If the Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy gets his way and imposes a national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme on Australia, it won't just be the usual filtering software players who will be looking to make capital out of this censorship by encouraging function creep.
Perhaps this report on current day Iran gives some indication of who else might also want a piece of the commercial pie.
From the Wall Street Journal online 23 June 2009:
Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.
Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.
The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.
The "monitoring center," installed within the government's telecom monopoly, was part of a larger contract with Iran that included mobile-phone networking technology, Mr. Roome said.
"If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them," said Mr. Roome.
The sale of the equipment to Iran by the joint venture, called Nokia Siemens Networks, was previously reported last year by the editor of an Austrian information-technology Web site called Futurezone.
Meanwhile, this month a spokesperson for the Minister appears to have confirmed that video games suitable for adults will also be blocked online by ISPs under the national filtering scheme, as well as websites which offer downloadable versions or sell physical copies of these games.
Which according to The Orstrahyun means that the Rudd-Conroy filtering scheme will likely block eBay and Amazon.
Does Conroy realise just how many Australians of voting age make a bit of pin money using these sites? Has he even thought of the many in rural and regional areas who regularly use these sites to long distance shop?
Disquiet continues about the lack of defined goals for this proposed $44.5 million scheme.
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