Friday, January 4, 2008

Great Sharknet of Australia.


I've just been having a debate with the folks over at OCAU. The topic was the Internet Censorship Bill being introduced to Australia shortly. The reason I was debating it? Because I could comprehend the number of people who seriously need to take off the tin foil hats, step outside and open their eyes to the real world. So many conspiracy theorists on there it wasn't funny. People seeing what we are getting as being akin to the Great Firewall of China, or with 1984-esque ideas of what internet access in Australia will suddenly become.

If anything, we'll have slightly slower internet speeds when going from one page to the next, and that's about it. Hardware-wise it's already easy enough for ISP's to filter things out. This can be seen by the big net neutrality debates happening in America. If their ISP's want it, surely they have the technology to cope with the overall affect it will have to the speed of browsing.

As for the 1984-esque ideas, it won't be a complete government state. You won't have someone peaking over your shoulder at everything you do as some have claimed. If anything it will be more like a sharknet. Stops the big and obvious nasties such as paedophilia sites, general and publicised porn or shock sites, but that's about it. It won't stop all the raw sewerage from the offshore pipelines, nor the jellyfish, and other crap in the ocean. That'll still flow through easily.

Then there's those going on about all the legitimate sites they want to access. Of course a shark net is going to catch the odd dolphin or other nice animal, but that's a risk that must be taken with anything like this. It's easy enough to opt out, and then you're free from it until you change ISP's or move and get a different account name. Whoop de doo. It won't put you on any government watch lists or get you targeted by the RIAA/MPAA mafia.

I swear, every time I post on OCAU my IQ goes down a few points. Conspiracy theorists, clueless morons or people who are just abusive despite posting in a forum that was designed for people to get help on said subjects. I don't know why I bother, that's exactly why I left the ZStoner forums.