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Hasn't the Government already undertaken a trial of the technical issues surrounding internet filtering? Didn’t this trial find that filtering was not effective?
11. The previous government has ALREADY investigated the idea and deemed it was no good. I'm totally against the idea, everyone I know is also absolutely against it. I could go on all day about why I don't like it, but I think others will do that as well ;).
Posted by No To Filter / 09 Dec 2008 11:40pm / Permalink
They are not listening to industry experts and results from tests they already have conducted, what makes you think they are going to listen to any of you?
Posted by Darque / 10 Dec 2008 6:58pm / Permalink
I oppose the net filtering scheme in the strongest possible terms. I oppose it because: 1. ACMA trials have already demonstrated that it won't work properly;
Posted by Kathryn Small | BanThisURL / 10 Dec 2008 11:10am / Permalink
In spite that closed testing had shown that internet filter doesn't work and I quote from Government own PDF ( chapter 1 page 15) Did you read it senator "“" Despite of a general nature of advances in current trial and previous trial most filters are not presently able to identify illegal content and content that may be regarded as inappropriate that is carried via majority of non-web protocols"
Posted by Rastko Petrovic / 10 Dec 2008 7:42pm / Permalink
In June 2007, the previous Government directed ACMA to undertake a trial of ISP-level filtering within a closed ('laboratory') environment. This trial looked specifically at the effect of a range of filter products on network performance, including:
- effectiveness in identifying and blocking illegal and inappropriate content
- scope to filter non-web traffic
- the ability to customise the filter to the requirements of different end-users.
Six off-the-shelf filter products were tested, using a range of technologies. There was no preliminary testing to establish which products were best.
Testing of the ACMA blacklist in isolation was not included in this trial—all testing included dynamic filtering of a wider range of content that resulted in worse test results (for reasons explained previously) than we would expect if the blacklist was tested alone.
The laboratory trial indicated that ISP filtering products have improved in their effectiveness since they were last assessed in 2005. Specifically, the trial found that:
- In terms of successful blocking, all filter products tested blocked between 88 and 97 per cent of unwanted content. This is an advance in the available filtering technologies and shows that filtering is continuing to improve.
- Similarly, over-blocking of sites has reduced—with most falling below three per cent up to a maximum of six per cent. Again, this represents an advance since the previous trial.
However, this trial did not address all of the technical questions that need consideration prior to the introduction of ISP filtering. In particular, the results of the laboratory trial may differ in a real-world environment. This is why the Government is proceeding with a further, real-world 'live' pilot.
Stephen Conroy
Return to the Promoting a Civil and Confident Online Society blog topic or see other responses:
This is an attack on freedom of speech- Why aren’t PC-level filters sufficient?
- How will the blacklist be maintained?
- Why won’t the Government publish what is included in the ACMA blacklist?
- How does ACMA determine what sites will be included on the blacklist?
- Won’t internet filtering reduce internet speeds?
- Internet filtering won’t stop peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic—so why bother?
- So what else is the Government doing to help protect children online?