[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: [Pubpol-wg] Mandatory Internet filtering legislation in 2010 in Australia

[Holly Raiche]

HI Everyone

This summary of the Australian filtering regime is about the best I  
have seen - from one of the ISOC-AU Directors, Dr Paul Brooks. The  
Minister's press release  is at <http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/ 
media/media_releases/2009/115>, which has links to the actual test,  
plus consultation paper.  Happy reading.

Kind regards

Holly Raiche
Executive Director,
Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU)
ed at isoc-au.org.au
Mob: 0412 688 544
Ph: (02) 9436 2149

The Internet is For Everyone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Paul Brooks <pbrooks at layer10.com.au>
> Date: 22 December 2009 2:46:49 AM
> To: "Charles Mok (gmail)" <charlespmok at gmail.com>
> Cc: pubpol-wg at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [Pubpol-wg] Mandatory Internet filtering legislation  
> in 2010 in	Australia
>
> Charles Mok (gmail) wrote:
>>
>> Now sure if this is a related topic for this list, but...
> Possibly not, but lets give it an airing in case.
>>
>> News just out from Australia that Stephen Conroy will push for  
>> legislation of mandatory Internet filtering at ISPs, any scope  
>> from Auistralia and views?  Can someone from ISOC AU give us a  
>> view from down under?
>
> The Australian government has been running an Internet filtering  
> trial for several months, aiming to demonstrate whether or not  
> mandatory Internet filtering is feasible or not - feasible in the  
> sense of whether or not it appreciably slows down Internet access  
> performance (as claimed by opponents), and look at the level of  
> accuracy and false negatives/false positives that occur leading to  
> underblocking or overblocking.
>
> Note the trial is NOT aimed at stopping copyright material being  
> shared. It is aimed (apparently and after much debate about  
> clarification) at blocking 'Refused Classification' material from  
> being accessed - material such as kiddie-porn, gross indecency,  
> material that is not permitted in print form, and is not permitted  
> to be hosted on servers located in Australia. For this reason its  
> probably off-topic for this list.
>
> After sitting on the test report from an independent test agency  
> (who worked with several ISPs) for 3 months, the Australian  
> Government has released the test report, claiming the report shows  
> that filtering is viable and does not slow down Internet access,  
> and so with objective proof on their side they now propose to  
> legislate to make  ISP filtering mandatory.
>
> 'Filtering' is fairly simplistic - ISPs are provided a blacklist of  
> between ~1000 URLs now (up to ~10,000 in future apparently), and  
> are asked to ensure that no HTML request for a URL on the list gets  
> through.
> There is no dynamic content determination, there is no expectation  
> of filtering other protocols other than HTML (especially P2P), and  
> the report recognises there are several relatively straightforward  
> ways to circumvent the system, such as HTTPS, encrypted VPNs, and  
> so forth.
> Currently, the list is built up of URLs that members of the public  
> have found, complained to the authorities about, the content at the  
> URL has been evaluated, and the conclusion is that the material is,  
> or is likely to be if evaluated by someone from the censorship  
> review board, considered as to be so bad as to be refused any valid  
> classification such as G, PG, R, X, etc. - yes, the blacklist is  
> built manually.
>
> Critics of the test report highlight:
> 1) the maximum speed access line tested to show that no slowdown  
> occurred was 8 Mbps, despite the test criteria supposedly covering  
> up to 12 Mbps, and despite the Australian government working to  
> deploy a FTTP NBN with access links up to 100 Mbps access links
> 2) the number of user links tested was too low to generate a  
> meaningful traffic load to test the performance of the filtering  
> (URL blocking) solution significantly - one ISP involved in the  
> trial had the filtering solution under test for only 15 customers,  
> as each ISP involved had to deploy the filter trial on an 'opt-in'  
> basis. None of the filtering solutions were tested for scalability.
> 3) The report itself highlighted it is not feasible to filter  
> traffic accessed through HTTPS, P2P, IM, and other mechanisms than  
> simple web traffic - including any sites using dynamic database- 
> briven content where the URL varies with each access
> 4) Mandatory filtering at the ISP level - done in this fashion - is  
> unlikely to be effective in blocking any appreciable accesses by  
> even casual browsers
> 5) Mandatory filtering at the ISP level may lead to a false sense  
> of security by parents leading them to reduce their vigilance and  
> oversight of children working on the Internet.
>
> Telstra simultaneously released the results of their non-government- 
> sponsored test program - which covered a higher load using just one  
> solution, and cautiously agreed with many caveats that URL  
> filtering was probably feasible - for numbers of URLs less than  
> 10,000, and providing none of them were high-volume sites like  
> youtube.
>
> This is an attempt to provide a balanced unbiased summary to those  
> on this list - industry condemnation of the proposal and the report  
> has been strident, and ISOC-AU will be preparing a submission to  
> the government on behalf of members, and has already contributed to  
> a separate report tackling the trials and effectiveness.
> The test report page is here
> Comment and criticism can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/ 
> unleashed/stories/s2773952.htm and here and a host of other places.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
>     Paul.
>     ISOC-AU.
> _______________________________________________
> Pubpol-wg mailing list
> Pubpol-wg at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/pubpol-wg





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