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Australia's Internet Industry Association

Never before in the history of human endeavour...


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MELBOURNE (Rixstep) — Never before in the history of human endeavour... Australia's Internet Industry Association came out like Ned Kelly with guns blazing.

On 27 June this year they proclaimed they were killing off child pornography once and for all in the Lucky Country™. Now as everyone knows, you 1) don't kill off child pornography; and 2) citing child pornography is most often an excuse for shuffling infrastructure so you can set up a generic censorship apparatus.

Because something's happened to Australia. She's not the rip-roaring outspoken country she used to be. Perhaps Rupert murdered that. Successive governments there only get worse and worse. The latest colossal mistake, one Julia Gillard, is already looking for the emergency exit: a 'Red Headed League' down under went ahead and formally denounced her on the grounds she gives ginger types a bad name.



But they've got lots of varmints down there these days. Gillard's just the most visible of them. The witnits at the Internet Industry Association are actually far worse. For there's really nothing that beats having a hostile attitude towards humanity and a staggering lack of brains to back it up. They got that at the IIA.

'The association representing Australia's internet industry today claimed that 80 to 90 percent of Australians would have their internet connections filtered for child pornography this year, following the release of an industry code in July that will focus on a blacklist of sites supplied by international policing agency Interpol.'

Oh yeah. And Sony's gonna stop you from copying CDs by putting funk on the outer tracks. Works every time. Or they're gonna put a bad bad rootkit on your box that you can't defeat. That works too.

Think of all the money that's spent. All those crazy schemes. Dreamt up by nitwits who can't even tie their own shoelaces. Code written by programmers who know better but also know when to keep their mouths shut. Millions upon millions. Who gets the tab?

Note they got their headline underlined. That isn't a text decoration for hovering over hyperlinks - that's the real thing. They want you do know they're damned serious. Oh yeah.

'The Internet Industry Association today announced the framework that would underpin its imminent code relating to child abuse materials.'

'The voluntary industry code of practice for ISPs in Australia would entail blocking child pornography sites which would otherwise be available to Australians. It would rely on a blocklist compiled and supplied by Interpol, in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police ('AFP').'

Uh 'voluntary'? Hold on. Cos that's not the way they envisioned it in the beginning in those steamy shower stalls. TechEye reports it thusly:

After huge protests, a backdown from the government and shedloads of wasted cash, Australia's voluntary 'rabbit proof fence' of censorship protection was rolled out today.

In a move claimed to 'protect children' the Australian government initially wanted a filter which would sit on every ISP's computer. It would filter out access to every website that the Australian government felt that people should not see.

After an outcry, it was decided to make the scheme voluntary with only the country's main ISPs signing up to it.

'Rabbit proof fence' - you gotta love it. What do they have against rabbits? It's probably because rabbits have lots of sex.



But that 'voluntary' thing. The way the press release from the IIA just sort of snuck it in there. And if a proposition is so unpopular, then what are you doing? You're going against the will of the people, you ponces.

'Consistent with industry commitments made almost 12 months ago to develop a voluntary industry program to block child abuse materials, the IIA announced the final elements of the scheme were moving into place in preparation for a launch of the code in July.'

'IIA member ISPs in Australia have confirmed their intentions to support a code based approach.'

'Code based approach'? So this is some kind of Death Star caliber programming scheme to isolate Oz? This is the Great Wall of Australia™?

Not quite. Or knowing the way that type of hypocrite runs, just quite. Fill yer pockets and then get out of Dodge. And how much was wasted spent on this project? A project running a year already?

Here's the catch, folks: it runs through your DNS. The same way all those cute Windows trojans do. It basically blocks or diverts traffic when you request certain URLs.

But as there are very few ISPs going along with this stupid scheme and as there are a gazillion DNS servers across this globe - guess what?

You guessed right. TechEye:

'Punters who think their kids are safe from paedophiles thanks to the filter will not be. Meanwhile those who feel that it is wrong to have their Internet connection slowed by filtering for sites they don't visit will be furious.'

'In short, it was a complete waste of time.'

And money.

And never before in the history of human endeavour...

You are afraid of love, you are afraid of life, you are afraid of sex.
 - Luc Teyssier

See Also
Justice4Assange.com
Assange Defence Fund
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
The Police Protocol (Translated)
Rixstep: JA/WL (Assange/WikiLeaks)
Rixstep: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed
Radsoft: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed

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