[AusNOG] Conroy announcement on filtering

[Mark Smith]

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:55:56 +1100
Nick Brown <nick at inticon.net.au> wrote:

> I've been trying to get an answer on this for months and every time I  
> ask heads go into the sand..
> 

The thing is that politicians are involved, and, if the "Yes,
Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister" books and TV show are any sort of
guide, then all they primarily seem to care about is either
somehow meeting their public election promises, or somehow managing to
not fulfil them without loosing face. The "how" of meeting or avoiding
meeting the commitment is lesser of an issue.

With this Internet filter being quite a prominent part of Labour's
election campaign, I figured that it was likely to be introduced,
regardless of all the technical reasons why it shouldn't be. Admittedly
for a while there it looked like they might be willing to backdown
while still saving face e.g. the report being delayed for 3 months etc.,
however once possibility arose, and people went on the attack about it 
being delayed,the unfortunate response was likely to be damn you, we're going to
introduce it anyway.

As for who'll be doing the fitlering and where it'll be performed,
and all the other related issues, I think they tend to be a bit
immaterial to politicians. I think they care about likelyhoods, not
details. This report suggests the likelyhood that Internet filtering
will work fairly effectively, so that is enough for the Conroy
to go with. It's up to the people who actually have to perform the
filtering to try to come up with solutions that comply with the law,
with "it won't work or work very well" now not being an acceptable
response. As long as the "ISP level Internet filtering" election
promise checkbox has been ticked is all that matters.




> While I don't anticipate a backlash from RESDSL customers (VISPs or  
> direct retail) or even BUSDSL customers (Where the service is  
> specifically *not* being used as backhaul - don't forget their are  
> alot of regional ISPs that have their Wireless, Dial or even DSL  
> customers hanging of low end SHDSL services) I envision that if we  
> were to tell transit customers that they can expect their packets to  
> be messed with, knives would be thrown - and I wouldn't blame them for  
> doing so.
> 
> Nick.
> 
> 
> On 16/12/2009, at 11:36 AM, Skeeve Stevens wrote:
> 
> > Question,
> >
> > Does anyone know the finer points of this proposal... meaning... is  
> > it aimed/directed at consumer/retail ISP’s – which seems to be their  
> > justification – or to all ISP’s who sell connectivity.. and what is  
> > the flow down effect?
> >
> > I.e.  Does Vocus have to do this? Does Telstra Direct?  If I have an  
> > ISP we manage who has say both of those as transit providers, who  
> > are (?) filtered, do we then have to worry as the upstreams are?  It  
> > would be kind of redundant?
> >
> > So, let’s ponder that companies like Vocus, MCI, etc who only sell  
> > transit to businesses... or a business focused ISP – do they have to  
> > filter?
> >
> > I have some Micro sized ISP’s – like PowerTel partners and alike...  
> > do they have to filter?  They only have a few hundred connections  
> > and only to businesses.
> >
> > Just pondering eintellego’s response, but don’t actually see  
> > anything that differentiates what an ISP is.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > --
> > Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
> > eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
> > skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net
> > Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
> > Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
> > www.linkedin.com/in/skeeve ; facebook.com/eintellego
> > --
> > NOC, NOC, who's there?
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> 
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