Ambition Technology Blog

The topic of a mandatory ISP level internet filter, which forms part of Labor’s policies, has been hotly contested over the past few months and in the last few days the Green Party have come out to side with the Coalition and state that a PC-based approach would be more effective. Labor devised such a plan to target refused classification material that shouldn’t be available online such as child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. This material is currently not available on Australian hosted websites however it can still be accessed on international websites and Labor plan to block these with an ISP web filter.

My question in this blog is this: Should we be against this? Is this being done purely for the safety of our homes and our children, or is this just censorship and a way to control what we see, think and do?

I personally believe that the aforementioned refused classification material should not be available on the internet. I would not want children or adults to view or be at all exposed to this,  however, I do feel that an ISP filter isn’t the best option to combat this, particularly with simple ways around a filter, such as adding a question mark to the end of the web address thereby changing the address enough to make it different, as recently documented by Gizmodo, and the sheer volume of websites out there meaning that a filter could never block them all. In my opinion, I think that both the Greens and the Coalition are right in suggesting PC-based filtering which can offer a much broader filter and can be personalized depending upon the household. Read more…

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is one of the hottest topics of discussion at the minute amongst MPs, Telecommunications companies, industry experts, and us the Australian taxpayers. On the 18th June the Senate Committee, tasked with investigating the Government’s NBN, called for a cost vs. benefit analysis of the project to be undertaken to determine whether it represented value for money for the public. In addition, many industry experts in the press have questioned the $17M of taxpayers’ money spent on the failed first tender, despite Communications Minister Stephen Conroy stating that this was “absolutely not” a waste of money.

These debates have been strongly contested by the opposing sides in the last year or so, however with the recent $11 billion deal between the Government and Telstra which a spokeswoman for the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, declared “… means the NBN can be built cheaper, quicker, with less unnecessary duplication, faster take-up of services and less overhead cabling,” it begs the question, have the Government turned the corner or is it still going to cost more money than it’s worth? Read more…