….

The simple fact is that this woman and others like her are trying their utmost to have appear to have a moral high ground by making such claims as McMenamin’s child pornography gaff. I too find her allegations not just offensive but down right libelist.

..
Every time i hear on the radio or what ever of someones comments about the need for the filtering is so tainted with an agenda its absolutely sickening.

(oh im a parent of two kids as well and im REALLY tired of hearing the “But what about the children” line too)

There are coherent arguments which point out that Internet censorship won’t help stop child abuse and that the funding should go to law enforcement agencies instead. By ignoring them, McMenamin herself is contributing to child abuse by reducing the “bang for buck” from our investment. This is disgusting. She should be ashamed. She should goddam well apologise.

Jon Seymour argues the point well in Shame, McMenamin, Shame!.

I’m intending to write about her and Clive Hamilton for Crikey tomorrow.

“Let the 300 people march on Canberra because it looks pathetic,” she said. “It looks pathetic and shameful because most of these people are not fully aware of the facts and secondly, those who are aware are, in effect, advocating child pornography.”

This has got to be the most uneducated statement from a person i have EVER read in my life. Not only that but basically accusing anyone who opposes censorship as advocating child porn..

WHAT A CROCK!!! What is wrong with you Ms McMenamin.!! DONT you think for a second that the average joe is unable to make up their own minds when given the FACTS AS THEY STAND! If people like yourself and other politicians etc make altered statements and distort those facts, you feed people the wrong information only to serve YOURSELF and your own agenda.

Its unfortunate Ms McMenamin that you tried to take on a subject that you clearly have no idea about

She says that people aren’t fully aware of the facts, YOU madam are the one who is not aware, to assume that the general populous is unable to make a constructive argument of this based on VERY CLEAR facts is only making you the ass.

The ONLY PEOPLE ADVOCATING CHILD PORN IS THE PEDOS THEMSELVES…

Factually speaking her figures are wrong and she claims govt grants using false data. That is fraud simple.

The money intended to be used on a filter would be better spent improving the AFP’s ability to fight the revolting crime called Child Porn, something as a parent I find most abhorrent.

The fact the govt jumped to her and the ACL suggestion of a filter despite no real technical knowledge shows a complete ignorance of how the internet works. A filter can be bypassed ever so easily therefore it is not a valid proposition and is tantamount to a gross waste of tax payer funds. Some may suggest just as wasteful as giving one cent to Bernadette the insulter.

For many years, we have been fighting the never ending flow of internet spam. Using filters and other means of trying to stop it at the isp and local levels. All have really failed.

Recently a major contributor of internet spam (and child pornography mind you) was shut down when the companies that supplied the internet to that organisation pulled the plug. Effectively reducing the amount of spam in the world by a third!!!

The proof is in the pudding, spending millions to try and stop it after it’s sent is a waste of time and money. Stopping it at it’s source is a much more effective and efficient method.

We can live in hope that wisdom comes with age and in Bernadettes case, I hope that comes quickly.

S.

McMenamin: Why won’t you try to filter out the bad stuff?

The Entire World: Because it won’t work. It’s not where the money should be spent.

McMenamin: But why won’t you try to filter out the bad stuff?

[Repeat until the Sun expands and engulfs the Earth.]

Sigh.

Ok, I think I will have to go quite slow for you, They are upset because it wont work.

:. a waste of taxpayers money.

How can you not understand that ?

seriously did god give you a brain and the ability to reason ?

To judge by the searches which have brought people to my website recently, adding the material here is still very valuable.

Many of the points you make were repeated at yesterday’s forum on Internet filtering and censorship, too. There was widespread agreement that a filter would not achieve the goal of protecting children. And yes, $45M more for the Australian Federal Police or whoever would massively multiply their effectiveness.

What’s particularly disappointing about Ms McMenamin’s approach is that she refuses to acknowledge the arguments pointing out that the filter can’t work. It’s one thing to say once that you don’t understand the technology. But when people have subsequently made genuine efforts to explain, she simply says “I don’t understand why you won’t try,” as if “trying harder” will change the logic.

Ms McMenamin’s passion and energy are undisputed. If she does not understand the technology, then she should not be specifying technological solutions. She should, by all means, lobby to have child protection given a greater priority — and for any resources to be spent on whatever will most effectively achieve the goal. That, as is repeated time and time again by everyone working in the field, is more investigation and policing, and more education and empowerment for children and their families.

These ongoing discussions are often amusing, as peoples emotions and passion for their respective viewpoints sometimes get in the way of factual and logical discussions.

I have recently been getting involved in the debate on internet filtering and one of my first steps was to research where the discussions came from. After some searching I came across an article quoting Bernadette McMenamin from January 2008.

More searching eventually led me here.

This article was obviously designed to not only scare parents, but it in turn brands anyone against her ideas essentially “indecent”.

I want to add some additional information to the argument for the purpose of educating anyone else who stumbles on to this.

1. Accuracy of Statistics
2. Technical Constraints to Filtering

Accuracy of Statistics

When Bernadette McMenamin quoted her statistics in her article:

Let’s put this argument into perspective. Child pornography is one of the fastest growing online businesses generating approximately $US3 billion ($3.43 billion) each year. It is estimated that 100,000 commercial websites offer child pornography and more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet every week.

In 2005 the United States National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed that 40 per cent of arrested child pornography possessors sexually abused children. The most disturbing trend is that the demand for sexual images of babies and toddlers and images of children being sexually tortured is increasing.

The statistics she quoted have been proven to be wrong. Details on the real statistics are located here.

Unfortunately when people on a crusade start quoting made up or unverified statistics, all that happens is people stop listening. This in turn detracts from what is in essence a very good cause.

There is no need to make up or exaggerate the stats. The problem is bad enough. Even 1 child is 1 too many.

What has made this worse is the stats she used have been picked up and quoted by the media as fact, which it is not. This in turn continues to make things worse, because when the truth comes out everyone becomes wary of any future numbers quoted.

Technical Constraints to Filtering

Next is the technical aspect, and something that is not discussed very often. I would be so bold as to claim that most people who peddle in illegal material (child porn included) DO NOT do so using normal web sites. And those few that do, have random fast moving sites that an internet filter would simply have too much trouble trying to keep up with.

There are so many other methods of moving files around the internet that there is simply no way to stop it. Believe me the RIAA has been trying to stop illegal music downloads for 10+ years with no success. And most music sites aren’t really trying to hide!!!

We are better off spending the money from any planned internet filter on our police force and give them the facilities they need to catch the small but nasty group of people that Bernadette (and many others of us) want to catch.

Imagine giving the Federal Police an additional 45 Million to set up and an additional 33 Million per year (the expected setup and running costs of an internet filter). Just think how much more effective they would be.

Thank you for your time
Stephen Needham

While the human rights aspects fuel my passion on this issue, I think that since I’m a literate geek it’s more my role to help explain the “technical difficulties” (!) of what’s being proposed.

I’ll read your comments on your own site as I head north on the train later this morning.

In particular, I offer a more extended explanation of why overlay networks such as those established by Tor make ISP-level filtering irrelevant and hence futile.