INTERNET 2 - The Imminent Privatization of the World Wide Web / Censorship

[iks83]

but how do the people know how to do it? i dont know and im quite computer savvy. only the geeks will know and even when they provide a easy solution the majority still has to find it. sure the filtering wont work totally but it will work for a very large portion of users.

[CalebJamesDeLisle]

Your local nerd will get the info and put up a bbs or radio bbs if it gets to that.

[CalebJamesDeLisle]

I don't see it ever getting that bad. When they shut down Napster, they kept a couple million nerds from their music. There was an over night software explosion Gnutella, Emule, Bittorrent, Kazaa, four super applications which changed the face of the internet forever. This was the point that they realized that they couldn't act like this was the 1900's any more. If they make a move on the web, programmers will passionately hack out code to make the entire internet not only unblockable, but untraceable as well. Or they may choose to leave the web free, and the current stalemate will continue.


If you are worried about loosing the internet:
Download CUWIN wireless software
Buy an engenius 600mw wifi card ($20) (you might also look for an amplifier.)
www.wlanparts.com -- cheapest antennas on the net
get a C-band satellite dish
Buy land on top of a mountain
rebuild the internet yourself.
You can also buy wifi cards ported to other frequencies at http://www.ubnt.com/ (no affiliation, just bought some 900mhz radios and they work.)
a lot of the Ubiquiti Networks stuff is MINI-PCI cards (for laptops.) To run one in a desktop (PCI) you need an adapter (I bought at shopsyntech.com for $8  :-D

You can also send packets over ham radio using the AX.25 protocol (standard in the linux kernel)
This can reach long distances, however it is slow (1200 baud slow)

If they completely shut down the internet, it will be a bunch of bbs's (remember the bbs) which are either dialed or radioed (wifi or ham) and they connect to each other by long shot ham or over encrypted obfuscated tunnels through internet2.

I hope some hackers get working on making cable modems talk to each other, those are just digital 1-40Mhz transceivers.

[Drag0n]

They can, and are, and have been doing just that... For Years... If you have their cable modem, or DSL modem they own every thing you see, listen to, and do... Why? because each cable modem, DSL box, Cable TV box, sattellite box, Easy pass, and everything else has a MAC address in it. MAC simply put is the hard coded "machine Identifier" that sits on a Chip inside that box and never changes.... Trust me.. They own you...

There's about a million differant scripts an ISP can run that will  manipulate what you get to see and do..

Dial up is still a very viable alternative, since you can swap modems around and use differant call in numbers... etc....  Thats why they are pushing the digital TV tuner... They need everybody OFF of analog before the next 9/11, that way, they can control every single aspect of the information we get about it.

[CalebJamesDeLisle]

They have? They never stopped me from getting a file I wanted. Yes they can see everything, but you have the ability to use encryption.

[Brocke]

Principles for a better Web
Posted by: Reuters Staff

Caroline Nolan By Colin Maclay, Acting Executive Director, and Caroline Nolan, Research Associate, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

More than one billion people are online, with three times that amount connected via mobile devices, just one indication of how integrated digital technologies are with lives and livelihoods around the globe. While governments have for the most part encouraged these developments, they are increasingly aware of technology’s capacity to disrupt existing power structures and accordingly ambivalent. As governments seek to control information and online activities, private actors – information and communication technology (ICT) firms in particular – are increasingly called upon to assist in those efforts.

Many of us mistakenly assume that Internet governance doesn’t touch us, and maybe it doesn’t – what expression is allowed on the Net and whether your personal information is shared with law enforcement is often governed less by law and more by practice. As Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey have long argued, companies providing technology services are important Internet points of control  and are under great pressure to comply with local laws and practices, which can be at odds with international standards, corporate values, and social norms.

Facets of these corporate dilemmas have been explored by the OpenNet Initiative, the Citizen Lab, Chilling Effects, and other keen observers like Rebecca Mackinnon, but we are just beginning to understand the scope of this rapidly evolving problem.  Most of us remain more familiar with a few infamous incidents in certain countries than with the real challenges arising with less fanfare across the world. The emergent nature of global technologies, business models, and government responses makes these complex problems particularly difficult for law to address effectively , at least in the near term.  These networked, distributed issues require a dynamic approach, capable of evolving and scaling alongside the problem, and ideally ahead of it.

Launching this week, the Global Network Initiative is a multi-stakeholder effort – grounded in a set of guiding principles, supported by implementation guidelines, and a governance, accountability and learning framework  – that establishes a robust, responsive platform for participating companies, NGOs, investors, academics, and others to work together to protect and advance the rights to free expression and privacy in the ICT sector worldwide. The launch represents the empowerment of a coalition that can support companies as they resist governments that seek to enlist them in acts of censorship and surveillance in violation of international standards.

This ground-breaking approach was developed with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!,  Human Rights Watch,  Committee to Protect Journalists, Research Center for Information Law at University of St. Gallen, Switzerland FIR, School of Information at University of California-Berkeley, Calvert, F&C Investments  and other organizations – hopefully, with many others introducing still greater diversity to come. Our varied views and experiences can be challenging, they push - and allow – us to consider the problem and approaches to it across multiple dimensions, ultimately helping us to balance aspiration and reality (or near term progress with long-term success) in a way that no one sector would likely achieve.

The actions of (and expectations for) companies will evolve over time. Early commitments center on responsible decision-making, specifically developing the capacity to anticipate and address concerns relating to privacy and expression.  Among other steps, companies will form cross-functional leadership teams and train employees; conduct human rights impact assessments before entering new geographical or service markets, developing associated strategies to mitigate those risks; and encourage participation in GNI by relevant partners.

Company relations with law enforcement can be complex, due to obligations to support both legitimate law enforcement aims and commitments to protect user rights (which is also clearly a business interest).  Under GNI guidelines, companies will request written documentation explaining the legal basis for government restrictions; will seek to minimize the impact of any such restrictions; and will challenge governments when faced with requests that appear inconsistent with domestic law or international human rights standards.

These activities will be verified through an accountability and learning framework, in which outside monitors will explore what is working and what is not, ensuring that companies are making progress on their commitments, and developing remediation where they are not.  Companies’ public reporting will foster greater transparency with users and the wider public.

Beyond these internal commitments (which companies are already introducing), we are optimistic about the Initiative’s capacity for collective action that can have a transformative effect on government behavior and lasting impact.

As a university research center, the Berkman Center will focus on building the GNI’s underlying foundation – its capacity for learning and research and information sharing – developing strategies to identify, understand, and address the threats to and opportunities for privacy and free expression.

We are in the early stages of a long road but are fortunate to have recognized that these are network issues: they emerge from and are characterized by the distributed nature of ICTs. Effective solutions should be built upon the same platform, with efforts that are independent yet coordinated; responses that are tried, evaluated and refined over time; and lessons that are shared and adapted; and all the while, striving for transparency. The Global Network Initiative connects our contention that the digital world not only gives rise to new challenges, but also allows the formation of new institutions that respond effectively to them.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2008/10/30/principles-for-a-better-web/

[liko]

This is a cool Australian website that is taking up the challenge against internet censorship,please support them.Its got good links etc.

http://www.nocleanfeed.com/learn.html?gclid=CKD6sJe31ZYCFQykagodCHDo3Q


Also here is the ministers details get everyone you know to email and very importantly WRITE !(the physical paper pisses them off!)to him & PROTEST.


Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy

Email: senator.conroy@aph.gov.au


Parliamentary office

Suite MG70
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Tel: 02 6277 7480
Fax: 02 6273 4154
Ministerial office

Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

Tel: 03 9650 1188
Fax: 03 9650 3251
Electorate office

Suite 1B
494 High St
Epping Vic 3076

Tel: 03 9408 0190
Fax: 03 9408 0194

[Drasamis]

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1079347 has half a dozen or so related reference links, Whirlpool forums are the main head lighting of the issue, there's now like 6 threads of 50 pages each.

[liko]

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1079347 has half a dozen or so related reference links, Whirlpool forums are the main head lighting of the issue, there's now like 6 threads of 50 pages each.

Excellent!,they banned me over there for posting about Net Neutrality a dozens time's and said to me it wasn't true! and was spam! (i did infobomb every board  )
But now there has been so many people that can't ban every one. Freedom or Nothing!

But you are right,the gov watch that site alot to see what is going on.

And please do not give into their language,(filtering)this is censorship! call it that.

[Drasamis]

Excellent!,they banned me over there for posting about Net Neutrality a dozens time's and said to me it wasn't true! and was spam! (i did infobomb every board  )
But now there has been so many people that can't ban every one. Freedom or Nothing!

But you are right,the gov watch that site alot to see what is going on.

And please do not give into their language,(filtering)this is censorship! call it that.

Lol.
Most people are calling it for what it is. For me they are synonymous.

[liko]

An Australian systems administrators' professional group has criticised Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for alleged attempts by his office to silence a vocal network engineer expressing an opinion about the planned government internet filtering scheme.

IT professionals' advocacy group SAGE-AU, which represents 1,000 IT professionals, has called for more public debate about the government's ISP filtering plans for Australia. The group has responded to a report in Fairfax papers that a policy advisor to Senator Conroy had contacted the Internet Industry Association's CEO Peter Coroneos for assistance in controlling the views of an employee of one of its members, ISP Internode.

"SAGE-AU calls upon the office of the communications minister to respect Mr Newton's professionalism and independence," the group's president Donna Ashelford said in a statement today.

Internode network engineer Mark Newton has publicly criticised the government's mandatory ISP filtering plans on the grounds that ISPs would face major network redesigns to meet requirements, increased costs and security threats to Australian internet users.

Newton first spoke out about his concerns at the release of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's first round of ISP level filtering test results in August.

ACMA's tests highlighted reductions in the impact filtering technologies would have on network performance, but also revealed serious shortcomings such as an inability to filter content shared over peer-to-peer networks; networks could be blocked but not scanned and filtered for pornographic content.

According to Newton, peer-to-peer communications made up between 30 to 55 per cent of an ISP's traffic.

ISPs potentially face a large cost if mandatory filtering is introduced. The network engineer has estimated that the smallest ISPs — with around 2 per cent market share — would face a cost in excess of $1 million to meet the government's "clean feed" requirements — a figure that would more than double to build in redundancy and ongoing licence fees.

The IIA has been a long-standing opponent of mandatory ISP filtering in Australia. Its stance on the issue since 2000 has been for ISPs to provide customers with filters or an optional filtered service, not to filter the entire network, according to CEO Peter Coroneos.

"Only the most repressive regimes in the world have attempted such an approach," the IIA said in its 2006 statement regarding mandatory ISP filtering.

It is understood that Internode and IIA have discussed the issue. Neither organisation has released a public statement on the matter, however, neither have attempted to silence Newton.

"Unlike Senator Conroy, my employer appears to have understood that whether or not one agrees with my positions, having the discussion is important," Newton told ZDNet.com.au.

"Senator Conroy, as Mr Rudd's delegate, is running around trying to silence dissenting members of the public, and labelling people who disagree with him as supporters of child pornography," he added. Conroy's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Also check this out.

BitTorrent hole in ISP filter tests

he results of ISP-level content filtering tests released today by the federal government have revealed that the products tested could filter websites with illegal content or block entire peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent, but could not identify illegal content shared on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

The report, released today by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, showed ISP filtering technologies were improving, however it also highlighted significant holes in current technologies to automatically filter content shared over peer-to-peer networks.

While all six tested products, which were not named, were able to block entire networks of non-Web protocol traffic, such as instant messaging and peer-to-peer networks, none could identify illegal or inappropriate content over those networks.

However, the report showed that new filtering technologies imposed far less network degradation when turned on than under previous tests using older technology.

Under previous tests, network performance degradation was no less than 75 per cent, while this round of tests ranged between two per cent for the best product and 87 per cent for the worst. Products also performed better in accurately blocking blacklisted content.

"It is very encouraging to see that the industry has made significant progress with ISP filtering products and we are heartened that many of the products tested are commercially available, with many of them already deployed overseas," Communications Minister Senator Conroy said.

"The next step is to test filter technologies in a real world environment with a number of ISPs and internet users," Senator Conroy said.

A spokesperson for Conroy's office said the department expected a live test to begin before the end of the year. The government will release an expression of interest to ISPs for the tests.

A range of filtering techniques were tested at Telstra's Broadband eLab by testing company Enex Testlabs, which compared Domain Name Service poisoning, packet filtering and analysis-based filtering.

The trials are aimed at determining whether broad-scale ISP level filtering would be feasible for the purpose of boosting online safety laws.ha!



http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Conroy-filter-gag-sparks-sysadmin-
rage/0,130061744,339292861,00.htm


http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/BitTorrent-hole-in-ISP-filter-tests/0,130061791,339290888,00.htm

[Amd304912]

and they said they couldnt do it because of legality.

[mr anderson]

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24597325-15306,00.html

Jennifer Foreshew | November 04, 2008

TECHNOLOGY that has been likened to a "random breath test" for computers and laptops for illicit images or video has captured the interest of law enforcement bodies nationally, including the Australian Federal Police. The tool has been developed at Perth's Edith Cowan University in partnership with Western Australia Police, which is in the early stages of beta-testing the technology.

The system enables frontline officers - regardless of computer competency or level of training - to know on the spot if a computer contains illicit images or video.

Its main purpose is to capture users of child pornography. The tool, which has received additional input from the AFP, is planned for release early next year. Known as Simple Image Preview Live Environment (SImPLE), the tool is heralded as the new frontier fighting cybercrime. It uses a cut-down version of a Linux kernel and can be deployed on almost any standard operating system.

WA Police computer crime squad Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Thomas said the tool would enable investigators to more quickly access information relevant to cases.

"Assuming that SImPLE goes the way we hope, we would plan for a very wide deployment in the agency," he said.

SImPLE would also reduce the volume of work computer forensic specialists were being asked to perform.

Some 30-60 per cent of the case load for computer crime specialists globally relates to child pornography. "If the project is satisfactorily completed, we would certainly be encouraging its release as widely as possible because it is going to improve policing and services to the community," Sergeant Thomas said.

Craig Valli, co-director of the university's security research group SECAU, based in the School of Computer and Information Science, said a final release version of the tool was expected by the end of February.

Associate Professor Valli said a range of government agencies, including Customs, had shown interest in the tool.

"Particularly for Customs at the border, that sort of stuff is a problem," he said.

Professor Valli, who is also head of the university's School of Computer and Information Science, said police required a simple tool that could eliminate the need for highly trained experts to undertake initial profiling of evidence.

"The design concept is that any police person with adequate training could use the tool, so that when they go into a crime scene they can quickly review a computer for illicit images or videos," he said.

"It is not digging down into the hard drive to find anything that has been deleted, it is just what is topically available."

Professor Valli said computers that were seized were usually bagged, tagged and taken to a lab to be investigated. "This cuts out that loop because it allows officers to preview the computer.

"If they find evidence this allows them to write images to a disc and take it to a judge straight away."

SImPLE is a Linux-bootable CD that is put into the CD-ROM drive of a computer or laptop and boots into its own forensically clean environment.

"The disc goes into the CD-ROM drive of the PC and if files are found, the user connects a USB-DVD writer to the back of the computer, and the images that are stored in memory in the RAM of the computer are written to the DVD," Professor Valli said. "Nothing gets written to the original evidence at all, which is the key."

This means the technology can be used in court and an accused cannot challenge it on the basis of forensics.

SECAU was also considering another purpose-built CD to search financial documents for use by a fraud squad or those hunting terrorists using keywords. The team is exploring commercialisation opportunities for the tool, using a low-cost licence model.

"We are talking to people about commercialising it in Britain and further afield as well," Professor Valli said.

The AFP planned to test and evaluate the final SImPLE product when it was completed, a spokesman said.

[mr anderson]

Addition links from article here:
http://apcmag.com/top_5_reasons_to_fight_government_isp_filtering.htm

Angus Kidman04 November 2008, 12:11 PM

Hey, Senator "cleanfeed" Conroy, listen up!

As trials continue ahead of the introduction of mandatory ISP filtering sometime early in 2009, it's becoming clearer that the entire scheme is an ill-thought-out attempt for left-wing Labor to suck up to right-wing politicians. Here's six reasons why the concept is stupid and hopefully doomed to failure.

We can't say we didn't know it was coming. Prior to last year's Federal election, Labor had made it clear that it would introduce some form of ISP-level content filtering, but in the excitement over the National Broadband Network, no-one paid much attention to this detail. And given that its Federal Liberal predecessors had come up with the equally stupid and rarely used mid-1990s Internet censorship laws and the monumentally unpopular and now discontinued free filters for families scheme, it seems unlikely we could ever have escaped some attempt to crack down on Net nasties. But that doesn't mean the "clean feed" campaign — which will require ISPs to provide a Net connection with an list of material deemed undesirable for children blocked, and will require adults to opt-in if they want largely unfettered access — is anything but stupid. Here's five reasons why.

1. It will slow everything down. As Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) pointed out recently in launching its No Clean Feed campaign, filtering slows down connections by at least 30% based on the government's own evidence in the form of ACMA's report into the effectiveness of filtering. Given the billions that are supposed to be invested in our new national high-speed broadband network real soon now, this seems like a contradictory stance to say the least (though we're sure whoever builds it will welcome any excuse for less than banner performance).

2. Offensive is in the eye of the beholder. Leaving aside already illegal material such as child pornography and snuff films, it's quite difficult to define what should be banned, even in a family context. Family First types would presumably like to see any adult material banned (even the R-rated stuff); religious devotees might object to Life Of Brian fan sites; South Australia's Attorney General apparently believes that gaming is the root of all evil; and people with brains might wonder why anyone needs access to information about Paris Hilton. Trying to maintain a workable list will be an expensive and ultimately futile exercise.

3. It presumes families care about this stuff. "The Australian Government is committed to ensuring all Australian families can utilise ISP filters that block prohibited content as identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority," communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy said in June this year. "Families should also be able to access filters that can be customised to block more material if they choose."

The available evidence suggests that most families don't give a flying proverbial. Conroy himself shut down the previous government's National Filter Scheme after it emerged that even amongst households who bothered to acquire the free software, just 20% bothered to update it regularly. Clearly, parents have better things to do with their time than fuss around with filters.

4. It makes Australia look stupid on a global scale. It's easy to read news reports about Indonesia's plans to attempt a comprehensive pornography ban and laugh, but the Australian proposal isn't so different in scope. As EFA chair Colin Jacobs recently told the Sydney Morning Herald: "I'm not exaggerating when I say that this model involves more technical interference in the internet infrastructure than what is attempted in Iran, one of the most repressive and regressive censorship regimes in the world."

5. The people supporting it don't like mounting rational arguments. Communications Day recently quoted Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, on why mandatory filtering was desirable. "The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must be placed above the industry's desire for unfettered access," Wallace said. This kind of lazy rhetoric, implying that anyone who opposes wide-scale censorship is automatically in favour of child pornography, is intellectually vapid and entirely unhelpful.

Bonus point 6. It's the thin end of the wedge. As law lecturer Kimberlee Weatherall pointed out earlier this year, fully blocking access to pornographic content would mean filtering P2P streams as well — and if that could be done (a big if, admittedly), there's likely to be pressure from content creators to have P2P more fully regulated. That's a helpful way to spend everyone's tax dollars, isn't it? As EFA's Colin Jacobs commented recently: "It's starting to look like nothing less than a comprehensive program of real-time Internet censorship." But perhaps we shouldn't expect anything more from a PM who banned his own staff from using Facebook lest it ruin his public image.

[Drasamis]

Interesting, wonder if it's got a special section to plant images too :S.

[Drasamis]

It's sad that the majority of Australians go "duh what?" when you mention ISP filtering, totally being kept outside of the media.

[Freeski]

Bonus Point #1: It's none of your business and not your job as a legitimate government.

[Drasamis]

Since they'd have to pass legislation on this; the liberal party seems against it, wouldn't that mean the ALP need every green/family first/independent in agreement? I know the Family first nutjobs are for it, dunno about the others though.

[mr anderson]

It's sad that the majority of Australians go "duh what?" when you mention ISP filtering, totally being kept outside of the media.

I've only seen 1% of support for filtering on articles. Most are negative.

You sort of need to try a few different key words; ISP Filtering, Clean Feed, Internet censorship. 

[Drasamis]

Hrm, I'll try that - thanks.

[zafada]

What I always wondered about this child porn thing is why they don't go after the human who took the picture instead?  It seems people get arrested left and right for having pictures...but they never mention the guys who took em...

[Jackson Holly]

How do they know the pictures are not of people 17 years and eleven months old and not eighteen years and one day old?

[wvoutlaw2002]

 It uses a cut-down version of a Linux kernel and can be deployed on almost any standard operating system.

Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman need to nip this in the bud. Isn't using free software - released under the GNU GPL, as Linux is - for police state purposes is a violation of and strictly prohibited by the GNU GPL? If not, the GNU GPL needs to be revised to reflect such.

[Drasamis]

Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman need to nip this in the bud. Isn't using free software - released under the GNU GPL, as Linux is - for police state purposes is a violation of and strictly prohibited by the GNU GPL? If not, the GNU GPL needs to be revised to reflect such.

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

[wvoutlaw2002]

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

So in other words, there's not a thing Stallman or Torvalds can do about it, even if Stallman releases a new GNU GPL to prohibit using free software for surveillance purposes, as a new GPL license cannot be retroactively enforced against software released under the current GPL.

The elite are using the current GPL to enslave us, and Stallman can't do anything about it. It's like the government controls the GPL and not Stallman.

[Drasamis]

Pretty much - although there might be possibilities of in fractioning the license in modification/distribution. If it uses a linux kernel, wouldn't that mean it would have to be open source? :S. Not too sure on that.

[wvoutlaw2002]

Pretty much - although there might be possibilities of in fractioning the license in modification/distribution. If it uses a linux kernel, wouldn't that mean it would have to be open source? :S. Not too sure on that.

A modified Linux kernel is required to remain open source. If that was violated, then Stallman and Torvalds could use the GPL to shut it down.

[Drasamis]

A modified Linux kernel is required to remain open source. If that was violated, then Stallman and Torvalds could use the GPL to shut it down.

At least that gives the possibilities of knowing what it actually does.
Be reminded that this tool will be used for when they seize your computers, I don't believe the application is via Internet/web of sorts - at least not yet.

[zafada]

No one better touch my computer.  I paid thousands for this thing.  The power supply alone was over 500 bucks.

[Brocke]

Surfing violent websites linked to violent behavior
Wed Nov 5, 2008 3:15am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young people exposed to violent media are more likely to lash out violently themselves, new research published in Pediatrics shows.

"Our findings add to the growing evidence that violence in the media is related to aggressive behavior, including seriously violent behavior among youths," Dr. Michele L. Ybarra of Internet Solutions for Kids in Santa Ana, California and her colleagues report. "Reduction in youths' exposure to violent media should be viewed as an important aspect of violence prevention."

Many studies have examined exposure to violent media and violent behavior among young people, Ybarra and her team note in their report. In fact, they point out, the American Academy of Pediatrics calls media violence "the single most easily remediable contributing factor" to youth violence.

The researchers examined the relationship between media violence and "seriously violent behavior," defined as shooting or stabbing someone, robbing someone, or committing aggravated assault or sexual assault, in a survey of 1,588 young people 10 to 15 years old. The average age was 13 years old and 48 percent were girls.

Five percent of those surveyed reported having engaged in some type of seriously violent behavior over the past year, while 38 percent said they had visited at least one type of violent website. With each additional type of violent website a study participant reported viewing, the likelihood of violent behavior increased by 50 percent.

Young people who said that "many, most or all" of the Internet sites they frequented featured "real people fighting, shooting or killing" were five-times more likely than their peers who didn't visit violent websites to engage in seriously violent behavior.

The odds of violent behavior also rose with the number of types of violent media a young person consumed, but the effect of violent TV, movies, music, games or Internet cartoons was much smaller than that of Internet violence depicting real people.

The interactive nature of the Web may be behind its apparently more powerful influence when compared with types of violent media, Ybarra and colleagues suggest.

But the current study doesn't answer the question of whether violent media is turning kids violent, whether violence-prone youth are more likely to seek out violence on the Internet, or "more probably," whether a bit of both is going on, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, November 2008.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4A38H320081105

[DireWolf]

Brocke, you are correct, young minds are more easily shaped and conditioned that is they why of the effort to expose them so early.

[wvoutlaw2002]

No one better touch my computer.  I paid thousands for this thing.  The power supply alone was over 500 bucks.

Your computer is that old?

Mine's just 2 years old. Came with 256 MB RAM, a 40 GB IDE hard drive, VIA integrated video, a CD burner, and Linspire Linux version 5.0. It now has 1.5 GB RAM, a 160 GB SATA hard drive, an nVidia 256 MB video card, a dual-layer DVD burner, a PCI TV tuner card (it sucks; need to replace it with a WinTV PVR 150 or PVR 250, whichever one has hardware-based MPEG-2 encoding) and dual booting Tiny Vista REV 02 (kept offline) and Ubuntu 8.04.1. Been getting frequent BSODs on Vista lately which I think is related to the power supply. I need to get a new power supply, and I think I'm gonna modify my casing to where I can mount a cooling fan on the side. Might buy a new 500 GB SATA HDD soon to go with the 160 GB one and maybe use the 160 GB HDD for Tiny Vista and the 500 GB one with Ubuntu or Xubuntu.

[mr anderson]

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=esuisKJU1XE

The idiot radio-host from the Sunrise segment

Be civil, mature and concise.

1116 4BC

Email: greg@4bc.com.au
SMS: 0427 13 13 32

[mr anderson]

Australia

Protest are planned in several states, details are as follows:

http://nocensorship.info/main/

Melbourne:
13th of December
12pm-5pm
State Library
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=46838735931

Brisbane:
13th of December
11am-3pm
Brisbane Square
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=42526399601

Sydney:
13th of December
11am-4pm
Town Hall
Check www.nocensorship.info forums for Sydney updates

Adelaide:
13th of December
12pm - 4pm
Parliament
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=39343300875

Hobart:
13th of December
11am - 1.
30pm
Parliament Lawns
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=39329861995

****

City rally details to be announced:

ACT:
23/11/08 Update: Coordinator role has been filled.

TBA

Perth:
23/11/08 Update: Coordinator role has been filled.

TBA

Darwin:
Interested in being the state coordinator for this rally?

jas.anticensorship[at]gmail.com

[Brocke]

France - launch of TV campaign on Internet dangers for children
by Johnny Summerton | November 24, 2008 at 07:37 am | 40 views | 1 comment | 20 recommendations

La sécurité des enfants et des adolescents sur internet
by Johnny Summerton

The French government has given the go-ahead for a television campaign aimed at highlighting the potential dangers children may face from the Internet.

Starting this week, and in the run-up to Christmas, TV channels will carry free of charge, a commercial encouraging parents to be more aware of the potential risks their children are running from indiscriminate use of the Net.

And it will be backed up by an information campaign offering advice on what options are also available for computers within the home at least, for filtering access to certain sites.

The move follows the highly publicised case last week in France in which a 14-year old girl went missing for five days.

It transpired that she had been in contact over the previous three weeks with a man through an Internet chat room and had travelled half way across the country to meet him.

He was a 44-year-old convicted paedophile, who had been released from prison in August, and when the girl was eventually traced, the initial media reports suggested that he had held her captive.

As it turned out when the girl was questioned by police, she said had not been held she against her will, and had consented to sex with the man.

He has since been charged with unlawful sex with a minor, and could face a 10-year prison sentence, as he is a repeat offender.

With that case the focus of media attention the press conference to launch the campaign to raise public awareness of the potential risks of the Net, couldn't have been better timed and the junior minister for family, Nadine Morano; said the campaign provided the best means of preventing such cases occurring.

"While adolescent boys prefer to play video games (on the computer) girls are more involved in chatrooms," she insisted.

"There's not one week goes by when a young girl in France doesn't find herself faced with a problem whose roots can be traced back to the Net," she added.

"Statistics show that around 62 per cent of parents aren't even aware that their children have a blog."

Both the government's campaign and similar ones from organisations such as Association e-enfance, which provides guidelines for parents and children alike on "safe Internet use", recognise that there is a balance to be struck between "protecting" a child - and in particular adolescent girls - without encroaching on their "secret garden" or right to privacy.

But access to the Net via a home computer is only part of the problem, according to Christine du Fretay, the president of Association e-enfance.

"Often young girls access the Net through their mobile 'phones and give out all manner of intimate information," she warns.

"They don't realise and don't have the capacity to measure the impact of what they're doing, especially as it's something that they probably wouldn't do face-to-face".

While admitting that the problem is far more wide reaching than a simple issue of Internet use within the home; Morano hopes that the latest campaign will open up a broader discussion of the issue, and that parents will take the initiative.

"We will launch a working group to educate young people not just about the Internet, but also about the media in general," she said.

"Parents must talk about the Net with their children who are alone in front of the screen."

The television spot (see accompanying video) which starts airing in France this week, is a German production that has been translated into several languages and has already been broadcast in a number of European countries.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/france-launch-tv-campaign-internet-dangers-children

[mr anderson]

About the only good thing the Greens are for

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24703499-5014239,00.html

 THE Australian Greens won't be supporting plans to introduce compulsory internet filters.

The Federal Government wants to introduce filters to stop people accessing X-rated material, child pornography and inappropriate material.

The plan is being opposed by the internet industry which says it opens the door to censorship of other material, including political views.

"We're very, very concerned that there's going to be a unnecessary clamp down on the internet and it has to be watched," Greens leader Bob Brown told the ABC today.

His colleague Scott Ludlam has been lobbying against the changes.

"He's working very hard with community groups in Australia to oppose the current proposals by the Government," Senator Brown said.

The Government needs the support of all seven crossbench senators – including the five Greens – to have draft laws pass parliament against coalition opposition.

[CalebJamesDeLisle]

I think the ability to block entire protocols (bittorrent) is an important development. This means they can block other protocols (TOR, I2P, openvpn, ssh) all of the things which have made their blocks useless. I have hope that whatever they may build, somebody will write code to bypass it, AND manage to get it published on the controlled web. Keep your eyes out for a new fidonet type system which each node has a copy of everything on the network, maybe fidonet is what the government was trying to crush when they started the internet.

[mr anderson]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/internet-censor-plan-blasted/2008/11/28/1227491813497.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Support for the Government's plan to censor the internet has hit rock bottom, with even some children's welfare groups now saying that that the mandatory filters, aimed squarely at protecting kids, are ineffective and a waste of money.

Live trials of the filters, which will block "illegal" content for all Australian internet users and "inappropriate" adult content on an opt-in basis, are slated to begin by Christmas, despite harsh opposition from the Greens, Opposition, the internet industry, consumers and online rights groups.

Holly Doel-Mackaway, adviser with Save the Children, the largest independent children's rights agency in the world, said educating kids and parents was the way to empower young people to be safe internet users.

She said the filter scheme was "fundamentally flawed" because it failed to tackle the problem at the source and would inadvertently block legitimate resources.

Furthermore there was no evidence to suggest that children were stumbling across child pornography when browsing the web. Doel-Mackaway believes the millions of dollars earmarked to implement the filters would be far better spent on teaching children how to use the internet safely and on law enforcement.

"Children are exposed to the abusive behaviours of adults often and we need to be preventing the causes of violence against children in the community, rather than blocking it from people's view," she said.

"The constant change of cyberspace means that a filter is going to be able to be circumvented and it's going to throw up false positives - many innocent websites, maybe even our own, will be blacklisted because we reference a lot of our work that we do with children in fighting commercial sexual exploitation."

Doel-Mackaway noted the claims by the internet industry that the filters would be easily bypassed, would not block content found on peer-to-peer networks and chat rooms and would be in danger of being broadened to include legitimate content such as regular pornography, political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling.

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

James McDougall, director of the National Children's and Youth Law Centre, expressed similar views to Save the Children.

He said the mandatory filters simply would not work and children should be able to make decisions for themselves. Concerned parents could easily install PC-based filters on their computers if they desired, or ask their internet providers to switch on voluntary filtering.

"This is called a child protection measure yet the vast majority of all serious child abuse does not occur on the internet, it occurs in the home," said McDougall.

"I take issue with the minister's perspective that children are themselves the danger in a sense that we have to make this decision for them because they are not capable of making it for themselves - I think there's very little evidence to support that and plenty of evidence to show that children are responsible decision makers given the skills and information."

Other childrens' welfare organisations, such as Child Wise and Bravehearts, continue to support the filters, saying the flaws are acceptable as long as they help block some child pornography.

On Thursday, as political activist group GetUp announced its plans for an elaborate anti-filtering campaign, 70 ISP filtering stakeholders converged on the University of NSW to examine the merits of the proposed censorship scheme.

"There seemed to be some consensus that the proposed mandatory filter model would not actually be directed at the real channel of child porn distribution, which is not the blacklist of known web sites, but via various other internet protocols and tools," said David Vale, executive director of UNSW's Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre.

"The idea of doing whatever was possible in stopping the problem at the source, including education of parents, kids, teachers and politicians, and serious law enforcement efforts at detection and prosecution of perpetrators and distributors, was seen as probably as, or more, effective than a filter initially aimed at preventing inadvertent browsing of child porn on the web by young people.

"Another aspect was the potential for the filter, once in place, to become the subject of a repeated bidding war, depending on which minor politicians had balance of power in parliament, or who had the 'moral panic of the day'."

Senator Conroy's spokesman, Tim Marshall, has consistently failed to respond to requests for comment on the issue.

[mr anderson]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/activists-target-net-censorship-plans/2008/11/27/1227491695981.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

The political activists who helped free David Hicks and abolish Work Choices have now set their sights on the Government's plan to censor the internet, which is already facing a major backlash and a lack of political support.

GetUp says it plans to run mainstream ads and offline action that will be as elaborate as its free Hicks campaign. In just a day, a petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures; GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than "any other campaign in recent history".

Both the Opposition and the Greens this week officially announced their opposition to the internet filtering plan, which critics like GetUp fear will slow the internet to a crawl and open the door to censorship of other material such as regular pornography, political views, pro-abortion sites and online gambling.

They join a chorus of dissent from internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators and online rights activists. Michael Malone, the managing director of iiNet, labelled the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, "the worst we've had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed".

Despite the significant opposition, the Government is pressing ahead with live filtering trials, which it wants to launch by December 24. ISPs, which already offer free filters but on a voluntary basis, are reluctant to take part but fear they have no other way of showing the Government the deep flaws in its mandatory censorship plan.

"We're very, very concerned that there's going to be a unnecessary clamp down on the internet and it has to be watched," Greens leader Bob Brown told ABC Television on Tuesday.

The Opposition's communications spokesman announced on the same day that the "misguided and deeply unpopular" filtering plan was causing Australia embarrassment internationally.

"The Opposition firmly believes that adult supervision, supported by optional user-end filters, effective law enforcement and education should be front and centre of any efforts to keep children safe online," Senator Nick Minchin said.

GetUp campaign director Ed Coper said he was certain his organisation's "Save the Net" campaign would be "really big and ongoing".

"It's certainly one of the most ill-thought-out decisions of the Rudd Government so far," he said.

Laboratory test results released in June by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found available filters frequently let through content that should be blocked, incorrectly block harmless content and slow network speeds by up to 87 per cent.

The Government plans to impose a mandatory filter for all internet users that will block sites found on the secret ACMA blacklist and blacklists held by other countries. But only half of ACMA's list is child pornography, while the rest is mainly X-rated porn and sexual fetish material.

A second, optional filtering tier, which will also be tested in the trial, will block content deemed inappropriate for children.

But none of the filters will be capable of filtering non-web applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Furthermore, the filters can easily be evaded by those set on accessing child pornography, using freely available tools.

Aside from the Government, the only public supporters of the plan are vocal family and religious groups such as Child Wise, the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby.

Senator Conroy has said Britain, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand have all implemented similar filtering systems. However, in all cases, participation by ISPs was optional and the filtering was limited in scope to predominantly child pornography.

Senator Conroy's spokesman, Tim Marshall, has consistently failed to respond to requests for comment on the issue.

[Irobot]

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