual customers". Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said this was a sign the Government was slowly backing away from the heavily criticised policy.
The live trials, scheduled to kick off before Christmas, were supposed to provide a definitive picture of whether the filters could work in the real world, after lab tests released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in June found available ISP filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly blocked harmless content and slowed down network speeds by up to 87 per cent.
But now Telstra and Internode have said they would not take part in the trials. iiNet has said it would take part only to prove to the Government that its plan would not work, while Optus will test a heavily cut-down filtering model.
The Government plans to introduce a two-tiered censorship system of filtering from the ISPs' end. The first tier would be compulsory for all Australians and would block all "illegal material", as determined by a blacklist of 10,000 sites administered by ACMA.
The second tier, which is optional, would filter out content deemed inappropriate for children, such as pornography. Experts say this second tier will have the most marked effect on network performance because every piece of traffic handled by the ISP will need to be analysed for "inappropriate" content.
Optus confirmed it would start a live pilot early next year but stressed it would test only the first tier and even then it would only block the current ACMA blacklist of 1300 URLs, as opposed to the Government's expanded 10,000 URL list.
Details are scant but the trial will operate in a specific geographical area and customers will be given the option to opt out.
Senator Conroy's office could not explain why it was telling people that the trials would not involve actual customers, which would give little indication of the real-world impact of the filtering plan.
Senator Conroy himself has consistently dodged questions about his policy in Parliament.
"How on earth could you conduct a 'live' trial if there are no customers to assess?" Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said.
"The minister also continues to be deliberately vague and cryptic about the definition of unwanted content and now he is unable to clarify how this so-called live trial will be conducted, even though he wants it to start before December 24."
The Greens today called on the Government to abandon its internet filtering trial, saying it was flawed and doomed to failure.
The plan is opposed by the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, some child welfare advocates, consumers and online rights groups. They fear the blacklist will be expanded to include the blocking of regular pornography, political views, gambling and pro-abortion sites.
"This trial is simply all show. It won't give any meaningful indication of how mandatory internet filtering would work in practice," Senator Ludlam said.
Colin Jacobs, vice-chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, said yesterday's incident in Britain, in which virtually the entire country was unable to edit Wikipedia because the country's Internet Watch Foundation had blacklisted a single image on the site, illustrated the pitfalls of mandatory ISP filtering.
Senator Conroy has said that, under his filtering plan, Australia would sign up to the same IWF blacklist.
"In Australia, not only would the Government have the ability to secretly add any site to our blacklist, but an unaccountable foreign-based organisation would as well," Mr Jacobs said.
"Given that the traffickers of genuine abuse material will not let themselves be slowed down by a filter and are already covering their tracks, the net result that will be achieved here is exactly this: inconvenience, chaos and expense with absolutely no dividend for the children."
Senator Ludlam said in a phone interview he believed Labor would drop the mandatory filtering policy in the new year once the now scaled-back trials were completed.
He said the Government could not abandon it now "without losing significant political face".
This Saturday anti-censorship protesters are planning to picket in Australia's capital cities, including Sydney's Town Hall and Melbourne's State Library.