Minister Tanner's welcome

This is a great move and I wish the Government and the public service well in keeping it going and evolving. There will no doubt be some bumpy patches but if you are as transparent as you can be then it is up to the rest of us to give you some space to make a few mistakes and get on with it. Like others who have commented, I am very heartened by the fact the Minister Tanner clearly "gets it" and I hope he can use his undoubted powers of communication and persuasion to help others in related roles come to a better understanding of what is happening and what is possible. Reiterating what others have said, I believe a key to giving this blog greater credibility and winning support from many of us will be for Minister Tanner to grab some time to drop in here personally and reply to/comment on at least a few of the comments.

Posted by Des Walsh / 09 Dec 2008 5:00pm / Permalink

The filter can't stop all the "bad" content unless it cuts off the internet altogether. Apart from everything else, won't the filter just make parents complacent about their childs internet use?

Posted by Heather / 09 Dec 2008 4:59pm / Permalink

Hi, Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. It is sincerely appreciated. I have considered the issue of filtering from many perspectives, and have to admit from the onset, that I do not approve of the wholesale filtering of the Internet connection coming into my home. Let me explain. I am a Parent, a Christian, and an IT Security Consultant, so I believe that I have a fairly wide range of perspectives that I can use in examining the issue. As a parent of two children (16 and 12), I admit that my wife and I had to contend with the adverse effects that leaving a child alone with an Internet connection, who subsequently encountered a barrage of pop-up porn ads, had. My daughter experienced a plethora of reactions, ranging from fear, through to a desire to maintain secrecy. It was the secrecy issue that I felt was the most important. She was concerned that she was in trouble for the action. We assured her that the technology can be a problem, and we had open and honest discussions regarding the event. At no stage did we hide sexuality, nor did we hide the existence pornography. In all, the experience improved the relationship we had with our child. Of course we installed NetNanny on her personal computer, but we didn’t block our own machine in the study. We trust our children. I look upon the internet as a massive library. I remember the days when the librarian restricted access to the adult section of the library. When I became an adult, I was able to access any part of the library I liked. Filtering the primiary feed into my home will silently, and without recourse, limit access to parts of the Internet based on the will of the many. On the subject of the will of the many, I indicated that I am a Christian. I am an elder in my church, and firmly believe in freedom of expression – for all faiths. Accordingly, I do not attempt to suppress the teachings of any other religion. In my personal library (for my kids), I have the religious texts of many other religions. My children are welcome to read them as they like. All I ask, is that they THINK. I also have copies of the Karma Sutra, Joy of Sex, and a significant number of texts discussing sexuality. My kids are also welcome to read them. As an IT security consultant, my job falls into 2 parts, 1 – I write policies and procedures for the protection of Information Processing Systems. And 2 - I perform penetration testing (authorised of course!) to ensure that clients networks are unlikely to be attacked from hostile agents. Professionally, I am aware of a significant number of circumvention technologies that are freely available. It is interesting to note that some of them include encapsulation technologies such as TOR, which was heavily distributed prior to the Beijing Olympics to allow people to bypass the Great Firewall of China. I do not want my country to be considered in the same light as the Chinese for wholesale, secret censorship. I do not want the views of the few imposed on me. If you must censor (which I suspect we are stuck with), then at least make the list of sites that are blocked openly available. We, here in Australia, seem to be stuck on the abhorrent topic of Child Pornography (CP). I firmly believe that the people responsible for the creation and dissemination should be appropriately punished. But to see cases, like occurred recently, where the position of cartoon images were deemed to be child pornography is actually quite frightening. Given this new stance, where is the line? I am worried that we, as a society are moving down a path, where the possession of a sequence of characters is deemed to be illegal (pushed to an extreme, the existence of ASCII ART is now a problem. Why not spend the money we are spending on affecting the whole on improving the monitoring capability that I am sure exists to allow the effective detection of legitimate contraband?

Posted by Doug / 09 Dec 2008 4:58pm / Permalink

Congratulations on starting a new chapter in allowing the people of Australia to have a direct line of communication with Government. The Digital Economy will play a very important role in Australia's future and to ensure its success we must have a National Broadband Network that is accessible and affordable for all Australians. Unfortunately in Australia we have some of the slowest internet connections and pay some of the highest prices in the OECD. This is because the broadband internet market in Australia is dominated by Telstra's monopoly on the copper network. Telstra charges some of the highest rates in the world for internet data, Telstra has sought to slow innovation by restricting broadband speeds and has been referred to the ACCC for its anti-competitive behaviour. The underlying problem with the broadband market in Australia is Telstra's monopoly. If you want the Digital Economy to thrive and to flourish then the dominance of Telstra has to be addressed and resolved through structural separation of the NBN and through regulation of pricing by the ACCC. The NBN must be about serving the interests of all Australian consumers not just the interests of Telstra shareholders. If you can resolve this problem then the Digital Economy will be a success.

Posted by Tolmartyr / 09 Dec 2008 4:58pm / Permalink

We want radical transparency of government information and decision making. For example, why is it ALP policy in NSW etc to publish (name and shame) business food hygiene offenses yet it is ALP policy NOT to publish this info in VIC? Geographic barriers are pointless in an online world. We want the information we as citizens and taxpayers pay for. Tell Brumby to create a VIC equivalent of http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/ now.

Posted by Fitzroyalty / 09 Dec 2008 4:58pm / Permalink

The filtering of the internet is an idiotic attempt to appease a vocal minority of people who are similarly clueless about the internet. Web filtering will not work because a) file sharing is rife, and is ignored in this "draconian" filter - rightly so too, it would be futile to attempt to stop this. b) anyone that wants to avoid the filter will simply change their web browser to point to an off shore proxy. Which is how most clumsy pedo's attempt to avoid detection anyhow c) it won't stop web cams, emailed pictures, instant message file swapping.. etc. Spend the money on spam technology instead. Now that's a worthy cause...

Posted by Pete of Melbourne / 09 Dec 2008 4:53pm / Permalink

Here is an idea for Comrade Conroy, how about a national broadband network? Oh I forgot, censoring the Internet is priority number 1. Average BB speed in Oz is 1.7Mbps according to ITIF!

Posted by Ivan / 09 Dec 2008 4:51pm / Permalink

Why are you bothering with this when you are simultaneously planning to wreck internet access in Australia with your stupid filters? Your credibility is zero.

Posted by Fitzroyalty / 09 Dec 2008 4:51pm / Permalink

This move to use social media in policy development is certainly welcome and I look forward to the coming posts. It would be very helpful to those of us who use feedreaders in preference to visiting websites if you could include the full content in the feed, and if you could add an autodiscovery link so that browsers can detect the feed. Both of these would help to increase your readership.

Posted by Peta Hopkins / 09 Dec 2008 4:50pm / Permalink

I'm very pleased to see this system in place. Hopefully it will actually be used and not simply ignored. I also hope we can stop pretending that the proposed filter only has a social impact. Breaking encryption and slowing connections will prevent Australia from taking part in the digital economy at all. Jobs and infrastructure will simply move overseas. Hopefully this can be addressed at some point and not ignored because pornography boogey-man as it is now.

Posted by toholio / 09 Dec 2008 4:50pm / Permalink

On the topic of Internet censorship... I would like to explain to you the technical issues that your proposal faces, how we could better protect children when they use the Internet, how to better prevent child pornography and express my disgust at state censorship. The Internet and World Wide Web are different things. The Internet is a 'network of networks'. Private corporations such as telecommunications companies usually own these computer networks. We are all able to share data across the globe because these network owners allow data from other networks to traverse their own (at a cost) without interfering with or disallowing any particular data. On the other hand the World Wide Web is a term used to describe the collection of websites that are hosted on computers that are connected to the Internet. Web browsers are used to view these websites and communicate using the HTTP protocol, which is what I understand that which your proposal will attempt to filter. The major problem with your proposal is that it concerns only filtering the HTTP traffic on Australian ISPs and not other Internet communications. It therefore does not prevent the dissemination of unwanted content in the slightest. Peer-to-peer file sharing, instant messaging, secure web proxies and a whole plethora of other protocols designed to move data around on the Internet are not included in your proposal and it would be infeasible to try and monitor and block these protocols anyway. This issue alone should prevent anyone from contemplating spending taxpayers; money on such a ludicrous scheme. Another problem with your proposal is that even to filter WWW traffic effectively is almost impossible. Domain names and IP addresses can be changed quickly allowing purveyors of unwanted content to bypasses your URL blacklists. Content scanning would be impossible especially on secured HTTP connections (such as those used for Internet banking). Any attempt to filter WWW traffic at all will result in reduced performance for Internet users. You should already have been made aware of the above by your technical advisors and be aware of how ineffective filtering software is since your NetAlert scheme had such a poor uptake and was easily subverted, even by adolescent children. If parents are truly concerned with what their children view on the WWW then they need to parent them. They might wish to consider only allowing their children to surf the web in a common part of the home or installing client-side filtering software on their own computers. A nanny state is something we do not need and I am a firm believer in personal responsibility. Parents must take responsibility for the upbringing of their children and not rely on technology to do it for them. State censorship is so offensive to the idea of a free and democratic country that to entertain the idea of implementing something akin to the Great Firewall of Australia should make you feel ashamed. If any filtering is to take place it should be done on an opt-in basis only and not be mandatory. When the Australian government puts forward proposals such as this filtering scheme I wonder if Australia requires something along the lines of a Bill of Rights to protect the freedoms we currently enjoy in our democratic nation. If the government does infringe on the rights of the Australian people in the manner you have set out in your scheme our country will become the laughing stock of the global community. We could better stop child pornography by employing, training, equipping and supporting police officers that can investigate such things. Turning to software vendors and trying to use technology to solve a societal problem is illogical. The only winners will be the software vendors&; shareholders. I implore you to listen to the doubts raised by experts about the effectiveness of such a filtering system and to also consider the moral implications of imposing mandatory state censorship. Instead of wasting time on this Internet filtering scheme your ministry should be using government resources to improve Internet performance in Australia and further enabling e-commerce. The Labor government will not have my vote at the next election if this censorship scheme is implemented. Yours faithfully, Yrps.

Posted by Yrps / 09 Dec 2008 4:49pm / Permalink

I'm sorry but I think this Internet Filtering path that the Rudd government is taking is a waste of money. It won't work and it has already been proven to be a failure. Please hurry up and understand this and stop wasting our tax payer money.

Posted by StevenB / 09 Dec 2008 4:47pm / Permalink

Paul Budde - you have so much knowledge and wisdom to share, but whatever this platform has done to your comment makes it very hard to read. Could you chunk it down into a few succinctly expressed points, for the rest of us, please? :)

Posted by Des Walsh / 09 Dec 2008 4:47pm / Permalink

Admirable and gutsy considering your plan for internet filtering put us in the same shoes as many Chinese. This country is a democracy not a comunist state, as an individual id like to maintain my civil rights and the freedom to navigate the internet free of some random totally unqualified polititian over viewing me and deciding what i can and cannot view. The move against child pornography whilst admirable if this was a fairy tale simply does not work. This system will only hinder the legitimate user whilst those seeking to hide or mask their use will find ways around it all. now that we are catching up with the rest of the world with regard to better internet use, connection and availability its mindboggling why and how this decision has been made. Need i remind you feedback so far suggests a minimum reduction in speed by 8% and a maximum crazy off the charts reduction of 83% what??? are you serious. Anyhow i could go on forever about this, as a British citizen and current resident in Australia i find it all rather disgusting and disheartening and yet more proof that the govement is simply to out of touch with the need of its people.

Posted by Van / 09 Dec 2008 4:46pm / Permalink

i can't believe this is here. this blog is a complete waste of time and money.

Posted by MT / 09 Dec 2008 4:43pm / Permalink

I think it's quite simple. The Government is dipping into funds that have been saved for infastructure. Anyone who is unhappy with this proposal should just cancel their broadband for 12 months. Then they will see how serious people are. And if they don't reverse the filter, then it's a waste of a lot of money on their behalf! And considering they're answerable to the people, let's see how they go at the next election!!

Posted by Simon from Canberra / 09 Dec 2008 4:43pm / Permalink

I would like to know why the proposed blacklist with "unwanted" items should be completely confidential? Surely a member from each major ISP (top 10? even top 5) should be allowed to moderate this list to stop exploitation and 'overprotection' of the Australian People. Euthanasia may not be legal in Australia but that does not mean we shouldn't be able to know about it. No one disagrees with protecting our children, but there is such a thing as overprotection and this is very much there.

Posted by Scott Price / 09 Dec 2008 4:43pm / Permalink

The ISP filtering proposed by the government is going to ruin any advancement of broadband in this country , we are already behind the world in terms of infrastructure( party cause of our size and spread out population ) and this ill concieved technology will be another handicap to add to the rest. Government should be honest, its about content control, not porn but piracy , they should encourage parents to monitor their children rather than slow the whole net down

Posted by Simon 82 / 09 Dec 2008 4:42pm / Permalink

Am I allowed to post this comment? In future, will it meet the approval of authorities operating the mandatory filter? Australia is already behind most developed countries in terms of internet speeds and innovation? Your plans will slow it down and inhibit dynamism. Of course the filter will fail in its aims of controlling undesirable activities - but it will succeed in making things worse, and more sinister, for the rest of us. Australia is already a bit of laughing stock when it comes to the digital economy - and your policies will do nothing but cement that reputation. Bravo, Minster. Bravo.

Posted by James / 09 Dec 2008 4:40pm / Permalink

The best thing the Australian government can do is to break Telstra's monopoly and leave information technology alone to private enterprises. Let face it, to climb up the public service food chain, you need to be people savy, excel in office politics and good in brown nosing, backstabbing and bullsiting. Those are the qualities that good information technologist DO NOT HAVE. Hence people in the government who are making policies about Information Technology know bugger all about computers (Just look at the stupid Internet filter idea). Hence please leave it to the private enterrpise, before you ruin everything.

Posted by guy / 09 Dec 2008 4:38pm / Permalink

Bear with me on this - thousands of children walk to school every day - is it feasible or practical to provide a chaperone for every one of them? No. So we teach them stranger danger and safety houses and just trust that they will do the right thing if the situation occurs. Same with swimming, bike-riding and any other activity that involves a possible risk - TEACH them to be as safe and as aware as possible!! TEACH the from a young age to do the right thing. If the children have internet access at home, restrict access to when the parents are there and put the computer(s) in a easily monitored area and keep watching them. As much as I don't like pornography being so readily accessible on the Internet, I like a mandatory filter even less, especially when our broadband speeds are still way below the speeds achieved overseas - the filter would slow it up even more. As far as I'm concerned, the responsibility for monitoring and filtering what children see on the Internet lies with the parents and the schools/teachers of these children and providing them with as much education as possible. Secondly, I have to agree with others - please appoint someone who IS au fait with computers and the Internet. Looking at Mr Conroy's official biography on his website it would appear he has no direct involvement in the computers and internet industry - no hands on skills, no University or TAFE computer qualification, no background of actually working in the computer industry. Passion he has, but is that just spin-doctoring? We really do need someone who has that experience and knowledge and is RESPECTED in the industry by consumers and professionals alike.

Posted by Mullet / 09 Dec 2008 4:35pm / Permalink

Consider a wiki... A blog is not the only web 2.0 tool. Pick the right tool, for what you are trying to achieve. eg economics.com.au (j Gans at MBS) Blog = single author, with comments from readers. Wiki = collaborative document creation eg wikipedia. Each of your question could be posed in a wiki.... eg What should be Australia's digital economy policy? Forum = ongoing questions and answers. eg whirlpool.net.au

Posted by Richard / 09 Dec 2008 4:34pm / Permalink

The problem with crime on the internet is the same as with crime on the street. The government is too cheap to pay for good old fashioned police investigations. If you post illegal content on a website, you should expect a visit from a police officer. Have a think about the alcohol fuel violence that happens every week in the Valley, here in Brisbane. This can be easily stopped by blocking everyone from going into the Valley on the weekends. That is not likely to happen is it, Mr Conroy. So how about you open your own wallet (rather than the ISP's wallet) and do something about this.

Posted by Anonymous / 09 Dec 2008 4:32pm / Permalink

Great step in the right direction. I was extremely concerned not to see Technology represented in 2020 in a prominent position. It is a force clearly and unequivocally shaping the world. I hope Senator Conroy listens to the industry carefully. The realm of knowledge on these topics such as filtering is far greater in the tech ecosystem than in anyone individual or senator.

Posted by Marc Lehmann / 09 Dec 2008 4:32pm / Permalink

I am all for filtering of child pornography sites but devise system that will not affect internet speeds for gods sake! They are slow enough as it is and implementing this system will only create more headaches and a step backwards not forwards!

Posted by Simon / 09 Dec 2008 4:29pm / Permalink

give it up conroy- filter the internet at your peril. you could be the direct cause of a one term government.

Posted by mark / 09 Dec 2008 4:26pm / Permalink

Internet filtering.Communism. NO NO NO.I enjoy my freedom of choice.

Posted by krusty32 / 09 Dec 2008 4:25pm / Permalink

Seriously, if you want to have a blog then great. but there is no point in having a comment system if you arent going to listen. and in regards to the filter, its a major step BACK. its not going to make the government or australia, or the internet in australia go FORWARD. no soup for you.

Posted by toiletduck / 09 Dec 2008 4:24pm / Permalink

Hi Lindsay, bravo - this is certainly a step toward 21st century style democracy. Like many others, I may disagree with the ISP filtering plans, but I hope that this will be an open forum for the airing of considered opinions on both sides, on this and many other issues.

Posted by Dave Sheffield / 09 Dec 2008 4:22pm / Permalink

H e l l o M i n i s t e r C o n r o y. I r e a l i s e i h a v e t o t a l k s l o w l y f o r y o u , i f y o u t h i n k t h e i n t e r n e t i s t o f a s t r i g h t n o w, s o m u c h f o r a d v a n c e a u s t r a l i a.

Posted by Alex S / 09 Dec 2008 4:21pm / Permalink

Surely transparancy requires a full disclosure to the public of what will be blocked. Why isn't this list readily available?

Posted by Peter M / 09 Dec 2008 4:07pm / Permalink

Only three comments so far? Guess that's what you get with the the government "moderation" policy. Perhaps the position of DBCDE Minister and top public service positions should be given to people that actually know what the Internet is, and not god bothering Luddites.

Posted by nocleanfeed / 09 Dec 2008 4:05pm / Permalink

Why can the minister not give a hard and fast guarantee that this filtering won't be used to stifle opposition parties having access to the internet and intentionally filtering out content that does not agree with the Labor government?

Posted by Ryan... / 09 Dec 2008 4:04pm / Permalink

Open consultation is a great idea, well done

Posted by Homer / 09 Dec 2008 4:04pm / Permalink

Just like the internet, this blog will be "filtered" by the Government. The results will be biased and one-sided.

Posted by Peter / 09 Dec 2008 4:03pm / Permalink

Agreed with comments to date and thank you for this opportunity to comment via this blog. I'm from overseas (I've resided in the Sydney area for the past 2 years) and one item that I miss terribly from home (and that I think is essential to e-commerce) is a sense for free wireless internet connection as an important if not essential public good - like a drinking fountain in a park. I miss being able to access the internet from various free publicly maintained hotspots - including on public transport. I also miss having a cafe culture that truly supports e-commerce (free wireless internet for customers, comfortable seating, numerous powerpoints and extended operating hours - in some cases to 2 - 3 am). From my view, Australia needs more tech-ready third spaces to support e-commerce . . . and small business, in general. Maybe start with wiring the pubs? Thanks for the chance to comment!

Posted by Mark / 09 Dec 2008 4:01pm / Permalink

This is a great move, but will be wasted if you hamstring our internet, as you seem to be planning. There won't be a "digital economy" if Australian businesses can't compete internationally due to slooooow filters.

Posted by Chris / 09 Dec 2008 4:00pm / Permalink

Whatever organisations are informing you that they will be able to provide technology to keep this "black list" up to date are lying to you. There are HUNDREDS of ways to get round any blacklist. Heard of proxy servers people (I have one in Germany, that on your black list?) Why don't you take the ridiculous amount of money you are wasting on this fool's errand and give it to child protection agencies who will do something meaningful with the cash, or the police, to spend more on tracking child abuse cases.

Posted by Chris Webb / 09 Dec 2008 3:58pm / Permalink

This is indeed a welcome openess from a minister. I am just optimistic enough to hope that the moderation policy won't be used to quash any dissenting opinions, especially regarding the massively flawed internet filtering scheme.

Posted by Chris / 09 Dec 2008 3:58pm / Permalink

Sen. Tanner: thanks for this opportunity for us the voter to help shape policy. We have elected you to do a job, and when we have dissatisfaction with that job, you should be able to hear it. I further back comments previously made about Sen. Conroy's Jihad on the "great firewall of Canberra" and its detractors. This Sen. should be looking at a whole community consultative approach to this ill concieved notion of censorship, and exactly what sort of "illegal" material the government deems inappropriate for the adult members who vote them into power. Quoting Twain : "censorship is telling an adult he cannot have a steak because a baby can't chew it" Perhpas Sen Conroy could have this uppermost in this thoughs in the near future.

Posted by Steve K / 09 Dec 2008 3:57pm / Permalink

This is a great initiative to allow the public to express their views. I would like to also back Gaz's comments above with a note regarding Senator Conroys proposed internet filter. Senator Conroy continues to either not comment on the exact nature of the proposed filter, answer any technical questions on the matter or sidesteps the matter completely. This is against the spirit of what our elected representatives are supposed to do. I have sent a number of letters regarding the filter to various politicians and keep receiving back copies of the same document I received from Senator Conroys office when I wrote to him. I would say 90% plus of IT people in Australia are against the proposed filter. (Based on polls and general discussion with colleagues). On the National Broadband Network initiative, please don't allow Telstra to consolidate their monopoly. It will hurt Australia in the short to long term. Thankyou.

Posted by Simon Shaw / 09 Dec 2008 3:51pm / Permalink

Will views opposing Labor party policy be posted here? Or will it be censored?

Posted by MadScotty / 09 Dec 2008 3:43pm / Permalink

The digital economy IS the future. Infrastructure is the key in the short term, but we need to be realistic about what we can achieve in non-urban areas - we cannot reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator, or we will all fail. Let's get worlds-best connectivity into the cities to start with.

Posted by Luke Austin / 09 Dec 2008 3:41pm / Permalink

This is an impressive move by the Federal Government to embrace an open blog, probably the main social media tool that allows individuals to comment on national policies and be heard. A first test will come immediately with the current proposals for technically flawed, non-opt-out Internet filtering. Such proposals appear to offer an immediate threat to the Australian digital economy. Let us hope this blog will allows free and open debate about the issues.

Posted by Michael Rees / 09 Dec 2008 3:36pm / Permalink

This is a great initiative to allow the public to express their views. I would like to also back Gaz's comments above with a note regarding Senator Conroys proposed internet filter. Senator Conroy continues to either not comment on the exact nature of the proposed filter, answer any technical questions on the matter or sidesteps the matter completely. This is against the spirit of what our elected representatives are supposed to do. I have sent a number of letters regarding the filter to various politicians and keep receiving back copies of the same document I received from Senator Conroys office when I wrote to him. I would say 90% plus of IT people in Australia are against the proposed filter. (Based on polls and general discussion with colleagues). On the National Broadband Network initiative, please don't allow Telstra to consolidate their monopoly. It will hurt Australia in the short to long term. Thankyou.

Posted by Simon Shaw / 09 Dec 2008 3:32pm / Permalink

I'm looking forward to participating in this blog. The digital economy is very important and Australia is somewhat behind the rest of the world!

Posted by Rohan / 09 Dec 2008 3:31pm / Permalink

This is a great initiative. My first comment, however, is that this blog is so deeply hidden within in standard government bureaucratic web-site that it does not stand out as a blog at all. You can't tell the woods for the trees (ie. what is blog content and what is not, such as press releases).

Posted by Kevmeister / 09 Dec 2008 3:24pm / Permalink

I see this as a positive thing. Enabling the public to easily communicate their thoughts and feedback to the Government. Life is all about relationships and this should make the Government-Citizen relationships stronger. I hope that the Government, Minister Conroy in particular, is willing to listen to what is said. He seems to be defending an idea (Internet filter) that has been indicated by many, including experts in Internet technology, to be a bad idea. It takes a lot to be able to admit you were wrong. Let's hope he's not being righteous, or worse, chasing votes from people who don't understand the issue. Sure, it would be fantastic to be able to filter illegal material from the Internet but at what cost? Freedom of speech, and a slow death to the Australian online industry? Even slower and more expensive Internet for Australians? Protection of children is the responsibility of their parents, not the Government.

Posted by Stephen Price / 09 Dec 2008 3:23pm / Permalink

This is a nice idea. The following is an email I sent to Mr Conroy. Dear Senator Conroy, or the many people that intercepts emails before it gets to him. Is this going to happen in Australia now? Because the Senator "proudly" said that the filter that he wants (or should I say, the filter that Family First wants) is similar to that of Britain. Well, if you are going to censor Wikipedia You are either going to have to make bypassing the filters illegal or else everyone will render your filters useless. Also, do you know how much China spent on their internet filtering? I'll give you a hit - a hell of a lot more than you have budgeted for. And guess what? If I wanted to read the BBC in China when it was blocked, I still can. I'm sure I can get around your filter if I wanted to. Sincerely, ChengZhe Wu. ---- I doubt this breaches any rules. However if it does, please advise me on which bit I have broken.

Posted by ChengZhe Wu / 09 Dec 2008 3:12pm / Permalink

I think the government should explore the idea of directing every government institution to consider open source software for it's IT infrastructure and even more importantly, for the government to to open FORMATS to share information. Also from the software development perspective the commonwealth ought to think about its still heavy reliance on project and engineering methodologies known and proven to fail, i.e. "waterfall" methods. The department of finance ought to stop wasting it's money on methods that simply cannot deliver quality software, and instead explore the use of Agile Methods to deliver working software sooner and cheaper to its internal and external customers.

Posted by Scot Mcphee / 09 Dec 2008 3:10pm / Permalink