Senator Stephen Conroy (Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) recently announced the introduction of mandatory Internet Service Provider (ISP) level filtering of Refused Classification (RC)-rated content as well as grants to encourage ISPs to filter wider categories of content. This would require the implementation of complicated, expensive and unreliable, yet trivially circumvented filtering technology at the cost of the taxpayer and Internet user, despite a strong message having been sent that this is both unwanted and unwarranted. Reader polls conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspaper showed a staggering 95% of some 25,000 readers reject the federal government's plans to censor the Internet in Australia, on the basis that it impinges on their freedom. "There are better and safer ways to tackle the problem, such as educating parents, teachers and children, offering customisable filtering as a value-added option and improving law enforcement (including cooperation with other countries)" said Sam Johnston, Australian Online Solutions' Founder & CTO.
The full frontal assault on civil liberties aside, Australian Online Solutions has also raised some serious technical concerns about the program. "At a time when individuals and businesses are looking to shed expensive legacy systems in favour of cheap, scalable Internet based services, any action which can only impair performance and reliability while threatening to strangle Australia's connectivity with the outside world calls for extensive justification"
Trials commissioned by Senator Conroy and conducted by "highly reputable and independent testing company" Enex Testlab were also called into question, on both technical and conflict of interest bases. Enex Testlab, a supplier of "independent"
Furthermore, the scope of the testing was artificially constrained, criticial controls (such as connection consistency)
Other problems with the fatally flawed and heavily criticised report include include:
- Proof that "a technically competent user could circumvent the filtering technology" while "circumvention prevention measures can result in greater degradation of internet performance"
- Admission that all filters were "not effective in the case of non-web based protocols such as instant messaging, peer-to-peer or chat rooms".
- False positive rates (over-blocking of legitimate/innocuous content) of up to 3.4% (over 5.1 billion pages per Internet Archive estimates) with failure rates as high as 2% (3 billion pages) considered "low".
- False negative rates (passing of inappropriate content) exceeding 20% (over 30 billion pages) with failure rates as high as 30% considered "reasonable by industry standards" (45 billion pages).
- Admission that 100% accuracy is "unlikely to be achieved" and that the false positive rate increases with sensitivity, with no attempt to scientifically determine acceptable failure rates.
- Faults being perceptible to end users, with some customers reporting "over-blocking and/or under-blocking of content during the pilot" while considering "mechanisms for self-management"
- Unjustified assumptions including that "performance impact is minimal if between 10 and 20 percent", while at least one system "displayed a noticeable performance impact". Some customers "believe they experienced some speed degradation"
- Admission of "uncontrollable variables", including ones that could result in "40 percent performance degradation over theoretical maximum line-rate, or more in some cases", even at speeds less than 1/12 that of the proposed National Broadband Network (NBN).
- Admission that reliable recognition of IP addresses to be filtered is unreliable (indeed often impossible), particularly for large-scale websites that use load balancing (e.g. most cloud computing solutions).
- Results that were "irregular/incorrect"
- Complete absence of quantitative cost analysis (e.g. what financial load will be borne by both the taxpayer and Internet subscriber, both up front and on an ongoing basis), as well as any secondary costs such as decreased efficiency.
- Overall results indicating that 1 in 5 customers' needs were not met, with 1 in 3 opting out of continued use of the filtered service.
In addition to contacting local representatives, Australian Online Solutions encourages concerned individuals and businesses to join and support organisations including Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), GetUp and The Pirate Party Australia. The immediate availability of a limited number of sponsorships for founding members of The Pirate Party Australia is also announced for those who want to get involved but, for whatever reason, cannot afford the membership fees in this difficult economic environment. To take advantage of this opportunity please contact membership@pirateparty.org.au with a brief explanation of your situation.
"Anyone who cares about their future and that of their children and grandchildren should take action now", said Johnston, who applied to both The Pirate Party Australia and Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) in response to Senator Conroy's announcement. "The government's gift to us this Christmas was draconian censorship, so let's return the favour in helping The Pirate Party Australia attain official status by acquiring 500 exclusive members".
About The Pirate Party Australia
The Pirate Party Australia (http://www.pirateparty.org.au/
- Decriminalisation of non-commercial copyright infringement
- Protection of freedom of speech rights
- Protection of privacy rights
- Opposition to internet censorship
- Support for an R18+ rating for games
- Reforming the life + 70 years copyright length
- Providing parents with the tools to run their own families.
