We won’t see mandatory Internet filtering until mid-2010, but even without the details still being worked out, it’s clear that anyone with a modicum of technical know-how will be able to bypass it.
At tech opnion blog Hydrapinion, Anthony Caruana highlights two obvious ways that people concerned that their access to legitimate material is being blocked can access it:
Simply Google for something that’s on the blacklist and rather than opening the link to the search result click the “Cached” link. This will direct you to a copy of the content that’s stored on Google’s servers as part of their index. Somehow, I doubt that the Australian government is going to block Google. Alternately, you can sign up for one of the hundreds of free or cheap VPN services that are available.
Of course, if you use those techniques to access content that’s outright illegal, you shouldn’t be surprised if the police come knocking. But given the high likelihood that content will get misclassified, either through human error or deliberate political attempts to block what’s seen as undesirable material, these kinds of tactics are bound to become more common.
Bypassing Australia’s Net Filter [Hydrapinion]
Charles
Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 7:25 PMOne way to stop this bill getting through? Write to your MPs and the more who do it the better.
Persuade your neighbours, friends and family to do the same and spread the word as much as practical.
With enough people voicing their opposition through their MPs, perhaps the government will think twice about attempting to get this law through Parliament. Don’t delay we’ve only got about 3 months or so assuming Liam if I remember right is correct.
George Orwell
Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 1:18 AMWell there is always Civil War to force the issue
bruce
Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 8:43 PMthis g’ment filter is just more proof that democracy is just the most insidiuos form of slavery yet devised
Nathan
Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 1:21 PMHmmm to anybody who cares (like me)
the internet filter is up and running, without approval, yes I said it’s running already!!!!
Now we didn’t approve it, neither did the government, they just went ahead and turned it on last month, yes i said last month!!!
And if your a gamer like me, you would have noticed already that server is being disrupted, and the lag has begun.
Well done you piece of crap government
thanks to you, I will need to bypass the filter,
rather than put up with a filter that doesn’t work, doesn’t stop child porn (which the government has already accidently proved, during a small test, when it blocked the site like it was spose to, but still recieved emails and msn messenger pic of child porn, on a government pc)
just love it when they prove they can’t get it to protect children, because, I have never met a child searching for child porn… HAVE YOU?(you being the government)
because the filter only prevents searching, not downloading via P2P, not stopping Pedo’s contacting you on facebook, msn, yahoo, or anyother version on private chat.
if you can’t stop a simple email of a naked child being sent, what’s the point of banning web sites… oh that’s right, when the government F’s up and does something wrong, like being busted having an affair before an election, all news sites will be filtered to remove any RC information, remember if the government doesn’t approve the story the newspapers want to run, then it is automaticaly counted as refused Content RC which is why the government what’s it(and has already it turned on)
I guess you won’t be hearing to many poly’s being busted smoking crack, assulting children, or anything like that, becaused it would be RC’ed straight away, and low and behold the government hasn’t done anything wrong, because if you can’t read about it, it never happened,
I wouldn’t want to be a poly’s child, you could get assulted, and can’t even tell your teacher or the police, as that would be Refused Content (RC)before the brusing has even settled.
go the government pedo’s of tomorrow, I just love living in china, oh crap this is australia, not china. Or is it, has anyone looked around lately, not alot of aussies here anymore.
China loves to filter, and all poly’s love being filtered by a china government
bugwan
Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 8:19 PMFirst up – I’m anti-filter – but what’s the point of providing ways of getting around it? Are Lifehacker readers in need of a bestiality fix?
If the only way we can get an NBN is to have it bundled with a filter, then I’ll take the damn filter and get my filth in print!
Surely it’s better we build the NBN while we can and throw out the filter later, than forego one of the greatest infrastructure projects we’ve seen while proudly maintaining our right to (slowly) visit websites we’ll never visit anyway…
Felix
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 12:58 AMThis filter isn’t about protecting children, it’s the thin edge of a huge wedge intended to censor POLITICAL content or any other content that the government feels limits their power. It’s part of a worldwide Fascist State that is slowly enslaving us.
Dan
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 11:51 PMI`m using http://www.sunvpn.com/ to bypass the Internet filters in my school. It`s a VPN service.