Sometimes the good news shines through at The Daily Examiner
Tuesday 30 June 2009
This is the company the Rudd Government wants Australia to keep?
This Open Net Initiative map indicates countries which are known to censor their citizens access to the Internet:
This are the categories of Internet content they censor:
Free expression and media freedom
Political transformation and opposition parties
Political reform, legal reform, and governance
Militants, extremists, and separatists
Human rights
Foreign relations and military
Minority rights and ethnic content
Women's rights
Environmental issues
Economic development
Sensitive or controversial history, arts, and literature
Hate speech
Sex education and family planning
Public health
Gay/lesbian content
Pornography
Provocative attire
Dating
Gambling
Gaming
Alcohol and drugs
Minority faiths
Religious conversion, commentary, and criticism
Anonymizers and circumvention
Hacking
Blogging domains and blogging services
Web hosting sites and portals
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP)
Free e-mail
Search engines
Translation
Multimedia sharing
P2P
Groups and social networking
Commercial sites
Can Prime Minister Rudd guarantee that, if his government introduces mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet, no future federal government will expand this proposed filtering beyond the vague limits that Senator Conroy presently alludes to?
No, of couse he can't.
Chasing the winter sun.......
Car's loaded with the travelling chattels, mutt's in the passenger seat and I'm off chasing the sun into Bananaland for the next four weeks.
No phone, no newspapers, no Internetz - bliss!
I'm sure the blogosphere will continue to keep the balfastards honest while I'm away.
Monday 29 June 2009
It's official, Malcolm Turnbull was run over by a little white ute with Queensland number plates
Image from The Brisbane TimesFederal Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, did a little political jay walking over the last fortnight and was skittled by a little white ute and a fake email.
His political standing has been shattered according to recent polls and this has given rise to these headlines and graphic:
The incredible shrinking leader Brisbane Times
Polling smashed Turnbull The Australian
Turnbull weaker than when he began The Sydney Morning Herald
Turnbull hammered by voters Brisbane Times
MalcomTurnbull is the big Ute-gate casualty: poll The Herald-Sun
It is being reported that Malcolm Turnbull's response to this disaster is not to reassess his own leadership but to reshuffle his front bench.
Yes, the lack of good political judgment continues........
Update on Communications Minister Conroy's plan to censor the Australian Internet
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.
What will probably be my favourite political quote of the year
From ABC TV Insiders on Sunday 28th June 2009:
"ANTHONY ALABANESE, LEADER OF THE HOUSE (LABOR):
The Member for Wentworth knows a dead cat when he sees one. But this one has got no bounce.
I could have sworn I was witnessing the ghost of Mark Latham. It was all there, Mr Speaker. It was all there. The jaw jutting out. All the fake aggression. All the machismo. All the "We're going well!"
Past 'sins' and present failures all rolled into 9 sentences and lobbed across the House of Reps chamber amid hoots of derisive laughter.
And not one word could Opposition Leader Big Mal Turnbull respond to with threats of kitten-based legal action.
No-one deserved it more.
Pic from Google Images
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