8 ms·

Australian Government adds Wikileaks to banned website list; $11k/day fine for linking

119 points by nickb 18y ago

vaksel 18y ago
when will people learn that you can't censor internet
- godDLL 18y ago
  Same day as the record companies move on, I predict.
- quellhorst 18y ago
  When they die of old age.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  seems to work for North Korea.
  - TweedHeads 18y ago
    And cuba
    - electromagnetic 18y ago
      I don't think those countries really count, North Korea doesn't have enough fuel to run trains, so I don't think there's like 30 million people just cruising the internet. IIRC Cuba has had restrictions on computer sales up until recently purposefully to allow themselves to establish the infrastructure. You can't try to build a dam in the middle of a running river, it's just insane. Equally, you can't just begin to set up essentially an electronic dam in a torrent of packets. It works successfully for certain countries because it's on a small scale, but when you get to the scale of China (whose internet system was built the same way as Cuba and NK) you can start getting problems again. So I hardly see any success happening in a rapid implementation of a complete web-filtering service from an already developed nation.
tptacek 18y ago
Well this is a clusterfuck of a trivial civil disobedience protest and concomitant selective enforcement defense just waiting to happen.
gasull 18y ago
FTA: Currently, it is not illegal for internet users in Australia to click on the sites found on the web blacklist. The people targeted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) are webmasters linking out to the sites that the government have flagged up as inappropriate. This could all change, however, if a mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented – something that is being debated at the moment. In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship with Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ http://www.torproject.org/
- rms 18y ago
  >In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship with Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ http://www.torproject.org/ Or VPN'ing through your VPS, googling for "start using CGIproxy", using an online translator, Google cache, archive.org, etc. See http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013 for as much info on this matter as you should ever need.
  - numair 18y ago
    Or here's something that works on a ton of machines, with no major rocket science necsessary: 1. ssh -D1080 username@host 2. change proxy settings to have http traffic go through a proxy running on port 1080 3. enjoy.
    - whughes 18y ago
      I've always used the ssh -D proxy as a SOCKS proxy, not a HTTP proxy. It works well, though, and it's dead simple to set up.
- Slzr 18y ago
  The most important thing here its the censorship. Brainwashing has become very difficult since the internet showed up.
- sketerpot 18y ago
  So, they're only going after "webmasters", rather than the rest of us, who are purely passive consumers of information. That's an incredibly archaic thing for them to say, and it shows that they really don't get it. There is no hard distinction between the people who make content online and the people who view it. If someone posts a comment on an Australian forum that links to Wikileaks, who gets fined? The person running the forum, who can't possibly police such things? The person who posted the link, who may be identified only by a username? Can Australia's policies deal with an indignant storm of linking to forbidden web sites? A thousand culprits, and not a webmaster to be found in the whole bunch! The people writing the laws still think of the Internet as television 2.0, as a broadcast medium.
fallentimes 18y ago
http://www.wikileaks.com/ http://www.wikileaks.com/ I guess I've been taking linking for granted. Could any HNers residing in Australia please add their thoughts to this? I could only imagine what would happen if the US did something similar...
- rms 18y ago
  Australia also banned Grand Theft Auto. And kratom.
  - JacobAldridge 18y ago
    I'm not sure if GTA was 'banned', but it certainly went close. Actually, banned isn't quite the right word. Down under we don't have an (R18+) Rating for video games. This means anything deemed not suitable for the lower (MA) rating is not given a Classification. ...And it's illegal to sell a game without a Classification Rating. It's a fine distinction, and not one that can be made about the internet filtering debacle.
    - jwilliams 18y ago
      GTA IV was almost banned - they had to cut one scene to get the MA15+ cert.
- JacobAldridge 18y ago
  For the past year or so the federal government has been trialling software they will make mandatory for ISPs to filter the internet. The industry doesn't want it, the public doesn't want (trials show it demonstrable slows ALL internet traffic), but they persist. The relief we have so far is that we're reasonably confident they won't really be able to enforce a lot of things, including links. I'm personally confident that they will eventually find an excuse to 'park' the project, but the closer it gets the louder we need to be about censorship. Our PM speaks fluent Mandarin. A very useful skill for global diplomacy, but a skill that when combined with censorship draws comparisons he probably doesn't like.
rgrieselhuber 18y ago
This just put Wikileaks on my daily toread list. EDIT: I think Wikileaks could benefit from a Reddit / HN style layout.
- Sephr 18y ago
  It's a collaborative wiki, not an index of links (of which you can comment on) sorted by current popularity or similar means like HN/Reddit/Digg.
  - rgrieselhuber 18y ago
    I know, but from a filtering perspective, it would be a nice tool, IMHO.
kiba 18y ago
Wee! Streisand effect. Gottach love the effort of authorities trying to control information. It usually backfires. That's a good thing too.
FlorinAndrei 18y ago
So glad I'm not living there.
jacoblyles 18y ago
It is possible that the anarchic nature of the present-day web is an aberration, a symptom of a new technology catching the authorities momentarily unaware. The rapid innovation, widespread criminal activity, anonymity, and other hallmark features of the modern web will likely be tempered as regulation increases. However, humanity will still be better off for its existence than it would be without. It may be suboptimal, but it will not be the end of the world.
- donaq 18y ago
  I do not think humanity would be better off if, to take this theory to its most extreme conclusion, the internet became a collection of sites whitelisted by the various governments around the world.
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    There was a grammatical ambiguity in my sentence. I think we would be better off with a regulated internet than with no internet.
    - donaq 18y ago
      I think I got you the first time, actually. My point was that humanity might actually be worse off with an internet that is regulated in a totalitarian manner than without an internet.
      - jacoblyles 18y ago
        Sorry, I only noticed the potential ambiguity after I made the comment and I wasn't sure which reading you were responding to. Perhaps you are right. But everybody having the ability to communicate cheaply with everybody else is a new phenomenon. We got along for a good long time without it. I would think that the government's ability to control popular opinion was much stronger in the industrial age than in any time since. We got through that period okay. I think the internet is awesome, and I hope people fight like hell to preserve it. But if some controls are placed on it, I doubt it presages a new Dark Age. Also, I think there will be some lasting benefit due to the reduced cost of global communications and coordination, even if blogs are outlawed.
pg 18y ago
I wonder if the government realizes how much damage they're doing to the country's reputation by ensuring that when the rest of the world thinks of the words "Australia" and "Internet," the next word that follows in most people's minds is "censorship." They're practically marketing themselves as a backwater, in the same way Kansas does every time they try to outlaw evolution.
- ftse 18y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the source for HN censor links to certain websites?
  - chez17 18y ago
    And what's your point? You don't see the difference between a free and private owned and operated website restricting access and a countries government making it totally illegal?
    - ftse 18y ago
      I'm not really making a point. I was hoping to open up the discussion on censorship in general - where do you draw the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable? Is all censorship bad? Where is the line between censorship as it is obviously being practiced in Australia and 'censorship' on a 'private owned and operated website'?
      - alnayyir 18y ago
        The difference between the two is fairly clear to anyone who has studied political theory or common law. The difference is that in one case, you have a privately owned and operating website exercising censorship as a function of the owner's property rights. Just as you have the right to deny a stranger entry into your home, a website owner has the right to set the rules of engagement in their properties. Whereas, As in the case of the Australian Gov't, ostensibly based on common law, is exercising the bludgeon of government fiat in order to ban access for all citizens outright to a particular website, and in doing so, is engaging in censorship. There is a difference between a gov't engaging in censorship reminiscent of Stalinist-era USSR and you telling a stranger they cannot enter your home without your permission. The division between public and private is central to nearly all modern governments, even a "communist" gov't like China makes the distinction even though that gov't does exercise power at will, more or less.
katz 18y ago
I have a few problems with this. Their attempt to block wikileaks is so that no one can see the URLs they blocked. This is a bit of nonsense - no one can argue for the websites - so in effect they can block everything they want. If they have a judge that decides which URLs are blocked maybe it would be right. > The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website. Hmmm... Why? Can they at least give a reason why a site was banned (except promoting a dissenting view)?
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Because if Whirlpool had refused they'd have been fined $11,000 a day, probably from the day the notice was sent out... probably in the slowest mail service imaginable so that by the time Whirlpool got the notice the government would consider them owing like $77,000 and an extra $11,000 for every day that passes between them refusing to take down the link and them getting taken to court. It's a money making scam. There's no sense in a fine being levied per day for hosting a link other than to extract money. Edit: It's like getting a speeding ticket, but instead of being charged for how fast over the legal limit you were going, they charge you for every meter you cover whilst speeding. Or being charged for drunk driving, but they charge you per 0.01% over, so for the same crime you get charged a ridiculous amount if you're so drunk you only managed to turn the key before passing out (which in most places being behind the wheel of a running vehicle and drunk, even if the vehicle isn't in motion, counts as drunk driving) but someone who's only 0.03% over the legal limit and is capable enough to drive, but drunk enough to be a danger is given a slap on the wrist. This kind of system is just whole heartedly moronic. It's like a dentist charging, not for pulling a single tooth out but how many milligrams the tooth weighed. It's complete quackery.
electromagnetic 18y ago
This just stinks of a moronic money making scheme. Many countries have a black-list of websites that ISPs don't host links to, most of which are child porn websites or sites used by known terrorists. So why is Australia planning on fining users for clicking on these links and not simply blocking the link? This isn't about censorship, or protecting the greater good. It's about lining pockets and sheer greed.
ikor 18y ago
I think, from today Tor ( http://tor.eff.org http://tor.eff.org) usage will increase in Australia.
carpo 18y ago
So, if you can't see the list of banned sites because the only place to see it publicly is banned, how do you know which links you're not allowed to post? I guess you wait for the $11,000+ fine in the mail which will hopefully tell you what link you then have to remove. It's a monty-pythonish thought, but I keep imagining the letter you receive having the offending link blacked out by the censor's pen, and all the while new fines turning up every day and you frantically removing each link until you get the right one.

119 points by nickb 18y ago

vaksel 18y ago

when will people learn that you can't censor internet

godDLL 18y ago
Same day as the record companies move on, I predict.
quellhorst 18y ago
When they die of old age.
jacoblyles 18y ago
seems to work for North Korea.
- TweedHeads 18y ago
  And cuba
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    I don't think those countries really count, North Korea doesn't have enough fuel to run trains, so I don't think there's like 30 million people just cruising the internet. IIRC Cuba has had restrictions on computer sales up until recently purposefully to allow themselves to establish the infrastructure. You can't try to build a dam in the middle of a running river, it's just insane. Equally, you can't just begin to set up essentially an electronic dam in a torrent of packets. It works successfully for certain countries because it's on a small scale, but when you get to the scale of China (whose internet system was built the same way as Cuba and NK) you can start getting problems again. So I hardly see any success happening in a rapid implementation of a complete web-filtering service from an already developed nation.

tptacek 18y ago

Well this is a clusterfuck of a trivial civil disobedience protest and concomitant selective enforcement defense just waiting to happen.

gasull 18y ago

FTA: Currently, it is not illegal for internet users in Australia to click on the sites found on the web blacklist. The people targeted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) are webmasters linking out to the sites that the government have flagged up as inappropriate. This could all change, however, if a mandatory internet filtering censorship scheme is implemented – something that is being debated at the moment. In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship with Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ http://www.torproject.org/

rms 18y ago
>In case any Australian is reading this, you can bypass Internet censorship with Tor: http://www.torproject.org/ http://www.torproject.org/ Or VPN'ing through your VPS, googling for "start using CGIproxy", using an online translator, Google cache, archive.org, etc. See http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15013 for as much info on this matter as you should ever need.
- numair 18y ago
  Or here's something that works on a ton of machines, with no major rocket science necsessary: 1. ssh -D1080 username@host 2. change proxy settings to have http traffic go through a proxy running on port 1080 3. enjoy.
  - whughes 18y ago
    I've always used the ssh -D proxy as a SOCKS proxy, not a HTTP proxy. It works well, though, and it's dead simple to set up.
Slzr 18y ago
The most important thing here its the censorship. Brainwashing has become very difficult since the internet showed up.
sketerpot 18y ago
So, they're only going after "webmasters", rather than the rest of us, who are purely passive consumers of information. That's an incredibly archaic thing for them to say, and it shows that they really don't get it. There is no hard distinction between the people who make content online and the people who view it. If someone posts a comment on an Australian forum that links to Wikileaks, who gets fined? The person running the forum, who can't possibly police such things? The person who posted the link, who may be identified only by a username? Can Australia's policies deal with an indignant storm of linking to forbidden web sites? A thousand culprits, and not a webmaster to be found in the whole bunch! The people writing the laws still think of the Internet as television 2.0, as a broadcast medium.

fallentimes 18y ago

http://www.wikileaks.com/ http://www.wikileaks.com/ I guess I've been taking linking for granted. Could any HNers residing in Australia please add their thoughts to this? I could only imagine what would happen if the US did something similar...

rms 18y ago
Australia also banned Grand Theft Auto. And kratom.
- JacobAldridge 18y ago
  I'm not sure if GTA was 'banned', but it certainly went close. Actually, banned isn't quite the right word. Down under we don't have an (R18+) Rating for video games. This means anything deemed not suitable for the lower (MA) rating is not given a Classification. ...And it's illegal to sell a game without a Classification Rating. It's a fine distinction, and not one that can be made about the internet filtering debacle.
  - jwilliams 18y ago
    GTA IV was almost banned - they had to cut one scene to get the MA15+ cert.
JacobAldridge 18y ago
For the past year or so the federal government has been trialling software they will make mandatory for ISPs to filter the internet. The industry doesn't want it, the public doesn't want (trials show it demonstrable slows ALL internet traffic), but they persist. The relief we have so far is that we're reasonably confident they won't really be able to enforce a lot of things, including links. I'm personally confident that they will eventually find an excuse to 'park' the project, but the closer it gets the louder we need to be about censorship. Our PM speaks fluent Mandarin. A very useful skill for global diplomacy, but a skill that when combined with censorship draws comparisons he probably doesn't like.

rgrieselhuber 18y ago

This just put Wikileaks on my daily toread list. EDIT: I think Wikileaks could benefit from a Reddit / HN style layout.

Sephr 18y ago
It's a collaborative wiki, not an index of links (of which you can comment on) sorted by current popularity or similar means like HN/Reddit/Digg.
- rgrieselhuber 18y ago
  I know, but from a filtering perspective, it would be a nice tool, IMHO.

kiba 18y ago

Wee! Streisand effect. Gottach love the effort of authorities trying to control information. It usually backfires. That's a good thing too.

FlorinAndrei 18y ago

So glad I'm not living there.

jacoblyles 18y ago

It is possible that the anarchic nature of the present-day web is an aberration, a symptom of a new technology catching the authorities momentarily unaware. The rapid innovation, widespread criminal activity, anonymity, and other hallmark features of the modern web will likely be tempered as regulation increases. However, humanity will still be better off for its existence than it would be without. It may be suboptimal, but it will not be the end of the world.

donaq 18y ago
I do not think humanity would be better off if, to take this theory to its most extreme conclusion, the internet became a collection of sites whitelisted by the various governments around the world.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  There was a grammatical ambiguity in my sentence. I think we would be better off with a regulated internet than with no internet.
  - donaq 18y ago
    I think I got you the first time, actually. My point was that humanity might actually be worse off with an internet that is regulated in a totalitarian manner than without an internet.
    - jacoblyles 18y ago
      Sorry, I only noticed the potential ambiguity after I made the comment and I wasn't sure which reading you were responding to. Perhaps you are right. But everybody having the ability to communicate cheaply with everybody else is a new phenomenon. We got along for a good long time without it. I would think that the government's ability to control popular opinion was much stronger in the industrial age than in any time since. We got through that period okay. I think the internet is awesome, and I hope people fight like hell to preserve it. But if some controls are placed on it, I doubt it presages a new Dark Age. Also, I think there will be some lasting benefit due to the reduced cost of global communications and coordination, even if blogs are outlawed.

pg 18y ago

I wonder if the government realizes how much damage they're doing to the country's reputation by ensuring that when the rest of the world thinks of the words "Australia" and "Internet," the next word that follows in most people's minds is "censorship." They're practically marketing themselves as a backwater, in the same way Kansas does every time they try to outlaw evolution.

ftse 18y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the source for HN censor links to certain websites?
- chez17 18y ago
  And what's your point? You don't see the difference between a free and private owned and operated website restricting access and a countries government making it totally illegal?
  - ftse 18y ago
    I'm not really making a point. I was hoping to open up the discussion on censorship in general - where do you draw the line between what is acceptable and unacceptable? Is all censorship bad? Where is the line between censorship as it is obviously being practiced in Australia and 'censorship' on a 'private owned and operated website'?
    - alnayyir 18y ago
      The difference between the two is fairly clear to anyone who has studied political theory or common law. The difference is that in one case, you have a privately owned and operating website exercising censorship as a function of the owner's property rights. Just as you have the right to deny a stranger entry into your home, a website owner has the right to set the rules of engagement in their properties. Whereas, As in the case of the Australian Gov't, ostensibly based on common law, is exercising the bludgeon of government fiat in order to ban access for all citizens outright to a particular website, and in doing so, is engaging in censorship. There is a difference between a gov't engaging in censorship reminiscent of Stalinist-era USSR and you telling a stranger they cannot enter your home without your permission. The division between public and private is central to nearly all modern governments, even a "communist" gov't like China makes the distinction even though that gov't does exercise power at will, more or less.

katz 18y ago

I have a few problems with this. Their attempt to block wikileaks is so that no one can see the URLs they blocked. This is a bit of nonsense - no one can argue for the websites - so in effect they can block everything they want. If they have a judge that decides which URLs are blocked maybe it would be right. > The news comes after web forum Whirlpool was threatened with the fine for posting a hyperlink to a blacklisted anti-abortion website. Hmmm... Why? Can they at least give a reason why a site was banned (except promoting a dissenting view)?

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
electromagnetic 18y ago
Because if Whirlpool had refused they'd have been fined $11,000 a day, probably from the day the notice was sent out... probably in the slowest mail service imaginable so that by the time Whirlpool got the notice the government would consider them owing like $77,000 and an extra $11,000 for every day that passes between them refusing to take down the link and them getting taken to court. It's a money making scam. There's no sense in a fine being levied per day for hosting a link other than to extract money. Edit: It's like getting a speeding ticket, but instead of being charged for how fast over the legal limit you were going, they charge you for every meter you cover whilst speeding. Or being charged for drunk driving, but they charge you per 0.01% over, so for the same crime you get charged a ridiculous amount if you're so drunk you only managed to turn the key before passing out (which in most places being behind the wheel of a running vehicle and drunk, even if the vehicle isn't in motion, counts as drunk driving) but someone who's only 0.03% over the legal limit and is capable enough to drive, but drunk enough to be a danger is given a slap on the wrist. This kind of system is just whole heartedly moronic. It's like a dentist charging, not for pulling a single tooth out but how many milligrams the tooth weighed. It's complete quackery.

electromagnetic 18y ago

This just stinks of a moronic money making scheme. Many countries have a black-list of websites that ISPs don't host links to, most of which are child porn websites or sites used by known terrorists. So why is Australia planning on fining users for clicking on these links and not simply blocking the link? This isn't about censorship, or protecting the greater good. It's about lining pockets and sheer greed.

ikor 18y ago

I think, from today Tor ( http://tor.eff.org http://tor.eff.org) usage will increase in Australia.

carpo 18y ago

So, if you can't see the list of banned sites because the only place to see it publicly is banned, how do you know which links you're not allowed to post? I guess you wait for the $11,000+ fine in the mail which will hopefully tell you what link you then have to remove. It's a monty-pythonish thought, but I keep imagining the letter you receive having the offending link blacked out by the censor's pen, and all the while new fines turning up every day and you frantically removing each link until you get the right one.