Minister: BitTorrent Will Not Be Blocked By Aussie Filter
Written by enigmax on September 17, 2009After Australia’s Senator Stephen Conroy’s plans to filter the Internet earned him the title of Internet Villain of the Year, today there is more chin-scratching over the plans. Speaking yesterday, the Senator Conroy said there has never been any suggestion that the government could or would block P2P traffic.
Last year, Australia’s Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy welcomed a report demonstrating advances in Internet content filtering technologies.
“The Internet is a wonderful tool that is delivering benefits to increasing numbers of Australian families but the Government wants to find ways to make it safer, particularly for children. This report will assist the Government to deliver on its election commitment to create a safer online environment,” he said.
Ostensibly to protect children online, ISP filtering is just one part of the Australian government’s increasingly costly plan, but it has been roundly criticized for its projected lack of effectiveness.
Additionally there had been concerns that in trying to create a system to filter out material on the Internet, eventually such a system could be used by the “back door” to target copyright infringement issues too.
However, in March 2009 documents which appeared to be the ACMA-maintaned website blacklist leaked onto the Internet. From a list of more than 2,400 sites, just 2 torrent sites were included so maybe blocking torrent sites was never on the agenda.
Interestingly, Stephen Conroy now says that blocking or filtering P2P traffic was never a government target, even though many people were under the impression that it was.
According to a new report this morning, Senator Ludlam of the Greens said that Conroy had previously indicated that P2P filtering technology existed and would be trialled as part of the overall filtering plans.
In response and accusing Ludlam of misleading the public, yesterday Senator Conroy said, “..there has never been a suggestion by this government that peer-to-peer traffic would or could be blocked by our filter.”
Senator Ludlam said Conroy was “moving the goalposts” and that the whole filtering plan was misguided and had riled Internet users.
In reponse, Conroy’s office said that when he said P2P filtering had never been considered by the government, he was referring to “the mandatory part of the filter proposal.” ISP filtering would be an option for ISPs to consider and they could put forward their own proposals if they choose.
Blocking websites is not going to be an effective solution against the menace of child abuse. It is the individuals who operate and frequent such sites that need to be targeted and punished to the full extent of the law but due to a serious lack of funding, these misguided filtering “solutions” will always seem attractive to those who simply don’t understand how easily they are circumvented.
Previously: Bram Cohen To Deliver BitTorrent Live Streaming
Next: Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol ‘Bestseller’ on BitTorrent
57 Responses
Bittorrent or not, the fact this bs is still going ahead laughable, the entire thing is a political stunt set to go horribly wrong
Perhaps we should just replace the entire world’s politicians with knowledgeable and a bit younger crowd.
Amen to that.
I have found that programs that are used to “protect/block” kids from certain areas of the internet ultimately fail in the long term, what they do succeed in doing is creating a next gen hacker,… curiosity will not be stopped, tell a child “no” and you will have posed a challenge to the more “curious/adaptive” kids…
Keeping the child “sheltered” is not keeping the child “safe” allowing the child to explore, learrn and experience all of it,is the best way to “protect” that child…
As for the P2P blocking, LoL, sounds like the guy has had 2nd thoughts and is trying to cover up…
Perhaps we should just drag the
sorry asses of the entire world’s
corrupt politician pigs to proper
scaffolds, and then replace with knowledgeable and a bit younger crowd.
Big/Rich governments around the world always find something to waste taxpayer money on – this is Australia’s waste pet project, Sweden had one recently where they funded a “feminist porn” project.
Bunch of morons.
Stephen Conroy is a tool. There are ALWAYS ways around everything… This whole filtering project is a complete waste of money to all Australian taxpayers, myself being one.
What good is a high speed connection if I can’t watch all the porn I want with ease?
http://www.Adult-Facebook.com
Don’t trust them because they lie for votes.
2 (redmarine) said:
“Perhaps we should just replace the entire world’s politicians with knowledgeable and a bit younger crowd”
————
Exactly… The actual generation of politicians are the most ignorant and incompetent persons, as almost all the useless and corrupt generation of individuals between 60 to 70 years of age on average, who lamentably are the majority of guys in executives and political positions now.
One of the things I hate most of this generation of old guys is their total incapacity to adapt to new ideas, concepts, and new generations. They are unable to evolve and adapt to the new times and exigencies, and the only thing that these old pigs know to do very efficiently is to phohibit and disqualify all that that they don’t comprehend.
I am convinced that the majority of the problems on the world are caused by evil decisions of these old pigs, and that the world will be a better place for living when these individuals disappear and die and the new generations that now are between 20 and 40 years of age assume the positions of leadership and power.
Fucking still pissed off at this cunt, I thought that these people were meant to represent the Australian public. Why the hell are they doing what their people don’t want?
They are public servants NOT our lords and masters. They answer to us. This is proof that we shouldn’t have voted Labor. God I hope that the Pirate Party Australia is able to become registered soon.
Obligatory link – http://pirateparty.org.au/
Now that sucks big time.
Aussie already blocked too many sites, it’s just better to block everything and enjoy.
TorrentDay – Your Gateway To The Scene.
http://www.torrentday.com
“Blocking websites is not going to be an effective solution against the menace of child abuse. It is the individuals who operate and frequent such sites that need to be targeted and punished to the full extent of the law but due to a serious lack of funding, these misguided filtering “solutions” will always seem attractive to those who simply don’t understand how easily they are circumvented.”
Truer words have seldomly been said!
fuc_ker aussies go fu_ck your mom and sisters and produce babies when there is no torrents to download and of course beat innocent over seas students fu_cking racist country !
I couldn’t even get thru this article.
No offense to enigmax – not your fault.
It is the responsibility of PARENTS to TEACH THEIR CHILDREN about the ways of the world. Not the governments job wasting tax payer dollars on baby-sitting a bunch of peoples kids.
It would be hard pressed for this to happen here in the States on that level – as it would clash with our governed core rights — First Ammendment.
I get so sick of laws being put in place because some stupid people spawned and don’t know how to take care of their offspring – then the rest of society ends up suffering for their incompetence.
@www.TorrentDay.com -
I agree. With all the blocking Australia is doing already – second only to China (probably not factual) – but they both for that matter should just completely shut down the internet in their respective countries and this would put an end to children in Australia being subjected to filtering issues and people in China being exposed to “propoganda”.
”
“Blocking websites is not going to be an effective solution against the menace of child abuse. It is the individuals who operate and frequent such sites that need to be targeted and punished to the full extent of the law but due to a serious lack of funding, these misguided filtering “solutions” will always seem attractive to those who simply don’t understand how easily they are circumvented.”
Truer words have seldomly been said!
”
Yep – just sweep the problem under the rug and pretend it’s not there instead of dealing with the real problems head on – awesome!
btw dont goto dslreports.com/teksavvy and suggest that teksavvy get a new host for tech support
YOU will get banned
this public service announcement brought to you be those that can read , are not retards and know the difference between
an error in firefox and some other shit.
Not blocked .. while except for those 2 .. and the other we might add when we feel like it. But other than those .. not blocked
Just kill all the children would be cheaper then you don’t need a filter.
Best thing is to educate parents how to protect there children from the big bad world out there on the internet, rather then trying to generally ban certain ‘not wanted’ content which is of course impossible to do without a complete internet ban.
there is of course their , silly me
16 Sep 17, 2009 at 17:35 by billy bob wrote:
‘Yep – just sweep the problem under the rug and pretend it’s not there instead of dealing with the real problems head on – awesome!’
you talk about the ban plan of the government I presume ?
I know, why you are all complaining about it, but I don’t really see this as a bad thing… Blocking kiddie porn and the such… Sure, they could change their mind really fast and block all of Aussi from the globe like China and North Korea does, but I don’t see them being, quite that stupid.
Wait!!
How is it even possible to block bit torrent unless you force all ISPs to close every single possible port aside from the ones used by services (e.g. 80-HTTP, 21-FTP, etc) much like many schools and offices do.
I won’t begin to describe the problems this would cause because not even online games (that require open ports) would work.
The only way I can think of doing this is to filter out tracker requests using pattern matching but even that is far fetched.
Anyhow, I’m glad to see that they aren’t even going to attempt this because that’s just insane from a technical perspective.
To “indian”At least we don`t have a “caste” system which is one of bullying and control Enjoy your (I hope) short stay here before you return to your own country of supremasists and lackeys.Or could it be that you intend to remain?Could it be that you are on the lower echelons of the caste system back home yourself????????????????
Politicians almost invariably state the exact opposite of the truth right up until the point enough information comes to light that the lie can no longer be maintained.
Government: We want control.
Governments a merely individuals who are elected by the majority to do the will of the majority.The sickness comes in when they decide that they somehow,because of their positions,have magically become enlightened.At this point it appears to enter their thinking that they now know better than anyone what is good for them!Someone who actually “WAS” enlightened was the one who once said.”There are none so dangerous in the world,as those who take it upon themselves,to know what is better for a person,than they do for themselves!!!!!
2 torrent sites blocked, well that is just the beginning if this goes through and you(pathetic peasants who let your govt walk all over you) will pay for it.
TBH I can see that happening in some countries soon, the RIAA and MPAA will in the future get Bit Torrent illegal.
the filtering system will cost millions to set up and maintain and it can be circumvented easily
better spend the money on dedicated child protection services to hunt down the evil people
Exact thing happened where I live. Bottom line is, if people want to reach a website, whether it’s blocked or not, they will reach it. There are several ways to get around it. We’re in the 21th century noobs.
thats the problem they lure us with innocent ideas “oh its to protect the children” next thing u know your blog is being filtered because its against a government.
if they only live up for it to protect the children etc then it would be good
Frankly, with the rest of this going on, P2P filtering is the least of Australia’s worries.
I’m not buying this “protecting the children” crap. If parents don’t want their kids to see porn or violence, it’s easy enough to set up filters at home and there are tutorials on the net if they don’t know how. In the case of child abuse images, start investing more money in the police or intelligence agencies or whoever deals with this sort of thing in Australia. Give it a while, Australians will slowly see anti-government sites disappearing from the internet. It’s the only reason that that arsehole Conroy could want to censor the internet. I’ve read those blacklists, there is more than just illegal stuff there, there are some perfectly legal adult porn sites and sites such as Wikileaks.
all p2p should be blocked…no questions asked.
It never was about the children.
Besides no government should be allowed that kind of control where there is no check and balances and is all arbitrary.
If people want to protect their children just use the firewall to block everything and let pass just what you think is ok. It is not that difficult even for the layman and even if it was I’m sure companies would soon explore the market to sell solutions that do it automatically with and opt out being that you don’t need to buy it if you don’t like it.
This filters is for censorship not for the children.
What parents let the state take responsibility for their children?
Wow the EU part of the world seems to be going through a domino effect of people people taking their freedom away.
# 15, by billy bob
“With all the blocking Australia is doing already – second only to China (probably not factual)”
There is currently very minimal blocking in Australia, (not even 2500 sites), and nothing that could not be circumvented in about 4.5 seconds by your average 13 yo boy.
I am as opposed as anybody to this stupid & dangerous mandatory filtering scheme. But to say that Australia’s current ineffectual blocking system is “second only to China” is just wrong.
The current situation in Australia for net users is actually okay, by world standards. It is what it might become that is the worry.
But I would not worry. This filtering policy is pretty well dead in the water. Massif Kaputs. Conroy is just trying to back out of it and save a little face, though it is a bit late for that.
“The Internet is a wonderful tool”
didnt have to read past those words to know this guys is a retard. the fact that he considers the internet a tool is while he will ultimatly fail it contains many tools such as wikipedia but the intenet itself is not a tool is is a community of people just like a country so saying the internet is a wonderful tool is just like saying that America is a wonderful tool. this guys really needs about five people holding his hand and making sure he doesn’t say stupid things like this but i imagine that he is like most people that need this the most in that he flaunts his ignorance mistaking it for some desirable quality.
Of course it’s not peer to peer traffic per se, such a thing would mean even Skype. Nah, it’s only filtering out or throttling the traffic of evil torrent protocol.
Stephen Conroy had this to say on the DBCDE “blog” (which is no longer online):
“Technology is improving all the time. Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.”
Conroy is flat-out lying if he says p2p was never targetted.
Strike a win for Anonymous and HAR?
@Sendaii
Wikileaks isn’t on, and never has been on, the black list.
I can still get on it from my local library!
bottom line is that politicians and the powerful want to retain control of what information is fed to the masses, the internet posses a huge threat to “their propaganda”, thats why they will try to regain control of the net, but they are playing catch-up to a cat which is half out the bag
Btw, under the filter trails, http://www.torrentfreak.com was blocked from Optus…..
Australian governments have a history of getting the “thin edge of the wedge” passed through parliament and expanding things later. Many examples that spring to mind are in taxation. Don’t be fooled into thinking that internet filtering won’t be expanded once it starts
Damn, if piracy continues, I won’t be able to pay for my 2 Ferraris and seaside mansion.
FML
What about the six ferraris and three mansions in “that”tax free haven of yours??????????
it won’t work. the best way is to tell the parents how to take care of their kids from internet content, rather than trying to generally ban certain ‘not wanted’ content which is not possible to do without disconnecting the internet.
Sunny @
http://www.torrentkit.com
Conroy is a slimy weasel. GTFO!
But that’s ridiculous! If you’re not going to block P2P, you might as well not have a filter at all. P2P probably accounts for about 90% of porn trafficking. (No references, I pulled this one out of my ass.)
But yeah, seriously, Australia shouldn’t have a filter at all.
Filters are prone to blocking innocent and legitimate sites that can include:
Breast cancer
Cock fighting
Pussy willow
The ass eventually got tired from carrying the heavy load
etc…
@40
But America is a tool. ;-)
Lets see instead of spending hard working peoples money why not let the parents take responsibility for their own children. As a mother of 3 teens I put a program on my computer that tells me what my kids do. They had to agree to my terms before I allowed internet in my home. To think spending all this money on something that will not work is a waste. It is just a stupid plan. The predators will adapt and still be predators. I am guessing in this but I have to think they have prevented more crime by catching these guys on the internet. I mean how hard is it to teach your children that there are evil people out there. Spend the time and money tracking these scumbags down. Let the people take care of their own kids. It is the kids that are not monitored and not shown the evil that are more at risk. If you communicate and watch closely your chances are slim to end up with some predator trying to reach your child. In the ned all you can do is your best but these extreme measures are just too costly and invasive. Oh and one other thing, make the punishment for these crimes much more than it is currently so when you do catch them they are not turned back out into society. JMO
Don’t know if it has been said already, but here is a screencap of where Conroy said it:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/372321/Screen%20shot%202009-09-20%20at%208.34.15%20PM%202.png
Regards,
Yagan Kiely PPAU
LIAR
1 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.