Senator Conroy's Internet filtering gets another bad review

According to IT News last Thursday:

Cross "fighting terrorism" off the list of reasons Senator Stephen Conroy wants to introduce mandatory ISP-level Internet Filtering.

A new report penned by Tim Stevens and Dr Peter Neumann for the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) assesses the pros and cons of various types of Internet Filtering and finds them ineffective in the fight against terror.

"Most governments have focused on technical solutions, believing that removing or blocking radicalising material on the internet will solve the problem," the report states.

"Yet, this report shows that any strategy that relies on reducing the availability of content alone is bound to be crude, expensive and counterproductive."

The report went into some detail around the ineffective nature of most types of Internet Filtering.

IP filtering, in which the IP address of a questionable site is blocked, suffers from misfiring, the report said.

"Problems with this method of filtering arise because some web hosts - each with a single IP address - provide a variety of services or host many websites with different domain names, which means that all these acceptable services and sites will be blocked as well. While cheap and easy to implement, its propensity for 'over-blocking' makes IP filtering a very crude method of interdicting banned material."

In describing the role of the Internet, this report identifies what the Rudd Government (and government generally) probably fears most about cyberspace:

It has dramatically reduced the cost of communication, making the exchange and dissemination of information virtually free.

• It has enabled unlimited access to much of the world's knowledge and begun to organise it in systematic fashion.

• It has made it easier to find people and create networks among like-minded individuals, across great distances and beyond national borders.

Reporters Without Borders is also less than impressed with the Rudd-Conroy censorship plan and in its 12 March 2009 document Internet Enemies has placed Australia on the group's watch list.