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Australia’s Internet Blacklist Leaked
Asher Moses reports today ‘Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites’:
The Australian communications regulator’s top-secret blacklist of banned websites has been leaked on to the web and paints a harrowing picture of Australia’s forthcoming internet censorship regime. Wikileaks, an anonymous document repository for whistleblowers, obtained the list … University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn Landfeldt said the leaked list "constitutes a condensed encyclopedia of depravity and potentially very dangerous material". He said the leaked list would become "the concerned parent’s worst nightmare" as curious children would inevitably seek it out. But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist. "It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," Landfelt said.
At the moment ISPs and others are sent this list, with the option of implement it for some (or all) customers. The current Rudd government, with Stephen Conroy pushing it, wants this to be an Australia-wide mandatory block list. Misuse of such a list (along with the fact its implementation would slow internet access across all of Australia) is one the main reasons so many people, myself included, find national government level internet censorship abhorrent.
(It should be noted, that as this list was obtained from an ISP, it may contain links which were added only by the ISP, not from the ACMA list. I suspect that most of what’s blocked is from ACMA, especially the non-porn stuff, but the exact nuances aren’t 100% clear yet.)
Update: A story about the leaked list on the ABC is provoking a few comments!
Update 2: Conroy claims that the leaked list is not the official blacklist, although there are “are some common URLs to those on the ACMA blacklist”. Oddly, though, Conroy is still referring the matter to police to investigate who leaked the list … which isn’t the list.
Annotated Digital Culture Links: March 18th 2009
Links for March 13th 2009 through March 18th 2009:
- Fake Stephen Conroy lashes out at Telstra [SMH] – “Telstra’s attempts to cover up the fact that it tried to silence Fake Stephen Conroy have backfired spectacularly. The Telstra employee who created the satirical Twitter profile has told his bosses not to “throw me under the f—ing bus just to make Telstra look social-media savvy”. After it was revealed that the popular Twitter profile impersonating Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was written by senior Telstra employee Leslie Nassar, the postings stopped. Nassar refused to speak to media, saying he was told to direct all comment requests to Telstra’s public relations unit. The Fake Stephen Conroy profile was also disabled for a period before reopening late yesterday. Telstra’s social media adviser Mike Hickinbotham came out to declare that Telstra did not try to shut Nassar up nor tell him to cease making the Fake Stephen Conroy posts. This directly contradicted earlier comments by Nassar, who said he was told by Telstra to stop.”
- Telstra man behind Fake Stephen Conroy [SMH] – “A web prankster impersonating Communications Minister Stephen Conroy on Twitter has been outed as a Telstra staff member. The staffer has now been silenced by the telecommunications giant, perhaps out of fear that the revelations will further increase tensions between Telstra and the Government, which has excluded Telstra from the bidding process to build a $10 billion-plus national broadband network. The satirical “Fake Stephen Conroy” profile, which has now been wiped, sparked almost as much discussion online as Senator Conroy himself. It primarily lampoons the Government’s proposed mandatory internet filtering scheme. Following an online manhunt that turned up a long list of suspects, Fake Stephen Conroy decided to turn himself in before he could be outed.
“OK, so here it is; Fake Stephen Conroy = Leslie Nassar,” he wrote yesterday.” (‘Twas fun while he lasted! 🙂 - Journalism students ‘don’t read papers’ [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “The journalists of the future are rapidly moving away from traditional news services, saying they are impractical compared to new media. A survey of Australian journalism students found 90 per cent of students do not like reading the newspaper, preferring to source news from commercial television or online media. Professor in Journalism and Media Studies at the Queensland University of Technology, Alan Knight, conducted the survey and says despite an aversion to newspapers, 95 per cent of students are very interested in following the news. “At this stage commercial television is still the favoured source, but online is rising pretty rapidly,” he said.” (I read most of my newspapers online, too. That said, i really hope some of the journalism students of today and thinking of ways to ensure that quality journalism is economically viable in the future!)
- Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity on ‘Sesame Street’ [YouTube] – The funniest thing you’ll see today – Ricky Gervais and Elmo taking an interview to a place Sesame Street realyl shouldn’t go! And, as Waxy says, they have the same laugh!
Annotated Digital Culture Links: March 10th 2009
Links for March 10th 2009:
- Failed Negotiations – YouTube Will Block Music Videos in the UK [NYTimes.com] – “YouTube just announced that it wasn’t able to reach a new deal with the UK’s Performing Rights Society (PRS for Music), which collects licensing fees for musicians and labels in the UK. Because of this, YouTube will now block access to all premium music videos for users in the UK. According to YouTube, the licensing fees that PRS was looking for were “simply prohibitive” and Google would lose a “significant amount of money with every playback.” YouTube also bemoans that PRS was unwilling to provide it with a comprehensive list of songs that were actually included in the license. … YouTube goes out of its way to state that this move has nothing to do with the record labels. Patrick Walker, YouTube’s Director of Video Partnerships, Europe, Middle East and Africa, lays the full blame on PRS for Music – and PRS, of course, blames Google for being too greedy.”
- THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube – Remix culture hard at work – music videos created entirely out of YouTube videos – lots of samples – nicely done.
- Australians refused insurance because of poor genes [WA Today] – “Australians have been refused insurance protection because of their genetic make-up, researchers have shown in the first study in the world to provide proof of genetic discrimination. Most cases were found to relate to life insurance. In one instance, a man with a faulty gene linked to a greater risk of breast and prostate cancer was denied income protection and trauma insurance that would have let him claim if he developed other forms of cancer. The findings have led to renewed calls by experts for policies to ensure the appropriate use of genetic test results by the insurance industry.” (Gattaca!)
- Baby swinging video case warning [The Age] – “The lawyer representing an Australian charged for republishing, on a video-sharing site, a video of a man swinging a baby around like a rag doll says that if the case proceeds every Australian who surfs the net could be vulnerable to police prosecution. Chelsea Emery, of Ryan and Bosscher Lawyers in Maroochydore, represents Chris Illingworth, who was charged with accessing and uploading child abuse material. Illingworth, 61, published the three-minute clip on Liveleak, a site similar to YouTube but focused on news and current events. Illingworth has uploaded hundreds of videos to the website. The one he was charged over, thought to have been created by a Russian circus performer, had already been published widely across the internet and shown on US TV news shows. The clip can still be found online and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.” (I’m staggered that this case is still moving forward!)
Annotated Digital Culture Links: March 6th 2009
Links for February 26th 2009 through March 6th 2009:
- Australians spend much more time online | Australian IT – “The Nielsen Online Internet and Technology Report surveyed more than 2000 Australians and found the average Aussie spent 89.2 hours a week consuming media last year or almost 80 per cent of their waking hours. … this was an increase of almost five hours on 2007 and an extra 17.8 hours from 2006. “Given the average Australian is only awake for around 112 hours per week, it’s surprisingly just how many of those waking hours are dedicated to media consumption… We’ve seen some pretty extraordinary increases in the past few years, however we would anticipate a levelling out in consumption hours of the next few years as Australians simply run out of hours in the day.” … people aged over 16 spent an average of 16.1 hours on the internet each week, 12.9 hours watching TV, 8.8 hours listening to the radio, 3.7 hours on a mobile phone and 2.8 hours reading newspapers. Some users also used more than one form of media at once, with more than three in five internet surfers [also]watching TV”
- RED MARS For Free [Warren Ellis] – “Kim Stanley Robinson’s brilliant sf novel RED MARS is now available as a free PDF download from its US publisher. [Direct link to PDF], and their Free Library page listing it and other available free downloads. Be warned: RED MARS is first of a trilogy, and there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself craving the others (GREEN MARS and BLUE MARS).” (If you”ve not read Red Mars, you’ve missed out on the best hard SF in years, go read it. As Ellis says, once you’ve gone Red, you won’t be able to stop yourself rushing to buy Green and Blue, too!)
- Virtual Worlds – Detailed timeline of the emergence of Virtual Worlds – encompasses many recognisable and a few more abstract elements (do virtual worlds really start in the 1700s?) (Thanks, Jill)
- Web censorship plan heads towards a dead end [The Age] – “The Government’s plan to introduce mandatory internet censorship has effectively been scuttled, following an independent senator’s decision to join the Greens and Opposition in blocking any legislation required to get the scheme started. The Opposition’s communications spokesman Nick Minchin has this week obtained independent legal advice saying that if the Government is to pursue a mandatory filtering regime “legislation of some sort will almost certainly be required”. Senator Nick Xenophon previously indicated he may support a filter that blocks online gambling websites but in a phone interview today he withdrew all support, saying “the more evidence that’s come out, the more questions there are on this”. The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has consistently ignored advice from a host of technical experts saying the filters would slow the internet, block legitimate sites, be easily bypassed and fall short of capturing all of the nasty content available online.”
Annotated Digital Culture Links: February 20th 2009
Links for February 17th 2009 through February 20th 2009:
- 4chan /b/ goes after cat abusers, wins [Inquisitr] – “A video of two men abusing a cat surfaced on YouTube late last week, and members of /b/ took it upon themselves to bring the sickos to justice. The video was quickly narrowed down to prime suspects, primarily through the help of /b/, and local authorities arrested the men. Many have been quick to criticize /b/ in the past, but today at least you can’t doubt one thing: they love cats.” (While this doesn’t suddenly make /b/ a haven of good will and public mindedness, it does show that with the proper motivation 4chan can be a powerful force!)
- Macroanonymous Is The New Microfamous [Fimoculous.com] – “…I interviewed the founder of 4chan for a magazine story that never ended up running. He chatted about everything from the techincal complexities of keeping 4chan alive to the anxieties of operating the most controversial site on the internet. By the end of the interview, I was thinking “This kid has seen stuff that would make my eyes burn, but he seems so smart and sweet about it all.” (He started the site when he was 15; he just turned 21.) It seemed like insightful stuff that should run somewhere, so here it is….”
- Whisper campaigns exposed: pay per lie on YouTube [The Age] – “One of Australia’s most popular YouTube users has admitted being paid to spruik Ten’s new show Lie To Me surreptitiously in the latest example of marketers invading the popular video sharing site. Amateur video maker Hugh Thomas, 26, from Bondi, said he was asked by a mystery third party to create a video blog on Lie To Me and publish it on his popular YouTube channel, in return for payment from 20th Century Fox. He would not give more details of the whisper campaign, saying he was bound by a non-disclosure agreement.”
Annotated Digital Culture Links: February 16th 2009
Links for February 9th 2009 through February 16th 2009:
- Vigilantes publish alleged arsonist’s image online [The Age] – “Facebook vigilantes, frustrated at a court order protecting a man charged with lighting one of the deadly Victorian bushfires, which killed at least 11 people, have published his photograph and address on the social networking site and threatened his life. The move potentially breaches an order suppressing his image and address amid fears of a violent backlash by angry victims. Victoria Police has contacted Facebook seeking the removal of the details and urged people to let police do their job. This morning the suppression order on naming the man, Brendan Sokaluk, 39, was lifted, but the order remains in place on publishing his street address or his image. At least two Facebook groups have been created to name and shame the alleged arsonist, and thousands of Facebook users have joined them. Membership is growing rapidly as word spreads.” (While I completely understand people’s anger, this sort of social networking lynch mob mentality is really quite dangerous.)
- Fair Use Held Hostage by ABC-Disney [Just TV] – Jason Mittell’s tale of how aquiring copyright permission from ABC/Disney for a cover image for his new book, Television and American Cuture, became a debacle with Disney refusing to license the cover image unless the publishers licensed every internal Disney image – something that should be covered by fair use – but with the book already at the printers, the publishers gave into Disney’s demands. As Mittell notes, Disney are legally able to do this, but it’s a bit of a slap in the face for fair and educational uses.
- Murdoch looks for new ways to monetise MySpace traffic [The Age] – “”Rupert Murodch has delivered a sobering assessment about the internet as a growth engine, revealing search and advertising revenues at News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media division – which houses the popular MySpace networking site – have stalled. The new-media unit, which has invested heavily to expand MySpace, contributed just $US7 million ($10.4 million) to News Corp’s $US818 million second-quarter operating income, the company said on Friday. There was a “slight downturn” in revenue at the social networking site, Mr Murdoch said. That compares to $US179 million News Corp made from newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and information services such as the Dow Jones news wire. Asked about his views on the long-term viability of the internet, Mr Murdoch said generating a return on investment for assets such as MySpace, which News Corp bought for $US580 million in 2005, was still a challenge. “I think we have to find new ways to monetise our huge audiences,” he told analysts.”
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