Image source: techworld

This week Senator Stephen Conroy held a press conference to announce his internet filter is being delayed for a year, sighting the need for further consultation on exactly what is refused classification content.

It appears the new PM Julia Gillard is attempting to clear any unpopular issues from the election runway. Asylum seekers aside, the internet filter has been one of the most contentious issues facing the government, attracting widespread criticism and international attention. By delaying the legislations introduction to parliament until well into 2011, means the election will be a distant memory for most. More importantly it’ll be too late for the general public (or those the legislation effects most) to have their opportunity to protest the issue by voting against Labor.

Many voters, including myself, feel torn between voting for labor to support the NBN, while wanting to vote for the opposition to oppose the internet filter. This highlights our fundamentally flawed political system where voting happens once every 3 years, rather than on each specific issue.

Opponents to the filter claim the 12 month delay as a win, claiming the online and nation-wide protests have been successful. While some are quick to suggest this is the first step in the policy being killed off completely, Conroy’s relentlessness to proceed despite seemingly no support for the compulsory ISP-level filter, means its unfortunately still likely. At least while he’s still has that portfolio. While it is possible the filter will still be implemented it’s likely that the final legislation will be a watered down offering than what Conroy has proposed so far. If the filter is introduced, it won’t be before 2012.

As part of Conroy’s announcement, it was revealed that Telstra, Optus and iPrimus will implement an ISP-level block on a list of sites that serve illegal content. “I welcome the socially responsible approach taken by some of Australia’s largest ISPs.” says Conroy. Are we to deduce from this statement that all other ISPs are socially irresponsible ?

For those customers using other ISPs or ISPs that wholesale off the big guys, your internets remain untouched.

More info @ Delimiter

In response to Senator Stephen Conroy’s ridiculous Spams and Scams comments, they’ve Con & Roy have a great solution to protect you online.

More @ Kogan

Read more for the full press release.

KOGAN TECHNOLOGIES UNVEILS THE “PORTECTOR” – SPAMS & SCAMS INTERNET PORTAL FILTER

MELBOURNE, Australia, 18^th June 2010 – Con & Roy, two budding engineers from the Kogan Technologies R&D team in Melbourne have developed an Internet filter that portects Australians from “spams and scams coming through the portal.”

The Kogan team were alarmed to hear last week that up to 20,000 Australians were under threat from these “spams and scams” when the Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy spoke to the media.

As an innovative company, the Kogan team thought this was a perfect opportunity to create an alternative to the Government’s proposed mandatory Internet filter.

Kogan engineers Con & Roy have been working around the clock to develop the “Portector”. Made from the finest 8000-thread count Egyptian cotton, it is the best portal protection available in the world.

It goes on sale today for AU$2,999 and is available exclusively from the Kogan website.

View a video demonstration of Kogan’s Portector – Spams & Scams Internet Portal Filter here.

Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO of Kogan Technologies said he is particularly proud of his company’s latest product.

“It is the most exciting product we’ve released to date. Our engineers have been working very hard on this one.

“We’ve been shocked time and time again to hear not only about Australia’s need for a mandatory Internet filter, but also the need for a red panic button and protection from ‘spams and scams’.

“The Kogan Portector defends the portal from all of these net nasties in a far more affordable way than the Australian Government thanks to Kogan’s efficient online business model.

“Our alternative costs just $2,999 per customer which is over 50% off the cost of the Australian Government’s comparable product.

“The product goes on sale today and includes free shipping across Australia for a very limited time,” Kogan said.

The Government’s $128.8 million Cyber Safety policy recently expanded to protect up to 20,000 Australian’s being affected by “spams and scams coming through the portal,” according to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy. At a cost of $6,500 per person, the Government’s inefficient spending of tax-payer money must be addressed.

The Kogan Portector negates the need for the Government to devote more resources to its Cyber Safety policy as this all encompassing product is available today, is extremely easy to install, and is more cost-efficient and effective than the Government’s approach.

DISCLAIMER: The Kogan Portector is not a real product. The Kogan Portector is in no way affiliated with Senator Stephen Conroy, The Australian Labor Party, or the Australian Government. Incorrect use may result in uncensored Internet content, freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of thought, and protection of your civil liberties.

The Facts
Outlined on the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s blog, the Internet filter is one part of an overall cyber-safety plan for which the government has committed $125.8 Million over the next four years. The “Measures include increased funding towards cyber-safety education and awareness raising activities, content filtering and law enforcement”.

Yesterday (15/12/09), Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for DBCDE released to the public an overdue ISP Content Filtering Pilot Report from Enex Testlab. The purpose of this report was to test “a number of factors, including accuracy, effectiveness, impact on network speeds (performance), the relative ease of circumvention and the costs to implement.”

Current laws enable authorities to prosecute publishers of illegal content, but Australian law is powerless to impact servers located overseas. At most they can issue a takedown notice when the ISP / website owner can effectively choose if they comply with. The filter is designed to tackle that issue by blocking content that is ‘Refused classification’.

Conroy will present new legislation amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act early next year when the parliament resumes. If successful, the ISP-level filter would be implemented in 2011.

The idea has generated wide-spread large-scale public opposition.

My Thoughts
Let’s start at the start of the issue.. Where did the need for a filter come from ? Who’s demanding this ? And where’s the evidence. If there were parents out there screaming for a government solution to internet content safe filters, they were certainly slow to adopt the FREE opt-in security software offered by the previous government. The uptake was so poor, the program was scrapped. So why is Stephen Conroy so passionate to implement this? All he seems to get for his trouble is massive opposition and outright hate for the guy. This is an issue he’s putting his job on the line for, why, I have no idea.

I have serious questions about the report itself. Critical detail pertaining to which ISP was testing which product and what the users were actually doing when getting when the benchmarking on their connection was being performed. General browsing, gaming, torrenting, P2P, IM ? All of these things use the network differently and could potentially be impacted in different ways. Also in the Q&A, it mentions that all devices (mobile, console, etc) that connect to the internet will be filtered. My question is, why was only regular computer connections tested in the trial ?

Whilst supposed thousands of ‘real people’ were tested, we get the results of only a few at the end of the document. Of which results seem to fluctuate dramatically. For a credible conclusion to be reached for the aim of the report, the best filter would need to be selected, then tested against every possible scenario to ensure business and consumers aren’t impacted.

You may read the report lists the filter got 100% accuracy.. and if I provide a list of 10 sites to my router it’ll block 100% of those sites as well. This does not equal a successful filter and brings me to the inherit flaw of a blacklist. Content is created at such a rate that a blacklist will never keep up, there will never be enough manpower at ACMA to overcome this. Ever.

The result of the filters introduction will likely drive those exchanging illegal material underground (read: encrypted VPN/SSL). Despite the report being 97 pages long, it has no references to SSL. Encrypted traffic that won’t be filtered.

What can be done ?
The Press Release from Conroy yesterday clearly shows that no matter what the evidence or public opinion, he seems unequivocally persistent to get this filter implemented. There’s one single thing he can change that would end all of this opposition.. make it opt-in, rather than mandatory.

Whilst there’s some that subscribe to the every little bit helps camp, personally I think a lot of time and effort is being wasted doing things that won’t make a lick of difference. Changing your twitter avatar, unfollowing @kevinruddPM are just a couple of examples that have sprung up in the last couple of days. There’s thousands of websites out there that feature the No Clean Feed banner and what difference has that made ? I guess it has the chance to gain further publicity of the issue, but at this point it seems Conroy is set to proceed regardless of any amount of negative feedback on the issue.

Right now it seems the opposition hasn’t made up its mind on the issue, with Tony Abbott today saying he wasn’t across the issue to decide either way. Perhaps this is our opportunity to campaign to the opposition, help make up their minds and oppose the legislation.

Also don’t waste your time with online polls, in particular ones like SMH which results can easily be games by deleting your cookies and voting again. The results of these can’t be used as evidence in the case against the internet filter and simply serve for providing page visits to that site.

Resources

The official press release
Details of the overall Cyber-safety plan
Filtering Report
Frequently Asked Questions
Refused Classification Consultation paper

Google Australia’s response

The issue has now attracted worldwide attention, being picked up by ArsTechnica and the BBC. You can watch or contribute to the Twitter conversation by using the hash tag #nocleanfeed. The hash tag has been a trending topic for the best part of the last 24 hours.