"Scrap the internet filter, give the cash to bushfire survivors"

Send to a friend Print

Help more people find out about this story

Del.icio.us
StumbleUpon

Dan Warne10 February 2009, 6:00 AM

Members of the online community are calling for the government to scrap the unpopular government internet filter and give the $44 million to bushfire survivors.


Senator Conroy has announced today is Internet Safety Day, part of the Rudd government's cyber safety spending bonanza.

According to the Senator, the day will be full of fun activities for school students organised by the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA).

School kids will learn safety skills for social networking; there will be a new cyber-bullying initiative for primary school children, and an exciting Cybersmart Detectives Game will be launched in schools in New South Wales.

The cost will be $125.8 million for an overall "cyber-safety plan", which includes $44 million for the government's compulsory internet filter pilot for all Australian internet connections.

Members of online forums were suspicious that the government might choose "Internet Safety Day" to covertly turn on internet filters on their connections, binding participating ISPs to secrecy.

The announcement of Internet Safety Day -- like the internet filtering plan -- proved unpopular with members of Australia's online community, with the Twitter micro-blogging service full of repeated calls for the government to scrap the filter and give the $44 million to bushfire survivors.

Senator Conroy's online nemesis, Fake Stephen Conroy said that this year's Internet Safety Day would be a one-off, because next year, once the internet filter was implemented, "every day will be Safer Internet Day."

Fake Conroy was also contemplating whether the government should block Google through the internet filter, as "Google returns 271,000 results for the question, "How do I start a bushfire?"

He also came up with a new rationale for why the internet filter would work: "the demand for whale has dropped substantially in Australia as a result of a ban on whale meat."

Finally, he explained why the internet filter trial was so severely delayed. "The trial would have started weeks ago if MS Project wasn't so hard to use. Where's the "Start Project" button? All I see is goofy charts."

Fake Stephen Conroy has been joined by Fake Kevin Rudd and Fake Malcolm Turnbull on Twitter.


Post your comment



Comments

 RSS feed Email alert

NetR@nger (Cornerstone member):

How many times do these people need to be told ?.This internet filter ISNT going to work.They are trying to CONTROL what you see.Not on my watch !!.
(How about we all forget about this for now and start getting resources on the ground in vic asap)

10 February 2009, 8:11 AM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

FostWare (User):

Quoting NetR@nger:
How many times do these people need to be told ?.This ISNT going to work.



That would require Conroy's crackpot backers to either run out of money or see reason - neither of which is likely to happen soon.


10 February 2009, 9:04 AM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Minutman (New user):

Every birocracy is its own purpose for existance. They do not see the reason for their existance to be serving the community. Community is just their obstacle - the enemy No.1. They only know that they have a budget that has to be spent, otherwise they will loose the money and the purpose to exist. They do not understand anything beyond that. It is like a paranoid anthilope that runs in front of an imaginary lion.

10 February 2009, 9:14 AM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Pretty good idea. It's going to take a few million to cover the medical costs alone, and who knows how many million to cover building new houses for everyone who lost theirs.

10 February 2009, 9:15 AM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

charles81 (New user):

The strange thing is I think he's actually on the right track by educating kids at school to the dangers. The Government can find millions from just about any project. Throw the $44 million into more education and forget the blasted Internet filter.

People can argue all they want about how this is an act against freedom. The real argument is that it simply won't work. I'm not even going to get into the fact that people can get around it if they really want to search that stuff, the real problem is that the websites which are banned are going to get around it. They hire some of the best hackers and security experts on the planet. If there's 4% of banned sites which aren't filtered, the other 96% are simply going to restructure their website so they're also part of that 4%. Much like spammers might change the word 'viagra' to 'vi@gra' to avoid being filtered, they will do the same. Then the government will adjust it's filters to keep catching them and each time they do so, they'll block more legitimate sites out there who will loose thousands, if not millions, for each day it takes the government to fix the unwarranted block.

Get the hint man, IT WON'T WORK!

10 February 2009, 12:26 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

garryyne (New user):

yes i agree with that idea, give the money to the people who really need the help!!
Internet can be easy to secure if need be, switch it off if you cant trust your own family to be responsible

10 February 2009, 1:06 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Halcon (Advanced member):

This communist government is again trying to do what they want against the wishes of the people.
The Internet should be free of any kind of interference of any kind.
These bunch of inept politicians are robbing $$$ from the Australian people and easily filling their pockets with a lot of money.
Politics is the art of robbery and that's what every aspirant to the government offices want to do, deceive you and me so they get away with that.
These morons are totally dishonourable!

10 February 2009, 3:08 PM (9 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

rjsquires (User):

I totally agree with this article and the Australian "Communist" Labor Party will lose the next election...it's Workchoices all over again!!

11 February 2009, 11:22 PM (8 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Not signed in
anonymous user Anonymous user


Tags