So if you thought that the new Government actually had some common sense when it came to censoring the Internet, you'd be very, very wrong. The Australian is reporting that Communications Minister Conroy has given the green light for ISP level filters to be trialled in Tasmania.

The filters are designed to filter out those net nasties that could possibly harm your children, like porn and swear words, and are originally planned to be operated in a closed environment by Enex Testlab. The closed test is expected to be completed by June 30, with Live trials to happen after that.

If you do happen to be a Tasmanian, the news gets a little bit worse. The trials aren't opt-in – you'll need to opt out if you want to spend your days watching pornotube the freedom to choose what you want to experience online.

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The K-Rudd Government has been having a big week this week. On top of looking at getting ISPs to tackle piracy, and introducing an energy rating system for household gadgets, they've also decided to declare the obvious, in that John Howard's NetAlert Internet Porn Filter was a complete waste of taxpayers money.

Of course, that was obvious to anybody with a clue when it was announced, and even more obvious when 16 year old Tom Wood hacked it within 30 minutes of it going live. But now it's official, and the actual stats show just how colossal a failure it was.

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The AquaMaker AM10 is not your standard office water cooler. Pulling up to 36 litres of water from the air every 38 hours, its independence from water deliveries will make it perfect for some sequel of Office Space set in a rainforest. But for the rest of us, its purported $17/day operating price is just too much for what is, let's be honest, a glorified dehumidifier. While a dehumidifier may lack the air filters on intake, water purification system and automatic water recycling to keep contents fresh, we're guessing you could get the same one-two punch with a Brita pitcher. Our system (which would surely involve some amount of duct tape) surely isn't as sexy, but when your house floods the same day your water lines bust, you'll thank us for not plopping down $1,375 on this model. [product via bbg and ubergizmo]

Remember YouTube's content filtering system? AT&T is mulling setting one up across its whole network. BusinessWeek's reporting AT&T's in talks with NBC Universal and Disney to possibly use content-recognition tech developed by Vobile—a company they've all invested in—to block pirated material from being sent to and fro along its network.

The setup would work a lot like GooTube's—the networks would hand over a bank of material that AT&T/Vobile would run traffic on the network against, looking for positive IDs. If it matches the "video DNA" on file, it gets the hammer. Supposedly Vobile's ID tech is tops, at least among "a dozen or so other systems" tested by the MPAA. AT&T's reportedly been testing it since spring, though it'd launch until late 2008 at the earliest.

In order to keep consumers and net neutrality advocates from flipping out, one marketing strategy AT&T might use is to emphasise the filter as a way to catch child porn, since no one can really argue against stopping predators. On the flip side, an effective monitoring program is loaded with business propositions, from helping them net content distribution rights to being able to "offer far more detailed information on [customers'] likes and dislikes, in turn enabling AT&T and its partners to land lucrative deals with advertisers hungry for such data."

I could act all shocked and appalled like Wilson about AT&T being so disinterested in customers' privacy (to put it lightly), but it wouldn't be genuine, and I'd feel dirty in the morning for lying to you. [BusinessWeek via Broadband Reports]

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...

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If you don't mind looking like you're smoking on some kind of high-tech water pipe, the iStraw can filter all kinds of creepy crawlies out of whatever that is you're drinking. This little magic wand can keep away even the tiniest microbes, including that dreaded cryptosporidium bug. Its maker says it "reduces up to 99.99999% of all waterborne bacteria," but what about that other millionth of a percent? Anyway, the thing lasts a long time, filtering 500 liters of water before you need to replace its cartridge. Best of all, you can easily take it with you wherever you may roam.

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Tee hee. Blow. Late last week the govt announced their biggest crackdown on net nasties since Alston's heyday - and boy did that first effort work a treat. A $189m package to cut the porn, the child sex predators, and bad language. Yes, bad language - that's going to be managed by a virtual bar of soap, swimming through the tubes washing the mouths of Australians who think it is clever to cuss others out. Game servers everywhere are on notice.

I'm all for cracking down on the predators. Castration by brick or rusty knife is suitable punishment for those animals. So $40m on that front for the fed police is all good.

But $90m for home filtering software?

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Is your cigarette smoking habit making your desk area smell like death? Is your family complaining about getting annoying things like cancer and emphysema from your second hand smoke? You could quit smoking, but you've never been a quitter. No, you've always been one to solve your problems with gimmicky gadgets.

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