[Infowarrior] - Oz National Web Censoring Officially Declared A Dud

[Richard Forno]

Web porn software filter a dud

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/web-porn-software-filter-a-dud/2008/02/16/120
3190635858.html?sssdmh=dm16.303144

Heath Gilmore
February 17, 2008
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THE Rudd Government has branded as a failure the $85 million software filter
scheme to protect young Australians from online pornography and will review
its future.

Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is assessing the NetAlert
program, which will come under scrutiny at the Senate estimates hearings
tomorrow.

The filter scheme was a central feature of the Howard Government's $189
million NetAlert program launched last August to address the perceived
threat of online sexual predators and unsavoury content to young internet
users. A multimillion dollar advertising blitz followed, including a booklet
delivered to every household across the nation.

It was expected 2.5 million households would take up the free porn-blocking
filters within 12 months but only 144,088 filter products have been
downloaded or ordered on CD-ROM since August last year.

The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has
estimated about 29,000 of these accessed filter products were still being
used - less than 2 per cent of the set target.

"The program has clearly failed, despite over $15 million being spent in
advertising to support it," Mr Conroy said.

"Labor has always said that PC filtering is not a stand-alone solution to
protecting children from online dangers. The Government has a comprehensive
cyber-safety plan that includes the implementation of mandatory ISP-based
filtering to deliver a filtered feed to all homes, schools and public
internet points.

"Education for parents and teachers as well as children is a priority."

Mr Conroy said the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
would examine all aspects of ISP-level filtering, with a laboratory trial
completed by the end of June 2008, followed by a pilot test in a real world
environment.

Sixteen-year-old Tom Wood, aka "The Porn Cracker", who shot to national
prominence when he showed the new NetAlert filters could be bypassed by any
savvy teenager in a matter of minutes, said the scheme had been a waste of
time and money.

"Although these are amongst the best PC-based filters available, it didn't
take long for teens to work out how to bypass them," said the schoolboy with
a passion for cyber-safety.

Opposition communications spokesman Bruce Billson said the Rudd Government
was rushing to criticise the NetAlert program to set the scene for a
"harebrained, half-baked policy dreamt up in the lead-up to an election".

"NetAlert is a program which is relatively new, as is the minister in his
role, and I'm sure he would like a little more than six months or so before
the public decide if he has been a failure or not," he said.

"Proper supervision should be front and centre of any efforts to protect
children from inappropriate material on the internet; supported by
additional tools such as content filters, not some mandatory and
ill-conceived 'clean feed' measure by a government that believes only it has
the authority to decide what's appropriate or inappropriate content for
computer users."

hgilmore at sunherald.com.au