Wednesday, March 9, 2011

ISP Censorship

 ISP Censorship in Australia and how it would affect you.

In the future countries may follow China's suit and censor the Internet. This issue is highly controversial among fellow earthlings. Many people support the idea that some 'stuff' should be filtered but mainly in the following area's;

Pornography.
Viruses, Malware, ect.
Hackers.

More simply put. Block the bad stuff that children shouldn't see so long as what is blocked does not affect me.

One of the areas of the internet that has the most scrutiny is pirating. Yes people know that it's wrong but what's wrong stopped nobody from doing it. This is one of the most discussed areas of internet censoring. Governments and people who lose money from pirating want a push for censorship particularly in this area. Censoring this area of the internet will help protect sales in their minds but is unlikely due to all the ways around the filters.

Also one of the issues with the censorship is that everything that is downloaded by everyone will go through a massive database that’ll be looking for illegal and blocked data. Many people find this an invasion of privacy although it too can be bypassed. The censorship of the internet also restraints people’s rights to freedom but that said people do not have the right to data which they are not entitled to such a music and DVD they did not purchase either physically or electronically.
A lot of people out there who have a liking for porn basically laugh at this filter simply because of the numerous ways to get around it. Many of the ways to get around the filters have come to the attention of local members of parliament.


This image shows the basic setup of how a town, city or large area connects to the Internet. Also remember that the town itself is also part of the Internet.

 There are numerous other ways to connect to the internet. Note that if a server is located locally the data can be configured to connect directly to the server without going through the ISP.


Proxy servers. These will be the first of the ways around the filter to go. As people spread the word the word will leak and the proxies will go down. Yes many will get a few days to look at the stash and download the illegal maybe even perhaps months before the filter is updated.

Encryption. Bam. Now you’re laughing at the filter. Everything will be encrypted and no filter will be able to tell what’s what. This is sure to take off when a filter is placed on the masses.

P2P file sharing. Now if there’s any chance the filter will work it stops at P2P file sharing. Everyone who connects to a P2P file sharing site then becomes a host. Now the data can be downloaded from each and every computer in the world! The censorship will now have to only allow access to approved servers and this crosses the line for almost everyone. Everything you do on the Internet would now have to be approved by the government. Yeah right there’s still a way around this!

Lots of little ISP’s pop up all over the world. These little ISP’s create the black Internet which is my way of saying the black market of the Internet. With ISP’s now out of control the filter is broken and the world goes back to the way it was before the censorship. Now if the inevitable result is the destruction of the censorship and the current ISP’s then why even bother? It’s the government and that’s a good enough explanation. Be prepared for your Internet to become super cheap and slow.


"They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Freedom"

There is also a big issue of freedom of information. The filter could take away lots of information that remains unclassified. Games and movies that are unclassified or too violent will also be blocked. This includes sites like YouTube as user generated content sites would be refused classification due to the shear amount of content. If the government controls what information we have access to. It might not belong before they control how we think and move.

Friday, March 4, 2011

iPad 2, thinner, more power and ultralight

Apple has announced the iPad 2 it offers little more than the original iPad. It is thinner, lighter and more powerful than ever before. The original iPad brought high revenue when it was first released bringing more than 10 billion dollars in revenue to Apple through the sale or 15 million units. We will soon find out if there has been enough changes to the iPad to make people what to buy the new iPad 2.

It is possible that it will turn out like Microsoft's Office 2010 which provided little improvement over 2007 and did very poorly in it's opening sales. That is of course if Apple doesn't hype things up (Which it always does). Those who have just brought the original iPad can receive a refund of up to $180 dollars and the price is decreased to make way for the iPad 2.

The new iPad 2 specs.

The iPad 2 comes with a dual core processor. This is sure will make computing quite a bit faster over the old 1Ghz Single core CPU seen on the original iPad.

The iPad 2 also comes with a new iOS operating system. The new  iOS 4.3 allows iPhones to act as Wi-Fi hot-spots. This will enable mobile phone internet access (Like the 3G in the original iPad) but through the phone. Just watch those downloads!

A longer lasting battery which will provide hours of entertainment

With all this new stuff Apple has still managed to shave 80 grams off the total weight. Weighing in at just 0.8kg.

If you where thinking of buying an iPad then you wait for the iPad 2. The iPads are not very powerful considering their price and there are plenty of other tablets out there which do the job just as well. Most if not all of the others have flash which opens it up to a world of other things. If you like to have something expensive and want Apple to control everything you can watch, download and play then the Ipad is for you. If not there are many convertible notebooks which convert between a touchscreen notebook and an tablet. Basic models will pack more of a punch in processing than the iPads and have many more options for the end user.

Now it's your turn to make up your mind.