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.
