Hey Google, you're banned! Wikileaks has published an alleged Australian Government URL blacklist

Prime Minister Rudd and Senator Conroy continue to pretend that they are still in control of the proposed national mandatory ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

However, with Wikileaks publishing an alleged Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist from mid-2008 and new mirror sites becoming available (as Wikileaks sites and known mirrors become difficult to access due to congestion), it is apparent that they are beginning to get some small idea about what users of the Internet can accomplish when they put their minds to it.

Having read an online article, which linked an article, which linked an article et cetera, I finally found the hard information as it were and immediately collapsed in a gleeful heap - a Google group was on the list right near the top.
Not only that, the discussion group listed was mainly all about the technical difficulties associated with Mozilla/Sea Monkey/Firefox/Linux.

Now that's the worst sort of p#rn in the world. Shame, Google, shame!

Sharing the honours with Google, I also found a legal betting website, a consortium of design consultants, a site that comments on Internet culture and a very Internet savvy dental practice.
Other reports indicate that the list also contains a tour operator and a boarding kennel.

But the true laugh of the moment was this brief report:

The list was originally believed to be the ACMA blacklist, but Communications Minister Stephen Conroy issued a statement within the last hour or so which said it was not, despite having some URLs in common.

Conroy has also condemned the leaking of the list, threatening criminal prosecution to the person who originally made it public.

Which would mean that Conroy would be instigating prosecution based on a fake blacklist?

The lesson in all this for the Rudd Government is fairly straightforward. Although Australians are generally law-abiding and infrequently given to demonstrating social unrest, at heart we harbour an almost anarchic response to being told to obey for the sake of obeying (our betters).