i'm not entirely sure whats going on

but it sounds big

more later

3/19/2009 2:27:01 AM

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/19/1237054961100.html

Quote :

"The Australian communications regulator's top-secret blacklist of banned websites has been leaked on to the web and paints a harrowing picture of Australia's forthcoming internet censorship regime. Wikileaks, an anonymous document repository for whistleblowers, obtained the list, which has been seen by this website, and plans to publish it for public consumption on its website imminently. ... But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist. "It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," Landfelt said. The blacklist is maintained by ACMA and provided to makers of internet filtering software that parents can opt to install on their PCs. However, if the Government proceeds with its mandatory internet filtering scheme, sites on the blacklist will be blocked for all Australians. The Government has flagged plans to expand the blacklist to 10,000 sites or more. In a special report, written in conjunction with the Internet Industry Association and presented to the Government over a year ago, Landfeldt warned that "list leakage" was one of the main issues associated with maintaining a secret blacklist of prohibited sites. .... ACMA said Australians caught distributing the list or accessing child pornography sites on the list could face criminal charges and up to 10 years in prison."

now someone go ahead and compare this to moonshining so we can get on with it

3/19/2009 2:33:54 AM

the list if you're interested

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13410247/Acma-Secret-Blacklist-Aug-2008

3/19/2009 2:34:55 AM

I'll post in your thread.

3/19/2009 4:24:00 AM

Quote :

"Wikileaks, an anonymous document repository for whistleblowers"

nice...

3/19/2009 5:06:46 AM

Having heard all sorts of stories about the government down there from my Aussie friends, this sadly doesn't surprise me at all.

3/19/2009 5:40:48 AM

WTF MATE?!

3/19/2009 7:05:12 AM

I know where I'm not moving once this country crumbles.

3/19/2009 8:53:12 AM

A dingo at my link.

Oh, and now that they published the list you can be sure that those sites will get a boost in the hits they receive.

3/19/2009 8:57:07 AM

Quote :

"Having heard all sorts of stories about the government down there from my Aussie friends, this sadly doesn't surprise me at all."

3/19/2009 9:54:22 AM

Australia always seemed like the place to go too if the country fell apart, too bad. Whats New Zealand like?

3/19/2009 9:55:30 AM

I expected something like this out of the more socially conservative Howard government, but it was Rudd's left-leaning Labor-Green coalition that pulled this nonsense together. Some seem to say that it was the "Family First Party" they built a coalition with in the Senate that pushed this nonsense, but given that Family First has only a single seat, it shouldn't have been able to muscle this through without the support of the majority of both Labor and the Greens.

3/19/2009 9:56:17 AM

Quote :

"Whats New Zealand like?"

Worse

3/19/2009 9:57:44 AM

I bet australians love sarah palin and Joe the plumber.

I read another article possibly yesterday though that said one of the bigger ISPs in Aussiland straight-up refused to block peoples' internet.

3/19/2009 10:32:08 AM

3/19/2009 11:32:36 AM

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communications/soa/ISP-level-content-filtering-won-t-work/0,139023754,339292158,00.htm

As is so often, the last remaining defenders of freedom turns out to be corporations. Is it any wonder freedom retreats so readily? Let us hope they have more success than America's trolley and bus lines had against segregation.

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 12:25 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/19/2009 12:16:32 PM

wtf mate?

3/19/2009 1:46:24 PM

Quote :

"As is so often, the last remaining defenders of freedom turns out to be corporations. Is it any wonder freedom retreats so readily?"

they're just the ones who can flex their muscle more easily than a citizens or group of citizens. also it doesn't hurt to be ISP rebelling against the MAN.

(and i don't know what you're talking about with the segregation line)

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 2:00 PM. Reason : .]

3/19/2009 2:00:25 PM

At the turn of the century southern bus and trolley lines fought against segregation of the races on the grounds that it wasted money and annoyed their customers. Some companies chose to operate illegally rather than become the enforcement arm of segregationist legislatures.

"A black attorney leading a court battle against the laws provided an ironic measure of the strength of the streetcar companies’ resistance by publicly denying that his group 'was in cahoots with the railroad lines in Jacksonville.' "

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Discrimination.html

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 2:47 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/19/2009 2:46:30 PM

That story doesn't really seem to jive with history.

3/19/2009 3:33:34 PM

jive

3/19/2009 4:04:59 PM

i'm bringing it back

3/19/2009 4:16:24 PM

Porch Koalas

3/19/2009 7:39:05 PM

Didn't Australia also ban incandescent bulbs as a green initiative?

Quote :

"WTF Mate?"

3/19/2009 9:07:05 PM