7 ms·

The Australian Government has greenlighted compulsory internet filtering

74 points by xelfer 17y ago

xelfer 17y ago
The full report for the Live Pilot is here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-Pilot-Report-High-Res http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-Pilot-... The report claims no degredation of speed, however it says that about 1 in 30 legitimate sites will be blocked.
- dmnd 17y ago
  Some observations from that report: When they tested the filters they reported "less than 3.4%" of innocuous URLs were mistakenly blocked. They say this is too high (no kidding!), but that "blocking rates of below 2 percent would be considered low" and thus acceptable. They also considered performance degradation of 0-10% to be "negligible", and 10-20% to be "minimal". The performance results looked incredibly noisy to me, but they don't report variance or any kind of statistical significance, so I don't think their results mean much.
Salvatore 17y ago
Is this an Orwellian precursor or should we not get too upset about it? Should the Government really be playing internet police?
aarongough 17y ago
Gah. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I am very unhappy with my government, and very glad I moved to Canada.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  Just in time for the Harper Conservatives, eh?
  - aarongough 17y ago
    Haha, yes indeed. I will admit that a large part of my satisfaction comes from the fact that I no longer have to be involved. I am not on the electoral roll in Australia (where voting is mandatory) and I can't vote in Canada... I guess I'm taking a 'hands-off' approach...
JacobAldridge 17y ago
What a crock of shit. As an Aussie, I am disgusted that this is seen as a viable solution for an advanced democracy. It riles me on all sorts of censorship levels, even before it pisses me off as a taxpayer that a system so readily circumvented will be the subject of public spending. I honestly thought the 'trial' was going to be used to demonstrate what a pathetic and short-minded idea this was, so that it could be quietly swept under the carpet. Instead, I can only assume the trial was always intended to arrive at a foregone conclusion. Extreme conservatives - who won't ever support the current Labor government - must be delighted. And there will be a whole swathe of middle-class, swing-voting families relieved that their children will be protected, until they discover their 12 year old surfing the net around the filter just to see what sites like donkeyporn.com and ruddisacommunist.org (sites I probably made up) are all about. At that point they'll be wondering why the government couldn't spend $125.8 million over four years on reducing the massive deficit or stimulating jobs. Edit: The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - the government has also communicated today that they plan to open discussion for an R Rating on video games - http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-say-on-video-game-ratings/story-e6frfro0-1225810592521 http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-say-... I doubt it's a timing coincidence.
- adsyoung 17y ago
  Aside from the censorship issues (I know which end of that spectrum Senator Conroy sits and I can't imagine him moving), I cannot believe they are going ahead with a plan that they have been told repeatedly will fail. From the tv debate held here a while back, it all seems to be based on the ridiculous agrument that we have to try something...anything...for the children's sake. No, you really don't have to try things we know will fail. That's just pure idiocy.
  - pmorici 17y ago
    They should just hand out free parental control software and let the parents decide what to do.
    - andrewtj 17y ago
andrewtj 17y ago
I think this is a pretty good indication of where Australia is at - welcome to the nanny-nation. What really grates me about this is the supporters always seem to fall back on saying it protects children. I find this absurd - it amounts to "can't see the problem therefore it doesn't exist".
- ra 17y ago
  Yep. Imagine how much policing $125mm could buy! Imagine how many child abusing monsters could be brought before the law for that kind of money, instead of just using it to close our eyes and pretending that nothing is happening! Absurd.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  What really grates me about this is the supporters always seem to fall back on saying it protects children. That always amuses me too; because it doesn't protect them at all (do Children really browse CP sites? no, they get caught in MSN or other chat rooms.... are they going to block all them ;)) It might limit the CP being viewed; but I highly doubt that will have an appreciable impact in the # of children abused.
  - onceandonlyonce 17y ago
    > do Children really browse CP sites? I registered this one-off account to respond to this point: yes, they do. Or rather, I did, so there exists at least one :) When I was 11, even 18-year-olds tended to look ridiculously alien, anatomically, and were not something I would really consider myself aroused by. Instead, I tried to find porn of girls closer to my age, preferably ones I could fantasize were classmates or somesuch. I was much too introverted to strike up a conversation in a chat room; I just browsed websites until some random server somewhere transmitted the bits I wanted to see. Totally agree that it won't impact abuse, though—the Australians seem to have never heard of Tor.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Thanks for the reply: your something of a statistical anomaly though (no offence intended). This, then, would have "protected" you, however the vast majority of kids looking at porn would be unaffected.
jefftown 17y ago
I sure hope one day we will look back on the early age of the internet and even if the debate over illegal content, piracy and privacy and so on is still on going, we will at least have settled on one solid fact. Internet filtering doesn't work and people that want to access illegal content will get it anyways. What a waste of money.
- dflock 17y ago
  I think that from the point of view of global digital society, if this thing fails spectacularly and publicly, it could be money well spent - if it deters other nations from pouring their taxpayers money down this particular drain. Can anyone think of a way to make it fail loudly, rather than quietly?
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    I don't like this method, but it might work. Maybe someone can help change it to something that doesn't do harm. 1) Setup a site that the government would want to block. 2) Make sure it gets blocked. 3) Have the site track whenever an aussie logs onto it. 4) Send out an email with statistics on a regular basis to someone. You may want more than one site or find a way to use existing sites, etc... You need to make sure your okay with posting whatever material would qualify though. That might be tough.
    - pwmanagerdied 17y ago
      A problem with this idea is that the easiest ways to get around filters (secure tunnels) would generally result in the connection appearing to come from outside of the country.
- clistctrl 17y ago
  maybe todays filters don't work, but you never know what tomorrows filters will look like. For instance it might be possible to build an intelligent filter that blocks based on content not address. Maybe it has image recognition etc.
etherael 17y ago
This makes me quite happy to be moving to Estonia in February. It's not just this, it's a pattern of behavior in general by the Australian government. It's not even a single action, I don't play games that often anymore and the lack of an R18+ classification has almost no effect on me, there are many data points in Australian political actions though which reflect a deeply troubling underlying truth, the government perceives it's citizens as children. My reasons for leaving are many, but the two big ones; primarily the above, but secondarily that I can't help thinking in a large amount of cases with regards to aforementioned citizens, the government is not entirely wrong. So long Australia, and thanks for all the fish.
- mindaugas 17y ago
  You are moving from Australia to Estonia ...? Really impressive. I kind of considered to do the opposite, though I'm not from Estonia.
  - etherael 17y ago
    Sydney vs Tallinn. I dislike; 1) Very high cost of living. 2) Very high tax rate. 3) Poor quality of internet access. 4) Lack of R18+ rating for games. 5) Conroy's clean feed nonsense. 6) Quality of technological innovation in Australia in general. 7) General contempt for civil rights displayed by political parties in Australia. 8) Apathy disguised as being laid back. 9) Hot weather. 10) Sun. I like; 1) Low cost of living. 2) Very low marginal tax rate. 3) High quality of internet access, almost ubiquitous wifi access. 4) One of the highest populations of atheist people in Europe. 5) Largest political party majority ideology is classical liberalism. 6) One of the most advanced technological infrastructure programs in Europe. 7) Straightforward no bullshit populace. 8) Very cold weather. 9) Very little sun. All of that said, you can never really know until you've actually tried it a while, so start February I'm moving to Tallinn for a three month trial, in the event that it wasn't for me was planning on coming back to Sydney but in light of these new developments and a continuing frustration / annoyance with associated events, I think if Tallinn doesn't work out I'll just pick some place else, I have a pretty big laundry list to go through. :)
philk 17y ago
It seems that nowadays you can get pretty much anything through by playing the "think of the children" card even if it won't do anything to protect them. I'm not adverse to interventions that will keep children safer (although I think their vulnerability is overplayed) but it'd be nice to see useless proposals get shot down at least once in a while.
- eru 17y ago
  Don't forget the terrorists and (copyright-) pirates.
caf 17y ago
I've voted ALP all my life, and this is absolutely a votechanger for me.
- prawn 17y ago
  To who though? The crew who were pushing it previously? Remember Alston? Both parties have spoken out against it when in opposition but pushed it while in power? And no one would believe for a second that Abbott wouldn't want this or worse. Family First love it. Xenophon has only gradually shrunk away. I think only the Greens have consistently opposed it. Very frustrating situation.
  - caf 17y ago
    Probably Australian Sex Party first, Greens second.
    - philk 17y ago
      Australian Sex Party first, Democrats second, Greens third. The Greens lost a whole lot of credibility after they ran Clive Hamilton in the Higgins bielection. Clive Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a strident supporter of the content filter and has penned such dreadful op-ed pieces as: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-net-libertarians/story-0-1111118869227 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-ne...
      - prawn 17y ago
        Fair points from both of you, and I wouldn't be unhappy about voting for these mentioned, but you have to worry when your best bet is the Sex Party, your second option is almost dead, and the third hosts a strong supporter of the filter. I was really disappointed to see the ALP pushing this.
Estragon 17y ago
There has to be a business idea in this, somewhere...
scottjackson 17y ago
"Successful technology isn't necessarily successful policy. We're still yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on."[1] -- Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the EFA [1]: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-censorship-plan-gets-the-green-light-20091215-ktzc.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-ce...
Evgeny 17y ago
It's so ironic to move to Australia from Russia ... the former Soviet Union ... just to find myself eventually back to roughly about the same level of government regulation. Hopefully not worse than that. Should I now set my goal to leave Australia for a better place ... but what could it be though? Any ideas?
- demallien 17y ago
  Exaggerating much? An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the 'regulation' of the population as practiced by the KGB. You'll notice for example that you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television for trying to implement this, and nothing will happen to you.
  - Evgeny 17y ago
    An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the 'regulation' of the population as practiced by the KGB Yes and no ... just as the filter is ineffective for someone who knows a bit about how stuff works, there always was the 'black market' in the SU where one could find books, movies, music etc. that were not supposed to be available to Soviet people. Ineffective as it is, it may be just the first step towards a certain direction ... you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television for trying to implement this, and nothing will happen to you Reminds me of a popular joke from Soviet times: American: In the USA you can go to the central square of your town, and shout out "Reagan is a bloody idiot" and nothing will happen to you! Soviet replied: Big deal! In the Soviet Union you, too, can go to the central square of your town, and shout out "Reagan is a bloody idiot" and nothing will happen to you. So, basically, everyone is calling K-Rudd a bloody idiot about the filter, but still it gets implemented.
bbsabelli 17y ago
Wow, the comments here really suck. Filtered != Illegal, so work around it if you need to and tell your family and friends how.
- philk 17y ago
  The thing is we shouldn't be having to work around the filters, and we shouldn't have to put up with degraded performance just because some non-technical people think that it'll protect their kids from the Scary Internet. Also we shouldn't be wasting tax dollars on a boondoggle that achieves nothing. Finally, it's a bit embarrassing to be a citizen of an educated first world nation that is actually implementing something so ill advised.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
supporting freedom feels quite Sisyphean for the student of history.
CWuestefeld 17y ago
How is this different from China's rationalization of their filtering? Is there any objective difference? the Government will not determine what is blacklisted on the internet in Australia, rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as RC for refused classification. This will turn into a convenient way to let lobbyists ("Block the hate speech!" "Block the anticompetitive corporations" and ultimately "Block those who would weaken our country") hide behind a separate entity, giving the politicians a screen to hide behind while continuing to support the overall concept. will require all ISPs to block material which has been refused classification in other countries Umm... who is in charge of classifying the content on the Internet? I know of no one doing so (let alone someone who can be trusted by all interested parties). I think this statement is 100% BS.
shimi 17y ago
For the sake of the kids, Rubbish!!! I feel my kids are safer in the USA than in Australia after the recent developments. and you know, where they burn books...

74 points by xelfer 17y ago

The full report for the Live Pilot is here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-Pilot-Report-High-Res http://www.scribd.com/doc/24108352/ISP-Filtering-Live-Pilot-... The report claims no degredation of speed, however it says that about 1 in 30 legitimate sites will be blocked.

dmnd 17y ago
Some observations from that report: When they tested the filters they reported "less than 3.4%" of innocuous URLs were mistakenly blocked. They say this is too high (no kidding!), but that "blocking rates of below 2 percent would be considered low" and thus acceptable. They also considered performance degradation of 0-10% to be "negligible", and 10-20% to be "minimal". The performance results looked incredibly noisy to me, but they don't report variance or any kind of statistical significance, so I don't think their results mean much.

Salvatore 17y ago

Is this an Orwellian precursor or should we not get too upset about it? Should the Government really be playing internet police?

aarongough 17y ago

Gah. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I am very unhappy with my government, and very glad I moved to Canada.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
Just in time for the Harper Conservatives, eh?
- aarongough 17y ago
  Haha, yes indeed. I will admit that a large part of my satisfaction comes from the fact that I no longer have to be involved. I am not on the electoral roll in Australia (where voting is mandatory) and I can't vote in Canada... I guess I'm taking a 'hands-off' approach...

JacobAldridge 17y ago

What a crock of shit. As an Aussie, I am disgusted that this is seen as a viable solution for an advanced democracy. It riles me on all sorts of censorship levels, even before it pisses me off as a taxpayer that a system so readily circumvented will be the subject of public spending. I honestly thought the 'trial' was going to be used to demonstrate what a pathetic and short-minded idea this was, so that it could be quietly swept under the carpet. Instead, I can only assume the trial was always intended to arrive at a foregone conclusion. Extreme conservatives - who won't ever support the current Labor government - must be delighted. And there will be a whole swathe of middle-class, swing-voting families relieved that their children will be protected, until they discover their 12 year old surfing the net around the filter just to see what sites like donkeyporn.com and ruddisacommunist.org (sites I probably made up) are all about. At that point they'll be wondering why the government couldn't spend $125.8 million over four years on reducing the massive deficit or stimulating jobs. Edit: The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - the government has also communicated today that they plan to open discussion for an R Rating on video games - http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-say-on-video-game-ratings/story-e6frfro0-1225810592521 http://www.news.com.au/technology/australians-get-their-say-... I doubt it's a timing coincidence.

adsyoung 17y ago
Aside from the censorship issues (I know which end of that spectrum Senator Conroy sits and I can't imagine him moving), I cannot believe they are going ahead with a plan that they have been told repeatedly will fail. From the tv debate held here a while back, it all seems to be based on the ridiculous agrument that we have to try something...anything...for the children's sake. No, you really don't have to try things we know will fail. That's just pure idiocy.
- pmorici 17y ago
  They should just hand out free parental control software and let the parents decide what to do.
  - andrewtj 17y ago

andrewtj 17y ago

I think this is a pretty good indication of where Australia is at - welcome to the nanny-nation. What really grates me about this is the supporters always seem to fall back on saying it protects children. I find this absurd - it amounts to "can't see the problem therefore it doesn't exist".

ra 17y ago
Yep. Imagine how much policing $125mm could buy! Imagine how many child abusing monsters could be brought before the law for that kind of money, instead of just using it to close our eyes and pretending that nothing is happening! Absurd.
ErrantX 17y ago
What really grates me about this is the supporters always seem to fall back on saying it protects children. That always amuses me too; because it doesn't protect them at all (do Children really browse CP sites? no, they get caught in MSN or other chat rooms.... are they going to block all them ;)) It might limit the CP being viewed; but I highly doubt that will have an appreciable impact in the # of children abused.
- onceandonlyonce 17y ago
  > do Children really browse CP sites? I registered this one-off account to respond to this point: yes, they do. Or rather, I did, so there exists at least one :) When I was 11, even 18-year-olds tended to look ridiculously alien, anatomically, and were not something I would really consider myself aroused by. Instead, I tried to find porn of girls closer to my age, preferably ones I could fantasize were classmates or somesuch. I was much too introverted to strike up a conversation in a chat room; I just browsed websites until some random server somewhere transmitted the bits I wanted to see. Totally agree that it won't impact abuse, though—the Australians seem to have never heard of Tor.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Thanks for the reply: your something of a statistical anomaly though (no offence intended). This, then, would have "protected" you, however the vast majority of kids looking at porn would be unaffected.

jefftown 17y ago

I sure hope one day we will look back on the early age of the internet and even if the debate over illegal content, piracy and privacy and so on is still on going, we will at least have settled on one solid fact. Internet filtering doesn't work and people that want to access illegal content will get it anyways. What a waste of money.

dflock 17y ago
I think that from the point of view of global digital society, if this thing fails spectacularly and publicly, it could be money well spent - if it deters other nations from pouring their taxpayers money down this particular drain. Can anyone think of a way to make it fail loudly, rather than quietly?
- roundsquare 17y ago
  I don't like this method, but it might work. Maybe someone can help change it to something that doesn't do harm. 1) Setup a site that the government would want to block. 2) Make sure it gets blocked. 3) Have the site track whenever an aussie logs onto it. 4) Send out an email with statistics on a regular basis to someone. You may want more than one site or find a way to use existing sites, etc... You need to make sure your okay with posting whatever material would qualify though. That might be tough.
  - pwmanagerdied 17y ago
    A problem with this idea is that the easiest ways to get around filters (secure tunnels) would generally result in the connection appearing to come from outside of the country.
clistctrl 17y ago
maybe todays filters don't work, but you never know what tomorrows filters will look like. For instance it might be possible to build an intelligent filter that blocks based on content not address. Maybe it has image recognition etc.

etherael 17y ago

This makes me quite happy to be moving to Estonia in February. It's not just this, it's a pattern of behavior in general by the Australian government. It's not even a single action, I don't play games that often anymore and the lack of an R18+ classification has almost no effect on me, there are many data points in Australian political actions though which reflect a deeply troubling underlying truth, the government perceives it's citizens as children. My reasons for leaving are many, but the two big ones; primarily the above, but secondarily that I can't help thinking in a large amount of cases with regards to aforementioned citizens, the government is not entirely wrong. So long Australia, and thanks for all the fish.

mindaugas 17y ago
You are moving from Australia to Estonia ...? Really impressive. I kind of considered to do the opposite, though I'm not from Estonia.
- etherael 17y ago
  Sydney vs Tallinn. I dislike; 1) Very high cost of living. 2) Very high tax rate. 3) Poor quality of internet access. 4) Lack of R18+ rating for games. 5) Conroy's clean feed nonsense. 6) Quality of technological innovation in Australia in general. 7) General contempt for civil rights displayed by political parties in Australia. 8) Apathy disguised as being laid back. 9) Hot weather. 10) Sun. I like; 1) Low cost of living. 2) Very low marginal tax rate. 3) High quality of internet access, almost ubiquitous wifi access. 4) One of the highest populations of atheist people in Europe. 5) Largest political party majority ideology is classical liberalism. 6) One of the most advanced technological infrastructure programs in Europe. 7) Straightforward no bullshit populace. 8) Very cold weather. 9) Very little sun. All of that said, you can never really know until you've actually tried it a while, so start February I'm moving to Tallinn for a three month trial, in the event that it wasn't for me was planning on coming back to Sydney but in light of these new developments and a continuing frustration / annoyance with associated events, I think if Tallinn doesn't work out I'll just pick some place else, I have a pretty big laundry list to go through. :)

philk 17y ago

It seems that nowadays you can get pretty much anything through by playing the "think of the children" card even if it won't do anything to protect them. I'm not adverse to interventions that will keep children safer (although I think their vulnerability is overplayed) but it'd be nice to see useless proposals get shot down at least once in a while.

eru 17y ago
Don't forget the terrorists and (copyright-) pirates.

caf 17y ago

I've voted ALP all my life, and this is absolutely a votechanger for me.

prawn 17y ago
To who though? The crew who were pushing it previously? Remember Alston? Both parties have spoken out against it when in opposition but pushed it while in power? And no one would believe for a second that Abbott wouldn't want this or worse. Family First love it. Xenophon has only gradually shrunk away. I think only the Greens have consistently opposed it. Very frustrating situation.
- caf 17y ago
  Probably Australian Sex Party first, Greens second.
  - philk 17y ago
    Australian Sex Party first, Democrats second, Greens third. The Greens lost a whole lot of credibility after they ran Clive Hamilton in the Higgins bielection. Clive Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a strident supporter of the content filter and has penned such dreadful op-ed pieces as: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-net-libertarians/story-0-1111118869227 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/web-doesnt-belong-to-ne...
    - prawn 17y ago
      Fair points from both of you, and I wouldn't be unhappy about voting for these mentioned, but you have to worry when your best bet is the Sex Party, your second option is almost dead, and the third hosts a strong supporter of the filter. I was really disappointed to see the ALP pushing this.

Estragon 17y ago

There has to be a business idea in this, somewhere...

scottjackson 17y ago

"Successful technology isn't necessarily successful policy. We're still yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on."[1] -- Colin Jacobs, spokesman for the EFA [1]: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-censorship-plan-gets-the-green-light-20091215-ktzc.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-ce...

Evgeny 17y ago

It's so ironic to move to Australia from Russia ... the former Soviet Union ... just to find myself eventually back to roughly about the same level of government regulation. Hopefully not worse than that. Should I now set my goal to leave Australia for a better place ... but what could it be though? Any ideas?

demallien 17y ago
Exaggerating much? An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the 'regulation' of the population as practiced by the KGB. You'll notice for example that you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television for trying to implement this, and nothing will happen to you.
- Evgeny 17y ago
  An ineffective porn filter is a long way from the 'regulation' of the population as practiced by the KGB Yes and no ... just as the filter is ineffective for someone who knows a bit about how stuff works, there always was the 'black market' in the SU where one could find books, movies, music etc. that were not supposed to be available to Soviet people. Ineffective as it is, it may be just the first step towards a certain direction ... you can openly call K-Rudd a bloody idiot on national television for trying to implement this, and nothing will happen to you Reminds me of a popular joke from Soviet times: American: In the USA you can go to the central square of your town, and shout out "Reagan is a bloody idiot" and nothing will happen to you! Soviet replied: Big deal! In the Soviet Union you, too, can go to the central square of your town, and shout out "Reagan is a bloody idiot" and nothing will happen to you. So, basically, everyone is calling K-Rudd a bloody idiot about the filter, but still it gets implemented.

bbsabelli 17y ago

Wow, the comments here really suck. Filtered != Illegal, so work around it if you need to and tell your family and friends how.

philk 17y ago
The thing is we shouldn't be having to work around the filters, and we shouldn't have to put up with degraded performance just because some non-technical people think that it'll protect their kids from the Scary Internet. Also we shouldn't be wasting tax dollars on a boondoggle that achieves nothing. Finally, it's a bit embarrassing to be a citizen of an educated first world nation that is actually implementing something so ill advised.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

supporting freedom feels quite Sisyphean for the student of history.

CWuestefeld 17y ago

How is this different from China's rationalization of their filtering? Is there any objective difference? the Government will not determine what is blacklisted on the internet in Australia, rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as RC for refused classification. This will turn into a convenient way to let lobbyists ("Block the hate speech!" "Block the anticompetitive corporations" and ultimately "Block those who would weaken our country") hide behind a separate entity, giving the politicians a screen to hide behind while continuing to support the overall concept. will require all ISPs to block material which has been refused classification in other countries Umm... who is in charge of classifying the content on the Internet? I know of no one doing so (let alone someone who can be trusted by all interested parties). I think this statement is 100% BS.

shimi 17y ago

For the sake of the kids, Rubbish!!! I feel my kids are safer in the USA than in Australia after the recent developments. and you know, where they burn books...