You can read about it here: 
http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/

What I'm almost immediately reminded of, is the backstory of Ray Bradbury's 
classic "Fahrenheit 451".  While the government is often seen as being 
totalitarian in that book, I have always viewed it as a protectionist, 
decadent consumerist democracy (I think I got all the adjectives in there). 
While I haven't read the book in 20+ years, my recollection (which may even 
be wrong! lol) was that the society had essentially decided that books did 
more harm than good.  And who needs books?  You can get everything you need 
from watching your gigantic television (parlor room), or driving your car at 
200mph.  Trade-in those harmful concepts for a sheltered life that is free 
from guilt and pain...  Utopia!

In that vein, I think an updated Fahrenheit 451 would start out just like 
this.  Initiate a filter that removes "harmful" (or illegal) 
content/material, then keep expanding the definition of "harmful". 
Eventually, intelligent bots can do it for us, so no one even needs to know 
what "harmful" is anymore.  Fast forward a few decades...

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UncleHoot <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote:
> http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/

  "The good news is that the European Parliament are already skeptical of
mandatory filtering. Will national governments be so sensible?"

  Not the Finnish government, at least.

  (What is even stranger, and scary, about the Finnish internet censorship
is that not only is the exact list a secret which ISP's must not divulge,
but the exact authority or authorities who decide what goes into the list
is also a secret. Nobody outside the government and the police force knows
who is making the decisions.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   (What is even stranger, and scary, about the Finnish internet censorship
> is that not only is the exact list a secret which ISP's must not divulge,
> but the exact authority or authorities who decide what goes into the list
> is also a secret. Nobody outside the government and the police force knows
> who is making the decisions.)

They're starting to talk about the same thing for the USA.

Altho the whole idea that the list is secret or that the people figuring out 
what goes on the list is secret smacks of asking for corruption right there. 
I can't imagine that there's a good reason for keeping the list secret.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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"UncleHoot" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote:
> You can read about it here:
> http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/
>
> What I'm almost immediately reminded of, is the backstory of Ray Bradbury's
> classic "Fahrenheit 451".  While the government is often seen as being
> totalitarian in that book, I have always viewed it as a protectionist,
> decadent consumerist democracy (I think I got all the adjectives in there).
> While I haven't read the book in 20+ years, my recollection (which may even
> be wrong! lol) was that the society had essentially decided that books did
> more harm than good.  And who needs books?  You can get everything you need
> from watching your gigantic television (parlor room), or driving your car at
> 200mph.  Trade-in those harmful concepts for a sheltered life that is free
> from guilt and pain...  Utopia!

"Fuck books!  Where's my pr0n?"

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On 21/01/2011 12:50 AM, nemesis wrote:

> "Fuck books!  Where's my pr0n?"

There is no pr0n, and it is really _you_ that is bent.




[OK, it's not *quite* The Matrix... ;-) ]

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   (What is even stranger, and scary, about the Finnish internet censorship
> > is that not only is the exact list a secret which ISP's must not divulge,
> > but the exact authority or authorities who decide what goes into the list
> > is also a secret. Nobody outside the government and the police force knows
> > who is making the decisions.)

> They're starting to talk about the same thing for the USA.

> Altho the whole idea that the list is secret or that the people figuring out 
> what goes on the list is secret smacks of asking for corruption right there. 
> I can't imagine that there's a good reason for keeping the list secret.

  The major problem with the whole internet censorship thing is that it
*really* can end up being a slippery slope, because once it's in place,
the threshold to add more things to the censorship list gets significantly
lowered.

  It starts with child porn. Some time after they will probably also start
censoring other trendy scapegoats such as racism and terrorism-related
sites. Once you start censoring racism, the slope gets very easily very
slippery. They'll start adding more and more things that are considered
"racist", such as criticism of (major) religions.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> the threshold to add more things to the censorship list gets significantly
> lowered.

Yep. *Especially* when it's secret and the general public can't complain at 
the absurdity of stuff on the list.  Commie Scare coming up!

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > the threshold to add more things to the censorship list gets significantly
> > lowered.

> Yep. *Especially* when it's secret and the general public can't complain at 
> the absurdity of stuff on the list.  Commie Scare coming up!

  I wouldn't say the secrecy is the major problem. (Secrecy is problematic
for other, mostly ideological, reasons because it goes against the principles
of an open democracy where the citizens are, in principle, the ones who
govern a country, through representatives. If the government keeps something
secret from their own citizens, it means that they are not representing them
anymore, but it has become an oligarchy instead.)

  If the police adds something to the censorship list that they have no
legal right to add, somebody is going to find out sooner or later, when
they stumble on that site and wonder why they get the "sorry, we can't
let you into this website because of police orders" message. One of them
is then going to circumvent the censorship eg. via an anonymizer proxy
and find out exactly what is it that is being censored, and when they find
out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
has actually happened.)

  The major problem is that once the censorship system is up, the threshold
of expanding the censorship law to cover more things is significantly lowered.
It will start with things that most people agree are "bad" (such as racism),
and go from there to things that the government doesn't like (such as
critique of major religions).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
> be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
> has actually happened.)

Sure. Another way to censor folks is to just not resolve the domain name, at 
which point you don't even find out the stuff is there, because it doesn't 
wind up in google, etc.

The problem with making it secret is that someone has to stumble on it, make 
the ruckus, get the censorship reversed, and then repeat for each improperly 
censored site.  If the list is public, the interested public can go through 
the list and say "Hey, why is Joe's Pizza on that list?" If there's a 
handful of sites on the list "by mistake", that's quite different from 30% 
of the sites being there because some politician didn't want the 
competition, and there's no way to tell the difference if the list is 
secret.  Especially if they then go pass laws saying things like the 
censored site's owner isn't allowed to raise a ruckus.

>   The major problem is that once the censorship system is up, the threshold
> of expanding the censorship law to cover more things is significantly lowered.
> It will start with things that most people agree are "bad" (such as racism),
> and go from there to things that the government doesn't like (such as
> critique of major religions).

Fully agreed. But at least if the list is public, those of minority 
religions can point out they're being censored.

I.e., it's the same reason our court houses are open to the public. If 
you're doing something wrong in secret, there's much more possibility for 
abuse than if you're doing something wrong in public, even *if* the laws 
allow for you to be doing evil legally.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > out that what is being censored is actually not something that can legally
> > be censored, chances are high that they will make a ruckus about it. (This
> > has actually happened.)

> Sure. Another way to censor folks is to just not resolve the domain name, at 
> which point you don't even find out the stuff is there, because it doesn't 
> wind up in google, etc.

  The problem with that is that it's unconstitutional (at least here).
The government has no right to stop people from sending or receiving legal
information. Doing so would be a clear violation of the constitution.
Censoring an entire domain name will usually cause this to happen (unless
the domain name is extremely specific and contains only illegal material).

> The problem with making it secret is that someone has to stumble on it, make 
> the ruckus, get the censorship reversed, and then repeat for each improperly 
> censored site.

  Well, the authority who added the legal site to the list should be held
responsible for breaking the law. Guess if that has happened here. And yes,
completely legal sites have ended up in the censorship list. In one instance
there was actually somewhat of an international controversy because a
website dedicated to the memory of a deceased princess of Thailand ended up
in the Finnish censorship list. Guess if there were any legal consequences
to the authority who made the mistake. (I'll give you a hint: No.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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