Porn filters could cause 22% drop in speed
And that's just one reason you don't want to see the Labor government get its Internet filter off the ground, argues Nathan Taylor.
It’s pretty fair to say that when it comes to Internet policy, the Australian government has been very consistent in its stupidity. In fact, that maxim can also be extended to computer games and really anything technology related.
The most recent subject of government stupidity is, without a doubt, the plan to censor the Internet in Australia which the Labor government first announced in December last year and has been working on ever since. Under the $125.8 million government Plan for Cyber Safety, all ISPs will be required to implement two layers of network filtering.
One will be an adult filter, designed to protect children from Internet pornography and other “net nasties”. The “clean feed” filter will supposedly block access to any sites with that kind of content. Adults who want to will be able to opt out of this filter.
The second layer will be a mandatory “illegal content” filter that nobody will be able to opt out of – this one is probably the bigger concern. It’s not entirely clear what comprises “illegal content” yet. We don’t know, for example, whether that filter will extend to BitTorrent sites like Mininova or whether it be applied more judiciously.
Why?
What I don’t get is why the Labor government is pursuing this course. Could it be some kind of sop to get the senate member of the Family First party onside? It certainly doesn’t seem to be a broadly popular idea, any more than the failed NetAlert scheme or the laughably ineffective Online Content Co-Regulatory Scheme amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act in 1999.
It has certainly raised a furore online, with a number of sites such as this one organising online protests against the plan. I can understand why – while I don’t have a problem with blocking truly objectionable sites (child pornography comes to mind), I don’t really trust the government to decide what is objectionable.
I also don’t want a mechanism in place for anybody with a beef and the ear of somebody in power to block a site that they don’t like. You can bet that the various copyright agencies will be lobbying hard to get a whole bunch of BitTorrent sites blocked and possibly even get BitTorrent traffic filtered on the spurious assumption that all BT traffic is piracy.
Internet performance is also a concern. An ACMA study earlier this year found that current filtering technology has a very nasty effect on network efficiency, and isn't that effective in any case.
Electronic Frontiers Australia provides a summary of that study here. It said that of the six filters tested by ACMA:
• One filter caused a 22% drop in speed even when it was *not* performing filtering;
• Only one of the six filters had an acceptable level of performance (a drop of 2% in a laboratory trial), the others causing drops in speed of between 21% and 86%;
• The most accurate filters were often the slowest;
• All filters tested had problems with under-blocking, allowing access to between 2% and 13% of material that they should have blocked; and
• All filters tested had serious problems with over-blocking, wrongly blocking access to between 1.3% and 7.8% of the websites tested.
Now, all that being said, I’m actually not too worried about the government's plan at this stage. These schemes have a way of fizzling out, as the government learns once again that taming the Internet is incredibly difficult and generally not very popular outside of wingnut conservative circles.
My guess is that the ISPs will probably end up implementing something half-baked(designed merely to meet the government’s minimum requirements), users will pretty much universally switch off their adult content filters, and very, very few sites will actually be added to the mandatory no-opt-out filter.
The end result will probably be that our Internet experience won’t really change that much, although we and our ISPs will have spent millions of dollars finding that out.
Other Blog Entries written by Nathan Taylor:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comments: 2
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ErgoWeSurrender
Oct 23, 2008 5:27 PM
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This Labor goverment seems intent on copying the policies of China. Maybe our Mandarin speaking Prime Minister is pushing his conservative views a little too hard? I do agree that given Rudd's track record on almost everything- we'll most likely hear lots of rhetoric but hopefully very little real action to get anything done. But what a waste of money! It's a crying shame the Rudd gov't isn't spending the money instead on releasing Australians from Tel$tra's strangle-hold on our Internet infrastructure. I'm not sure the EFF will be much help in preserving our freedoms. I have faith in the knowledge that this project will as you say 'fizzle out' in true Rudd style. |
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grinder350
Dec 24, 2008 12:24 AM
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voted Laboure once for our union crying foul of john howard they didnt mention this stuff the union stuff laboure come the next election. |