[AusNOG] Australian Censorship program to go ahead - Gillard supports a the great firewall

[Darren Moss]

Hi Noggers,

Julia Gillard follows one of our brands.

I have sent her a direct message:

"Julia, Grave concerns for internet filter as it can be easily bypassed at large cost to our industry. Pls work with us to avoid a disaster."

It's time start making noise my fellow industry peers.

Please start tweeting, blogging and talking about this on your websites and forums. Update your email signature. Define a simple message that people will understand.

But be clear about why this won't work - my opinion is:
"The filter will be a huge cost impost on the our industry which provides internet services to Australian businesses and families, yet the public will quickly learn how to work around it. The net result is a massive spend on infrastructure and software that will quickly become a white elephant." (sic).

I am sure if enough people post their input regarding the impact of an internet filter (not rhetoric or emotive comments, not ways to work around the filter, not porn or inappropriate content related) we can at least have this information publicised through the media on this list and via the public archive.

If we all do something, our industry will be heard. How many people on this list? How many people can provide at least 1 contribution ?

I have a media and broadcast background and would be happy to record something if this helps.


Regards,


Darren Moss
General Manager
Australia and New Zealand
[p] 1300 131 083 [f] 03 9017 2287
[e] Darren.Moss at em3.com.au<mailto:Darren.Moss at em3.com.au> [w] www.em3.com.au<http://www.em3.com.au/>


em3 People and Technology | Managed Technology Experts
postal: PO Box 2333, Moorabbin VIC 3189

New Zealand Airedale Street, Auckland City
postal: PO Box 39573, Howick 2045
[p] 09 887 0550 [f] 09 887 0273



________________________________
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Bevan Slattery
Sent: Wednesday, 7 July 2010 9:15 PM
To: Phillip Grasso; ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Australian Censorship program to go ahead - Gillard supports a the great firewall

Hi Phil,

I have to agree with your view.  As an industry we are all really upset by this, but yet we do nothing substantial about it.  The Internet industry has access to every single eye-ball that access the internet here, yet we do not seem to harness the power that provides.

Additionally, as an industry we must become more understanding of the international reputational damage has been caused by recent policy decisions by the Australian Government.  Filtering and Mandatory data retention being the two (2) most damaging.

With the Web becoming 'the Cloud' these impacts are going to become more apparent.  After years of fighting to get major content/caching delivery networks to establish clusters here in Australia my recent discussions at ITW with some of the larger content providers was starting to reflect a change in mood.  Over the past 5 years bandwidth costs to establish clusters in Australia was the problem.  That (to a large degree) has been resolved.  But the issue that is raising it's head is that content providers no longer see Australia as a rational and safe place to store user data.  They see the decisions of the Australian Government as a Sovereign Risk compared with other Governments within our region.

It is entirely likely that unless Australia develops a users "Bill of Rights" around privacy and a less totalitarian regime to access user data (like the good old days when you used to need a court order from a Magistrate), then I fear that substantial content networks will continue to shun Australia as a major hub for application and content delivery (other than mere dumb/algorithm caching).

I actually agree with the principle of keeping some user data (authentication etc.), however numerous law enforcement agencies have continually eroded the right to natural justice by the introduction of closed evidence, uncontestable evidence, obtaining information without warrant signed of by independent third party capable of understanding justice (being magistrate) and more concerning retaining this data will also mean this information is now open to discovery in non-criminal matters and data matching/profiling and abuse for personal/commercial/political gain.  ***See David Campbell in NSW***.  The continual scope creep into more powers for law enforcement agencies directly correlates with the erosion of natural justice and the rights of individuals.

I honestly think the focus should be on a citizens online rights, particularly surrounding privacy.  That is the great challenge of this decade and actually the digital era.  Because those organisations that wish to respect these rights will not host those content and applications in this country.

What are we going to do?

[b]


From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Phillip Grasso
Sent: Wednesday, 7 July 2010 8:11 PM
To: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: [AusNOG] Australian Censorship program to go ahead - Gillardsupports a the great firewall

labor Prime minister Gillard supports Internet censorship,

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/filtering-legislation-on-the-way/story-e6frgakx-1225889109550

By all likelihood due to inaction by us and the technology community, we will be paving the way to a censorship regime in Australia by this year.

I am interested to know who in the ISP community is supporting this plan? Obviously someone is talking to Conroys office, I don't think he'll still try to go ahead without the support of the big boys? (or is there back room deals going on with NBN?)



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20100707/91a38c66/attachment.html>