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

[Skeeve Stevens]

<rant>

Because on the whole Australians are lazy who don't get off their ass and just assume that 'someone else' will do what needs to be done... which is rarely true.  If this country didn't have mandatory voting you'd be lucky to have a 25% turnout.

How many of us are members of ISOC-AU, Comms Alliance or other groups? And if you are - attend meetings and actually get involved?

This industry is also the same for the most part.  When we were trying to get James Spenceley elected to APNIC EC - we had a pathetic response, and even worse trying to get Jonny Martin elected at the last APNIC meeting (thanks to those who did make the effort).  I am amazed how many people just wasted their votes because spending 5 minutes to fill out a form was too hard.  We just don't seem to be bothered being able to spend a small amount of time doing something to help our own situation.

Imagine if a LOT of ISP's agreed on an 'Internet Black Out Day' - where we gave a couple of weeks notice and then for a whole day or just hours, shutdown ALL user connectivity - that would be front page everywhere...  and let people know WHY - because the government was wanting to censor the internet.  If you affected tens of thousands of people for a period it would turn a lot of people against the government and create a lot of awareness.  But do you think we would/could be brave enough to take such a drastic action? Doubtful.... We're not that brave enough to get out of our comfort zone - we have shareholders and boards and customers we can't possibly upset.  I doubt too many people would leave if they understood why we did it.  Since when was something worth fighting for without some cost?

So what will we be brave enough to do? Bitch a little bit on mailing lists? Maybe a blog here and there? Wow, lets twitter or set our Facebook status! That will make a load of difference.

What we need to do is yell at the organisations that are supposed to be representing us... get them to use everything they have at their disposal to cause a lot of noise... press releases, TV, meeting with MP's, get lawyers involved who have a clue... or whoever.  A call to action is needed.... but what we will do in the end.... probably not much... but I really hope I am proved wrong.

The Pirate Party has formed in Australia... why not a new party for 'Internet User Rights' Party... or back a party (even the Liberals if they don't kill off the NBN) - someone... anything.

</rant>

That said, I love you all - peace out ;-)

...Skeeve

--
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?

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?)



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