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Internet filter to block 10,000-plus "unwanted" sites
,----[ Quote ]
| READERS of The Courier-Mail online have blasted plans for Australia's
| mandatory internet filter to block as many as 10,000 websites.
|
| The websites form a blacklist of unspecified "unwanted content", Broadband
| Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.
`----
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24643380-952,00.html
A copyright call to arms
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| In the era of peer-to-peer file sharing, on-demand television and easy
| copying of video games and movies, Canadians often take for granted the
| availability and ease of using digital media. It's hard not to: the sheer
| amount of digital content available online is astonishing. For many, the Web
| is a black box that provides us with what we want, when we want it.
|
| But with a new session of parliament a week away, a host of proposed changes
| to copyright legislation threaten to tip the legal balance further in favour
| of those who sell and disseminate cultural content, rather than everyone who
| consumes it.
`----
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081112.wgtcopyfight1111/BNStory/Technology/home
This is probably more important than Linux and Free software. They try to apply
to information what they applied to software. It's some sort of neo-fascism.
Recent:
E-Speech: The (Uncertain) Future of Free Expression
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| Imagine this: It’s the day before your daughter’s birthday. She lives in
| another state, so you make a video of the rest of the family singing “Happy
| Birthday to You” on your camcorder and put the videotape in a box with her
| address on it. But at the post office, you’re told the box will take two
| weeks to deliver unless you pay your daughter’s local mail carrier an extra
| delivery fee.
|
| So instead, you write her a letter describing the video and including the
| lyrics to “Happy Birthday to You.” She never receives the letter; unbeknownst
| to you, the post office has opened it en route, and, seeing that you’ve
| enclosed copyrighted materials (yes, the “Happy Birthday” song is
| copyrighted), has decided not to deliver the envelope to her. You write her
| another letter, without the song lyrics, and although it arrives on her
| doorstep intact, she can’t open it because you used a large manila envelope
| and her electric letter opener works only on size A2, A6 and A7 envelopes.
|
| [...]
|
| Similarly, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international
| treaty currently under negotiation, may allow customs officials to search our
| computers, MP3 players and other electronic devices for unpermissioned
| content when we travel, and may force ISPs to disclose more information about
| our online activities to copyright owners claiming infringement. ACTA
| negotiations have been held in secret, and what little we know is the result
| of leaks. Despite not telling us much about it, the Office of the United
| States Trade Representative (USTR) says it is trying to “complete the new
| agreement as quickly as possible.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation and
| Public Knowledge recently filed suit against the USTR, demanding more
| information about ACTA before it’s actually ratified.
`----
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081024_e_speech_the_uncertain_future_of_free_expression/
MTVmusic.com Censors Weird Al
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| The four file-sharing networks are now those that shall not be named on MTV.
| At first the bleeping seems like a joke, but Yankovic also posted his video
| on his YouTube channel, where it is uncensored. (It’s not, however, available
| for embedding.)
|
| MTV sparked controversy in the past for bleeping out words referring to guns
| and violence, or misogynistic words like “bitch” and “ho,” but at least those
| cases of selective censorship seemed geared toward decent ends. Censoring the
| names of places where people can share files (not just music or copyrighted
| material) is not only heavy-handed—come on, you think they don’t know
| already?—but also comes across as sheer corporate protectionism, taking the
| side of the once-demonized-on-MTV machine instead of the rocking audience
| that used to rage against it.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/10/31/mtvmusiccom-censors-weird-al
In Conroy’s muddy waters you'll never know what’s being filtered
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| Critics of Conroy's Internet filtering say Australians will not be able to
| find out what the government censors online, and ask: who watches the
| watchmen?
|
| An Australian law expert has warned that under the government’s proposed
| mandatory Internet content filtering scheme Australians will have no way of
| finding out what “illegal” content has been censored and blocked online,
| while Greens Senator Scott Ludlam voiced his concern over Conroy’s ambiguity
| regarding exactly what content will or won’t be blocked, and who will be able
| to opt-out of the filtering.
|
| Conroy’s mandatory Internet filtering proposal caused a stir last week when
| it was revealed a member of his department had tried to censor severely
| critical comments made on the Whirlpool broadband forum by an Internode
| network engineer regarding the merits of ISP level filtering.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=355409327&rid=-50
Big tech companies back global plan to shield online speech
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| Stating that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity," the
| initiative commits the companies to try to resist overly broad demands for
| restrictions on freedom of speech and overly broad demands that could
| compromise the privacy of their users.
|
| The initiative was begun after human rights groups and Congress criticized
| the Internet companies for cooperating with Chinese government censorship and
| demands for information on dissidents. In addition to laying out the code of
| conduct, the initiative will provide a non-governmental forum for the
| companies and human rights groups to jointly resist demands for censorship.
| It will also establish a system of independent auditors to rate the
| companies' conduct.
`----
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/28/technology/28privacy.php
Internet Companies Pay Lip Service To Human Rights
,----[ Quote ]
| While it's nice that they're actually thinking about these issues, the
| guidelines on the whole are pretty weak and don't bind the companies to do
| anything. Basically, it just says that the companies will consider the human
| rights issues in their decision making. If anything, this seems like an
| attempt to just keep the government from legislating on the issues, and it
| may not be very successful on that front. The real test will be in seeing how
| these companies actually act, rather than what sorts of guidelines they've
| signed.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081027/1946252660.shtml
Labor's web gag 'worse than Iran'
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| The Federal Government is attempting to silence critics of its controversial
| plan to censor the internet, which experts say will break the internet while
| doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child
| pornography.
|
| Internet providers and the government's own tests have found that presently
| available filters are not capable of adequately distinguishing between legal
| and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86 per cent.
|
| Documents obtained by Fairfax Media show the office of the Communications
| Minister, Stephen Conroy, tried to bully ISP staff into suppressing their
| criticisms of the plan.
|
| Senator Conroy has since last year's election victory remained tight-lipped
| on the specifics of his $44.2 million policy but, grilled by a Senate
| Estimates committee this week, he said the Government was looking at forcing
| ISPs to implement a two-tiered filtering system.
`----
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/technology/labors-web-gag-worse-than-iran/2008/10/23/1224351491889.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
http://tinyurl.com/6lkxux
No opt-out of filtered Internet
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| Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet
| content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down
| blacklist, experts say.
`----
http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/08/10/13/No-opt-out-of-filtered-Internet.html?source=gs
Conroy announces mandatory internet filters to protect children
,----[ Quote ]
| "Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the
| internet is like going down the Chinese road," he said.
`----
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm
Comcast, NetZero latest providers to bow to Cuomo's Usenet campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| But in reality, Cuomo's pressure tactics have misfired. They led Time Warner
| Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including
| such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and
| misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful
| discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and
| alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10002624-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone
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| Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of
| roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for
| the companies' blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are
| attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend
| the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of
| responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."
|
| [...]
|
| What this means in practice is that, thanks to the New York state attorney
| general, Verizon customers will lose out on innocent discussions. Verizon is
| retaining only eight newsgroup hierarchies, even though over 1,000
| hierarchies exist.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Usenet Villified In NY Deal With ISPs
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| Time Warner Cable will turn off all newsgroup access, while Sprint plans to
| cut access to the whole alt.* segment. Verizon may follow Sprint's example.
|
| Blocking all newsgroups does appear to be a broad approach to a problem
| involving a minority of such groups. As with the Internet in general, not
| everything in Usenet poses a threat. But no one wants to be tainted with even
| a suggestion of being soft on child porn, hence the rush to apply censorship
| with a sweeping axe rather than a skillfully-wielded scalpel.
`----
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/usenet-villified-in-ny-deal-with-isps
Related:
Australia to get net censorship
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| The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will be able to
| force content providers to take down offensive material and issue notices for
| live content to be stopped and links to the content deleted.
`----
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22959799-5005961,00.html
Major Aussie ISP Telstra BigPond shafts open source OpenOffice
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| Australia’s largest Internet service provider Telstra BigPond has removed the
| free open source office suite OpenOffice from its unmetered file download
| area following the launch of its own, free, hosted, office application,
| BigPond Office.
|
| [...]
|
| Our reader was outraged by Telstra’s move, which he sees as an attack on the
| open source software movement.
|
| “The principle of the matter upsets me,” he said. “The fact that BigPond has
| removed previously allowed open source software is un-ethical. They are
| discriminating against me, even though I pay the same as other customers.
| They are attacking the Free Software movement.”
`----
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure
%20/2007/12/18/major-aussie-isp-telstra-bigpond-shafts-open-source-openoffice/
Australia to extend web censorship
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| Privacy advocates take a dim view of this proposal, naturally. Roger Clarke,
| chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, said "This government's extremism
| has reached new heights today." He asked "How can a politician claim the
| right to hold office if they set out to undermine the critical democratic
| right of freedom of speech, and blatantly decline to evaluate the impact of
| measures put before the Parliament?"
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/09/26/australia-extend-web-censorship
Suit against blogger weaves legal web in Paris, Texas
,----[ Quote ]
| But there is little case law in Texas or nationally to give judges a standard
| for when to expose anonymous postings on the Internet.
`----
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5149745.html
Web 'censorship' bill brings police state one stop closer
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| Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has slammed moves to give the Federal
| Police powers to ban access to certain Internet content as "another step in
| Australia's descent into a police state".
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/14570/1055/
Howard row over Wikipedia edits
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| Staff in the Australian prime minister's department have been accused of
| editing potentially damaging entries in online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6961575.stm
AT&T admits it censored other bands
,----[ Quote
| It looks like Pearl Jam isn't the only band that has had its politically
| charged comments bleeped from concerts streamed from AT&T's Blue Room Web
| site.
|
| [...]
|
| AT&T quickly apologized for the incident and blamed the company that handles
| the Webcasting for performances on Blue Room.
`----
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9759184-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
AT&T slams Google over open-access wireless proposal
,----[ Quote ]
| AT&T has asked Capitol Hill not to enable an open nationwide wireless
| spectrum, claiming that Google's lobbying of such a network is a bid by the
| search giant to obtain broadband airwaves at bargain-basement prices.
`----
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B592E3C6-E5F3-4ECA-93C1-3A5A3392024A
Microsoft and MySpace join Govt's fight against online predators
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| Microsoft has joined the likes of MySpace and the child protection advocacy
| group Bravehearts to help launch an extension of the Federal Government’s
| NetAlert initiative, the Consultative Working Group.
`----
http://www.securecomputing.net.au/news/61208,microsoft-and-myspace-join-govts-fight-against-online-predators.aspx
Australia's porn-blocking plan unveiled
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| While individual filters will be available beginning later this month,
| ISP-level blocking may take some time to implement. The Australian
| Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is currently planning a trial of
| ISP-level filtering in Tasmania that will inform the government's decision on
| a national launch.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6202226.html
Yahoo!, Microsoft ink web pact with Chinese government
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft and Yahoo! have signed a pact with the Chinese government
| that "encourages" the big name web players to record the identities of
| bloggers and censor content. So says Reporters Without Borders, an
| organization that fights for journalistic rights across the globe.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/yahoo_and_microsoft_ink_chinese_blogging_pact/
Chinese Internet dissident committed to mental hospital
,----[ Quote ]
| "It is not acceptable that Chinese authorities use such methods to silence
| citizens who have merely peacefully voiced their opinions", expressed the
| organisation in an announcement. Apparently authorities have not abandoned
| the practice of punishing those who have exposed the abuse of power and
| defied censorship by compulsorily committing them to mental institutions.
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/94864/from/rss09
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