Labour wants to Censor the Internet, but they have the Fibre NBN, They also want to sell the NBN later… I haven’t decided if this is a good or bad Idea, but I think if it IS to be sold, it needs to be HEAVILY regulated, so as to avoid another Telstra, once again setting our telecommunications back a decade. If your voting under the line and are voting FOR Labout, then please put Stephen Conroy at the bottom, with  Kate Lundy at the top, as she actually understands technology and is fighting the filter from the inside.

Liberal wants to build Australia’s Telecommunications Infrastructure out of bailing twine and cable ties. But they do oppose Censorship of the Internet, at least at this point in time where it suits them for votes. It is claimed they know very little about technology, but they are politicians, they are not supposed to be tech heads, they are supposed to listen to their advisors. I would put money on the fact that Tony Abbot knows more about listening to advisors than Stephen Conroy does.

The Green’s Oppose The Filter, Support the NBN, but they also oppose the privatizing of the NBN. As I said above I’m not sure whether selling the NBN or Keeping the NBN is the best Idea, Telecom Australia when it was Government owned wasn’t really that fantastic anyway, but was it better or Worse than Telstra? Currently they hold the balance of the senate when the two major parties disagree, the power is to the green’s. Browsing over the policies on their website I have to say I like what I see… but they are a small party, they have to be suck-ups… I am generally on path with most of their policies to do with Social Security and Agriculture, as well as their stances on Climate change and Energy.

So, all things considered, I like the idea of the two major parties being held apart by a smaller party that seems to have it’s head screwed on, I know Labor and Liberal will remain major parties for a long time, so in the absence of a Pirate Party being present, I will be voting Green.

Julia Gillard, The Next Australian Prime Minister

So This has been an eventful 24 hours, Kevin stepping down and Gillard stepping up will make for an interesting political landscape, hopefully she can kick Steven Conroy to the curb…

Online Privacy, Apparently a good Joke for Australian Politicians Kevin Rudd and Steven Conroy

There have been a few articles floating about the internet in the last few days discussing the Australian government’s plans for data retention of all online activities.

The Labor Government appears more and more to be playing on the naivety of the general Australian public about these rather technical issues.

With the proposed “Child Safety” government censorship via an internet filter that they are hoping to install on Australia’s internet connections, requires the implementation of a system that will verify your request against a blacklist prior to allowing you access to a requested website. Which means they would be scanning everything we access. The fear now is that they would also be intentionally recording and cataloging those requests in long term archives, which is basically comparable to tape recording and wiretapping your phone 24/7 without a warrant or court order and saving your entire telephone dialogue in a safe for several years just in case you commit what is deemed a crime later…

Of course they were fears put forward by the “paranoid few” which have now come to light as legitimate uses of the filter, with implementation of internet history data retention being investigated by the Australian Government.

So what does it mean for average joe tax paying Internet User?

The key problem is your privacy, your basic human right to privacy, as the world moves more of it’s services online, more of your life will be cataloged and filed for later use by a Government Agency. These neatly formatted and all-inclusive data snippets from your digital life pre indexed with highlights of your likes and dislikes and your political preferences couldn’t possibly be used for evil. Now, conspiracies aside, imagine if this system was compromised by a criminal and all of your private data was laid out for them on a silver platter, no system is infallible because at the end of the day humans built the system and they will make mistakes.

The internet blacklist leaked and it hasn’t even been implemented yet.

Imagine if you are looking for help for a friend who is taking a lot of drugs, you turn online and start doing research about the drug, it’s effects, and how to get off it. Due to your browsing patterns, the automated system places your name onto a “drug activity” list. Now a few years later you are detained at a nightclub for getting a little rowdy, but instead of being slapped on the wrist, the police enter your data into the system and your name is flagged with “Drug Activity”, All of a sudden you take a visit to the police station in the back of a paddy wagon for some drug tests and some nice friendly questions in a windowless room to make sure your drug problem was not the actual cause of the disturbance.

It’s sounds very Orwellian, but it also sounds very Steven Conroy.

For the greater good, protecting the children from harm, we MUST file and catalog all of your internet traffic.

If a system such as this was actually going to CATCH real criminals, it would have some merit. Quite simply it will be just as easy to bypass as the internet filter and in fact it would probably be part of the internet filter that your bypassing. Real bad guys will simply go around it unchecked, just like high school students are already doing. So once again there will be a massive waste of tax payers money, to buy a system that does nothing but destroy the tax payer’s privacy.

In turn Internet users will be forced to privatize their online ventures, silencing free speech through self-editing authors who don’t want to be arrested Anonymity of criminals will be furthered as everyone shifts over to solutions built to hide your identity online, Criminals become much more difficult to track and child exploitation will continue to thrive, even easier than before.

Anyone would think that this government is bored and simply DOESN’T want to be re-elected…

What the Fuck.

I’ve watched this shit already, I’ve pressed [X] in the top corner of the thumbnail about 10 times now for each of the video’s, it’s not a difficult thing to understand.

SUBSCRIPTION DATABASE:

IF WATCHED FIELD CONTAINS 1, THEN ‘DAVE DOESN’T WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN’ IF 0 THEN CHECK X’D FIELD, IF X’D FIELD CONTAINS 1, DON’T SHOW THUMBNAIL, IF X’D FIELD CONTAINS 0, DELIVER THUMBNAIL!

IT’S NOT FUCKING HARD!

Your Pal, Dave

NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISSUE

Also not one bit of my interview made it to screen but they re-recorded a lot of my words as a voice over, missed any of the factual information and just went back to flashing more porn and listening to Christian Lobby Groups.

I’m too angry right now to express how I truly feel about this bowl of horse excrement I just sat through, and if this is the best the media can do, sometimes I wonder why I even bother fighting

On Monday’s Four Corners, reporter Quentin McDermott reveals how an apparently well meaning attempt by Government to protect children from video nasties on the net turned into a policy that critics say promotes censorship and reduces personal freedom. “Access Denied”, Monday 10th May, 8.30pm on ABC1. Repeated Tuesday 11th May, 11.35pm.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2893505.htm

I was teaching them how to get around the proposed mandatory internet filter being put forward by the governmet, It also helped illustraite just how useless the filter really is, and how easy it will be for anyone to get around it.

I also illustraited to them that the filter being proposed constitutes as an illegal tapping of users internet connections, illegal under current australian law that is.

So hopefully some good will come of this.

UPDATE: I’m on screen for about .05 seconds in this one… still looking  http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national/-/watch/18935283

Previously you had to boot the old firmware to trasnfer files, which wasn’t too bad, until you got a microSDHC card, which the original old firmware does not support, but rockbox does, so you could use microSDHC in the player, but could use the player to transfer files onto the microSDHC cards… but NOT ANYMORE!

Woooo… now I have a $20 player with a $50 16GB drive in it, so for $70 I have a 18GB music player, smaller than a matchbox with roughly 15Hrs of constant playback