The Fancy Bastard Forum

Yikes. I can't imagine that would pass, but I also don't know the first thing about Australian politics. You have me interested though. Not to rub it in, but here in the U.S. it seems like we might be headed toward passing legislation mandating "net neutrality" some time in the next year. This would basically forbid ISPs from filtering or crippling content. It seems pretty clear to me that it's the right thing to do, and yet I'm still surprised that it's gaining traction.

Generally speaking, I find any blanket censorship of the internet to be a bad thing. It's not a 100% crystal-clear issue, but I think it's better to not censor anything and then pursue other legal avenues for taking down some of the most heinous offenders. It starts by filtering out only the very worst material out there, sure. But once you have someone who is responsible for deciding what is OK for people to see and what isn't, things can spiral out of control quickly.

There's a great Unshelved strip, that asks who should be allowed to censor the internet. The responses are:

"Nobody"

"The government"

"ME!"

Warning: Looooong post

I was also going to rant about this, but before I do just something I think is wrong in Rerun's post.

The filter was in planning stages with the Howard government, Rudd just started to implement it. However, I will grant you that the Rudd Government had an election promise to upgrade our infrastructure (which was ignored over the past decade by Howard btw), but that's not too likely to happen any time soon. This is mainly due to ISP politics, Telstra was the government carrier that was privatized, because of this they own a lot of the infrastructure. For an upgrade to happen they'd have to be forced to upgrade their stuff (which they don't want to do) AND provide it for use by other ISPs for a price less than they currently do.

For those wondering what parties we're talking about:

The opposition (and previous Howard government) are/were "The Liberal Party" - not actually 'liberal' at all having conservative social beliefs, but their economic policies are based on liberal economic models. Favoured by richer people because they got nice tax breaks. In favour of privatizing government industry.

The current Rudd government - "The Labour Party" - not really liberal either, but less convervative than the Liberal party. Focusing more on low to mid income earners (tax breaks etc) and taxing the upper class more than the Libs have done. In favour of socialized industry.

A while ago we even had our version of Palin, Pauline

This is of course a simplification and shows my bias. Brit readers should have some idea of these parties, and you can always look it up if you're interested.
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Now my Internet rant:

Here's the short version of the issue as I see it. Remember, nothing's actually been enacted yet so this is still guesswork. If anyone can point out anything I'm missing or wrong on, that'd be great.

Obviously the filters are ISP based. The real issue isn't getting around the filter to search what you want (because it's always easy to get around that sort of thing).
The issue is that because the ISP's doing all the filtering, the access to the net is slowed down.

Additionally, out Internet just sucks in general. The majority of Internet plans are 'unlimited' plans. You get 12-25Gb per month, if you go over that limit the speed is capped to 64kps. There are better ISPs, this is the deal from Telstra (who have probably 60% of the market). The other alternative is that you get some amount of download ranging from 400Mb to 60Gb per month (who uses 400Mb per month?). If you go over that amount they will charge you $0.15 for each Mb, so you can be paying hundreds of dollars if you do go over by a Gig.

Some prices: (8Mbps/384kbps)
60Gb (with cost for each Mb over) - $150 per month
--- remember, go to 61Gb and it's more like $300...
25Gb (speed capped over limit) - $100 per month

Telstra monitors both upload and download to count towards the limit, but some (Optus?) only monitor downloads. Also, we're talking metric Kilobytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes (which I think is pretty standard) so 10³ not 2¹⁰

So yeah, the moral of the story is that our Internet sucks.
Remember, our TV also sucks so we do need to get a lot of our TV from the Internet.
I think I saw a statistic where we have the highest per capita torrenting statistics for this very reason. Plus we need to get the uncensored version of Fallout 3.
For the record this was censored because of the drug use not the violence.

Cheers for both clarifying what I'd said and going into our net speeds and downloads MrBlue...

Posted By: MrBlueSkyLooooong post

Posted By: Dram

Posted By: MrBlueSkyLooooong post

DAMN! That $.15 per meg thing is one of the worst highway robbery schemes I've ever heard of!
My heart goes out to the aussie's

I'll throw my two cents in as an internet using Australian (Who also happens to at the moment do tech support for the aforementioned ISP Telstra). It's been stated much more eloquently than i ever could so i'll just say, filter bad! Aussie ISP's, bad(Unless you do some research then there are good deals out there)! Mr. Bluesky, Optus now count all usage up and down for the caps. Also if you're a Telstra internet user you're fucked in 4 weeks. We're all being sacked in December and it's being handled offshore in the Phillipines, and they are goddamned terrible at it.

The most pressing issue to me was the complete and utter misunderstanding of Vegemite! It's not a fruit based spread. it's made from brewer's yeast, yes the very same that gives you beer. It's fantastic, it's possibly one of the most divisive spreadables on the planet. You either love it or hate it, i love it. Though admittedly it is an acquired taste and does need to be manage properly. It needs to be spread extremely thinly as a little packs a whole lotta punch. Best on toast in the morning, it's magically delicious and not to be handled by first timers. Need someone experienced in the ways of vegemite to introduce you to it.

Posted By: FerrosI'll throw my two cents in as an internet using Australian (Who also happens to at the moment do tech support for the aforementioned ISP Telstra). It's been stated much more eloquently than i ever could so i'll just say, filter bad! Aussie ISP's, bad(Unless you do some research then there are good deals out there)! Mr. Bluesky, Optus now count all usage up and down for the caps. Also if you're a Telstra internet user you're fucked in 4 weeks. We're all being sacked in December and it's being handled offshore in the Phillipines, and they are goddamned terrible at it.

The most pressing issue to me was the complete and utter misunderstanding of Vegemite! It's not a fruit based spread. it's made from brewer's yeast, yes the very same that gives you beer. It's fantastic, it's possibly one of the most divisive spreadables on the planet. You either love it or hate it, i love it. Though admittedly it is an acquired taste and does need to be manage properly. It needs to be spread extremely thinly as a little packs a whole lotta punch. Best on toast in the morning, it's magically delicious and not to be handled by first timers. Need someone experienced in the ways of vegemite to introduce you to it.Never go with a hippie to a second location.

Vegemite does include vegetable extracts though, so maybe that confused them.

You guys should buy some (I understand you can get it in some shops there) and try it on the podcast. If you can't find any, I'd consider shipping some out.

PS: I think it's only really good on toast. But yeah, it's meant to be used sparingly.

Posted By: MrBlueSkyVegemite does include vegetable extracts though, so maybe that confused them.

You guys should buy some (I understand you can get it in some shops there) and try it on the podcast. If you can't find any, I'd consider shipping some out.

PS: I think it's only really good on toast. But yeah, it's meant to be used sparingly.

Posted By: Rerun

Posted By: MrBlueSkyVegemite does include vegetable extracts though, so maybe that confused them.

You guys should buy some (I understand you can get it in some shops there) and try it on the podcast. If you can't find any, I'd consider shipping some out.

PS: I think it's only really good on toast. But yeah, it's meant to be used sparingly.

It only gets better with cheese...

Posted By: photozz

Posted By: Rerun

Posted By: MrBlueSkyVegemite does include vegetable extracts though, so maybe that confused them.

You guys should buy some (I understand you can get it in some shops there) and try it on the podcast. If you can't find any, I'd consider shipping some out.

PS: I think it's only really good on toast. But yeah, it's meant to be used sparingly.

It only gets better with cheese...

And bacon. everything is better with bacon.My Funny

Posted By: Rerun

Posted By: photozz

Posted By: Rerun

Posted By: MrBlueSkyVegemite does include vegetable extracts though, so maybe that confused them.

You guys should buy some (I understand you can get it in some shops there) and try it on the podcast. If you can't find any, I'd consider shipping some out.

PS: I think it's only really good on toast. But yeah, it's meant to be used sparingly.

It only gets better with cheese...

And bacon. everything is better with bacon.My Funny

Too bad I don't eat meat... :P

I don't think Vege and bacon would be a good combo somehow...

Honestly the best day of my life was when i learnt that Subway had a chicken and bacon ranch. That is always what i order now... Hang on, what the frak am i talking about. I should know better than to post when i've been drinking.

There's an old Aussie word, Wowser (We Only Want Social Evils Remedied), that originated from the teetotal movement and stuck as a term for anyone wanting to stop you having fun. It seems appropriate for the filter.

(And I live in Melbourne which finally admitted the whole 2am pub lockout thing was a ####%@# stupid idea.)

The whole arguement that this filter is to stop child porn is a furphy, they just don't want us bypassing the hands out middlemen who want their cut of the overseas content dollar. They call it 'the tyranny of distance' and it boils down to cultivating a belief that Australia is so far from the rest of the world you have to pay extra for civilized goods...

Bacon, vegemite & peanut butter sandwhiches are awesome by the way, like a satay.

Prediction: The Australian "Great internet wall" or whatever ridiculous name winds up sticking will be notable only by its screen-door like porosity and conversely excessive blocking of legitimate sites. Australia <> China and does not have he same manpower or Orwellian focus (enforced with canes and rifles). Any system put in place to try this is going to be quickly overloaded with an avalanche of administration.

I'm not worried,

Because the internets is such a beautiful and varied place someone will get a decent workaround (other than constantly spoofing a US proxy) within minutes.
For those that are interested there are a few protests going on. I'm guessing it'll be pretty much the same crowd as Anonymous (at least in Adelaide), so expect people who know that long cat is, indeed, long and will probably Rickroll people.

Posted By: MrBlueSkyI'm not worried,

Because the internets is such a beautiful and varied place someone will get a decent workaround (other than constantly spoofing a US proxy) within minutes.
For those that are interested there are a few protests going on. I'm guessing it'll be pretty much the same crowd as Anonymous (at least in Adelaide), so expect people who know that long cat is, indeed, long and will probably Rickroll people.