Category: Australia

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The Financial Cost of Internet Censorship

The positive economic benefits of next generation broadband could be as high as $90b. However, the conservative Labor Party proposed filters could sabotage these gains significantly.

Duncan Riley provides an excellent appraisal of what the costs might be if Conroy’s net censorship schemes are implemented.

The first test paper released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that under trial conditions (so not a full black list), filtering reduced speeds between 2% and “in excess of” 75%, with three of the 6 products tested coming in at between 20-30%. Since that report it has been suggested that the filters with the lowest success rate are the quickest, so a proper implementation of a censorship regime would likely, at best cause a 20% drop in internet speeds, but likely significantly higher again.

Direct cost

Australian ISP’s have already stated that they are likely to pass on the cost of filtering data directly to users (ref). Further, a broad scale filter proposed by the Government may also drive up related costs, such as data center staff needed to deal with an increase in customer complaints when they can’t access sites.(ref).

No hard figure has been proposed by the industry, but even a small increase in internet charges would create a negative impact on the Australian economy.

At the end of June 2008, there were 7.23 million internet subscribers in Australia (ABS). An increase in costs of only $10 per month would immediately cost Australian internet users $867.6 million a year in additional direct costs. A $25 increase in internet access would result in an additional $2.169 billion in direct costs.

Indirect costs

Australia already has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world. A 2008 study (link) found that average internet speeds in Australia was 1.7 mbps, up from 1 mpbs in 2006, when Australia was ranked 26th out of 27 developed countries (ref).

The amount of the indirect cost will depend very much on the amount speeds drop. A 75% cut would bring the average speed down to 425kbps, where as a 25% cut to 1.275mpbs.

The cuts in speed would punish small businesses and the less well off more deeply than large businesses and those who can already afford high speed access. The June 2008 figures from the ABS found that only 43% of Australians have speeds higher that 1.5mpbs, and 21.7% of “broadband” subscribers only have speeds between 256kbps and 512kbps. A 75% cut on a 256kbps account would result in a 64kbps connection, basically dialup.

Remarkably, some 2 million Australians are still using dialup, with a maximum speed of 56kbps.

Slower speeds mean quite simply that it takes longer to do business, and that has a negative effect on productivity.

South Australian Liberal Senator, Cory Bernardi, adds more weight to the argument against internet filtering.

I identify myself as a social and fiscal conservative and most people who know me would agree with that assessment. As such, one could reasonably expect me to support ISP filtering as a means of ensuring inappropriate content remains unavailable via the internet.

Yet I have grave reservations about the Labor Party proposal on mandatory ISP filtering which is described as a ‘clean feed’ – words that just sugar-coat compulsory censorship of whatever the government deems you are not allowed to see.

While I strongly believe that anything we can do to prevent access to illegal material is a lawful and moral obligation, there is a world of difference between illegal and inappropriate. The latter being a personal assessment in which I also recognise that my own standards and beliefs are not shared by all in our community.

Further, the nature of the internet means that we can’t really classify content for availability only at a certain time or for certain ages like we can with television, movies or some printed content. This is a concern where young people may be exposed to inappropriate content inadvertently.

There are also broader philosophical reservations about allowing government to be the ultimate judge of what people should and should not have access to. I believe in small government – not big brother where personal responsibility is subservient to the State.

There are already many PC-based filters available that will prevent access to ‘blacklisted’ sites and allow PC end users to tailor the filters to meet the particular requirements of their households. Critics of these filters claim that they are easily disabled, but as I wrote earlier, prohibited material will always be available to those willing to break the rules.

…

Among the many advocates for ISP filtering that I have spoken with, including Minister Stephen Conroy, no one has been able to explain to me exactly how it will work and what content will (or should be) filtered.

In some cases, advocates believe content bans should be extended to all nudity and even stories featuring consensual relations between adults. (I had to describe it like that because the word ‘sex’ might prevent you from being able to access this page!)

It has been suggested that there should be a rating system for internet content similar to how ACMA rates media content.

When I have asked how this could work, no one that I have spoken to has any clear idea, yet they all maintain that ‘it needs to be done’.

That may be so, but at what cost?

There is no stronger supporter of families than myself. My political life is a commitment to strengthening families and changing our nation through the development of our children. However, I also believe that in most circumstances, families know better than government what is best for their children.

Parental responsibility cannot and should not be abrogated to government – if it is, our society will only become weaker.

Yes, illegal content should be banned from the web. It is illegal after all, but it is wrong to give the government a blank cheque to determine what is appropriate for us to view on the internet. That is a job for families, working with government.

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The Australian Israeli Ambassador Has Loose Lips

Caught by Channel Seven News reporter, Sarah Cummings, Australian Israeli Ambassador Yuval Rotem has revealed Israel’s bombing of the people of Gaza was

a “preintroduction” to tackling the military threat posed by a nuclear-equipped Iran.

Israeli ambassador Yuval Rotem told a meeting of Sydney’s Jewish community yesterday that he expected Iran would soon pose a major nuclear threat.

Seven News reporter Sarah Cummings reported that after telling a camera operator to turn off his camera, Mr Rotem told those gathered he expected Iran to stockpile enough uranium over the next 14 months to “be at the point of no return”.

“(He said) the country’s recent military offensives were a preintroduction to the challenge Israel expects from a nuclear-equipped Iran within a year,” Cummings said.

During the meeting, held in a relaxed breakfast setting, Mr Rotem spoke about the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 1300 Palestinians.

Cummings said Mr Rotem made the point that “Israel’s efforts in Gaza were to bring about understanding that we are ready to engage in a decisive way.”

Seven said a staff member had invited Seven News “accidentally”.

While being filmed before the discussion, mr Rotem said, “The best thing to do is to have a very open dialogue if there are no reporters or journalists here,” before telling the cameraman to stop filming.

He said: “I am far more reserved in the way I am saying my things (on camera).”

World Vision Tim Costello chief executive said: “There is a view there that Iran is the serious issue and the serious problem, and that is widely known and widely discussed in the Jewish community.”

Later in the afternoon, the Israeli ambassador denied that Israel was planning an attack, but said Iran needed to be stopped.

As Antiwar says

Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, and while its officials have repeatedly attempted to tie the Iranian government to its war on the Gaza Strip this is the first time one of their officials has publicly (if inadvertently so) suggested that the attack on the strip was a warm-up to its long talked about attack on Iran.

If Israel was genuinely seeking peace in the region, it would give back the land it has stolen from Palestinian people, compensate refugees and release the tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners it is holding in its dungeons, and then shed its nukes. Instead it is prevaricating about Iran’s intentions in the same way it lied about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Will its pathetic, warmongering lies work this time? will the West spend more blood and treasure to do Israel’s abominable bidding again? or will expansionist, apartheid Israel finally be diagnosed correctly by the US as the sociopathic monster and enemy of peace it is and shunned as apartheid South Africa rightly was in time to save Iran’s 70 million people from abhorrent collective punishment such as Israel inflicted on the people of Gaza?

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Gaza Humanitarian Needs Update

The UN is now feeding 1 million plus people in Gaza – and Israel pays not one cent toward the human and infrastructure disaster it deliberately provoked in its disgraceful quest to expand its illegal settlements and maintain its ugly illegal Occupation.

Press conference on Gaza situation by World Food Programme official

Source: United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI)

Date: 29 Jan 2009

Joining the chorus of United Nations officials calling for the uninterrupted opening of border crossings into the Gaza Strip, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Regional Director for the Middle East today said that meeting the immediate needs of Palestinians left traumatized and homeless by Israel’s three-week war with Hamas required the free flow of not just emergency food, but fuel, medicines and necessary building supplies.

World Food Programme’s Daly Belgasmi, whose responsibility also includes Central Asia and Eastern Europe, told correspondents during a Headquarters press conference that the sporadic border closings were only adding to the challenges the agency faced as Operation Lifeline Gaza scaled up deliveries of nutrition-fortified date bars, ready-to-eat meals for hospitals and schools, as well as sugar, wheat flour and vegetable oil.

He said WFP’s portion of the wider United Nations appeal for $613 million, announced earlier today in Davos by the Secretary-General, was $82.3 million. That was “really the minimum to be able to provide some assistance to the people in need”. The formal appeal would be announced by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs next week in Geneva. His agency had enough stocks in Gaza for the next three weeks, and was providing school meals of milk, date bars and bread to 50,000 children to encourage attendance and improve nutrition.

The Operation aimed to reach some 365,000 people and, he said, together with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the United Nations was feeding a little over 1 million of Gaza’s roughly 1.4 million inhabitants. “There are sad, traumatized people in Gaza, who, even before this war, had nothing in their homes but what has been given them by WFP,” he said, stressing that borders, which Israel again briefly closed on Tuesday following a border bomb attack, had to be open on a continuous basis and restrictions on the movement of people and goods lifted so that urgently-needed assistance could reach the population.

“The crossing points remain very, very challenging,” he continued, noting that each of the five border crossings -– Erez, Rafah, Karni, Kerem Shalom and Sufa — presented specific logistical challenges. For instance, at Kerem Shalom, the largest and perhaps most critical of the lifelines into Gaza, WFP and other agencies not only had to deal with security measures, but with complicated pick-up procedures: trucks dropped goods off, shipping and customs documents had to be checked and then the process might simply stall while crews waited on the Palestinian side for pack animals and delivery men to get to the staging area to pick up the shipments. The process of picking up the goods on the Gaza side was also hampered because there were not enough trucks or enough fuel, and no spare parts for repairs.

The United Nations had a “very strong and very capable team” coordinating activities with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv, at Kerem Shalom and the other borders to address logistics as well as the on-again, off-again situation with the borders. “We are doing our best, but the closure of the crossing points is a critical challenge,” he said, stressing that, after Israel’s earlier 18-month blockade, the food chain in Gaza had collapsed. Many basic food items were no longer available in the market, and the price of available commodities such as cooking gas and fuel had increased sharply. After this latest round of fighting, if the borders were not opened for the free movement of goods as well as people, the problem would only worsen.

Responding to questions, he acknowledged that supply trucks were backed up on both sides of the Gaza Strip — the Egyptian and particularly Israeli borders. “It’s not perfect,” he said, but the situation was improving, even if only incrementally.

On tough political issues, including Hamas’ role in the recovery effort and one reporter’s charge that Egypt and the wider Arab world had done nothing while the war inside Gaza had raged, Mr. Belgasmi said that humanitarians tried not to get bogged down by politics. “We are firemen. We go in and put out the fire — in this case, feed the people — and go on with our work,” he said, stressing that WFP, at least, believed that its work was helping to build the peace and promote the self-sufficiency of the Palestinian people. Indeed, by targeting schools and hospitals with feeding programmes, WFP was hoping to help address immediate needs and provide the tools to build a foundation for hope for a better future in Gaza.

“The challenge is to get jobs. When you have, today, unemployment of 70 per cent, people should work on construction […] We need to get them items for construction, we need to get the hospitals working, we need to get the schools coming back to a normal educational life,” he said.

WFP was also carrying out its operations in a way that would allow space for other humanitarian actors, including other United Nations agencies, and especially private companies and non-governmental organizations that could directly assist small farmers and businesses, whose work was vital for the survival of the people in Gaza. He also stressed that reconciliation among Palestinian factions was another key to long-term recovery in Gaza. “By making peace among themselves and forgetting about ideologies”, Palestinians could contribute to the broader effort to promote peace and development in Gaza.

The Australian Government begins to release some of its $5m aid to Gaza:

Australia provides support to NGOs for humanitarian relief in Gaza

Source: Government of Australia

Date: 30 Jan 2009

AA 09 02

BOB McMULLAN MP
PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR FRASER

I am pleased to announce the Australian Government is providing $2 million for Australian NGOs to deliver immediate emergency assistance to Gaza.

This funding is part of the $5 million package of assistance announced by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith on 27 January. The remaining $3 million is for United Nations agencies to replenish food and emergency stores.

Details of the support and funding:

Australian Red Cross ($300,000): In partnership with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the Australian Red Cross will focus on improving access to safe water for up to 50,000 families through the provision of hygiene kits, water purification supplies and the deployment of water treatment units and jerry cans.

CARE Australia ($425,000) will provide basic medical assistance, non-food items such as building materials, cooking equipment, blankets, winter clothes and hygiene kits, and increased access to safe water supplies by deploying water trucks and repairing water pumping stations. Their activities will focus on assisting conflict affected families in the north of Gaza.

Oxfam Australia ($425,000) will distribute family emergency hygiene kits, baby hygiene kits and cleaning kits to 5,000 conflict-affected households across Gaza. They will also improve the water and sanitation conditions in target communities, kindergartens and primary schools by repairing damaged community infrastructure and deploying 10 mobile water tanks.

Save the Children Australia ($425,000) will focus their emergency response on improving the health of mothers, newborns and children in hospitals, health care centres and shelters in the north and south of Gaza, as well as Gaza City. This will involve advising mothers on the care of their newborns, establishing community support networks and providing supplementary food and micronutrients.

World Vision Australia ($425,000) will meet the immediate food and hygiene needs of 2,150 vulnerable families that have been affected by the recent conflict in Gaza. These families are located in both the north and south of Gaza.

Contacts: Sabina Curatolo (Mr McMullan’s Office) 0400318205, AusAID 0417680590

Further aid to Gaza is being considered by Australia –

Australia is considering what further aid it can send to help rebuild the Gaza Strip, on top of a recent $5 million contribution.

…

Speaking on Radio National Breakfast, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said Australia views the secretary-general’s appeal with great sympathy.

“We will make a contribution, you can be reliably assured of that,” he said.

“The extent of the contribution and the amount, of course we have to make judgements about that, but also see what other countries are doing, and see where we can be of most assistance – whether it’s a cash contribution, or whether it’s other things that we can do in terms of technical expertise.”

Technical expertise is moot without the oppressor state allowing more than emergency aid into stricken Gaza.

Further threatening the lives of people in Gaza, Israel is refusing to allow the French to import a water purification plant into the stricken region.

Israel has refused to allow a French-made water purification system into Gaza amid a drinking water crisis in the Palestinian strip.

The French Foreign Ministry said Friday that Tel Aviv had blocked the entry of a much-needed water purification station into Gaza and had forced its repatriation.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Eric Chevallier said the move has sparked an outcry in the Elysée, prompting it to summon the Israeli ambassador to Paris to explain why the system was denied access.

“There were a very great number of steps taken at all levels to try to get the water purification station into Gaza,” he said, adding that Israel’s explanation was not satisfactory.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently warned that Israel’s 23-day onslaught on Gaza has pushed its sewage system on the brink of collapse and thus increased risks of groundwater contamination in the Palestinian territory.

“The most dangerous thing is the contamination of drinking water with sewage. We need an international organization like the World Health Organization to investigate the matter,” said Monther Shoblak, head of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU).

According to the UN, Israel’s three week-long saturation bombing of the Palestinian territory has seriously damaged pipes and has left drinking water in very short supply.

Warning of the serious public health risks, the World Bank has urged the Israeli government to allow enough fuel into Gaza to operate some 170 water and sewage pumps there.

The bank called on Israel to allow maintenance crews to shore up a sewage lake in northern Gaza before it overflows at the expense of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the area.

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Australian Net Censorship Catchup

No improvement to be seen, no word on when Conroy’s useless net censorship trials are to commence – and ratbag Christian fundamentalist wowsers are still prancing their absurdities, flopping their limp wobbly bits for all to see.

Refresh yourself with current ultra-conservative blither and far more intelligent anti-filter rejoinders:

Summary: Mark Newton Vs Jim Wallace on ABC Radio National net censorship debate

Unfortunately, Mr Wallace either doesn’t understand what ‘prohibited content‘ consists of or he has outright lied on air as the ACL’s pro filter website states ‘Despite fear-mongering about censorship, adults will be able to opt in to view some forms of legal porn.’ Just some forms of legal porn Jim?

Life Matters Mandatory Internet Filtering Transcript

Syd Walker comments on the Life Matters program followup forum

Stilgherrian at Crikey writes Who supports compulsory Internet filtering, exactly?

The Christian Right continues to be Conroy’s main supporter. Only last weekend the Fairfax news sites carried the Australian Christian Lobby’s Jim Wallace’s argument for compulsory filtering, which I have deconstructed elsewhere.

Curiously, Wallace uses exactly the same two examples of over-the-top p-rnography, r-pe and b-stiality, that Hamilton used in his polemic for the ABC News website in November. Who’s coordinating whose talking points here?

Stilgherrian again – Jim Wallace’s pro-censorship lies and distortions

Since Wallace promotes himself as a representative of good Christian values, I’ll allow that he may just be ignorant rather than a deliberate liar. Ignorance is no sin: it can be cured with knowledge. But he does use the familiar fraudulent propaganda techniques: misrepresenting his opponents; cherry-picking numbers; failing to explore the implications of those numbers; citing the same suspect Australia Institute report; and wrapping it up in the same old “protect the children” cant.

Websinthe contributes a Response to Jim Wallace’s puddle of misinformation

Time and time again, the assertion that ‘this system is not going to stop any adult from viewing anything that is legal’ has been debunked by close analysis of the relevant legislation. The ACMA black-list bans content that, while illegal to broadcast, is perfectly legal for an adult to view. For instance, where the ACMA receives a complaint about foreign internet content. The content isn’t even forwarded to the classification board; if the ACMA ‘thinks’ it might be prohibited, it is classified as ‘potentially prohibited’ and thrown on the ACMA black-list. It is not illegal until it has been classified as such. Only Australian hosted content is forwarded to the classification board.

A clear example of this occurred only a few days ago. An anti-abortion web site was added to the ACMA black-list despite two things. Firstly, there was no pornographic or child exploitation material on the website, and secondly, the DBCDE had previously claimed that political content would not be blocked.

In The Contents of the ACMA blacklist, Websinthe further reveals the nature of the beast:

The Contents of the ACMA blacklist …are not publicly available. You can, however, determine if a site is ON the list.

Vendors of PC based filters that were offered by the Government can be used to determine whether a site is on the ACMA blacklist by the message given when the site is blocked.

I post this mainly to defer questions about whether or not I have a copy of the ACMA blacklist. I don’t, it is not publicly available. The only way I have been able to tell that the above is possible is because I use Integard on my own PC and it blocked a google result whilst searching for the origins of a meme mentioned on Twitter.

Anyone familiar with Memes knows the particular wiki site to which I refer, but I refuse to link it here as I fear it may be illegal to do so despite the site’s frequent mentioning on perfectly legal websites.

When an ACMA blacklisted site is blocked by a Net Alert filter there is no option for a system administrator to unblock the site and the user is informed that the site is permanently blocked.

Given the nature of this site, it is confirmation that the ACMA does not just filter the illicit parts of sites, but the entire site.

Over at Public Polity, Websinthe strikes again with How legal content will be blocked by the ISP filter

In simpler terms, anything that, if it were a print publication, would be classified as RC, X18+, R18+ or MA15+ will be added to the list of prohibited content if it were hosted outside Australia. There are two interesting provisos here as well.

The MA15+ content would only be blocked if it were a video that wasn’t hosted on a news site. Regardless of who’s hosting it, it is prohibited if transmitted for money over a mobile phone network.

Either way, MA15+ and R18+ content is far from illegal in Australia. Just go down to Blockbuster and hire Interview with a Vampire. Even X18+ print publications are legal in some parts of the country.

Currently it is illegal to host anything in the 4 categories above in Australia. Doing so results in a take down notice.

So when Conroy says “the Australian Government has no plans to stop adults from viewing material that is currently legal”, it is entirely deceptive.


No Character Comic (which is ALSO Websinthe), takes the piss out of Conroy superbly

Syd Walker presents Australia’s Holy Man likes a Good War

In satisfyingly satirical pictorial and literary fashion, machinegunkeyboard says

If you think Australians are serious about their beer, as Razer notes, they’re downright bolshie about their porn. Senator Conroy wants to make the internet conform to Australia’s film and literature censorship laws. In the extraordinarily unlikely event that Labor’s mandatory filtering scam is successful, not only will they bolster the business of ‘restricted premises’ to a degree they’ve never before known (does Conroy or other Labor pol own an interest in any porn shops, I wonder?), but will also very likely create a mountainous public backlash that will see both Labor voted out of government after only one term and the dissolution of the OFLC.

Aside from the unproven claims of a few anti-porn extremists, there’s no psychological evidence that use (or creation) of nonviolent pornography by adults as part of a healthy sex life is in any way harmful to anyone. However, as is usually the case with any manner of prohibition, bans force it all ‘underground.’ Everything from pinup cheesecake to violent rape fantasy porn is far away from public scrutiny, thusly making all porn much more available, inclusive of violent and exploitative sorts.

Won’t somebody think of Helen’s sex life?

Have I missed any other recent worthy contributions to the struggle to maintain decent, liberal Australian internet standards? Please let me know.

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Rudd Breaks Election Promise to Change Australia Day

The National Indigenous Times spiked the Labor Party for reneging on their election promise to change the date of Australia Day to one more suited to celebration by all Australians.

There’s no good reason for indigenous people to celebrate Invasion Day – it’s a day of mourning and remembrance of genocide for the aboriginal people.

The promise was contained in the ALP’s National Platform, a document that outlines the policy aspirations of the party and which is agreed to at the ALP’s National Convention every three years.

The current National Platform commits the ALP to implementing the six recommendations made in the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR)’s final report, issued in 2000.

One of those recommendations is to implement CAR’s Roadmap to Reconciliation.

And an “essential” action of that report is to change the date of Australia Day.

The promise is contained in the 2007 National Platform, and also the previous 2004 platform.

But this week, the Rudd government confirmed it had no intention of making good on the promise.

Last week, NIT submitted a series of questions on the promise to the Prime Minister’s office. After no reply, NIT was directed to the office of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin.

Government officials finally replied with a single line statement: “Australia Day will continue to be celebrated on January 26.”

The debate over whether to change Australia Day, the celebration of the First Fleet’s landing, to something that is more inclusive is a heated one.

…

After receiving no explanation for why the promise would not be kept, NIT asked the Prime Minister for further comment on their broken election promise. The questions were directed to the acting Indigenous affairs minister, Tanya Plibersek.

Again, the reply flatly refused to address the issue: “The Government has made significant progress in a number of key areas in our first 14 months although we acknowledge that there’s a lot more work to be done,” a spokesperson for Ms Plibersek said.

The ALP intransigence is all the more ironic given Rudd’s selection of Mick Dodson as Australian of the Year.

Mick is a staunch advocate for changing the date for Australia Day.

WITHIN minutes of accepting the Australian of the Year award yesterday, the indigenous leader Mick Dodson told the Rudd Government it needed to move the date of Australia Day because January 26 represented a “day of mourning” for many of his people.

…

Professor Dodson, a lawyer, also called for financial compensation for the stolen generations and for changes to government policy, including on the Northern Territory intervention.

A Yawuru man, he said he felt so strongly the current Australia Day excluded indigenous people that he considered refusing the nomination for the award but decided to accept it after listening to his family. Australians were “mature enough about it now” to consider moving the date, which currently commemorates the First Fleet’s arrival in Sydney – “the day on which our world came crashing down”.

Professor Dodson suggested February 13, the date the Rudd Government last year formally apologised to stolen generations.