New Zealand's Internet filter goes live | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand's Internet filter goes live

stuff.co.nz

23 pointsbootload13 comments

Yet another country (unfortunately mine) joining the bandwagon of "protecting people from themselves". While I can see some potential reasons for it, I am beginning to see it very much as a sort of censorship on free speech, which I believe is a BAD THING in any modern society.

If this is here to stay, then what needs to happen is for there to be a way that each and every person can for themselves decide to bypass the filter.

Does anyone know how these filters work? Ways around them? Things that show up the effect of the filter at work? This would seem to me a first step in seeing how big brother is trying to manipulate society / protect us from ourselves...

Ben Franklin's essential liberty/temporary safety quote comes to mind here. Sure, it's in place for noble reasons (protecting children), but what happens when "feature creep" starts to set in? "Just one more site can't hurt, can it?"...

Sadly it doesn't do much of a job in it's stated aims. In fact is only a lack of hard data that stops me saying it has no effect at all...

Censorship Compliance ~ http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Censo...

Anti Spam ~ http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Anti-...

Censorship & the Internet ~ http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Censo...

Anti-Money Laundering & Countering Financing of Terrorism ~ http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Anti-...

I can't find any technical discussion how the filtering is being done, but the above list gives you an idea of the intention. The biggest thing I don't like about this idea for Kiwis is there is no legislation written in law. Nothing to appeal, no legal framework.

How it works:

http://techliberty.org.nz/issues/internet-filtering/filterin...

Using something like an SSH tunnel will work around it. Or HTTPS access to websites.

It's all well and good to say that it's just for filtering the One Thing, but once the door's open, there's no shutting it. Hillary Clinton's recent suggestion that the US view freedom of information as an essential human right and impose sanctions to encourage (enforce?) it doesn't sound so crazy. What are the upsides of this (besides the obvious child pornography thing)?

There's a similar filter in Denmark. The good thing is that I don't stumble into illegal sites by accident, since they're blocked. I have absolutely no problem with child pornography sites and the like being filtered out since it deprives the sites of eyeballs and thus presumably income.

The problem with this approach comes down to "Who decides what goes on the list?" For obvious reasons a list of illegal sites can't be publicly available, so it's hard for free speech organisations, watchdog organisations etc. to look into it. A few years ago the list was leaked and someone went through it to see how much of it was actually illegal content. According to the blogger who wrote the article less than 50% contained illegal content. Since there's no way to complain it raises some serious questions.

"For obvious reasons a list of illegal sites can't be publicly available, so it's hard for free speech organisations, watchdog organisations etc. to look into it. A few years ago the list was leaked and someone went through it to see how much of it was actually illegal content."

I'm not familiar with the legal system in Denmark, but it isn't obvious to me why you couldn't have a list of illegal sites. I assume the objection would be that you would thereby make it easier for people to then visit those sites. But, considering the significant inaccuracy you mention above, it seems like there are obvious reasons for the list to be public. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

your assumption is correct, I would say that a publicly available government approved list of child pornography sites is a really bad idea.

I agree that there should be more transparancy though. Maybe through some sort of intermediary, making the list available to lawyers and organisations that could have an interest, such as the EFF. And of course notifying webmasters that they're on the list so they can plead their case if they feel wronged.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if someone explained SSH tunnelling to these government agencies. I doubt it would be pretty.

These things are generally about politics rather than "technical considerations" or "reality". People have explained that these things aren't going to work but it doesn't seem to slow politicians down if they think there's a vote in it.

To have any effect, SSH tunneling needs to be explained to, and understood by, the population at large.

I agree there's no way the general population would ever understand SSH tunnelling (they have enough problem understanding URLs) but it isn't inconceivable that a desire to avoid these filters could lead to successful mainstream software workarounds. "New in Firefox 3.8: the 'skip government filters' button"

what about proxies? I guess they will be block, I've just set one as a sideproject, so if a NZ Guy is around, just try it and see if it works for you: http://www.serversproxy.org . I think information should be free, peoples should educate their kids and themselves, protecting peoples from themselves is not the path to take, because most of the peoples looking for those infos know how to find them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com