AUSTRALIAN INTERNET FILTER

AUSTRALIAN INTERNET FILTER

The Australian Federal Government has proposed and begun trialling an internet filtering system that would see an to freedom for Australians on the internet, filtering thousands of adult websites and some subjects like euthanasia and racism.

What’s an internet?

SENATOR CONROY

Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has repeatedly lied when referring to the overall acceptance of the Filtering policy both amongst the ISPs and the general public and has been caught without understanding key elements on the filter.

In late 2009, a website www.stephenconroy.com was registered and used by pranksters to speak out against Conroy and the filter, the domain was taken down within 24 hours. This caused further concerns for many who already opposed the filter.

In May 2010, Senator Conroy stated that 85% of Australian ISPs support the proposed filter, although his sources for this information are completely unknown and invalid.

PROBLEMSSPEED

The internet filter could cause internet speeds to drop by between 2% and 80%, depending on the amount of content that the Australian Government wants to block .

This alone could cause the fibre-based NBN(National Broadband Network) to be made completely useless, dropping its speeds to current ADSL2 speeds.

PROBLEMSCOSTS

The filter is set to cost tens of millions of tax payer’s dollars to implement, with millions more in ongoing costs.

Ongoing costs for this could include having a 24/7 support centre that would deal with complaints regarding mistakenly blocked websites. Also a team of technicians and programmers to stop and correct cracking attempts will be needed.

The cost of the average broadband connection in Australia would also increase, with ISPs needing more money to support the filtering infrastructure.

PROBLEMSFREEDOM

The filter would give the Australian Government unprecedented control over all information on the internet and will allow them to add any website they wish to the blacklist of blocked websites.

Added to this, the fact that freedom in Australian would essentially be gone, something that a Democratic government should stand for.

PROBLEMSEFFECTIVENESS

In 2007, a teenager was able to crack an 84 million dollar filter that was given away to families in only a half an hour, this trend is similar across the world, with internet filters cracked in a very short time.

Any Internet Filter currently on the market can easily be bypassed with Google’s webpage caching service or using a VPN service.

The true effectiveness of the proposed filter is in question, all it could turn out to be is a speed limiter for anybody determined enough to bypass it.

CONCLUSION

For now, the Labour government’s Internet Filtering plan has been postponed for atleast a year, but the possibility will always exist.

A Liberal government has promised to not go ahead with the current government’s proposal if elected.

Only time will tell if the filter is eventually made a reality.

THANKS FOR LISTENING!