Have we talked about internet filters before? Yes, just a little. While we’ve been kicking the issue around, we shouldn’t forget our cross-Tasman siblings in New Zealand have had their own filter running since March of 2010. As far as experiments go, Australia really couldn’t ask for a more convenient test subject.
Not that NZ’s filter is a carbon copy of what was being proposed by our government, but its overarching goals and implementation are similar — block requests to blacklisted websites, executed by service providers that have opted to use it. According to Tech Liberty NZ, the ISPs running the filter account for over 90 per cent of the country’s market.
Mauricio Freitas of NZ’s Geekzone recently trawled through various reports and briefings from the Department of Internal Affairs, the government body responsible for administering the filter. In December 2011, the system had clocked the following stats:
Seven ISPs
16.1 million requests blocked
415 records in the filter list
368 unique web sites
25 appeals
Interestingly, the meeting notes state that one official believed the number of requests blocked was “technically correct but too high”, as they do not represent individual web pages, but rather all content requests from the offending websites (images, scripts, CSS definitions, etc).
A survey by InternetNZ of 877 Kiwis (from an original sampling of 1000) released just days ago, suggests 66 per cent were in favour of extending the current filter to include “other material”. However, the report does not indicate what “other material” might be, leaving it entirely up to the respondents to apply context.
It might have helped if the respondents had been aware if their access was actually being blocked. Almost half were unaware NZ even had an internet filter, while just 19 per cent knew for certain their ISP was applying the filter. 56 per cent felt the decision to be individually filtered should be voluntary.
As to the perceived effectiveness of the filter, age and internet usage had a significant effect on opinions:
• More than half (53%) of those aged 60 years and over felt that it was likely compared with 32% of 18-29 year olds.
• Those who use the Internet more were less likely to believe that filters would help. 36% of these respondents thought it would reduce the chance of abuse and 43% felt it wouldn’t.
Back in 2010, McNair Ingenuity Research conducted a “demographically balanced” survey via phone regarding our own filter. A massive 80 per cent said they’d give a mandatory solution the thumbs-up. This however is moderated by the fact that 70 per cent were concerned the government would use the filter for nefarious, free-speech censoring purposes, while 91 per cent wanted the government to make its filtering blacklist publicly available.
As for New Zealand, will it extend its filter to cover other, undefined materials? There’s no clear answer currently, but Freitas’s digging into the DIA’s documents did turn up this:
Andrew Bowater [Head of Government Relations at Telecom NZ] asked whether the Censorship Compliance Unit can identify whether a person who is being prosecuted has been blocked by the filtering system. Using the hash value of the filtering system’s blocking page, Inspectors of Publications now check seized computers to see if it has been blocked by the filtering system. The Department has yet to come across an offender that has been blocked by the filter.
Now, I’m pretty sure that if less than 50 per cent of Kiwis know a filter even exists, then it’s likely none of them are aware of the other ways in which the filter can be (and is being) used. While I’m sure most would agree that the ability to identify offenders is a good thing, it does make you wonder how else the technology, and the data it captures, could be utilised.
[InternetNZ via iTWire and Mauricio Freitas]
Image: Eli Duke
here's the thing, unless the filter installs a remote monitoring software on every computer, you won't catch any of the major offenders, as they rarely use the world wide web, and use things like TOR to hide where they are from. This basically means you need to use the same methods as always to catch them.
The other issue with the filter propsed in Australia is the risk of creep, people were theorizing that people like xenophon would push to have their pet issues added to the filter block list.
At the end of the day, there were hits and there were blocks of the illegal material. Most NZ users did not even notice that they were being filtered: So much for the filter bringing the internet to a grinding halt. A majority 66% advocated the filter being used for other materials.
The closest thing either nation has had to an objective and validated polling of the subject.
The question is whether the filter achieved the results it was supposed to, and not some objectives that others would demand it fulfill... Clearly the answer to that question is "yes"...
As alphamone states, people in Australia were theorizing...
problem is, Xenophon has the sway (due to being an independent on Julia's side with the hung parliament) to get gambling sites added to the filter in exchange for continued support.
A basic URL or domain blacklist (as NZ has) will not slow down access noticeably, but is also trivial to bypass, most obviously by using FTP, torrents, proxies or anything other than a web browser. It's completely useless at blocking anything more than accidental traffic, and is thus largely a waste of money.
A more effective filter (not being used) must inspect each packet, which most certainly would slow down traffic significantly.
As for the poll results, they're meaningless without knowing the questions being asked.E.g. if asked, "Are you in favour of a mandatory child porn filter," most would answer yes. If asked, "Are you in favour of spending $160M on a mandatory filter that will block accidental access to a secret list of sites that the Government considers undesirable," you might get a very different response.
Not knowing how the filter works I am not going to try to comment on the accuracy of the 16 million blocked requests number. But the comment about the number being inflated by blocking multiple resources from a web site is utter rubbish.
If you consider a request to download index.html from a website, your browser won't request additional resource like images,CSS and js from that site until it receives the index.html because it's the page itself that tells your browser where to load those resources from.
I always love politicians making stuff up.
Spot on.
Unless of course only specific URIs are being blocked, like cross-linked pages or perhaps just image subdirs, rather than entire domains. That could result in non-HTML content being blocked.
As you say, without knowing what's being blocked, we can't really comment on the accuracy of the politicians either.
I am from New Zealand and the stupidity of the government here never ceases to astound me. People will always find a way around laws like this. The solution is to shutdown the servers that are providing the content, not to filter the Internet. The logic for having the Internet filter can be crushed in a few simple steps: 1) ask for the list, 2) find out that they could not give it to you in case you do access it. This just proves that is it defective by design and absolutely does not do what it says it does.
Even after spending a few months in NZ, I never knew. So maybe it doesn't do any harm to the average person, but I don't believe it'd stop me accessing something if it was on the list. Ridiculous waste of money?
I'm extremely concerned at the slippery slope that any kind of internet filter would enable. If more than half of the kiwis surveyed didn't even know there was a filter, then their opinion is essentially irrelevant as you would want to hear from people whose access may have been restricted.
I think alphamone is right and political agenda will steer the filter, something we should all be very wary of.
Why do the religious bigots of the world have so much power!? "I don't like Gay/Straight/Transexual/WhateverYouWantHere Pornography SO I WILL FILTER IT! I don't like this, I don't like that, that's a sin! I'm going to filter ALL THE THINGS!" And here we are; the common citizen, stewing that we can't access our favourite recipe website because a politician like the dumb-as-a-box-of-hair Tony Abbott didn't like something his (equally as stupid) wife made from it.
It's time that politicians, especially *religious* politicians are unseated and prevented from even becoming part of worldwide governments. They hamper us, and prevent us from growing, changing and expanding for the better. Something the church has been TERRIFIED of for centuries.
The sooner people like that learn to leave the internet alone, the better. NOTHING will work. People will always find a way around a filter or censor. Piracy will never stop. Adapt or Die. And Piracy has adapted, Filtered sites will adapt, or the user will - to circumvent it.
or we could just put up a filter :-) next you will be saying child pr0n is ok as long as its consentual riiight?
religion = child pr0n
People who fall back on the child porn argument are are basically closest paedophiles: They're so terrified and obsessed with the idea of such material that far too much of their thinking revolves around it.
meanwhile the interpol blacklist works perfectly fine on that sort of thing already...
The problem with a government filter is that it can and will be used to block whatever the government wants to block. This could be ordinary pornography that is blocked under our laws, it could be political speech of any kind, maybe even something that is critical of our allies, it could be used to block material that copyright holders do not wish to be broadcast in this nation...
Basically anything at all since once it is in place things can expand at will according to the government of the day.
People that call other people pedofiles are usually pedofiles because they say the word pedofile, cool story bro. This filter will stop piracy and is just better in general for everybody. Most hardcore nerds that have something to hide normally are against it though...
Sorry, how will filters stop piracy? Weak argument, bro.
by blocking torrent hosting sites. You never finished the 5th grade?
Torrents for pirating? You never finish 2008?
The filter has done nothing to prevent my friends in NZ from downloading their favourite tv shows and movies over the last 2 years. The filter does not prevent piracy at all.
Is it stopping pedos? I have no idea.
The argument is probably that a filter stops accidental access of prohibited material (a block followed by warning page such as in google informs the user that the material is illegal before they access it). In this case, people who have no intention of violating the law are let off in good faith because they simply close the window and look elsewhere for whatever it is. It also gives a sense of "if this isn't blocked, it isn't illegal" kind of assurance.
Of course, it won't stop people who actually want to find said material (such as pirates). Whether or not this then constitutes ethical violation, I don't know and don't want to debate here.
Probably not, I imagine they're using VPNs or anonymous proxies, i.e. they're now even more well-hidden :-S
A) they're nor blocking torrent hosting sites (nor could they block them all)
B) Magnet links and distributed searches mean piracy doesn't require torrent hosting sites anyway.
C) Did you know over 5000 independent artists depend on torrent sites like the The Pirate Bay to (legally) distribute their music, as a form of advertising?
Hmm. Dumb-as-a-box-of-hair Tony Abbott isn't in government, mate. For a Melbournian you're pretty dense.
?!? Define government. He & his party aren't in power that doesn't mean they aren't part of the government.
Try reading what he actually said.
Sorry, meant to reply to LL.
Wait, they filter child porn in NZ? That's terrible, next thing you know it they'll start blocking hentai and little sister material too.
Umm, is there any reason you deleted my response?
The problem with a filter is this.... It's a case of a few bad apples ruining it for everyone else. People who access illegal websites like bomb making ones or child p0rn will continue to do so regardless of a filter. They are people who hide their activities anyway, and there are ways around filters.
So at the end of the day it's normal people who have to put up with a filter. While that might not be a bad thing since normal people might not even notice... it does give the government power do block anything it want's further down the line. Eg. gambling sites, gay rights sites etc...
Basically it's against freedom of speech and a form of censorship that we have never had in Australia.
To the idiots arguing grow up... here's a fact... Megaupload founder in NZ! End of conversation!
what is this I dont even
Piracy is to stealing as singing happy birthday is to copyright violation. Child porn is to the internet what terrorism is to national security. Patents are to concepts what copyrights are to free speech.
Shhh, incoming childpoooooorn *ohhhhhh* it hit the digital centre of world trade, and the Statue of Liberty has no freedom of movement. Someone's releasing cables for all to see!? Then *cut* the damn cables, for all, at sea!