Education, not filtering, the answer: iiNet

As a computer professional who has worked behind the firewalls of the catholic education system (cathednet) I can say it is absolutely possible to build a reasonably bulletproof firewall. That firewall will also prevent a large number of people (primarily IT professionals, but I imagine also journalists and others) from doing their jobs.

Imagine having the latest virus loose in your company or school, one that has found a way through the firewall (for example on a thumb drive) and which is downloading advertising and more viruses from unblocked sites. Some of that advertising is inappropriate for children.

Now imagine that your IT department has to drive down the road to an unfiltered internet connection in order to find information and appropriate utilities to remove that virus. Mandatory filtering would have that drive be much further (or require your IT department defeat the filtering) in order to do their job protecting your data.

None of this will prevent other devices from transferring this material (you can't filter sneaker-net).

If you're paranoid about your children being exposed to porn, disconnect them from technology. Otherwise - supervise them, and bring them up right - give them the mental ability to filter their own content, and be able to deal appropriately with that to which they have the misfortune to be exposed - you will gain far more than any technological solution can provide.

Would it be possible to inquire, through this esteemed organ, about the views of Mr Rupert Murdoch on this matter? It will help us determine whether to dig in for an extended campaign - or whether this will be over long before the summer holidays.

Australian authorities have spent hundreds and again of millions of dollars on education on drugs, child abuse and drink driving. Massive amounts of education at every level. In schools, billboards, television, radio, seminars, online offline, leftline and right line. Continually for over 30 years...

And yet people are still caught drink driving and drugged, people crash, maim and die whilst inebriated or drugged. Children are abused and neglected.

I am very sorry, however education by others alone is not and NEVER will be the the silver bullet to make your life easier and the Internet, just like our roads, safe.

I am actually quite perturbed that any of you believe this. The continual evidence is overwhelming that education alone is not the answer, and never has been.

We must continue the education process, as this is crucial, however available controls must also be exercised, and any government that does not explore and implement these measures is lacking in seriousness.

As the adage goes: "It is better to have tried and failed, than never to have tried at all..."

This is then followed by " Try, try again...!!"

Js of Victoria you are right!! I don't see what pictures of raped, abused children have got to do with Freedom!!

Benjamin Frankin was and still is correct. Guard all our freedoms and totally reject this move toward control. Do I smell a religous movement here?

I cant see how we can allow the government to go ahead with the filtering process, teaching kids from an early age about drugs/porn/pornography or any other illicit material will need to start at home, i think the best solution would be for familes to decide if they would like their internet connection to be filtered or not, this still give people the freedom of choice which we deserve!!!

Education is just another weasel word. Its going to somehow fix the problem - I think not. It has very little to do with the whole point of the NetFilter.

How are you going to educate people not to download illegal content, or educate people not to surf for child porn. Considering there is a new way every so months to spread viruses, trojans, spam, phishing , and most people do not even know how to get tot the 'firewall' settings in XP. Laughable Mike Malone, and a poor excuse of your company not wanting to do whats right.

I'd think its a better idea spending your 'education' time in learning things like how to manage your money, how to save power, how to compost and recycle, DIY around the house, parenting , health and fitness, or furthering your education and skills, than wasting time trying to constantly fend off cyber crime which is continually changing as is the technology and getting more sophicated. A job that should be left for the authorities.

@js of Vic. Your right in saying that there are things punishable by law, there isn't anything wrong with filtering that. But the point is that they are going to filter material in which they deem inapropriate, while being perfectly legal. Why is it up to the government to say what and what isn't appropriate for someone to view? I find some things in the bible offensive, but there is no chance that that would be filtered. The goverment will block things because a minority finds it wrong. As multicultural as we like to say we are, Australia is clearly a christian nation, so anything remotely non christian they would want to remove.

This would be objectionable even if it did work. The Government has no right to prevent material that is not illegal. Nor do they have a right to make material illegal just because they find it offensive or contrary to their own values. In a free society you need good, rational and evidence based arguments that particular material that does harm to others before you ban something. Also the internet is to valuable to be dumbed down to the level that would be safe for children. The internet is not a childs play ground.

js of Victoria, your comment that censorship takes place in some form in every other medium and we still have a functioning democracy is irrelevant to this particular debate.

The current classification system was designed around broadcast and publishing media.

ACMA publish details of the material and publications restricted and classification ratings. We can find out what has been restricted. Broadcasters and publishers of material that has been rated in one of the restricted categories can appeal against the decision. Where classification is refused, a broadcaster or publisher can ask for a review by the OFLC. They can even take legal action and appeal.

The proposed internet censorship is based on a secret blacklist. It will be administered in secret and it is not subject to any judicial or public scrutiny. The current blacklist has never been subject to review and never classified by the OFLC. How will you know what has been restricted? How will an incorrectly blocked site appeal when they can't obtain information?

ISPs are not content broadcasters or publishers. The current system is based on complaints made anonymously and acted on in secrecy - as such, it will be subject to malicious abuse. The internet is more closely related to a telephone system or mail delivery system than it is to any broadcast medium. Do you want your mail and phone calls monitored and subject to censorship? That is the level at which the proposed system will operate. Right inside the routing and switching systems and outside any control or scrutiny of the general public.

The internet is interactive, the user can choose what they wish to access. If someone needs that choice made on their behalf, then there are a number of products available commercially that will do the job. Personally I cannot agree with secret censorship of the entire adult population on the basis of fearmongering and whipped up moral outrage.

To Which Priority do you have: I'm sorry, but if we can't rely on parents to provide some level of supervision, and if they deem it appropriate, control, over their own children's activities, I suspect access to online pronography and the like are least of the child's problems. As for the low take up rate, that says a lot to me about the genuine demand for a filtered sevice. If you have children accessing the internet, it's your duty as a parent to be at least familiar enough to set up these basic filters (if you think they are required)

To Observer2: Yes, some (read:very few) filters will also filter P2P traffic, but given how highly encrypted much P2P traffic is, filtering 'unwanted' material from this is both very difficult, very resource intensive, and in my opninion, largely pointless.

To Bypassing of Education: The ISP's intentions are not the main issue with the tests - the tests themselves will not be under the 'real operational circumstance' you mention due to the Goverment's own muddling. One would hope (but not expect) a set of real world tests if these next tests are somehow interpreted as being a success.

To JS: Yes, most of our current media are presently subject to review and censorship, however, as many in these industries have found out, the internet is quite a different beasts. Unlike television and movies, content producers will not offer their wares up for evaluation prior to making it available, and no-one could reasonably review the vast quantity of material if they did. And our government has a pretty poor hyper-conservative record of censorship when it comes to electronic and interactive media, if game classifiactions is anything to go by.

Finally, there seems to be some confusion as to what these filters are actually intended to accomplish - are we 'prtoecting' children by blocking pronographic material, or are we inhibiting the transfer and viewing of child pornography - because the current filters will do almost nothing about the latter, and scarce little about the former.

Meanwhile, legitimate access to information WILL be blocked, access speeds WILL be slowed, and costs to users and providers WILL increase. But as long as the government looks like it's doing something, aside from scrapping the only other alternative....

Martin, yes the government is elected to represent the population not to control the population. However, a large proportion of the population fear others so much that they do want the government to control others in the population. Most people demand tolerance from others, but are unable (unwilling?) to be tolerant of anything that my possibly offend them. My mother once said "Don't read that garbage, I don't like it." to which I replied "I read and say what I like. I'm not forcing you or your other children to read it!" We have a society where everything you do is everybody else's business and they expect the government to stop you from doing something other's don't like. That's tolerance for you!

The whole clean feed thing will absolutly not work. It's a total waste of money for something that will wrongfully block thousands of sites. Oh well, at least there are ways of getting around it if they do introduce it... We're just going to go back to the days where kids used to hide Playboy magazines under their beds. Clean feed will achieve nothing.

I notice no mention of mobile devices and securing them against inapropriet material. P2P is one method of sharing media from a PC or Laptop but dont forget the other gaping hole in the filter argument which is Mobile Phones and other mobile devices. Seriously, an internet filter will do nothing but promote an unrealistic sence of security amoung ignorant parents who think such a filter will make thier kids safe. Let us also remember that most kids who are sexually abused are abused by somone the child knows, not the metaphorical man in a trench coat. better to spend the money on funding proper abuse prevention schemes.

Hi Greg of Perth: I understand your point and intention. However I would suggest that our democratic state is functioning quite well under the current circumstances with a range of limitations on our liberties.

These already include measures to restrict those who would exploit and misuse our open society and the freedoms we have to inflict damage on our society and then eventually profit in some manner.

We have cameras in thousands of locations, our international travel is highly controlled and restricted, as we prefer not to have jets falling out of the skies or sailing into city buildings. We photograph, sniff, frisk and X-ray travellers in order to curtail the carriage of dangerous objects and drugs. We have video cams on trains, trams, stations, in taxis, on street corners and in schools, shops, malls and building. We do this to curtail the activities of those who would exploit our democracy to our detriment. Yet our democracy endures and we enjoy comparitive freedom compared to many nations and societies.

We have many avenues of data collection and identification, we can be often tracked and we sometimes need to validate our identity in order to open a bank account, travel domestically, see a doctor, go to a school or get Medicare etc. All limitations to our liberty, yet these measures enable our liberty today, and without them our liberties and freedoms would be seriously eroded and misued by those peddling violence, drugs, depravity and crime.

We have come to accept these measures because now we have seen some of the consequences if we do not be vigilant and watch our borders, control our roads, protect our communities, fund and maintain Customs and Police, keep a watch on areas of potential crime, monitor chat rooms, watch schoolgrounds and beaches, put up speed cameras, have video cams in banks, get X-rayed at the airport, wait in lines for security etc etc.

Yet our democracy endures, and I do not yet see Australia as one step closer to anarchy and totalitarian practices. Indeed, as other regions and countries suffer greatly, especially those lacking in measures to maintain order and having some controls, we continue to have high levels of liberty.

True anarchy develops and exists Greg when a society wants to allow or degenerates to a state where everybody can basically do what they want, or at least try to. Every society, including the one so strongly supported by Benjamin Franklin, has accepted norms of what is acceptable and what is no more acceptable. I believe that Benjamin Franklin would turn in his grave if he saw what is available on the Internet today, and would have some strong words to say about that.

It is quite reasonable to propose limitations to what is available on a communications medium, if the populace and adults involved do not meet their obligations to limit access to this for those under their care. To date too many Australian adults are not meeting that obligation and duty of care. Thus we will be stuck with the government putting in measures. And be clear, this is not my personal preference at all, simply a reality we need to get used to.

Speaking as the former Asia/Pacific head of one of the largest internet data centre companies in the world, it is folly to believe that we can effectively "filter" the internet.

It only exposes to the rest of the world how naive or supremely uninformed those who have initiated this project are on the subject. Had they taken more qualified advice and expertise, they would by now have known better and not wasted further time and resources on it.

The internet, by nature of its design, allows multiple pathways for any packet of data in the event that any pathway fails. A single image may arrive in the country via a dozen or more pathways from anywhere in the world. That's how the Internet works. No matter how anyone tries, no system of "filtering" will be able to effectively identify and block all, or even the majority of any class of content by filtering. (And it doesn't even begin to address peer-to-peer traffic originating from other computer rather than websites)

Today, more than 90% of the traffic currently being carried on the Internet is Spam. The greatest software engineering minds in the world have been unable to find an effective solution for this far less difficult issue to date.

It is astounding to believe that anyone who understands how the Internet works can expect that a filter will be able to somehow effectively identify, differentiate and selectively block "inappropriate" content? And even if it were technically possible (it isn't) who will determine what is "inappropriate"? And how will it be managed? The administration of such a scheme would be utterly mind-boggling. Folly indeed.

It WILL however, create additional overheads and expenses for all ISPs, data centres, system administrators, network engineers, companies AND governments--resulting in higher costs for consumers and taxpayers, response times and many other disadvantages--but most importantly--it will put Australia on the map alongside China, N. Korea and other totalitarian regimes as a country engaged in unnecessary and ineffective internet censorship.

Is this how we wish to be viewed by the rest of the world?

No one wants children exposed to inappropriate content via the internet--but content filtering--as seductive an approach as it may seem to the uninformed--will NOT be the solution.

Ultimately, this debacle (like all others like it that have been tried) WILL fail; it WILL be withdrawn; it WILL waste a great deal of taxpayers' money that should have been spent elsewhere; it WILL unnecessarily cost consumers and it WILL put a black mark on Australia in the eyes of the rest of the democratic world.

But rest assured, it WON'T and it CAN'T work.

Government is elected to represent us not to control the population. The politicians are prone to think that they know best and that they are there to protect us from ourself. Forget all the technical issues, what is at stake here is our personal freedom.

Censorship takes place in some form in every other medium and we still have a functioning democracy. Speech that is racist, misogynist or inciting violence in print, radio or TV can be punishable by law. Why is the censorship of the internet then viewed as an attack on free speech? If publishers of offensive material cannot be punished due to being beyond the reach of our laws then I have no problem with their content being filtered.

To Observer2: Actually I havent. Franklin's statement was broad reaching in it's intent, it was a philosophical position that restraining liberty to acquire some security was a double edged sword, and that the act is a dangerous precedent for an ongoing totalitarian expansion. Thsi would simply promote anarchy against the state, and would damage the society as a whole, when freedom is glorified. Franklin like many others reflected on the nature of the British attempt to inflict its rule upon the US colonies(punitive and social) and the subsequent revolution.

A couple of clarifications:

Current systems are not nearly as easy to bypass as you think. Read the blogs from students at the London Grid For Learning project, with approx 2 million users (!). They are continually trying to get around their filtering system and not succeeding...

I agree that education is critical, however with an education only policy we do not need police and customs chasing drugs either? I believe that a balance of education and community/government action is still required today.

And I still do not see any evidence of a gargantuan erosion of the civil liberties and democratic rights of law-abiding Australians?

We will only know whether the technologies deliver if we test the best available technologies in a real operational circumstances. As far as I can see the ISPs will be responsible for these tests, which is important. However, whether many of the ISPs will actually invest both the time and the funds, or whether the government is also suitably investing in this, in order to actually test the available technologies correctly, is another question.

Mr Malone has built a fabulous business, however if he is against the filtering initiative, I cannot see how his organsiation will be making a strong effort to prove that the system could work at all?

Clearly this has been a poorly thought out policy. The ease with which such a system can be bypassed makes the whole scheme a waste of time. However, from the point of view of censorship this is an afront to our democracy.

Filtering content is like stopping drugs. It will not work. Education is the only way.

I absolutely support Michael Malone's comments. It would be absolute folly to introduce clean-feed filtering. The solution is simple: education, education and education. This would be a gargantuan erosion of the civil liberties and democratic rights of law-abiding Australians.

what is the point of having filtering to be targeted at the ISP? why don't the government encourage filter device to be install at home so for parents who would like to use the service can pay for the filter device. This also creates spending towards the economic. Rather than having to relied on ISP to provide such services and charging extra ontop of it towards the user and pocket the fee for their future profit earning. will the government subsidise for this and making sure the ISP will not charge extra and ensuring the internet cost goes lower? will the government fund for this? Change is a good thing but having ISP or government involved in the censorship on the internet is just not right. Freedom of informations are generally required to not only updates the public of what is happening around. If you don't like what you see, don't visit or don't use it. Back to basic. Keep it simple. Not bloody complex and causes the cost to go up and stop wasting taxpayer money put the tax money to good use.

Whoever said that technologies do not exist to control P2P connections? And you have taken Benjamin Franklin quite out of context.

Aside from the issue of it not stopping p2p traffic, and will at the crux be a useless waste of money. Filtering the net is simply the first and a dangerous step toward changing Australia from a Free country to a slave state. As Benjamin Franklin said: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both".

As long as we cannot rely on parents to implement and use PC based filters, which is unfortunately the reality today (2% uptake and usage of the free Netalert filters), we will be faced with the requirement to have some national controls on Internet traffic content. As the internet industry has been based around the "ISP doorways", these are the only available locations to apply these controls, whatever they may be. Again, the question is whether our comfort and ease of using the internet has priority over the safety of our children? It has been proven time and time again that too high a percentage of adults do not use prescribed, provided or proposed safety measures in order to protect children. I have no idea why so many people are assuming this will suddenly be so different with internet safety, and why they are basing their arguments against the trials on demands for parents to carry the sole responsibility. Massive education in many areas has not nearly done enough to protect children from abuse, neglect, mistreatment and exposure. Why do we expect it will all of a sudden be the silver bullet here???