Episode 52 of Stilgherrian Live, the Extended Tentacle Edition, is now online for your viewing pleasure.

We had some great nominations for “Cnut of the Week”, as always. From the selected shortlist, Graeme Hoy came in fourth place (0 votes) for being at the centre of one of Australia’s biggest Ponzi schemes, the $50 million Chartwell Enterprises collapse.

Footballer Greg Inglis, who for some reason I was calling Glen Inglis, was 3rd (14%) for the alleged assault on his girlfriend — though there’s news today that he may have been trying to help.

Who cares? He’s just a goddam footballer!

In second place (41%), all the idiots criticising US plans to actually have a health system. I particularly like, but did not mention on the program, the editorial from Investor’s Business Daily:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Except that Hawking was born in and has always lived in the UK. Hat-tip to Daring Fireball, though Investor’s Business Daily has amended their editorial.

The winner of “Cnut of the Week” was Senator Steve Fielding (45%) for his continued arsehattery and climate change denialism. Congratulations, Senator.

“Arsehattery” is such an excellent word.

Congratulations also to deanlk, who won another t-shirt from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing he’s won before, you see — via his nomination for me! apparently he didn’t like my recent piece in Crikey about the potential risk of geotagging photos.

Stilgherrian Live will return next Thursday 20 August at 9.30pm Sydney time.

Episode 40 of Stilgherrian Live is now online for your viewing pleasure, including the very first interview with Fake Stephen Conroy aka Leslie Nassar.

Nassar, a Telstra employee, outed himself as FSC on Tuesday. Given that Senator Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, oversees telcos like Telstra, this created some complications. He now appears to be over the worst of what sounded like anger Tuesday night.

The phone conversation with Leslie Nassar is just over 12 minutes into the program.

Of course we also had “Cnut of the Week”…

Senators Steve Fielding (16%) and Stephen Conroy (18%) didn’t do as well as they usually did, thanks to strong competition from Telstra (20%) for supposedly mishandling the outing of Leslie Nassar. However the clear winner was the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with 45% of the votes for trying to keep their secret blacklist secret. Or something.

Personally I wouldn’t blame the public servants for implementing the silly policies of their political masters, but then you make the nominations and ultimate vote. So there it is. I am your slave.

Here’s my letter to my federal MP Anthony Albanese (pictured), which this very moment is rolling off his fax machine.

I’m hoping that Mr Albanese will be able to have some impact on this because he is both Minister for Infrastructure — the Internet is key infrastructure, right? — and Leader of the House of Representatives.

I know that he understands human rights issues because … well, us Marrickville folks just do understand these things, right Anthony? And you certainly knew how to stick it into John Howard when he demonstrated cluelessness.

Like Mark Newton, I also release this letter into the public domain.

The Hon Anthony Albanese MP
Federal Member for Grayndler
334A Marrickville Road
Marrickville NSW 2204

Internet censorship is poor policy: filtering trials must stop at once

Good morning Mr Albanese,

I write to you, my elected representative, to express my deepest concerns about the government’s current plans for censoring the Internet.

Respected network engineer Mark Newton, who I consider to be one of the pioneers of the commercial Internet in this country, has powerfully detailed his own concerns in a letter to his local MP, Kate Ellis. I too would like to see the government provide specific responses to the issues he raises — rather than the attempted bullying which has come from Senator Stephen Conroy’s office.

Where is the demonstrated need for an online censorship regime? Where is the evidence that it is technologically feasible? Where is the demonstration that is it effective? Where is the demonstration that the stated potential side effects can be mitigated?

I have already speculated in Crikey that the Rudd government is only continuing with the filtering trials, which were set up by the Howard government, to placate Senators Steve Fielding and Nick Xenophon. I do understand that to secure their vote on other matters the government needs to toss them a bone occasionally. But…

The fundamental human right of free and open communication is far, far too important to use as a bargaining chip for Senate votes.

Last week’s Senate Estimates showed that The Greens understand this. Senator Conroy’s responses show that he cannot defend the trials on their merits — and more worryingly that he, and by extension the Australian Labor Party, does not understand.

During the 2007 election campaign the Prime Minister said many times that his government would be one of “evidence-based policy”. The evidence clearly shows that Labor’s policy on Internet censorship is wrong.

The only rational outcome is for these trials to cease immediately, before any more taxpayers’ money is wasted.

I welcome you response.

Regards,

Stilgherrian

Should you wish to print and send this to your local MP too, here’s a PDF copy, as well as the PDF of Mark Newton’s letter.

The quickest way to find your local MP is to hit openaustralia.org, and enter your postcode. You can then click through to his or her website for the contact details.

Senator Conroy needs to think a little harder about Internet filtering if he wants Australia to be less like China, I’ve just written in Crikey today.

I reckon Conroy knows the filters are a dud. When that report on the Internet filter trials dropped, he “welcomed” it and was “encouraged” by it, but only The Australian used the word “success”. Not Conroy — a fact his office confirmed to Crikey this morning.

Last night‘s Stilgherrian Live viewers voted Senator Stephen Conroy (pictured) “Cnut of the Week” by the clearest margin ever. But the actions of his office reported this morning really take the biscuit.

As Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy has been spokesman for the ALP’s policy of ISP-level filtering of the Internet. I’ve written about this before, but it’s back in the news this week because it was discussed in Senate Estimates, as Michael Meloni reports.

Conroy, as in December, was accusing critics of the policy like Greens Senator Scott Ludlam of supporting child pornography — a cheap rhetorical trick at the best of times.

This morning, though, news broke that Conroy’s office had tried bullying other critics.

Internode’s Mark Newton was highly critical of the filtering plan and Conroy’s evidence, but he was speaking as a private citizen. It was totally inappropriate for Conroy’s policy advisor Belinda Dennett to attempt to pressure him via Internet Industry Association board members and his employer.

Last year, Senator Conroy agreed with his Coalition predecessor, Senator Helen Coonan, when she said you get into trouble when politicians start picking technologies. Problem is, the ALP’s “cyber-safety” policy specifies “ISP filters that block prohibited content”. Conroy’s stuck with it. But the filters clearly don’t work. And he can’t be seen to back away from Internet filtering — in a trial program which, ironically, was scheduled by his predecessor — because the ALP needs the votes of Family First Senator Steve Fielding and independent Senator Nick Xenophon for other things.

Poor bloke. What is he to do?

[This article was first published in Crikey yesterday. I've added some follow-up comments at the end.]

Let’s sing along with Senator Conroy! You’ve got to accentuate the positive / Eliminate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative…

[On Monday] our Minister for Broadband was “encouraged” that lab tests of ISP-level Internet filters showed “significant progress” since 2005, and The Australian had him declaring the trial a success. But if you actually dig into the full report [2.8MB PDF] things aren’t so rosy.

Yes, on average filters might be more accurate than three years ago and have less impact on Internet speeds — well, at least for the six filters actually tested of the 26 put forward. But it’s about them being not quite as crap as before.

The report pre-judges the results, saying filters show “high levels of successful blocking”. But even with “most” filters achieving over 92% success, that still means 1 in 13 naughty sites are not blocked.

Similarly, the “low levels” of overblocking (incorrectly blocking legitimate content) are, at best, still 1%. With more than a million registered domain names in Australia (a loose measure of “sites”) even a 1% false positive rate means 10,000 perfectly acceptable websites are blocked. That’s with the best product. Under ideal lab conditions. The least successful of the products tested was eight times worse.

One product only degraded Internet speeds by 2%, maybe, but it was 22% to 30% for three products, and more than 75% for two of them. That’s up to 75% off your internet speed, or your ISP having to build 75% more capacity — with the cost passed on to you.

This was, remember, in a test lab. Filters were tested against a pre-compiled list of fewer than 4000 web pages (URLs). How they handle the massive, rapidly-changing real Internet, and how that affects performance of a real ISP, are different questions.

As the report notes, ACMA wasn’t asked to look at the balance of costs and benefits for ISP-level filtering, or the implications for customers, or how easy it is to circumvent the filters (“Very easy,” some reckon).

And here’s the killer. None of the products could effectively filter instant messaging, streaming video, peer-to-peer file sharing like BitTorrent, newsgroups or newly-invented Internet protocols except by blocking them entirely. Let’s count them again. None.

As the report notes, “Where such protocols are used to carry legitimate traffic and are widely used by children for study and social interaction, ACMA regards the absence of a more targeted capability as a deficiency.” Vendors mentioned development efforts but, writes ACMA, “Such capabilities may become available in the next few years.” Yeah, maybe. Until then, kids, go for it.

Hit it, Bing! You’ve got to accentuate the positive…

And beyond Crikey…

One Crikey commenter noted that my analysis was fairly restrained. Perhaps. But I’ve written plenty about this. Filters simply will not solve the problem because they’re so easy to circumvent.

In particular, in Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on Internet filters” six months ago I wrote:

Real-world experience in everything from spam filters to the record industry’s futile attempts to stop copyright violations always shows that filters only block casual users. Professionals, the desperate or the persistent will always get through.

However if a politician demands a filter, pretty soon a shiny-suited salesman will appear, ready to sell him a box with “filter” written on the front. It’ll work — well enough for the demo, anyway.

“Look, Minister! Nice Minister. Watch the screen. See? Filter off, bad website is visible. Filter on, bad website gone. Filter off. Child in danger. Filter on. Child happy and safe. Filter off. Voter afraid and angry. Filter on. Voter relaxed and comfortable. Cheque now please.”

It is obscene that further taxpayer’s money is being spent on the next trial when this report already shows — clearly shows — that the filters are simply not up for the job. Their false positive rate is unacceptably high. They’re useless for anything other than standard web traffic — yet non-web traffic is precisely where material of real concern is likely to be distributed.

The only people who think filters are the answer to the actual question of “keeping children safe” are those who know nothing about how the Internet works, and who want the government to do their babysitting for them.

Of course the real question the filters answer is “What do we do with Family First Senator Steve Fielding?” But that’s another story…

So, just because some people get suckered into shoving all their money into addictive machines, the rest of us are denied the convenience of withdrawing cash at the pub when we’re running short. Instead we have to go down the street — where we can be mugged more easily.

Here’s a thought. If gaming machines are the problem, why not get rid of the gaming machines?

Oh, that’s right. 8% of Victoria’s revenue comes from gaming machine taxes [PDF file], a total of 13% from gambling of all kinds.

Chairman Rudd has already said he supports Nick Xenophon’s push to remove ATMs from gaming areas. Xenophon doesn’t even become a Senator until 1 July, but already he’s an object of sincere and deep affection.

We’d already started to see the rise of a new wowserism. Imagine what it’s going to like when the balance of power in the Senate is held by Xenophon and Family First’s Senator Steve Fielding! If you thought we’d seen dull conformity before…

“Labor has never argued that ISP filtering is a silver bullet solution, but it is an important step in the overall strategy to make the internet a safer place for children,” Conroy said.

Although he acknowledged ISP level filtering could potentially affect Internet speeds, Conroy added little else to quell concerns surrounding the issue, other than to say there would be a trial process to iron out any technical anomalies.

“I can assure you that we will go forward through an informed, consultative and considered process to ensure that a workable solution is found,” Conroy said. “This evening, I ask the industry to continue engaging with the Government and with my Department to ensure that we achieve an outcome for ISP filtering that meets the needs of industry and the wider community.”

Senator Conroy, apart from actually addressing everyone’s concerns, technical and social, eventually you do need answer the basic question: What will and will not be censored?

Is it “prohibited content”? That plus X-rated material? R-rated? MA? M? Is the Internet to become a G-rated experience unless we register with the guv’mint?

Are we to invent a new classification of “SF-rated material”: whatever happens to be Senator Steve Fielding’s hobby-horse this week?

You also say the filtering must “[meet] the needs of industry and the wider community.” But the industry has no need for filtering — it’s an expensive and irritating distraction. And “the wider community” has shown a profound disinterest in the whole thing.

If Senator Fielding wants the government to be everyone’s Internet baby-sitter, fine. Shall I start calling you “Daddy” from now on?

Hat-tip to Michael Meloni.

[This is what I wrote for Crikey, finally published today.]

Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin found out the hard way: geeks get angry when you suggest filtering their Internet. OK, she only wants to block child porn and other illegal nasties, that’s clear now. But the geeks are still angry.

Why?

1. Two completely different problems are conflated. One, preventing distribution of already-illegal child pornography to anyone. Two, preventing children from viewing undefined “inappropriate” material, but allowing access to others in the same home. Different problems need different solutions, but they’re jumbled together for political purposes. Naughty naughty, Senators Conroy and Fielding.
2. Taxpayer-funded technical “solutions” are proposed for social problems. As John Birmingham reminds us, the government is not your babysitter.
3. Technical illiterates are demanding specific answers: filters. Those in the know are already several pages ahead in this story, and know filters won’t work. Geeks get angry when their knowledge isn’t respected — even when it isn’t understood (or understandable).

Real-world experience in everything from spam filters to the record industry’s futile attempts to stop copyright violations always shows that filters only block casual users. Professionals, the desperate or the persistent will always get through.

However if a politician demands a filter, pretty soon a shiny-suited salesman will appear, ready to sell him a box with “filter” written on the front. It’ll work — well enough for the demo, anyway.

“Look, Minister! Nice Minister. Watch the screen. See? Filter off, bad website is visible. Filter on, bad website gone. Filter off. Child in danger. Filter on. Child happy and safe. Filter off. Voter afraid and angry. Filter on. Voter relaxed and comfortable. Cheque now please.”

The UK’s CleanFeed system is hailed as a model, but even its builders admit that it won’t stop the hardened paedophile. By obviously blocking some websites but not others, they’re showing the bad guys where to concentrate their efforts at breaking through.

Mike, creator of somebodythinkofthechildren.com, sums it up:

We don’t want to waste money and pretend we are helping kids when we actually could be helping kids. You know, by funding health services and the police. A bloody filter won’t reduce how many kids are being exploited.

Just as the local council connects us to public roads, ISPs connect us to the public internet. They can’t “filter out bad stuff” any more than councils can prevent kids encountering anything bad once they walk down the driveway. Unless we hold their hands.

Labor makes no apologies to those who argue that any regulation of the Internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.

As usual, Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett hits the nail on the head, and makes my point for me.

No free speech advocate that I know of advocates such absolute freedom as to defend the provision of child pornography… But the fact it is already illegal shows just how dishonest Conroy’s statement is.

The government’s proposal is not about child pornography at all, which is already seriously illegal online and offline. It is about legal pornography and other ‘inappropriate’ material.

The arguments against this clean-feed idea are simple: it won’t work, and it opens up an unacceptable risk of further government intrusion into our freedom to communicate.

As Senator Bartlett continues:

The catch-all nature of the term ‘inappropriate’ gives me concern. I have little faith that the current government will prove much better than governments everywhere, and be unable to resist the urge to continually increase the scope of what they try to control…

As with every aspect of the measure, until the full details are known its impossible to judge. However, comments like Conroy’s make it much harder to be confident that the government is doing anything other than populist pandering, putting up a feel-good measure which will have no practical impact but create the illusion of doing something effective. Such ineffective actions can even cause harm by lulling parents into a false sense of security, thinking that the internet their kids are accessing at home is effectively filtered when it probably won’t be.

A “clean feed” is impossible. There’s only two ways to identify and block “bad stuff”. Both approaches are used in spam filtering and that’s 100% effective, right? Right.

1. You have a list of where the bad stuff comes from and block those sites. This appears to be the method being proposed. But with new websites going online every minute, and with the ability to “spread the word” in every child’s hands, a list of “bad” sites can’t possibly be kept up to date.
2. You look at the content “live” and try to determine whether it’s good or bad on the fly. However trying to identify “inappropriate” material automatically generates too many false positives. Legitimate material would be blocked by accident. Unacceptable.

In any event, simple tools already exist to circumvent filters like this. They’ll be adapted and available to every Australian child within hours of these filters going live.

The question to ask is “Why is Conroy framing this debate so harshly?”

I doubt it’s because he’s stupid, because so far he’s shown every sign of intelligence. Is it because he’s one of the “union thugs” John Howard warned us about? If so, it’s time for him to learn a more nuanced debating style. But surely he’s been around long enough to learn a bit of subtlety?

I reckon Tim Dunlop has the answer: Stephen Conroy is Labor’s numbers man in the Senate.

The government is ultimately going to have to deal with a Senate that includes the likes of Family First. That party’s Senator Fielding has already commented upon the filtering proposal saying, “Australian families want more [internet protection] and deserve more than they are currently getting, and this is a real test for the Rudd Government.” It is not beyond the realms of possibility that this is all a sop to Family First in order to garner their support in other matters. Real politik, in other words.

With legislation to come first, then trials supposedly happening later this year, that gives plenty of time for Family First to agree to something simpler to implement before the trials turn out (surprise!) to be a failure.

Maybe Senator Conroy is even deliberately making the proposal so outrageous that it will be shot down.