Victorian Parliament Porn Ring Exposed

How oppressive is your internet censor at work? I know for a fact that you can’t get onto sites like The Pirate Bay on the Gizmodo internet connection (it was research for a story, honest), but we’ve never thought to check sites that aren’t safe for work. From the looks of things this morning, the censor at Victorian Parliament is pretty strong. Strong enough, at least, to force staffers to reportedly concoct and participate in a porn distribution racket to get around the filter. Ew.

According to a report in The Age this morning, a former Ministerial aide will head to court this morning to fight the Government over his wrongful dismissal, after it was alleged he had porn on his computer.

The aide, Don Coulson, did admit to having porn in his office, but said it “wasn’t for his personal use”.

He went on to say that he had “a number” of USB drives in his office and alleged that people, including staffers and MPs, would share the material around the building so as to make sure that the Parliamentary internet filter didn’t pick up that people were browsing to porn sites.

By running the porn from a USB, you’re able to bypass using the network to access it all together. I suppose that’s one way to do it if you’re hard up for some porn at work, but don’t they have a state to run?

Victorian Premier, Dr Dennis Napthine, has described the allegations as “bizarre and unbelievable”. [The Age]


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