Rudd’s new IIT (Ignorant Information Technology) Policy
Normally I’d refrain from making any specific comments about party politics federally on this blog, but today I had to make an exception.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276;fp;16;fpid;0
The whole thing about federal politics was last year everyone just wanted to get rid of howard, and fair enough, he was becoming far too cocky and lost touch with the average man on the street, along came Rudd who promised the world, a populist and at the time seemed to be a good option, he started the term well, and then has managed to continually screw things up from there, the alcohol tax, which was nothing more than a revenue raiser, and as the people on the ground know, was a complete balls up in deterring “binge drinking” and other anti-social behaviour.
People just changed their habits, they simply outsmarted dumb policy.
Now Mr.Conroy and our friends at the Rudd government have decided to top that by coming up with dumber policy, this policy is the concept of filtering the internet.
During the federal election last year, the howard government wrongly at the time made labor out to be communists, which in my mind was extreme and just plain wrong, yet, nearly 12 months later we’ve been dealt up with an internet censorship policy that, the only country it compares to is China itself.
The Rudd Government is proposing to filter internet access for every Australian in the country, whether you like it or not. They will be offering a child friendly based filter and an “opt out” option(which is still filtered) where you can have a little more access then your 12yr old.
There are a ridiculous number of problems with such a proposal, The obvious one is choice, we are adults, we are human beings and we have the right to make responsible decisions for ourselves and our children and thus view whatever we damn please on the internet.
Controlling what people can and cannot view is a communist policy, plain and simple, it is anti-democratic in every way possible.
The other problem is that it’ll block some sites which we should have full access to view, filters are not perfect, more so, in relation to the filters as if Australia’s internet speeds weren’t slow enough already compared to the rest of the world, well guess what? your internet just got slower. Filtering takes time, and the end result is the censorship would create additional problems with broadband in Australia that we just don’t need.
The final thing I’d like to point out is that, as with all good dumb policy, smart people will just work around it, there are a number of services on the internet, that you can sign up with and utilize a proxy server to send and receive your information, so for example, you can have your data proxied via the US, which means whatever can be accessed there, you’ll have access to, high school kids have been using this trick for years, to get around school filters, and I suspect the next day, if this legislation gets through, you’ll have tutorials floating around the internet on how to get around the filter.
Assuming those tutorials aren’t filtered.
It’s been proven world wide any government that has tried to legislate the internet has always failed miserably, The US and their Net neutrality act is one such recent example.
But the bottom line is this, it’s just plain idiotic and I would suggest that the common man would already know and be aware of this fact, and it just goes to show just how out of touch with reality federal politics is, and I can only pray for the day that decisions affecting the common man, are actually made by the common man, and not by a circus full of clowns.
Cr Ben Smith