pingudownunder

Senators Tanner, Conroy and their respective departments; by way of background I am an IT professional that specialises in information security, have recently moved here from Europe (another new citizen) and honestly find it amazing how a developed country such as Australia can be so behind the leading edge in the Digital Economy whilst being so close to such innovation in South East Asia, particularly countries like Singas, Korea and even Taiwan. In my view, Australia is held back by a number of factors, which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency: 1) Infrastructure. The present and previous governments have allowed Telstra to keep a stranglehold on high-speed online connectivity, both on fixed line and mobile networks, through charging rip-off rates to both consumers and when the reluctantly have to resell their capacity to competitors. 2) Government procurement of both IT software and services (both state and federal) is flawed. Some governments, such as in South American and Europe, actually mandate the use of open source and low cost software solutions to reduce expenditure. Some even contibute back into the community, helping break the strangehold by the large software vendors on their own platforms whilst also supporting local IT professionals/graduates/societies in building and furthering their own careers and companies. 3) Senator Conroy's internet filtering is a joke. Australia is already being seen as a "laughing stock" by the IT Community worldwide, and I fear investment in the local economy will simply move to countries with less restrictions on information sharing. Australia is fast getting the same reputation as Iran, Saudi Arabia and China for lack of freedom of speech; this doesn't help. Now we know that the proposed internet filtering simply doesn't work - even your own department's testing has found this to be the case, as well as slowing down network connectivity and a high number of false positives. But by enforcing such a draconian, technically-flawed solution upon ISPs and the general public will ulitmately increase costs to the customer (internet is already too expensive in Australia for most people) whilst not giving you the benefit against illegal material. Must public opposition is not against this material being blocked (alternative proposal is desribed later) its the fact that there is no opt-out available (under Conroy's 2-tier lists) and there does not seem to be any independent oversight over what is blocked. Those involved in this area will simply go "underground", making it harder to catch and prosecute. I'm sure you're also looking at blocking terrorist videos and messages - so are you going to block YouTube? Facebook? Twitter (even the @KevinRudd channel?) Deep packet inspection will not be able to differentiate particularly video and audio. Even today, UK ISPs are blocking parts of Wikipedia for a music album cover from the 70s. In my view, the Art Gallery of NSW should be blocked for the digusting pictures of underage teenage girls. However Prime Minister Rudd referred to it as "art". What next? Innovative technologies like peer-to-peer which are being used to distribute open source software, authorised TV broadcasts and so forth; or will you block them all too? The Internet is an uncontrolled medium, it is immoral to turn ISPs into "traffic cops" because you suspect their services are being used for illegal material. Its similar to adding roadblocks to every motorway in Australia, and adding more taxes to the automakers, because Australian Roads *could* be used to transmit illegal materials. Or finding Myers or Target guilty becuase they sell kitchen knives, which *could* be used in a crime. Just doesn't make any sense. I suggest that the "filtering" idea is scrapped, and the funding investing in additional monitoring and contol processes for the detection of those involved in illegal material, as well as increasing the skills of bodies like the AFP (or equivelent) to successfuly arrest and prosecute those involved. IMHO in the case of Child Pron, nothing less than castration of anyone found guilty of possession or involvement - with a blunt knife and no anasthetic - then locked up for a minimum of 30 years would provide a better deterrent and I believe would get more support from the Australian community, than a filtering scheme which technically simply will not work and cause more damage to the information economy than good. 4) E-Health. Where is it in Australia? And why does every initiative (State, Federal, both e.g. NEHTA) seem to get caught up in governmental bickering than being allowed to just go ahead and get it done? Look at Scandinavia and Taiwan who are leading in this field. Senators Tannoy and Conroy, You do have the ability to kick-start the information economy in Australia. But your current policies will only serve to keep us in the dark ages. Please don't mess up this opportunity.