I wonder if this is what Stephen Conroy was sniggering about when asked about the state of his filter proposal… It’s certainly a step backwards from having an unaccountable blacklist that prevents you from accessing certain sites, to a scheme whereby all sites you visit are recorded. Here’s a thought – if the government couldn’t justify opening everyone’s physical communications… Read more →
Conroy – are you listening? Once you decide that certain information is off-limits, you end up having to block it in every domain, and always be vigilant – just like the Chinese government. As people on Foursquare started checking into Tian’anmen Square (by the way, guess what anniversary just passed with no media interest that I saw), and mentioning that… Read more →
It appears that England has someone to challenge Stephen Conroy for technology idiot of the year, if not for longer :). It’d be common sense for the “Minister for Digital Britain” to know what common networking and technology terms meant, but obviously common sense is something that politicians lack. The sad thing is that the Digital Economy Bill is a… Read more →
It doesn’t take much more than a bicycle pump, a bucket, a cooker range hood. Oh, and some uranium. Here’s how. As the instructions say, Making and owning an H-bomb is the kind of challenge real Americans seek. Who wants to be a passive victim of nuclear war when, with a little effort, you can be an active participant. Apparently… Read more →
It was a stock “don’t worry – we’re politicians” letter. Download it here. However it takes the reader for a fool and depends on an uncritical eye being cast over it. Here’s my response. Conroy, you’re a liar. Your propaganda PDF states that the UK, Finland, Sweden and Norway have adopted filtering technology without any impact on performance. This is… Read more →
Jon Seymour, in a guest post on the blog Somebody think of the Children, talks about what he feels is the real purpose for the proposal of a mandatory internet filter: it’s to impose a middle-class sensibility on society; to take us back to an era when Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned, where certain things were not said and done… Read more →
The Conroy Rule is a fast-spreading internet meme, similar to Godwin’s Law (well at least similar to the bastardised form of it that I have seen called Reductio ad Hitlerium, and which is also known as Dodd’s Corollary). It basically says that any argument from a politician discussing the internet devolves into simplistic references to child pornography, which in-effect makes… Read more →
Mark Newton, who works for Internode, is one of the main spokesmen (in an unofficial capacity) against the Federal government’s proposal to setup up ISP-level filtering on the Australian internet. The title of this post is a quote from an opinion piece on the ABC’s website, where he rightly takes Senator Conroy and the Australian Families Association to task for… Read more →
The Australian has published an article based on the press release from SAGE-AU: Over-blocking access to Internet sites even three percent of the time will impose “significant†costs on service providers, the System Administrators Guild of Australia”(SAGE-AU) has warned. Unfortunately they don’t publish a link to the actual release, which mentions more issues like deployment costs, and security concerns. It’s… Read more →
According to the Australian, Stephen Conroy has been presented with, and endorsed, a report into the feasibility of internet filtering, which claims success. So now we’re a go for real world trials. The actual report is here (PDF), and it makes interesting reading in a sad way. It’s being pulled apart on the SAGE mailing lists at the moment, and… Read more →
Julian Morrow, from The Chaser – obviously one of the main targets of the new law, along with Broken Rites and similar groups, has an opinion piece in the SMH, today. It’s a funny read, and spot on: One easy way to identify a bad law, other than simply reading it, is to think about what types of conduct might… Read more →
I’ve sent a couple of letters to the SMH, but they probably won’t get published in the flood of correspondence they’re getting on the topic, so it’s good I have a blog to toot my own horn 🙂 For starters: Dear Sir, If the Catholic Church is not behind the legislation, and is not concerned with “annoying behaviour”, perhaps it… Read more →
Now that the NSW government has promulgated a new law to punish people for annoying Catholics during World Youth Day, I suggest that we all create and circulate the best put-downs we can think up. here’s one to start: If I said that Catholics were in good taste, I’d be lion. So far, I’ve not seen a list of exact… Read more →
No, not me. I don’t take trains much any more. Anyway, I can’t imagine that much paranoia in Australia yet. The incident happened in America (where else?) and is reported here. Basically, a Japanese tourist with very little English language skills was asked by a train conductor not to take photos of the countryside for national security reasons (!??!). At… Read more →
Bruce Schneier has a great essay on the way that the attempt to keep planes trains and automobiles safe from terrorism has devolved into a persecution of the different. I always thought the local fear campaign was part of this trend towards keeping the public in a constant state of fear, and turning us into a nation of conformist sheep…. Read more →
I haven’t read Bruce Schneier’s blog in some time, so there was bound to be a few interesting articles waiting for me there. In one, we find that police in London cordon off city blocks because of a restaurant cooking chilli (farce); and in the other we find very reasonable outrage as the banning of purses as well as backpacks… Read more →
I just finished reading the story of an American cyclist who had a very nasty run-in with Minneapolis police last September. He was tasered and jailed after questioning the reason for being told to get off his bike when leaving the St. Paul airport. According to his story, he was falsely accused of taking a swing at the officer when… Read more →
Robert Frisk has a piece published in The Independent entitled “The true story of Free Speech in America”. It’s a sad and excoriating read about the way that the US and Britain treats people who question the official line, who try and raise issues that the authorities want to be buried; the way that the voices of those not in… Read more →
It’s probably been asked before, but would someone bring a charge against Bush and Cheney for “providing material support”? Their actions were much more useful in supporting Al Qaida than Hicks’ were. Anyone who read/listened to the transcript of the AFP interview with Hicks in 2001, as shown of 4 Corners last night, and thought that he was a terrorist… Read more →
