How pathetic
As opposed to my usual, almost incessant need to rant with the wrath of the English Language as my punching glove, I can only look upon news like this as backward thinking, socialism on its head where it's not by the people, for the people anymore but rather 'to the people' - transforming to a totalitarian regime of sorts.
And who better than to serve the people as the metaphorical 'Mary Poppins' than Stephen Conroy, our minister for the Digital World. Even before Labor was elected, the head case basket that was Mark Latham during his 'tell all' interview with Andrew Denton, while crying crocodile tears about the "Party that was", had already given us a sneak preview about the man waiting in the wings.
But the day will come Stephen (Icarus) when you will fly to close to the Sun.
And ISP filtering will hopefully be that Sun, that sees you fall.
It seems to me that simply calling it 'knee jerk reaction' has the same sense and clout of meaning as calling someone 'gay' on the internet - it's gone beyond a cliche and the meaning of the word begins to dribble in a pool of its own blood.
Clearly any Homosapien with a conscience will not need to be explained why the most deplorable acts in the name of morality like child rape, beastiality, sexual violence and explicit details in illegal activities are wrong - we wouldn't have come this far as a species if this were not the case.
But at what point does a 'moral truth' cross the road with 'freedom to choose' or to 'protect'. It would seem to me whatever is feasibly possible in working. Stephen says;
"The report into the pilot trial of ISP-level filtering demonstrates that blocking RC-rated material can be done with 100% accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed"
- 100% accuracy you say?
- No impact on speed?
Never mind the problem of scalability should this forbidden tree of sin grow?
Never mind the numerous re-directs and mutliple DNS paths to keep these sickos from going
Never mind what can be done from an end user perspective - oh, VPN tunneling for instance.
What happened to the responsibility in Parents and communities guiding their children in the 21st century with support and reason instead of hopelessly wrapping them up in digital cotton wool funded by a state commisioned net-nanny? Further, where does it end in terms of what the Government thinks is 'acceptable'
Pandora Box situation.
Thank you Stephen.