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'Technical error' behind Henson website black-listing

Posted March 27, 2009 00:30:00
Updated March 27, 2009 00:37:00

Henson's photographs have attracted controversy because they often depict naked teenagers. (Sunday Arts programme: Sunday Arts)

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says a technical error is to blame for the black-listing of a website with artist Bill Henson's photographs on it.

Henson's photographs have attracted controversy because they often depict naked teenagers.

Senator Conroy has told ABC 1's Q and A program the Classification Board rated the photographs PG.

He says a technical error by the body that controls the black-list, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), is to blame for the black-listing.

"It was actually cleared by the Classification Board so it shouldn't have been on the list," he said.

"I've asked ACMA in the last few hours to go through their entire list again to see if there are any other examples of this."

Tags: arts-and-entertainment, photography, government-and-politics, federal-government, information-and-communication, internet, australia

Comments (104)

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• Dave:

  27 Mar 2009 7:43:17am

  Why am I not surprised, this is typical of this Govt's lack of attention of detail.

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  • shayne:

    27 Mar 2009 7:58:26am

    Actually, I find it hard to believe it was un-intentional. This just goes to show that some b'cat will have un-accountable control over what the australian public do and don't see. this is their ultimate goal and anyone who can't see through that it is naive.

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    • bitrich:

      27 Mar 2009 8:51:56am

      Given their record it is not inconceivable that Conboy let this one fly, to test the reaction. Rudd has deemed Henson's work 'disgusting'. Interesting how the audience laughed at the Minister's explanation.

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    • acker:

      27 Mar 2009 9:32:06am

      What I think is niave is the argument that an internet filter will not help stop some or possibly a lot of the traffic of child porn.
      
      People arguing that it wont say that it can easily be avoided by using a peer to peer system.
      
      But they seldom point out that the person seeking illicit material has to then find a provider of the illicit material as a source to do that, and I'm sure many police organisations would have them selves set up as fake sources to arrest these people.
      
      But when using the web the seeker can just go to a site automatically distributing the illicit material.
      
      To say the filter would have no benefit reducing this criminal activity is a myth.
      
      And it is sad that so many ISP providers have ran smear campaigns about it and the minister to look after their own vested interests
      
      Higher internet speed/more Gigabites used/ more money to be paid to Internet Service Provider.

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      • shayne:

        27 Mar 2009 9:47:13am

        acker - have you EVER come across child pornography on the internet?
        
        In my 15+ years of working on computers and using the internet (before browsers even existed), I have NEVER seen anything of the sort either by accident or intentionally.
        
        police now have the software/powers to intercept peer-to-peer sharing of such content of at least the most rudimentary level, not to mention pin-pointing those downloading/viewing from websites.
        
        just who do you think this filter will protect?
        
        this will only protect sicko's without even the basic skills to circumvent the 'protection' measures from themselves.
        
        what next - someone to go thought australia post looking for DVD's of the same material?
        
        please, it's a pathetic attempt to censor the web, period.

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      • Rick:

        27 Mar 2009 10:10:56am

        As far as I understand, the problem is that this is a -website- blacklist, but most of the dodgy material isn't shared through websites - it's done through P2P programs, torrents, and chat channels that use a completely different system that wont go anywhere near the filter. Even if police organisations set themselves up as fake sources, I imagine that the millions of connected P2P sharers still outweigh police by a huge percentage to make it worth the risk.
        
        I reckon that people looking for this stuff already use things like annonymous proxies to cover their tracks (and these proxies are easy to set up and have been proven many times in these trials to be a total bypass for the filters), so the people who want to find and share child porn are probably already doing it in a way that the filter wont touch, but us normal people are stuck with a filter that potentially hides away content that is quite normal and legal.
        
        Some kids get trapped by Internet stalkers who persuade them to send photos of themselves and stuff, but that seems to happen through sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc... and you can't exactly blacklist those sites without upsetting hundreds of thousands of people who use it for normal stuff.
        
        I do believe a filter would stop a small number of people accessing child porn, but I don't think it would block much, and it would do more damage than good due to issues like the false positive example in this article and other good sites being put on a blacklist without the site owners ever knowing (not good if you run a business that relies on being online).
        
        It's like saying that banning motorcycles will stop gang violence - it might affect our current bikie gang problem, but within a day they'll find another way to group together and beat eachother up, and thousands of normal motorbike riders are screwed in the process.

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      • acker:

        27 Mar 2009 10:40:19am

        P2P = Peer to Peer
        
        As I said in the earlier post, that requires a seeker (peadophile) and a provider (child porn provider)
        
        That will cause concern for the seeker to start with because they need to find that provider, and that provider may end up being a police organisation.
        
        I cant see why that would not be a significient deterent.
        

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      • Rick:

        27 Mar 2009 11:08:28am

        The problem is, any seeker that is successful in getting a file automatically becomes another provider (until they move the file out of their shared directory). So, although it may be a deterent, fake/police servers are probably a miniscule percentage of the providers out there.
        
        It's not just policing child porn - movie and music publishers are doing similar things to catch people sharing music, but the sheer number of people sharing these files makes the fake/policing servers such a huge minority that it hardly seems like a risk.

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  • Brett:

    27 Mar 2009 8:05:24am

    It's a good job somebody leaked the list, or we'd never know about these "technical errors". Does anybody apart from Senator Conroy and his ill-informed cronies actually still think the filter is a good idea?

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    • Brad:

      27 Mar 2009 10:37:13am

      The Australian Family Association and their ilk think it's a good idea.
      
      I am still convinced Conroy is only doing this to keep Steve Fielding on side and will drop it when the trial proves it won't work.

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  • Janus:

    27 Mar 2009 8:35:59am

    It is ACMA's fault, not the govt. Although I still think that the whole filter thing stinks

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    • Dave:

      27 Mar 2009 8:49:21am

      Sorry Janus but this is the fault of the Govt. the AMCA is THEIR media watch dog so problems that go wrong in the end its them. If they were monitoring the sites and there was no censorship then they wouldn't have done anything wrong.
      Otherwise i agree...its stinks, so much negative public opinion (tho only people who agree with it are the naive ones who have no awareness of the internet like some of the govt who think they can control it

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  • dazzle:

    27 Mar 2009 10:03:58am

    Dave, this is actually the operation of the legislation and administrative arrangements established by the former government.
    
    

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• Carey Young:

  27 Mar 2009 7:49:41am

  Well, if it was a technical error then I suppose that makes it all okay.
  
  Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a tacit admission that the most recent leaked list is accurate?

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  • darakat:

    27 Mar 2009 8:27:51am

    It indicates that at least 1 webside was correct.
    Its quite scary that our government feels it can censure the internet in this way in the name of "Protecting children" etc. It my experiance the children with brains will get past it anyway if they want/need to.

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• Nelson:

  27 Mar 2009 7:55:20am

  Conroy is either a misguided fool or a wolf in sheeps clothing. I'm pro some form of limits being placed on media including the internet (i.e. censorship) but in all cases it must be transparent as to what content is being restricted or made illegal. Even putting aside the technical short falls of this solution, I'm still concerned that there will be an unaccountable government function determining what is acceptable for the people. Unaccountable because there is no clear policy on what is to be blocked and how the enforcement of this policy will be governed.

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  • Robbie:

    27 Mar 2009 9:30:56am

    They want to keep the firewall vague and secret because they know its unpopular with 95% of the general population. Actually you dont hear anything about this on the commercial news at 6pm. Not one peep.

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• Stealth Pooch:

  27 Mar 2009 7:58:00am

  great. What other totally legitimate sites are we potentially going to miss out on?
  
  What a load of rubbish. Can't the government think of anything more constructive than creating a, lets admit it, totally counterproductive internet filter?

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  • Brad:

    27 Mar 2009 10:38:26am

    "What other totally legitimate sites are we potentially going to miss out on?"
    
    There was a dentist, a school tuckshop and some Wikipedia entries on the list.

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• tman:

  27 Mar 2009 7:58:55am

  This wouldn't have been corrected, if the blacklist wasn't leaked. Again this shows his plan won't work as ACMA obviously don't talk to the OLFC. If anything this raises more questions about how these two departments.

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  • Pun Gent:

    27 Mar 2009 8:56:23am

    The only way that this would not have been corrected if the list wasn't leaked, is if nobody in Australia actually wanted to visit the website in the first place and the creator of the website didn't find it strange that he had zero visitors.
    
    As soon as people tried to visit the website, and were turned away, they would know that it was on the blacklist. Or as soon as the owner of the site noticed that visits were way down or that there were no local visits, he would know that he'd been blacklisted.
    
    Don't get me wrong, I think the filter is unworkable and stupid and pandering to people who don't understand the internet at all. But I don't believe that it is only by a stroke of luck that we would ever find out about websites being secretly censored. As soon as someone tries to visit the site, they'd know, and as soon as someone notices their visits are down, they'd know. It's then a simple matter to go to some sensationalist media outlet with the scandal...

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    • Kocsonya:

      27 Mar 2009 10:26:42am

      You assume that the filter actually tells you that it blocked a site. If, however, the filter just silently dropped the packets and they used some name server trickery as well, you must be technically quite adept to be able to work out if it is just a server failure, a wrong URL or the filter. Most people are not that literate about the internal workings of the Internet.
      

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• Troy:

  27 Mar 2009 8:01:17am

  This is what happens when we have orwellian secret blacklists of websites the government doesn't like.

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  • Politically Incorrect:

    27 Mar 2009 8:47:46am

    ThoughtFilter: comming soon! Garunteed to filter any thoughts that the Government doesn't like.

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• Ourcognitivesurplus:

  27 Mar 2009 8:01:37am

  Yes, exactly. A 'technical error'. We call if a false positive.
  
  False positives happen in a number of ways, including:
  - Mistakes made by the filtering software, and
  - Mistakes made in compiling the list.
  
  False positives are one of the most compelling reasons the internet should NOT be filtered.
  
  Please Senator, listen to reason rather than religious lobby groups who are still in the bronze age and have no ability to make sensible comment on technology policy.

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  • Concerned:

    27 Mar 2009 8:17:32am

    Those of us who agree with the list have had the unfortunate experience of seeing enough to know that these measures are brought into place to attempt in any way possible to protect the most vulnerable in our society.
    
    Before you respond by saying well things need to be addressed in other ways, if this protects even one child from being victimised than it is a worthwhile exercise wouldn't you think?
    
    And Dave, although there has obviously been a mistake on the list, if you have never made a mistake at work than you are more perfect than the rest of us humans.

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    • chrisso:

      27 Mar 2009 8:33:17am

      I think we should filter out all the content of the internet. That would definitely save more than one child from being victimised and as you intimate, any measure that stops suffering has to be a good thing. People would soon get the idea if every time they tried to get on the internet all they got was a blank screen. Makes really good sense doesn't it?

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    • Steve:

      27 Mar 2009 8:40:01am

      No. This is going to cost millions of dollars, won't filter most non-http protocols, both under- and over-block; simultaneously it will slow down all Australians' access to the most important technological medium of our time. Oh, and it can also be bypassed in about six seconds by a moron with a proxy add-on for Firefox.
      
      The real issue is, though, that it will not protect anyone from being victimised. It might stop one or two kiddies from accessing porn, but nobody is going to stop producing child pornography. This is a smokescreen - money needs to go on enforcement and cooperation with other countries' police forces. Kids at home should be supervised by their parents, or they should not be using the internet. The Federal government didn't raise you or I; why should it be different for our kids?

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    • Chappy:

      27 Mar 2009 8:50:09am

      You intentions are admirable "Concerned" however this ridiculus and expensive campaign by ALP government to filter the internet wont go anywhere in protecting the children victims of pornography because many of the mechanisms used to transfer information are not web-based....I bring to your attention a post I read the other day as follows... (I know it is just a post, but let the truth be told).....
      
      http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/24/2524199.htm
      
      Brett:
      24 Mar 2009 8:24:57am
      
      I have worked with the Federal Digital Crime squard over the past 20 years on porn related cases, being ISP Tech? I can tell you no cases were web paged based. They were mail groups, Chat channels and P2P to name a few. The Filter is about total sensorship for reasons unkown to me? I can't beleive the Rudd Government is going to waste so much money on a flawed system for what every reason they have, madness.
      
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      If Brett is correct, this should be revealed to the public and become part of the whole internet filtering debate....
      
      regards....

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      • acker:

        27 Mar 2009 10:44:33am

        You mention chat channels
        
        Do you not think that the peadophiles get there via chat rooms they have found on the web ?

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      • Brad:

        27 Mar 2009 10:49:51am

        "Do you not think that the peadophiles get there via chat rooms they have found on the web"
        
        Errr... no. Do you think paedophiles would be stupid enough to make such a chat room visible enough to find on Google?

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      • acker:

        27 Mar 2009 10:59:58am

        And you dont think they would gradualy move through a series of chat-rooms from the innocuous ones through to the hardcore ones as they meet chat room like minded friends ?

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    • Stephen:

      27 Mar 2009 8:57:54am

      Concerned - no, I don't think that.
      
      There are all sorts of absurd measures that can be taken to increase the safety of children. But the benefit has to outweigh the negative consequences by a significant margin.
      
      Saving a single child from victimisation wouldn't come close to making this worthwhile. Given the problems that the measure will cause for legitimate use of the Internet, and the economic expense of implementation, an awful lot of children would have to be saved to justify the action.
      
      I might consider a 25% reduction in child abuse to be a reasonable lower threshold for evidence of the efficacy of such a measure.

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    • Francis:

      27 Mar 2009 9:04:12am

      The trouble is that it is almost certain that it will never prevent any children from being victimised. Seriously. Worse this sort of logic has a critical flaw. It places an absolute priority on the nature of bad deeds. The "if it protects even one child" argument. Protects them against what? The filter is intended to prevent people from seeing the results of abuse. It does not address the abuse itself. Why, when the owners of the list know the location of the images, do they simply filter it. Why is the money and effort not expended on finding the owners of the material and proscecuting them? Filtering is almost head in the sand. "Bad stuff happens, we know about it, but we think it best if we simply spend out efforts trying to filter it out, rather than preventing it."
      
      To reitterate the tehcnical issue. The filter is incapable of filtering peer to peer transfers. It is well understood that this is the mechanism that bad, illegal, undesirable content is shared with. The filter will not help one iota in protecting children. Paedophiles do not make their efforts publicly available for the world to see. They share over encrypted private channels. Channels that the internet filter is blind to.
      
      Yet the argument is pushed that there is a slim chance it might help, and thus the entire country should be subjected to an expensive and intrusive censorship regime that has no public oversight, and has already been shown to be subject problems.
      
      Worse, we see that some politicians are already pushing for their own political agendas to be served by the filter. Xenephon wants gambling sites - legal gambling sites - added. Personally I support Nick's dislike of organised gambling. But this isn't the way to attack it. It won't be long before other political agendas start to lobby. Soon the moral blurring will begin. Assisted suicide probably the next to be banned. Maybe pressure from some of Australia's large trading partners for sites critical of those governments to be blocked. Perhaps the odd "technical error" will result in sites critical of our own government appearing on the list. Yet Conroy threatens leakers of the list contents with criminal action. History teaches us that governments can never resist exercising these powers once they have them. Look at the UK for a good example of this sort of thing gone mad. Where local councils use powers granted under anti-terrorism laws to perform clandestine monitoring of citizens suspected of allowing their dogs to foul the footpaths.

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    • WP:

      27 Mar 2009 9:09:46am

      I havent seen the list so I can't say if I agree or not with the content of the list
      
      I am sure there is content on the web that would be illegal to sell here, and if technically feasible, should be blocked.
      
      What I dont agree with is that we have a department within the government that wants the power to control the information available on the internet, and be totally secret and unaccountable for its activities.
      
      Their seems to be no clear policy as to what would be blocked, who would oversee it, how site owners could appeal their listing, would the owner of a website be notified if their site was blocked and given reasons.
      
      Until these questions and many like it, how can they even start designing the filter, as they wont know what to look for?
      

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      • Brad:

        27 Mar 2009 10:51:13am

        It is NOT technically feasible to block. There are too many false positives and it slows the network down by around 90%.
        
        If material is illegal, then prosecute people who view it.

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    • Brian:

      27 Mar 2009 9:18:57am

      "if this protects even one child from being victimised then it is a worthwhile exercise wouldn't you think". Well, no, I don't.
      We sent MILLIONS of young men to be slaughtered on battlefields to fight for and protect freedoms that we are now throwing away out of a completely hysterical fear about abusing children.
      Freedom comes with sacrifice and risk. I do not want to live in a society that cossets me from the cradle to the grave, telling me what I can and can't do, all for "my own safety".
      There has been no proof offered, not a shred, that this net filter will stop one child from being abused. It is "well, let's do it and hope it works" but the cost to our society is enormous and far outweighs any perceived benefit.
      

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    • Roy:

      27 Mar 2009 9:20:21am

      "if this protects even one child from being victimised than it is a worthwhile exercise wouldn't you think?"
      
      No! Look at the benefits and the costs/risks, then make a decision.
      
      The costs/risks have already been discussed a lot (e.g. reduced speed, obvious monetary cost to ISP's and therefore consumers, false positives, false sense of security due to false negatives, etc etc).
      
      What is the benefit of this sort of censorship? How will censorship protect children from being victimised? I don't think censorship will reduce the market for the nasty stuff (child porn, etc, etc). The market will just go elsewhere.
      
      Please, those who support censorship, please critically weigh up the costs/risks with the potential benefits. Then see if you're satisfied that the predicted benefits justify those costs/risks.

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      • Pudel:

        27 Mar 2009 10:24:18am

        Good point Roy, sometimes perceived safeness is more dangerous, than knowing there may be a risk and being wary of it.

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    • anonymous:

      27 Mar 2009 10:09:46am

      "if this protects even one child from being victimised than it is a worthwhile exercise wouldn't you think?"
      
      While statements such as this appeal to those afflicted with moral panic, they are in no way connected with reality.
      
      If anybody believed your statement, there would be no motor vehicles, since banning motor vehicles would save at least one child from death each year. Many in fact.
      
      No parent would be allowed to keep unsupervised control of their children, since more than one child has died at the hands of their parents. Clearly, saving one child is sufficient to act, right?
      
      Nobody would be permitted to grow or sell peanut in your world. Even peanuts kill children these days.
      
      Fact is, nearly everything has killed a child somewhere. And we're just talking about death. Banning clowns would stop some children from being frightened. Wouldn't that help?
      
      In short, the whole "just one child" argument is total nonsense, and completely disconnected from reality.
      
      You need to rethink your understanding of the world, as it is dangerously flawed, and allows you to be easily controlled by panic merchants who cry "think of the children".

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    • Allan Lewis:

      27 Mar 2009 11:01:13am

      Let's lock EVERYBODY up, and that way we will have done everything possible to protect the most vulnerable in our society.
      
      Obviously that's an absurd solution, and obviously you wouldn't really condone going that far or even trying to.
      
      And there's the point. We are NOT trying to do everything possible. That much is obvious to anyone who spends any time thinking about it. This is simply an argument about where to draw the line, for clearly one must be drawn.
      
      You think it's OK to make the government make my moral judgments for me because someone else is a kiddiefidler. I disagree.
      
      You think it's even possible for the government to decide what I may or may not read. I disagree.

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    • Bullfrog:

      27 Mar 2009 11:06:09am

      Well, I can guarrantee a lot more than one child will be saved by ensuring no vehicle can go faster than 5km an hour. The risk-benefit-downside analysis of this must come up as preferred because "its for the children".
      
      Now, back to reality, where we accept that a risk free existence is not possible, and we give resources to the police who can actually get rid of the people creating the material, rather than slowing down everyone so that a few kids don't see the wrong stuff. And to boot, not even slow the distribution network. And in 15 years of net surfing, I've never come across child pornography. And it's not as if I am puritan type web user.

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  • Jimmyo'rourke:

    27 Mar 2009 8:25:04am

    You present a particular worldview, yet you cannot justify why it will lead to a more positive, productive and safe society. I do not think that it is a logical argument to state that because there is the potential for some sites to be falsely blocked then the principle of filtering remains illegitimate. In much the same way as it is also possible for courts to convict the wrong people for crimes they did not commit, still does not negate their usefullness in society. Religious lobby groups have just as much right in expressing their opinions in a democracy as much as you do.

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    • steve:

      27 Mar 2009 9:09:50am

      Yes, but if you're going to listen to the views of religious groups on the morality of the issue then surely you should listen to the internet experts on the technical issues.
      
      The minister should not be suppressing reports and attempting to have people gagged because he doesn't like what they're saying.
      
      Only recently has Senator Conroy changed his mind about whether one can disagree with him and not actually be (or support) paedophiles.
      
      Sure, I can't tell you that maintaining the status quo with respect to filtering will improve things, my view is that filtering will not make anything noticeably better and will in all probability make things worse.
      
      You would think that a group that know how security and the internet work would be listened to, but no. Even after predicting that the blacklist would leak, that it would have inoffensive material on it, and that it would be used to block political content (anti-abortion and euthanasia sites) etc, they are somehow viewed as radicals.
      
      What most of the anti-filter people want you to know is that they're *NOT* agreeing to the unlimited availability of child pornography, but instead suggest that spending money to go after these people is better than simply covering up their crimes. (Incidentally the money earmarked for actually fighting of this sort of crime has been REDUCED).
      
      Senator Conroy's suggestion that the dentist's web site was blocked because the "Russian mob" had done something to "blank pages" sounds good until you realise it took then 2 months to act, and they did not even bother to let the Australian dentist know! If banks take an average of 8 hours to get fake banking sites removed, why does the Senator's method take 2 months, and why does he just cover them up?
      
      Remember, the anti-filtering people have told you that the filter if/when it is made compulsory will not reduce to any significant extent the amount of "adult" material on the net, will be widely evaded, and will continue to be leaked. If you can't figure out how to get around it, ask your 15 year old son or daughter (who will have by now been introduced to the techniques previously used by paedophiles -- good one Senator).
      
      And why does the shadow minister for climate change know more about how the Internet works than the responsible minister? Says it all really.

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    • Adam:

      27 Mar 2009 9:20:14am

      Your comparison to the justice system shows the flaw in your argument and understanding of the issue. The in the justice system, not only is the accused innocent until proven guilty, they must be found guilty BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT. The bias of the justice system is towards acquittal, not conviction.
      
      This system has been designed in the total opposite manner. Not only is there no transparency, there is no right to appeal, no freedom of information.
      
      A person falsely accused of a crime is at least aware of their accusations and have a means to contest them. A falsely accused organisation is not even made aware of their accusation, let alone given any right to contest.
      
      It basically goes against the last several hundred years of development in democratic governance. The end does not justify the means, no matter how loud your moral outrage may be.

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• James:

  27 Mar 2009 8:05:22am

  And if this blacklist was kept secret, like the government wanted, how would anyone know of this and any other mistake?

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• Did I vote Liberal...:

  27 Mar 2009 8:08:08am

  I'm starting to think the Liberals got in at the last Fedral election...
  Next thing we know the ABC will be on the list for carrying a story like this or for inciting dissent.
  Stop this crap now!

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• Spinner:

  27 Mar 2009 8:11:24am

  Here is Internet Filtering at its best.
  
  Politicians should keep their noses out of things they don't understand and remain focused on their primary expertise - buying votes!

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• ben:

  27 Mar 2009 8:13:19am

  oh yes of course. "publishing the list would defeat the purpose of having the list" as senator conroy said last night on q and a. so i am sure when websites critical of government policy and stuff ups are blacklisted, as will inevitably happen, aside from being secret it will be blamed on "technical errors". sure.

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  • Ripper:

    27 Mar 2009 8:22:25am

    Conroy says they have no intention of stopping freedom of speech.
    
    Surely we are not stupid enough to take what a pollie says at face value.
    
    The last people who did that live in QLD.
    

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    • Robbie:

      27 Mar 2009 9:22:57am

      Swan and Rudd are from QLD. Maybe they want to bring back the old days.

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• esther:

  27 Mar 2009 8:20:53am

  This goes to the heart of the matter. If we don't know what's on the blacklist how will we uncover such "accidents" and "errors" in the future.
  
  Free speech is under attack

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  • James:

    27 Mar 2009 8:38:18am

    I suggest that you may find that "free speech" in its unfettered form does not exist in Australia anyway. You cannot for instance, express any view you like, particularly if it insights violence, criminal activity or threatens the well being and safety of others. The idea that free speech is a blank cheque for people to say and do as they please is a nonsense. It is entirely appropriate that his website was blacklisted.

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    • David T:

      27 Mar 2009 9:02:11am

      it DOES exist online, and I do not believe in bringing the internet down to the level of the rest of our society.
      
      the content filtering aside (i dont think anyone would argue that child porn is a good thing), i disagree with the proposed scheme both on a moral AND a technical standpoint - it just wont work.
      
      for starters, its easily bypassed and flawed. secondly, most of the trade in child porn, terrorist activity etc etc is already done "underground", on encrypted netoworks, TOR, p2p, IRC, usenet and by many other means - the filtering will NOT affect this at all. NO ONE just goes and googles for kiddy fiddling pictures guys..
      
      also, how does this filtering protect your kids from stalkers, bullies and predators on Friendface, IM, chatrooms etc?
      
      
      i know one system that will stop any of the above; its the current system, its totall opt-in and will keep your children safe: its called PARENTAL SUPERVISION

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• Andrew:

  27 Mar 2009 8:33:03am

  False positives like this would not have come to light had the list not been leaked. This is precisely the reason that rules that rely on secrecy are bound to be flawed, and why there ought not to be a censorship regime in the first place.
  
  I thought that the Rudd government would be big on disclosure and transparency. I still think the other mob would be no better.

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• Slartibartfast:

  27 Mar 2009 8:33:29am

  What most people don't seem to realise is that this filtering nonsense has less to do with protecting the kiddies and more to do with backroom deals and pressure from extreme right wing religious groups. Logic, common sense and open and accountable government has absolutely nothing to do with it. While this absurd filter and secret blacklist make Conroy look bad it's more that he has made some dodgy deal he can't back out of or, possibly, he's some sort of zealot sympathiser. The real fight here is not against stupidity, that would be easy, the fight is against groups trying to tell people what they should see and think. No, I'm a long way from being a conspiracy theorist, a bit of critical thinking is all it needs.

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• Geoff from Noosa:

  27 Mar 2009 8:34:03am

  Conroy was very unimpressive in last night's Q&A. He waffled on at length, but like a good pollie, never once got close to answering the specific question at hand.
  
  Labour is disappointing a lot of people big time over their approach to this issue.

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• Kocsonya:

  27 Mar 2009 8:43:57am

  It was a technical error. It is known as "Senator Conroy Has Power Error".
  

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• hmmmm:

  27 Mar 2009 8:46:28am

  You know what's scary? ... I bet you the winner of the NBN contract has to agree to use the filter or they won't get the contract.

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• John O:

  27 Mar 2009 8:49:20am

  Absolutely on purpose.
  
  Why don't we have the Labor cronies all on these internet filtering discussions crowing about how great the Government is and how wonderful this will be for us? Could it be because even they know its fatally flawed?

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• loony:

  27 Mar 2009 8:49:55am

  nice to see all the loony conspiracy theorists out and about. mistakes happen all the time (even loony conspiracy theorists make them if they're honest). attempts to deny access to criminal and abhorent material on the internet should be applauded, and do not constitute a threat to free speech.

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  • Joel B1:

    27 Mar 2009 8:53:59am

    Yes sure, but who decides what's "abhorrent" You?

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    • Ripper:

      27 Mar 2009 9:16:52am

      People who are silly enough tp publish "abhorrent" content should be prosecuted and have the "abhorrence" tested in court, in public.
      
      Henson's photo's are a prime example.
      
      Once this filter is in place , the temptation to use it for political gain will be just too tempting.
      
      Witness all the "dirty tricks" presently used in election campaigns.

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      • Kocsonya:

        27 Mar 2009 9:42:07am

        How about innocent until found guilty?
        That is, until a *court* decides that certain material is "abhorrent", Senator Conroy can not secretely blacklist websites. His personal belief system is *not* representative to that of the majority of Australians (as it is obvious from the fact that a large majority of Australians oppose his compulsory secret filtering).
        

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  • Kocsonya:

    27 Mar 2009 9:05:27am

    Yes, mistakes happen.
    
    About 2500 sites on the list. We know that *at least* 5 of them was perfectly legit, and a handful were porn but of the legit kind (adult material). Let's say maybe 20 perfectly legal sex sites (probably more, but give them the benefit of doubt). Now that's 25 out of 2500, an error rate of 1%.
    
    I'd be extremely worried if my bank lost 1% of my money due to "technical errors". Or if my car failed to start 1% of the time. Not to mention that unlike the bank and the car, you don't even know about it, because the list is as secret as an ASIO profile of a terrorist.
    
    It is interesting how efficient Senator Conroy was when it was about the Greman Police raiding the house of a Wikileaks maintainer because of the publication of the blacklist. No technical error there...
    

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    • acker:

      27 Mar 2009 10:49:58am

      But you are not trying to hide your money from your bank.
      
      Nor are you trying to hide your car keys from your car.
      
      Child porn peddlers and users are trying to hide their crimes from detection though.
      
      I'm glad they have blocked 2475 dodgy ones.

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  • Jonte:

    27 Mar 2009 9:07:24am

    You'd agree that murder is abhorrent, right? What if the government decided that any media depicting murder should be censored. Well, that's 50% (or more) of Hollywood movies, computer games, and even novels. So why is it okay to depict murder, but other such things are 'abhorrent'?
    
    Just asking.

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  • SandyZ:

    27 Mar 2009 9:15:48am

    This filtering doesn't block access to such material. If it didn't and the list was transparent, I would be all for it.
    
    Will this filtering exclude material various religous groups deem blasphemous?

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  • wharlie:

    27 Mar 2009 9:19:31am

    That's why we have checks and balances, to eliminate mistakes.
    The proposed internet filter obviously has none.

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• Chris:

  27 Mar 2009 8:56:35am

  A friend found the list easily online and she says there are many listings to mundane sites such as legal poker sites, legal adult websites and even a few commercial building websites on it! Not to mention legal, commercial file sharing sites, a dentist and an ISP's old web page.
  
  Is this the path we want to go down? China recently banned YouTube, will we be next?
  
  Over 95% of people are against this legislation, time the government realised it's massive error and backtracked, fast.

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  • Bureau of made up stats:

    27 Mar 2009 10:21:26am

    "Over 95% of people are against this legislation, time the government realised it's massive error and backtracked, fast."
    
    Yes, and over 95% of statistics are made up on the spot to suit the needs of those quoting them.
    
    Source, please!

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    • acker:

      27 Mar 2009 10:56:11am

      Source is probably an internet forum with a topic header like this or possibly one set up by the fake Twitter Stephen Conroy.
      
      A bit like Cadbury's putting a survey on the wrappers of their products with a question like
      
      Do you like chocolate..Yes or No
      
      Hardly something that is going to give anyone a broader population accurate survey figure

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• Joel B1:

  27 Mar 2009 8:58:06am

  My local community youth radio station has a program called "Che Geek". It's all about gaming and such-like.
  
  They don't like the idea of a secret filter more than anyone else particularly.
  
  BUT the youngsters actually thought that this bill was being introduced by the coalition!
  
  Should have heard the shock and dismay when I told them it was being introduced by the Rudd Government. You could literally hear the "scales fall from their eyes". There's some 18yr olds who regretted their choice last election...

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• PJ:

  27 Mar 2009 9:01:54am

  In this case and the case of the dentists website being blacklisted because the 'mob' hacked the site and uploaded inappropriate material onto it, I have some questions. What is the process of appeal against a blacklisting? How long will it take and will it be loaded with huge govt. fees and penalties or even prosecutions? If the action taken is found to be wrong like with this Bill Henson case, will compensation be awarded from the public purse?
  
  The dentist was the victim but he was punished and no doubt the 'mob' never challenged over it at all. Was the dentist or these people even informed of their blacklisting and how long did it take to re-list them after they fixed the problem or were cleared? Did this blacklisting affect their web presences and position on web search engines? This is a process that can take years and tens of thousands of dollars to improve not to mention the loss of income during the process would destroy some particularly web based businesses. Who will be liable for that? Whats to stop a shady competitor with links to the mob from having another business targeted and moving in on the business after they are blacklisted and removed by Sen. Conroys secret web police? The Big Brother attitude and complete lack of accountability and foreclosure of operating protocol coming from his office is what scares me. The bad guys must be waiting in the wings ready to pounce very grateful to their new best friend Sen. Conroy.
  

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• Brian:

  27 Mar 2009 9:11:24am

  A "technical error" says Conroy. Yet he wants the list to remain secret so bad luck for anyone else who suffers a "technical error" in the future.
  
  This mandatory and secretive filter is disgusting and cuts at the heart of a free society. I know Mr Rudd admires China but do we really want to emulate their attitudes towards media freedom?
  
  If Rudd and Conroy are determined to censor the net they could do the following:
  
  1. Websites go up freely.
  2. Someone complains about a website to a Website Control Authority.
  3. The WCA reviews the site and determines whether it should be modified or removed and issues a public report. It notifies the website owner of its decision and gives it a period of appeal.
  4. Depending on the result of the appeal the WCA directs the web host and/or ISP to modify or remove the site.
  
  This system would be transparent and accountable. Sites displaying criminal activity (paedophilia, etc) could be referred to police for action. The WCA could be given "emergency" powers to order immediate removal of such sites (but it must still provide a public report into such decisions).
  
  Not hard, really.

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  • wharlie:

    27 Mar 2009 9:31:22am

    Your solution is logically correct but will still not work on a technical level.
    Web hosts/ISPs outside Australia are unlikely to remove their websites because of a direction from the WCA.
    Therefore the filtering still needs to be applied at the local level causing the internet to to slow to a crawl, and most people will still be able to bypass it with ease.
    

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• Johnf:

  27 Mar 2009 9:12:26am

  When the British school system put a word-sensitive filtering package on its computers the mayor of Scunthorpe wondered why his town's website stopped getting hits...
  
  My wife, a former autitor, firmly believes that where there is a choice of blame between conspiracy or incompetence, incompetence wins almost every time (but note the 'almost').

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  • atomou:

    27 Mar 2009 9:18:07am

    I disagree with the govn't interference here but the loss of Hanson's site is a blessing in disguise.

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• Rob:

  27 Mar 2009 9:14:38am

  fancy even thinking you could censor the internet. As fast as sites are closed down a dozen others will take their place.

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  • Kocsonya:

    27 Mar 2009 9:52:47am

    It's not about whether you can censor the net or not. You can't, they know that just as well as you do. However, if there's a *secret* list of banned material, all you have to do is to monitor where John Doe, the known anti-government activist went in the past month on the Web, then well, maybe due to a technical error or something, get one of the sites onto the secret list and voila, John Doe is immediately a pedophile, a terrorist or whatever labelling is in fashion at the time.
    
    It is true that one should not look for conspiracy where simple incompetence suffices, but governments, without exception, want to control their governed and a tool that allows you to criminalise those who dissent is always welcome. Maybe Senator Conroy is just incompetent, but once the system is set up, there inevitably will be competent people who will abuse it to no end.
    

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• Matthew:

  27 Mar 2009 9:22:57am

  The main problem with this filter is that it won't feasibly achieve what it sets out to achieve. How is it going to protect children? If we are talking about protect children from finding these sites... well it is actually not that easy to end up on them without trying. My mum always had our computer in a public place in the house so even if we had wanted to look up porn we wouldn't have been able to.
  On the other hand, if these sites have illegal content, not enabling people to see them doesn't mean anything has really been done to stop them except for reducing their audience. I don't feasibly see this as reducing child sex crime or unlawful activity. The world is too big.
  As has been stated above, much of the illegal content isn't even based on websites, and there are ways to get around all the filters that are currently being proposed anyway.
  While some have commented that if this will save even one child... well I dispute that it even will. Just because people won't be able to publish their videos doesn't mean they won't continue commit atrocities. There are better ways that children can be protected than just forcing everyone to ignore the problem.

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• Trekker:

  27 Mar 2009 9:26:25am

  The good Senator did not answer the question "who will decide which websites are blocked"? This is a key question; ACMA apparently decides, but who is ACMA? When we elect politicians to run the country, we only have ourselves to blame if they get it wrong. But we the Australian people did not appoint anyone to ACMA so how is it they get to decide what we get to see? In China yesterday, the Government blocked access to Facebook because it did not like what was being said on that website. Is this what the future holds in Australia? Will the Government appointed ACMA block access to websites because they do not like the content? How will they define what is fair comment against what they might perceive as inciting violence or criminal activity? If I make a comment I don't like the Prime Minister and he should go commit suicide (as did a Senator in the US about the AIG scandal), would that be blocked because I am inciting violence or threatening the PM? Or am I just expressing a strong personal view? We the Australian people will have no control over what the Government and/or ACMA decides and it is quite clear the Government is the strongest advocate for this filter. So what does that tell you.....

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  • PT:

    27 Mar 2009 9:50:20am

    One of the advantages of not knowing who is on the ACMA panel is that it would be harder for someone to attempt to corrupt one of these officials to have their sites passed.
    
    Before you say big brother etc, SAS soldiers, ASIO employees etc are all held incognito to attempt to avoid retribution or corruption.
    
    Don't blame government for control, blame those members of society who force control onto society by their actions.

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  • Kocsonya:

    27 Mar 2009 10:41:23am

    It's not even ACMA. If you download the Act, you will see that there are 2 kinds of prohibited materials. One kind is what ACMA said was prohibited. The second kind, called "potential prohibited content" is that ACMA did not actually check but it is thought probable that ACMA would have said that it was prohibited, had they actually looked at it. Now the filter supposed to ban that latter kind as well.
    
    No, I am not kidding. Download the Boradcasting Services Act 1992 amandments, compiled 16/02/2009, and you will find it in there.
    

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• MichaelCPE:

  27 Mar 2009 9:30:08am

  The Henson photos is just another example of how the blocking scheme is wrong.
  
  On Q&A the example of blocking a Dentist was given, and this was justified because the Russian Mafia had put bad content onto the Dentist site.
  
  The real solution is very simple. ACMA should tell the offending site to remove the bad content, and if necessary start legal action against the owner.
  
  In the case of (a mistake like the) Henson site the owner of the site could challenge this, and the site would never be blacklisted.
  
  In the case of the Dentist, he would say "what bad content?". The site would then be fixed (and made secure), and so no-one in the world would see what was previously there.
  
  And in the case of real child porn, either the Australian police, or the police in the site hosting the content, should take action.
  
  If the very bad content Conroy is worried about is removed at source there is no need for a blacklist, no need for secrecy, and no need to implement expensive filtering.
  
  Saving money and prosecuting the offenders. Why is that so hard for Conroy to understand.

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  • Willster:

    27 Mar 2009 9:49:16am

    Conroy tried to defend not publishing the black list on the grounds of not wanting people made aware of the site's URLs, but if he truly believes he can block the sites then why does it matter if the list is published? Could it be because the truth is he knows damn well he can't block the content.

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• PT:

  27 Mar 2009 9:34:37am

  I watched the ABC's program qanda last night and personally having listened to arguments for and against I agree with Bolt's argument about our moral compass. I agree with Conroy we need to filter material that depicts society behaving in ways that demean other members of society, child or adult.
  
  If a site is unintentionally block then the issue can be raised and the site unblocked.
  
  "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". The merits for filtering are correct, it just needs a little fine tuning from time to time.

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  • wharlie:

    27 Mar 2009 9:43:18am

    Trying to filter the internet is like trying to filter the air we breath.
    It will choke it to death.
    Goodbye decent internet speeds.
    And it will still easily be bypassed.
    IT IS NOT TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE.

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    • PT:

      27 Mar 2009 9:54:38am

      The internet was not technically possible until it was devised. You can block something, then of course someone will find a way round it. Then that gets blocked and so the story goes.
      We shouldn't legitimize suffering so we can get a faster internet. Sometimes a slower internet speed is preferably to a negative impact on society.

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  • Willster:

    27 Mar 2009 9:44:22am

    Er...I think you, and many others miss the point. Regardless of whether you agree particular web content should be available or not the point is that it can't be blocked without impeding the legitimate function of the net.
    

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  • CarolA:

    27 Mar 2009 9:55:23am

    "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" is exactly what this ridiculous net-nanny filter will do. The "baby" in this case could be a perfectly harmless site that discuss sexual problems, but what would you like to bet that it will also "accidently" block sites that are critical to the government, sites that leak the sort of information like the above news item.
    Does it block access to violent movies or games? Of course not, after all they are readily available anywhere for children to see and buy - and they attract GST!
    

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  • maabu:

    27 Mar 2009 10:29:19am

    I'm afraid you've been seriously misled here.
    
    Here are the pertinent points (excuse my capitals):
    
    * a filter would NOT STOP child porn at all. Anyone determined and motivated to bypass it will be able to do so with ease. This is an undisputed technical fact.
    * a filter of this type would SLOW DOWN internet access for everyone.
    * a secret blacklist is vulnerable to errors, and more seriously is open to political/bureaucratic misuse in future. This kind of filter is a very serious potential threat to democracy and free speech, if you think about the ways it could (i.e. will) be abused.
    
    This approach is utterly and completely the wrong way to tackle child porn. Intelligence and investigation, like the AFP's current approach, is far more effective and far less damaging to the society/economy as a whole.

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  • anonymous:

    27 Mar 2009 10:45:01am

    Think this through a little and you may change your mind.
    
    How can "this issue" be raised if a site is unintentionally blocked? Remember that the black list was leaked not published, so incorrect blocking would be discovered only by accident.
    
    In Mr Conroy's world, he and his minions (and their temps and work experience students) are free to block anything they like with no recourse.
    
    No matter what you would personally like to block, giving anybody a secret list with no oversight is a guarantee of abuse.
    
    There is no baby in this bath water. It is a complete con job and we should tell Mr Conroy loudly where he can put his list.

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    • PT:

      27 Mar 2009 11:01:35am

      Rational discussion, not sensationalism.
      
      Temps and work experience students will not be asked to judged on child porn, rape etc.
      
      The overriding opinion seems to be, because it is difficult to enforce effective filtering we should throw our hands up and say lets just let it all through.
      
      Once this happens society will only find new lows to explore because everything else is freely available.
      
      We elect governments to enact laws to protect all including the most vulnerable in society. Sometimes a few have to sacrifice a little for the betterment of all in society.

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• Jimmyjack:

  27 Mar 2009 9:45:45am

  "It was actually cleared by the classification board so it shouldn't have been on the list," he said.
  
  So does this mean that all (AU?) sites must have a classification?
  
  By the sounds of the wording there, its more like guilty till proven innocent.
  
  There just is simply not enough information on how this is going to work, Its it restricting by domain name? something that can be changing in a matter of minutes? IP addie? Potentially blocking legit sites hosted by the same comapny?
  
  There is nothing to stop someone from going to a public proxy and viewing such pages once this come in. Its full of holes and ill conceived.
  
  

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• dazzle:

  27 Mar 2009 10:01:03am

  What seems to be forgotten in all the frenzied comment is that government has not actually changed anything at this stage.
  
  This is the application of our standing classification arrangements to the internet. So are people suggesting that no censorship of any kind be applied?
  
  It is a nonsense to believe that a civilised society should not have censorship arrangements. The debate then becomes one about where the censorship lines are drawn and even if that is ever possible to fully settle, then there would be inevitable misclassifications.
  
  

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• Andrew:

  27 Mar 2009 10:02:57am

  First he said the blacklist that was leaked wasn't real.
  
  Now he's saying that the ACMA made an error adding Henson's site to the list.
  
  Is the leaked blacklist real or not?
  
  (FYI I believe it is real, perhaps some sites were added to it, but the addition of sites by someone else doesn't invalidate the authenticity of the list as Conroy would like us to believe)

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  • All Seeing Eye:

    27 Mar 2009 10:22:05am

    And how can we be sure someone wont just add sites due to pressure from some vested interest if the site is not public?

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• Charles:

  27 Mar 2009 10:09:04am

  Q & A last night exposed the government's blacklist and censorship to be secretive, political, draconian infringement on Australian freedoms.
  If they were serious about child porn they'd trace the users of these sites and arrest them, rather than push the problem underground. The blacklist wont stop predators from targeting kids on networking sites.
  Shame on Labor for silencing dissent and threatening free speech in our democracy.
  We are not communist China or Korea, and should not have their draconian internet policies.
  
  

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• insideps:

  27 Mar 2009 10:39:20am

  I have been totally opposed to this internet filtering plan until now, but this latest dentist bungle opens up a whole new field of enterprise.
  
  1 Hacking legitimate websites is apparently not all that difficult.
  2 Obviously there are plenty of non-illegal things that will get a site banned - eg gambling, abortion etc, so
  3 Offer service to link your competitor's business to something "offensive" (but not illegal) for a fee.
  4 Contact ACMA and "report" offending website.
  5 Client gets to watch as web-based competitor's site disappears. By the time the poor mug finds out what happened (if ever), finally gets the authorities to do something about it, and starts to rebuild his rating with the search engines, he's stuffed.
  6 Do it all through overseas proxy servers and stay undetected.
  
  I don't know how to do most of these things - but I know there are people who do.
  
  I wonder how long before some bright spark actually does it?
  

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• Robert:

  27 Mar 2009 10:45:24am

  Simple fix.
  Little amendment to the legislation:
  
  For every "error" of a legit site on the blacklist, and to compensate them for any potential lost revenue, the gov't pays the site owner a fine of, oh let's say, $50,000 per day that the site has been on the list.
  
  Where does the money come from? Out of the annual ACMA budget of course - the more "errors" they make, the more money it costs them. It's the only way to keep gov't departments sharp: threaten their budgets.

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  • Michael:

    27 Mar 2009 11:06:17am

    Not a simple fix. As the list if private and immune from Freedom of Information requests, you cannot even find out if a page of yours is on a blacklist.
    
    The ONLY reason why the dentist, etc. have come to light is because the lists have been leaked, if they hadn't, the owners of the pages never would know about their blacklisting.
    

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• OhReally:

  27 Mar 2009 10:47:12am

  Look, filter or no, this list should be public, or given to a standing committee of jurists who can review the material on the list, and periodically check the blacklistings, and vote if they think it should be banned.
  
  Having censorship not subject to review is just wrong.

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• Mark:

  27 Mar 2009 10:54:51am

  One of the few countries in the world to pursue this kind of all-encompassing censorship is China.
  
  They are an immensely powerful country which has recently successfully pressured South Africa to ban the Dalai Lama from that country.
  
  Does anyone seriously doubt that once this internet censorship regime is in place that China will pressure the Australian government to blacklist sites detailing Chinese human rights abuses, sites about Tibetan independence and all sites about the Dalai Lama?
  
  And does anyone seriously doubt that the Australian Government will meekly acquiesce?

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