Australian $84 Million Porn Filter Thwarted By 16-Year-Old
Remember that $90 million we mentioned Howard is wasting on porn filters we mentioned would be a total failure? That we said ‘the kids’ would get past it without much effort? Good friend to you and me, 16-year-old schoolboy Tom Wood, (who could actually be a porn star with that name), managed to hack the security measure within 30 minutes of it going live, last Tuesday (21/08/07).
Not only did our hormone raging hacker get round the filter, he managed to preserve the status bar, indicating a functional security system. Not only is it possible for him to look at porn, he is able to deceive his parents into thinking he only ever uses the Internet to check New Scientist – the sneaky devil! And the story gets even better…The Australian government, understandably embarassed by the situation, attempted a remedy. A new filter called Intergrad was uploaded to central servers for domestic distribution. A whopping 40 minutes later, Tom rescued puberty-infested individuals across Australia once again.
Senator Coonan did the best she could to salvage the sorry situation… “Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and … traditional parenting skills have never been more important.”
Yes, Senator Coonan has basically admitted that the whole exercise was doomed from the start, and that the only REAL way to protect kids is by being a good parent. So what were the filters all about, Senator? Political chicanery in an election year, mayhaps?
The flawed Internet filter is available as a free download here.
As for Tom, he even offers plenty of mindful advice to government on what they SHOULD be doing to educate kids on keeping themselves safe from real online threats. Clearly the guy is a dude, and you should add him as a friend to your Facebook account, tell him he rocks and ladies, get him laid; if his cyber security cracking skills do not impress you, what ever will? [Herald Sun].
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Comments
I hope that guy who commented last time that the Howard government is ‘heading in the right direction’ is going to post another comment…
The ISPs need to have these filters on the server side otherwise it wont work – and that is the plan. Obviously you can get around the filter easily: just uninstall it. Even if it does work there will be ways around it, just look at gun laws (people can go to the black market for guns). At least filters will reduce MOST of the traffic.
why not spend the money curbing crime rates or making median houses more affordable to first home buyers.
porn is harmless.
Brendan… You just don’t get it do you? I will keep it simple…
Porn filter cost big money.
Porn filter no workie.
Poor tax payer sad and angry.
Howard government is a big baddie!
fucking hell brendan.
It’s impossible to effectively censor ANYTHING on the internet.
don’t let google crawl it, send files via encrypted zip/rar files, p2p torrenting systems… There’s a STACK of ways to stop ANY automated process working out what you’re doing.
Some torrenting apps even mix up UDP and TCP packets so that ISP’s can’t even work out you ARE torrenting things.
damn. The people want porn, give them porn.
The parents are too lazy to monitor their kids activities? They shouldn’t have kids – and if you’re that lazy, porn is probably the least of your worries. I know you can’t watch them 24/7 – but there is a simple way to stop this. TURN THE COMPUTER OFF. If you’re really stressy and you have to go out, rip out a bunch of the cables out of the computer and lock them in your car or something.
Surefire porn “filter” – can the government give me $80 million now?…
why not just ban anyone under 18 from using the internet! Compulsory filters are a waste of time.. besides we all know porn built the internet!
Well they seemed to censor Tiananmen square in China and also wireless network regulation in Germany, I can’t see why they cannot block UNDERAGE PEOPLE viewing porn.
My biggest problem here is that the government, is meant to be making laws. The police, policing those laws. The courts, working out issues around laws.
The government is now trying to step in and control us on an unprecedented level.
And the best bit… It’s not working.
I have no respect for Helen Coonan, her views and understanding on the internet and technology belong in bible belt Amnerica.
The fact is, I was looking at porn when I was.. what, about 14 ? I didn’t have the internet. I had adult book stores, dads collection and various other ways to get it. This porn filter is going to do nothing. It’s a waste of good money, that could do a lot more for this country than trying to protect kids from seeing naked bodies. If kids want it, kids will get it.
The kids that don’t want it, really aren’t being beseiged by porn anyway.
I can’t remember the last time I was affronted by porn that I didn’t look for.
Silly silly people…. do you honestly think the government cares one bit about Porn??? um have we all forgotten its an election year?? little johnny and his crew are busting their britches to please the voters especially the christian ethic voters with this so called porn filter… nah its just a lame attempt once again by the powers that be to try and impress us with their upright(should be “Uptight”) moralistic values.. johnny would have scored higher by spending the 80mill on building a JohnnySpaces website perhaps???? :)
How many computers do parents have access to anyway, its not like the teens will let them put the filter not there personal computer.