Australia’s ‘Clean Feed’ – ridiculous.

Ashley has already posted about it, and now that I’ve finally read up on the topic a little, I’m totally flabbergasted at the sheer ignorance on display from Senator Conroy and the other MPs concerning this initiative — not to mention that of Australians in general, but I suppose like all such things, the mainstream news hasn’t exactly been clamouring all over it for a story.

You can find everything you need to combat this proposal at NoCleanFeed.com. Click on the ‘Take Action’ link to get started.

I wrote a letter to Senator Conroy, which went a little something like this:

Dear Minister,

As an Australian and an internet user, I have serious concerns about your
mandatory Internet filtering initiative.

Given the importance your Government has attached to modernising
Australia’s broadband network, pursuing a policy that can only slow down
and increase the costs of home internet access seems misguided at best.
Australian households are diverse, and most do not have young children, so
mandating a one-size-fits-all clean feed approach will not serve the
public well. I don’t think it is the Government’s role to decide what’s
appropriate for me, and neither do most Australians.

Given the amount of Internet content available, the Government will never
be able to classify it all and filters will always result in an
unacceptable level of over-blocking. I feel that the time and money could
be spent in better ways both to protect children and improve Australia’s
digital infrastructure. Australian parents need better education about the
risks their children face online. Trying to rid the Internet of adult
content is futile, and can only distract from that mission.

Aside from that even is the near-impossible technological problems that
this system will inevitably face. By design, this system is destined to
fail.

- limited to 12Mbit throughput right from inception. This is a diametrical
difference to all of the Governments promises of “faster broadband” for
Australia. Many Australians already have access to, and are happily using,
up to 24Mbit connections.
- based on blacklisting technology. This is the big one: by design,
blacklists will never be comprehensive. The proposal is that this system
will somehow protect Australians from “unwanted material” – yet how can it
possibly protect from all “unwanted material” unless it has a
comprehensive knowledge of said material?
- impossible to maintain. According to domaintools.com, the number of new
domains registered within the last 24 hours (at time of writing) was
95000. This gives an indication of the number of new websites created
every day which will not be on the blacklist.
- impossible to scale. With the introduction of IPv6 over the coming
years, it is feasible that *every single electronic device* could
potentially have internet access. The sheer amount of processing time and
power required to accurately filter internet for tens of millions of
internet access devices is astronomical.
- as raised by Senator Ludlum in the Senate recently, there has been no
documentation detailing exactly what would be considered “unwanted
material”. As mentioned previously, as a responsible adult, I can make my
own decisions about what I consider appropriate and wanted material.

I look forward to the results of the trials that the ISP iiNet is
performing which will provide hard numbers — facts — confirming in full
the criticisms of this proposal. As a result, I sincerely hope that
whatever political agenda has led you down this erroneous train of thought
can be corrected.

Sincerely,

me

I took the boilerplate from NoCleanFeed.com and added my own bits and pieces to it. I feel as though I should have added more now that I read it back to myself. There are a few things I missed, like:

• This filter does nothing to address P2P traffic. BitTorrent material will not be filtered.
• Does nothing to address encrypted traffic, such as VPN technologies, which are freely available.
• Apparently does include specifications for SSL/HTTPS inspection — an extreme violation of privacy. All of the secure websites you use (banking, online purchases etc) use these technologies to ensure the safety and confidentiality of your financial details.

The best way we can turn this thing around is by contacting the people who are able to do something about it: members of parliament, both state and federal. Write to your local MP, write to the state leaders, write to everyone in the Federal Labor Party. Using the boilerplate above is good, but writing something directly related your intended recipient is better.

The fastest way to get in contact with Senator Conroy himself? Call him: (03) 9650 1188. That’s his office number. I’ll be making a phone call today.