[AusNOG] Public Internet Access Policies

[John Edwards]

(Opinons are my own, not my employers)

Australia's largest free WiFi networks do not filter porn. There was a lot
of press about this recently:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/392353,canberras-wi-fi-network-to-block-file-sharing-p2p-traffic.aspx

The capability is there, but it's not used. ISP's in Australia already
block access to some of the nastiest parts of the Internet.

Following on from Mark's comments - Internode has operated a public hotspot
network for 10 years without content filtering, without incident. I can't
fathom a scenario where someone viewing porn on public wifi becomes a media
story. Why isn't this an issue with smartphones on 3G?

Some retail-presence wifi operators have an interesting legal
interpretation of who owns the data in the air inside of their store. In
taking this position, they also own the porn - so they have a reason to be
filtering.

For the carrier argument, there's an exemption to the Telecommunications
Act for operating WiFi hotspots in a single location:

http://www.acma.gov.au/Citizen/Consumer-info/My-connected-home/Wireless-local-area-networks/wireless-lans-in-the-24-ghz-band-faqs

John




On 10 October 2014 06:56, Skeeve Stevens <
skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:

> Are we talking legally here? Perhaps not... but since when has that
> mattered in the press?
>
> My general advice to customers is that with free wifi (public areas), you
> filter it... Paid wifi (hotels, etc), you leave it alone - unless there is
> a specific reason.
>
> I've built the public wifi internet access for a lot of organisations, but
> some, especially councils are very susceptible to negative media coverage
> should someone use their infrastructure to do bad things.  They don't want
> to be seen as a facilitator for bomb making, hard core porn, violence, etc.
>
> My recommendations for any free wifi is the McDonalds model...   The web
> is all you get (http/https)... anything else is blocked.  Then you are
> limited by time/volume over a certain period.  If you don't do this, your
> service WILL be abused without any doubts.
>
> I've sat there looking at the logs of the filtering servers at the
> violations that pop up on public wifi... child porn, hate sites, gambling
> and so on.
>
> To make it clear - I don't care what anyone does on the web, and if people
> are paying for it, do what you like within the law.
>
> But if you are facilitating easy access, and don't want your
> local/state/national media coming up with headlines like "10 year old looks
> at porn via council free public wifi" or the many other possible
> variations, then you best be deciding on your policy for what you filter,
> and openly stating it in the T&C's... users have no rights when it is a
> free service as there is no implied understanding of a product.
>
>
> ...Skeeve
>
> *Skeeve Stevens - *eintellego Networks Pty Ltd
> skeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.com
>
> Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve
>
> facebook.com/eintellegonetworks ;  <http://twitter.com/networkceoau>
> linkedin.com/in/skeeve
>
> twitter.com/theispguy ; blog: www.theispguy.com
>
>
> The Experts Who The Experts Call
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>
> On 10 October 2014 00:39, Mark Newton <newton at atdot.dotat.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 8 Oct, 2014, at 11:33 am, Skeeve Stevens <
>> skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:
>>
>> > In my view, Filtering in this scenario is less about what the user can
>> access, but more about the liability on the provider.
>>
>> There is no liability on the provider, you're a god-damned carriage
>> service provider. That's supposed to mean something.
>>
>> If you're going to spin that line (especially when it's combined with
>> product spruiking) then it's reasonable to expect that you'll be able to
>> provide at least one example of an adverse judgement against a carriage
>> service provider for content which might have been filtered being accessed
>> unfiltered over a public access network.
>>
>> Whassamadda, you can't?  Dawww.
>>
>>   - mark
>>
>>
>>
>
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