Tag Archives: openinternet

Our Censorship Future?

When Turkey decided that it was a good idea to censor what it considered “questionable or objectionable material” on the internet, many were outraged – just as many people in Australia are currently outraged over similar plans for Australia. The following AlJazeera story demonstrates just how – and how quickly – their filter became wildly […]

Internet: A Special Case or Not?

One of the main arguments put forward by supporters of the internet filter is that the internet is no different from any other content distribution mechanism in the modern, connected world. They insist their plan is “not censorship”. They insist that the internet is “nothing special”, and that it is a “broadcast mechanism” – much […]

Internet Bushfire Alert

When a bushfire strikes, many different mechanisms swing into place to protect life and property. Brave firefighters rush to the fire front and seek to douse the flames. Others move ahead of the front, performing back-burning to hopefully stop the spread of the fire. People used to be told to leave their homes early, or […]

Internet Censorship Poll

We opponents of the government’s mandatory internet filtering plan are often accused of being “small, but well organised groups of nerds” seeking to make some noise. Yes, we want to make some noise – however, opposition to this filter runs far and wide – well outside of the boundaries of the so-called “nerdesphere”. Dozens of […]

Please, Somebody Think of the Horses?!

Quite rightly, there is a strong movement within animal rights groups for the for the banning of jumps racing. While many people are employed in this industry, the apparent difference between the number of serious injuries suffered by horses in jumps racing – (particularly involving the horse being put down) – as opposed to the […]

Dialup: The New Internet

Stephen Conroy boldly announced today – (as presented in this Delimiter article) – that information technology was not part of his portfolio. “Well, IT is not formally part of my portfolio – I’m broadband communications and the digital economy and Kim Carr looks after IT.” Interesting – and actually, he may be technically right. However, […]

Conroy Dossier for Attention of @JuliaGillard

This post is specifically directed towards our new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard – who has recently joined Twitter, in line with previous Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Julia – (if I can call you that) – you are probably aware of the uproar in the community regarding your communications minister and his farcical mandatory internet filtering […]

Chewbacca to Protect Against Scam/Spam Portal Attacks

Stephen Conroy’s recent ”spams and scams coming through the portal” gaffe has created quite some traction for the campaign against his idiotic plans for the internet. I was about to post a comment on a news article this morning, and discovered that The Age newspaper has come up with a clever plan to protect at […]

Not Quite the Biggest Privacy Breach in History

Hot on the heels of Senator Conroy’s “Cavalcade of Frivolous Attacks on the Internet”, and his stinging “greatest single breach of privacy in history” attack on Google, his friends over in the Health Department are doing some information profiling of their own. Australians Get Health ID Number Tomorrow Here’s the quote that interests me: Earlier […]

Tony Smith Tears Trousers on Barbed Wire

In the current mandatory internet filtering debate, there is something that irritates me almost as much as the policy itself. It is the words coming from the Shadow Communications Minister, Tony Smith. What words? Exactly – he is almost completely silent. While Stephen Conroy runs rampant across Australia calling everyone who cares to challenge him […]