Cracks in the Great Firewall

[den]

Via Boing Boing

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. The Age.

Apparently it's on Wikileaks but I can't go there; it's being blocked Slashdotted. And I can't link to it anyway because that would be illegal. But I'm sure you clever people could find a copy, no worries.

Comments

[hendikins.livejournal.com]

I'm advised by contacts overseas that Wikileaks is slashdotted, not blocked.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

When you say "Don't look at that!" everyone will want to look.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Also discussed on SlashDot, in this article. (in which someone may or may not have happened to have posted a very long list of links ... what a coincidence)

(my understanding is that wikileaks.org isn't blocked here yet - it just happens to be down at the moment, according to downforeveryoneorjustme.com)
(and of course, wikileaks.org may or may not be mirrored, perhaps somewhere Scandinavian, for example :-) )

[atara.livejournal.com]

I looked at the mirrored blacklist that BoingBoing linked to. I didn't click on any of the links, but there was one Flickr site listed, goat.cx (don't go there if you don't know what it is - totally NSFW but not illegal as far as I understand), and a few sites that I know are just legitimate porn sites with no connection to anything illegal.

The ACMA's press release (http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_311669) about the leak is so full of weasel words I could hardly get through it all.

ACMA has previously investigated and taken action on material—including child pornography and child sexual abuse images—at some of the sites on this list of 2300 URLs. However, the list provided to ACMA differs markedly in length and format to the ACMA blacklist. The ACMA blacklist has at no stage been 2300 URLs in length and at August 2008 consisted of 1061 URLs. It is therefore completely inaccurate to say that the list of 2300 URLs constitutes an ACMA blacklist.

Logic? Who needs that? Ha! According to the ACMA, because the list only contained 1061 URLs in August 2008, there's NO WAY it could have 2300 URLs now? That was seven months ago.

ACMA considers that any publication of the ACMA blacklist would have a substantial adverse effect on the effective administration of the regulatory scheme which aims to prevent access to harmful and offensive online material. Such publication would undermine the public interest outcomes which the current legislation aims to achieve.

"We're going to block you from seeing some things, but we're not going to let you know what we're blocking or why. Just trust us."

Bah. This reminds me that I need a copyfight/online rights icon, since Canada is having/going to have similar issues.

[marmoe.livejournal.com]

There's always wikileaks.us, wikileaks.eu, wikileaks.(insert favorite TLD).

I've had a brief look a the list. While I am astonished to find online-gaming sites there, the vast majority seems to be p. of the vile sort. Some of the names can make you sick already, if you think about them.

I don't think, filtering is an effective way to tackle the problem, however the infrastructure is easy to abuse, once it's installed.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

We've got our own system here as well... Apparently there will be a government 'black-box' that ISP's will have to install, that'll filter certain IP's. No, no-one is allowed to know what IP's either.

At this rate, I'm going to have to found my own country just to establish the last remaining free ISP.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Hope you guys had your fill of a free society over there. If you hadn't noticed, you don't have one and, for things to have gone this far, haven't had one in a while.

[psaakyrn.livejournal.com]

At least over here, I do get a note that "random IP is blocked" when I try to access blocked sites, though I'm not really sure that's much of an improvement.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

But it's to PROTECT THE CHIILDREN! You must be some sort of terrible pervert if you don't trust the government to censor whatever they want on line.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I especially like the fact that the contents of the blacklist are secret, and that anyone distributing the blacklist can get a decade in prison.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Well, I found the blacklist easily (although Wikileaks is struggling with overload at the moment, and it took a while to get through.)

Most of the websites are,indeed, repugnant in name only, and I am of the opinion that the world would be a better place if they didn't exist.

What frightens me, however, is the capricious nature of the blockage - determined by a select few individuals; the secret nature of the list; and the draconian penalties threatened for even distributing it. This is far too Orwellian for my taste.

Bill of Rights, anyone?

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

Found the list, had a look through it. Checked out a few of the links shown. Most of 'em do appear to be porn of one sort or another, although not necessarily particularly reprehensible stuff in some cases - I mean, in what universe is newbienudes.com a child porno site? And some are not even porn/erotica - I had to giggle when I saw the Liberated Christians site on the list, since there was this guy from Liberated Christians who used to be *such* a pest on a newsgroup I frequent. Still, it's hard to see how groups such as that, online gambling sites and parked portals (yep, found a few of those as well) really qualify as Evil Child Pornography. *rolls eyes*

Still, this sort of thing has been floated in the past here in Oz and it failed before, so here's hoping this effort fails too.