Eh. They think an issue between external HDD's, PC's and Digital video camera's is to do with software...

You have not seen the terrors of the NSW DET education filter. It is, without a doubt, worse than the great firewall of China. I mean this thing is a friggin whitelist.

It used to be fine, just blocked pornos and wellknown game sites.
Next step it blocked minor game sites
Then it blocked all third party email and forced to use @education.nsw.edu.au emails
Then it blocked everything it wanted to and over a period of 1-2 years built up a list of websites it hated.
Then, in its final last stand manouvre we were hit with a friggin white list.

We use to use our own proxies, alas they died with the white list, unless I can convince the deputy to recommend my proxy to be allowed -.-

The fact that the filtering doesn't catch everything and lets some go through means it's a waste of time. Kids will have access to a little bit of hard core porn than a lot of hard core porn. But isn't the goal to protect them from ALL the hard core porn?

Peter North is one of the world's most famous porn stars. He even has his own page: PeterNorth, the cumshot legend - www.peternorth.com with a pretty clear warning on the home page but anyone can click enter and be treated to photos of his famous cum-shots.

I don't want naive children seeing this and the draconian policy in my house ensures they will not see that page in MY house, providing they haven't learnt how to use the computer with admin privileges.

But Peter North has a wiki entry: Peter North (porn star - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and pure information of a non porn nature such as this page should not be censored. Will the government choose to censor wiki pages?

Discussion of porn should NOT be censored.

But there's a catch. You see, that wiki page includes links at the bottom of the page to hard core sites with NO home page warning. One link I clicked on went straight to a page with a photo of a penis about to enter a woman's lubricated anus and her body was in a very acrobatic position and she had a full Brazilian. It was NOT Peter North's penis. The link was obviously falsely advertised.

The same page also links to IMDB. Fine. I believe any actor should get through the government's censorship wall, including Peter North.

But again there's a catch. It also links to a movie in which Traci Lords appeared. No pictures. Just names and data - the usual non-paid IMDB page. But there's a catch. The movie "Tracy's Dilemma" was made in 1985. Poor old Tracy had probably made 100 movies at this stage. But back then she was probably only 16. No mention of this at IMDB.

Granted, I deliberately chose Traci because she is the famous "turn a blind eye" case to kiddie porn but you can appreciate my point:

Censorship is not black and white. No filtering will ever work properly. The only safe internet system is one where the parents are seated with their children and surfing with them and where the kiddie access is by way of PRESCRIBED websites.

Generic filtering seeks to PROSCRIBE websites and it has never worked.

Leave the filtering to parents who are tasked with prescribing acceptable websites.

(Mac OSX and Safari work very well in this regard. My kids complain every day about my draconian regime but until they are more worldly I will endure this hassle of having to edit their bookbar every time they want to go to a new website)

PS: This thread would have been censored by the Government? It NOW includes links and references to Peter North but what about andytlr's MacTalk Forums offensive avatar - he posted on the first page of this thread. It's a photo of Ron Jeremy. That hairy bear is also a porn mega star. Would the filtering have caught that avatar?

Dugg. I'd wager most people would have no idea about this, so we should do our best to get the word out. Internet is slow enough in australia, without some mandatory control.

Either that or all move to South Korea. They are doing well in the Olympics, rock at Starcraft and have the fastest non-censored internet in the world. :P

Just tonight my daughter asked me to help her find out when rowing was first contested at the Olympics. She said there was a "problem" with google at the school as it wasn't able to show any results. I asked her what she typed in. She tried "History Olympics". Near the top is the wikipedia entry.

Oh no! It talks about drugs in sport.....

So I did the project with her, printed off the relevant pages and she'll take them to school.

Her primary teacher said the internet "doesn't work properly" at school and you have to do "things like this" at home.

Pffffft!

I suggested I attach the pages as pdfs and email them to her school account so everyone could share our research. Then I thought: what a bloody stupid idea. Everyone knows the DET email system has never worked properly.

I wonder if I'll still be able to visit Gearslutz.com - Powered by vBulletin

Absolutely pathetic

Save us, Bennett Haselton!

I'm guessing some proactive young chaps might peruse the recent profile of Russian cyber hacker in Salon magazine, follow the steps outlined in said article and direct their proactive disgust towards a Labor or Government affiliated site. A virtual Guy Fawkes if you will...

You seem to know an awful lot about Porn stars


At times being an administrator of your network, and the only user one cannot effectively block the porn... You know same days are slow... But I agree with you, where does it end?

Censure at the top, is very draconian, it's like saying you guys cannot control your own environment, so the goody two shoes make there rules.

Where is there mandate? You know, the election promise in each parties manifesto that we elect upon.
I believe in a system of integrity, when this manifesto is published, a panel decides whether it's feasible in a parliaments life, and when the manifesto is decided upon, the government remains until it's complete. An independent body to drive the business of government administration to ensure parliament meets often, and get's on with, and if parts of the manifesto cannot be completed in time, the penalty involved.

Now been Dugg, so if you are concerned by this help get this up the rankings and out there.

Digg - Australian Internet Censorship

lol love the detail Lilith.. not going to quote it.

Yes my wife and I enjoy looking at porn when the kids are not around. All my wife's female friends enjoy it too. But not with me . Cheaper on the net too plus no printed evidence for the kids to discover. With censorship my wife and I will need a stash in the garage I suppose, just waiting to be discovered.

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If my kids want to look at porn then they will eventually find a friend with open access.

Jump back a generation. Our parents would not let us have porn magazines at home. But one friend usually had liberal parents or worked at a newsagency so we'd all gather at that friend's house, or in a nearby laneway or creek...

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The government should spend the money on an ongoing campaign to educate parents on how to setup Safari/OSX to cripple their children's UNACCOMPANIED web surfing (as I have done) or whatever. Or force Apple / Microsoft to provide easy information / wizards to enable this.

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Fallout 3 has been banned and then not banned in Australia. So would discussions of F3 be banned and then unbanned?

In the Soviet Union there was a very draconian policy with publishing and even with their own special scientific interpretation of historical and dialectical materialsm - only the version approved by the Academy of Sciences was acceptable. Damn I wish I could find that book but it appears to be out of print

Who should decide what is fit to be read and not read? Who should dictate what is correct?

History has not looked kindly on leaders who burnt libraries. History does not look kindly on those who deny access to the libraries.

dig dig dig!

Once again it is a case of the Government changing the responsibility away from the people that should police it, in this case parents. There are many things that you can do to a computer to make it "safer" for children. This is particularly true of the Mac. I have, in the past, recommended, the Mac for people with children and help the parent set them up so that they are more secure and safe for children to use. It is a case of parents not having the technical know how, or the desire to take responsibility for the actions of their children and the rest of the population suffer.
Any sort of government sponsored censorship is to be avoided at all costs, it is really the thin edge of the wedge. Children should be protected, no question, but there are better ways.
my 2c
Simon L.