March 2006 Archives

There's noises emanating from elements of the Federal Liberal party back bench about blocking unsavoury content from the Internet.

This is not new, of course, they've already tried it before. Memory serves me that a regulatory framework was devised as an attempt to buy Brian Harradine's vote on some issue or other. This temporarily certailed a lot of local adult content, but the site owners simply moved to servers off shore and out of reach of the Australian authorities.

So now the censorship proponents want to block the content before it reaches us.

I have mixed feelings on this issue. As a parent, I don't want my kids accessing this sort of material and we have a strict regime of control over the home PCs to prevent this. As an adult, I don't want to be told what I can and can't watch. As an engineer, I don't want regulatory measures effecting the performance of the Internet, especially measures that I suspect will not be effective.

The details of how the proponents of censorship propose to block the content are sketchy. I assume it will use some sort of blacklist at the ISP level. How they expect to keep track of the shifting sands of the millions of questionable sites is beyond me. They could use keywords, I suppose, but that would eliminate half the Blogosphere let alone your average porn site.

The may propose the Chinese method and funnel all external traffic through a handful of gateways. Expect 'broadband' to be not so 'broad' if they take that path.

In my experience, blocking sites comes with unintended consequences. An innocent site with a link to a blocked one may make the innocent site unreachable.

Another danger is that once a regulatory framework is in place, it doesn't take much to control other information. Just look at the way the Chinese authorities filter content to their population.

Control will never stop the nasties, it will just push them underground. Suspect sites will not be on DNS, and encryption will make the traffic difficult for the authorities to monitor.

Hopefully, Helen Coonan will resist the zealots and not introduce measures that are ineffective and will cripple the net.

Freedom of information has advantages that far outweigh the disadvantages. It's up to individuals to control what they and their dependents access.

Last week, I was offered a ticket to the Commonwealth Games (CG) Rugby Sevens final.

Although I've tended to bag the CG as a non-event, my convictions were not sufficient to prevent me from taking up the offer. After all, the notable rugby countries are in the Commonwealth, thus guaranteeing a high standard of competition. It was an offer too good to refuse.

Also, I'd never attended the Docklands Stadium, and was keen to see football under a closed roof.

Everything fell into place at short notice. Flights were available, I had accommodation, and most importantly, an understanding boss to approve my absence from work. By Friday afternoon I was in Melbourne, well in time to enter the Dome on Friday evening.

I had not had time to leave my small overnight bag where I was staying, so it went along to the game with me. Of course, security was tight, and the bag's contents were inspected.

Little did I know I was carrying an item deemed by the security personnel as a potentially dangerous weapon.

Yes, my nail clipper was a threat to the security of the CG Rugby Sevens tournament! Imagine the damage that could be done with such an offensive item!

The guards were not going to let such a dangerous item into the stadium. Far more dangerous, it seems, than the safety razor I was also carrying.

Of course, in situations like this, it's pointless arguing with officials who are following instructions. They took the offending item, we entered the arena without further incident, and had an enjoyable evening watching a high standard of competition.

Footnote: Australia had a bad day. They were beaten by the Kiwis in the semi-final, then defeated by Fiji in the lesser final for the Bronze Medal.

It seems that Channel Nine lost interest in the tournament after this point. The next day, few people knew the end result. For your information, New Zealand defeated England to win the Gold.

The papers were too polite to ask the question, but what was QE2 thinking when she chose the outfit for the Opera House bash?

It's no wonder she looked so pained in the press photos. The high heat and humidity of yesterday would have made the outfit unbearable.

An Australian Head of State would know better.

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last 10 days or so. Work commitments and some personal events prevented me from getting in front of the keyboard.

Your correspondent recently crossed the line that marks (to some) the beginning of senility. Yes, the big five oh! Can't say I've notice much difference from when I was 49, but some will claim it confirms my dinosaur status.

I wonder how many other ploggers (political bloggers) out there who've reached a similar age? I think Rowen may have. On the dark side there's Slatts, but there wouldn't be many others.

Dinosaurs we may be, but 'silly old buggers' we aren't. Well, maybe Slatts is close! ;)

An interesting situation.

On one side you have the government, under political pressure to do something, but knowing that the Tunnel Consortium is bleeding financially. Up to $5 million per month, by one estimate.

On the other side, the consortium knows that the government is on the nose with the voters, and an election is only a year away.

Both sides are under stress. The question is, "Who will blink first?"

The government hopes the consortium's creditors will not put up with the losses for too long and force tunnel management to lower the toll to under $3, in the vain hope that this will increase patronage.

The consortium hopes that political pressure will cause a cave in similar to that over the M4 and M5 tolls many years ago. To shore up western suburb seats, the government introduced a cash back scheme to subsidise motorway users.

It comes down to who can wait the longest.

Knowing the political imperative, and how governments react when under threat, my money's with the Tunnel Consortium. They don't have an election looming.