Here’s a YouTube video showcasing the differences between our version and the rest of the world:

There are only so many times you can voice your frustration at a government who thinks it knows better than you. But let’s do it one more time in comments… And if you want to know how to get the gore back, hit up Kotaku…

[Kotaku]

Google claims their site automatically removed the search listing because of perceived malware threats, and had nothing to do with what People’s Daily actually published. People’s daily, though, feels as though they were the victim of an unfair attack, calling the event “malicious”.

Pot. Kettle. Black. [The Register]

Hollow, because China’s still got a national firewall on top of this software, which pretty much precludes access to naked folks and Tibet’s Wikipedia page, or whatever it is that the government wants blocked. Hollow, because lots of Chinese citizens don’t own PCs, and depend on internet cafes for access. Hollow, because it sounds like this draw-down was due to logistical concerns, and doesn’t reflect a change of philosophy in the government, which keeps hatching more plans to keep “true things” (and evidently, “sexting“) from its citizens:

The government recently proposed a requirement that all users of online chat rooms and bulletin boards use their real names when posting comments, a move that would stifle the sometimes-freewheeling debate on many sites. Until now, government censors have played a cat-and-mouse game with anonymous Internet users who posted comments that flout approved positions.

That’s mildly terrifying, for Chinese e-people! [NYT]

Personally, sexual activity is an incentive in itself and has its own rewards. Sure, it may not be appropriate for kids, but that’s (again) why we need an adult-only rating for games. As for drug use – while I don’t find it that interesting outside of having a cool beer after a hard day’s work or a nice glass of wine with a meal, there are plenty of benefits in medicinal drugs in real life, so why not in a game?

Of course, the game is being developed for both PC and Xbox 360, so I’m sure plenty of pirated PC versions will make it into the country anyway.

[Kotaku]

Apparently many of the ISPs involved in the trial are reporting that there wasn’t really any noticeable slowdown in Internet speeds. But considering the numbers, that’s not really a surprise. After all, if only 15 people were to attend an event at the MCG, getting out at the end of the match would be super-fast.

ARN also quoted some statistics experts who essentially say that the results are complete BS in the eyes of science. The downside is that the government is likely to twist the results to reflect the positive aspects of the trial, and neglect the fact that there weren’t actually any large numbers of people involved.

As always, keep voicing your displeasure at this intrinsically flawed Government plan to fuck up the internet.

[ARN]

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact to our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

I’m sure that won’t stop the 4chan retaliation. [AT&T]

Whatever the reason, the fact that AT&T won’t officially comment on the matter, which virtually confirms that they were taking some action against 4chan earlier today. If there wasn’t a valid security reason for blocking access to the site, then AT&T’s actions are deeply troubling.

Access has since been restored, but expect the reprisal from 4chan—like planting the story that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson died outside his house—to continue. 4chan’s Moot says AT&T has yet to contact them. [4chan, TechCrunch]

Highlighting the stupidity of the current lack of an R18+ rating for games is the fact that even though games can only be rated to MA15+, pages on the internet itself can be rated R18+.

According to the SMH piece, the filter will block sites selling or hosting games that are RC (which is anything above our MA15+) based on a complaints system to the ACMA. The scary part is that this could mean sites like Amazon, which sell games restricted to adult purchase in the US, but might be RC here in Australia, could be blocked. It also puts question marks over online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life.

As always, you should feel outraged by the Government’s plans to filter the internet. Rather than being a tool to fight child pornography, this is quickly becoming an Orwellian crusade to control the freedoms of Australians everywhere. Make sure the government hears your voice denouncing their plans – it’s the only way we can hope to overcome this idiocy.

[SMH]

The core of the regime’s online efforts is a process called deep packet inspection, which essentially scans nearly all internet traffic for offending material and can give authorities the ability to block the offending communications or, more importantly, identify where they came from. As you can imagine, this is quite a terrifying prospect for protesters, journalists and dissidents.

Here’s how it happened: In 2008, the Iranian government contracted Nokia Siemens Networks, among others, to help update its communications infrastructure, predictably requesting power to monitor and control internet traffic. With the government’s full monopoly on the industry and poor human rights record in full view, Nokia Siemens Networks obliged, installing a cutting-edge “monitoring center”, which the WSJ calls one of the “most sophisticated” in the world.

Obviously Nokia and Siemens couldn’t have foreseen this exact outcome, but honestly, what did they expect? [WSJ]

First, potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be. This makes it much easier for filtering software to block unwanted content if SafeSearch has been turned off.

In addition, we will begin returning source url information in the query string for images and video content so that companies who already use this method of filtering will be able to catch explicit content on Bing along with everything else they are already blocking for their customers.

So no, it won’t affect your ability to get some bada-bing in the privacy of your own home, but your company or school will be able to filter all of it easily. Kudos for Microsoft to think about those who care about these things without affecting those who don’t care. [Bing]