Christopher Kerr

Dear Minister Tanner,

Unfortunately, the proposed plan to implement an ISP level filter preventing access to child pornography demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand the fashion in which the internet works.

While filtering of traditional protocols such as HTTP and FTP may have some limited effectiveness through use of an imposed blacklist, this will inevitably be only a temporary inconvenience, unless you also plan to filter any and all material pertaining to stenography and encryption. Such filtering would constitute a remarkable violation of our democratically-implicit right to free speech.

But the problem runs deeper than that. The internet simply doesn't work the way many people think it does. The World Wide Web is not the Internet. The internet encompasses many layers, including bittorrent, Usenet and FreeNet. These networks are designed to route around damage, can be encrypted end-to-end, will operate on any available port ranges and are, as a result, effectively unblockable.

You have previously spoken about ensuring that social decorum translates to the medium of the internet. What you fail to understand is that the internet is not like any traditional construct. The notion of regulating the usage of the internet within the borders of a specific nation is as absurd as regulating the breathing of air. The internet does not respect borders. The internet is not designed to be ruled. It is defined by those who use it.

A friend of mine today proposed that the ownership of the internet could be modeled as a colonial process. Tribes of natives eventually supplanted by corporate exploitation, followed by the imposition of government controls. It is here that we stand today.

But consider this: The content of the internet is created by its users, not by the controlling government. How long is it going to be before we, collectively, ask you to leave, and take your tea with you?

I only ask of you and your department that you consult the right experts - not experts in implementing filters, but experts in IT Security. Perhaps you should higher a pair of consultant teams. Ask one to draft a comprehensive test of your proposed filter, and the other to perform your test.

Perhaps such a test, before many more millions of dollars are outlaid on this project, could provide convincing evidence to you, far more so than the posts of 100 angry bloggers.

Yours sincerely, Christopher Kerr