Australian censor plan targets BitTorrent
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Is Australia the latest country to take on the role of corporate copyright cop?
In the face of determined opposition from Oz ISPs, chairman Rudd’s censorship plans may be far more wide ranging than first suspected.
Kevin Rudd’s Labour government has already taken it upon itself to decide what Australians shall, or shan’t, see online, and its policies are looking increasingly oppressive as time goes on.
Now it has P2P file sharing technology in its sights.
Rudd & Co want to ‘filter’ online traffic and block access to 10,000 sites they claim carry ‘illegal’ content, but Australia’s largest ISPs are balking.
They’ve refused to take part in “live trials,” with the second largest committing, “only to a scaled-back trial,” said The Age.
Some 1,300 websites are already designated as undesirable by the Australian Communications and Media Authority as part of its self-appointed role as Net Censor, said p2pnet.
Today, in a post on his department’s blog, broadband minister Stephen Conroy says, “technology that could filter data sent directly between computers would be tested as part of the upcoming live filtering trial,” according to news.comn.au.
P2P file sharing applications, in other words.
“Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial,” the story has Conroy saying.
Adds the post »»»
Despite announcing the live pilot trial would likely include filtering peer-to-peer traffic, Senator Conroy rejected accusations that the scheme was similar to internet censorship in countries such as China.
“Freedom of speech is fundamentally important in a democratic society and there was never any suggestion that the Australian Government would seek to block political content,” Senator Conroy said.
“In this context, claims that the Government’s policy is analogous to the approach taken by countries such as Iran, China and Saudi Arabia are not justified.”
Senator Conroy said the internet filter would be in-step with existing methods to censor books, films and video games.
Stay tuned.
(Thanks, Luvie)
block access – Oz ISPs say No! to Rudd anti-Net plan, December 12, 2008
are balking – Australia Net censorship plan comes unglued, December 10, 2008
The Age – Labor plan to censor internet in shreds, December 9, 2008
p2pnet – 1,300 sites already on Australia censor list, November 14, 2008
news.comn.au – Internet filtering plan may extend to peer-to-peer traffic, says Stephen Conroy, December 22, 2008
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December 23rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Crikey!!!!
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
From TorrentFreak article comments:
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
Mein Kampf; the Ralph Manheim translation published by Houghton-Mifflin, 1943. pg 403.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Jon I think they mean ‘throttle’ not block haha
They might use BitComet as a client but What happens if they change DNS settings at the network layer level?
December 24th, 2008 at 10:27 am
you should look up what throttle actually means as block does , i went through it elsewhere and any impediment is also a block , such as a throttle, with the attempt being that you impede the action to such an extent that people will not wish to GO that route or take that action.
thus it is a block which should stop calling it throttling and call it what it is BLOCKING
December 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
“Senator Conroy rejected accusations that the scheme was similar to internet censorship in countries such as China.”
Righrt now he is wrong but since CHINA is slowly imporving while the Australia and most of the west are slowly creeping toward fachism eventually he will be right! Some western siding countries such as Israel are already Fascist although Israel qualify already as Nazism with Ethic cleansing and land stilling in progress.