Australians to block BitTorrent!?

[itsStephen]

I am really getting sick of Kevin Dudd. I wonder if he's ever felt the pain of Tasmania's Internet speeds already and now he's making it even slower.

And blocking torrents? That's ridiculous!

Last year he seemed like he'd make a really good pm, it was even the first time my parents voted labor. Now I think I'd rather the monkey back.

[thestig_992]

This is a site i found in protest

http://www.banthisurl.com/

and this one is a petition against it, linked from the first site

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet/442


While im at it, i may as well point out that blocking sites is pointless, anyone who wants to can easily get around the filters, people can still dl illegal things from direct download, all while innocent people are stuck with slower internet, and potentially millions of legitimate sites blocked.

[handy]

From what I have read, they are going to filter http, https and p2p network traffic to search for kiddie porn and terrorist threads (we can all see where this will lead to).

I would flip out if that happened in my country.

Terrorist threads!

Whenever you see the word terrorist being used by a government you know you are being lied to.

The threat of terrorism has been created to mould & manipulate populations by using fear. All in the interest of corporate greed.

As people are using the TV & printed media less & less, due to the information freely available on the internet, the power-mongers are loosing control of the information that the populations are reading.

Therefore they see that they must control the information available to us via the internet.

The battle is on.

[red_Marvin]

Some time ago there was a report on tv about this and a representative from an anti-child abuse group explained they were pushing for it to stop child pornography. So it's not just companies who have an interest in the filter.

The problem is that such filtering (if they ever got it to work effectively at all) would only have an impact on the distribution of child pornography, not hinder the creation of the content as such, which is where the child is abused in the first place.
An analogy that I hope is not too far away, is limiting the availability of cars, to hinder bank robbery, because cars are the most common and convenient getaway vehicle.

[handy]

Child pornographers would only have to use some form of proxy service to avoid detection.

[samjh]

So, moving this right back to the technological conversation from which it originated, what rights, specifically, have been diminished, eroded or removed in this particular case? Is it "freedom of speech"? Is it the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? (Now, I'm not trying to argue whether "free speech" attaches in this case, but it's a frequently bandied-about talking-point here in the 'States.) Do either of these concepts exist in Australian law?

Constitutionally, there are no such rights. At least there are no explicit provisions in the Australian Constitution for such rights.

In fact, the Australian Constitution mentions very few rights (acquisition of property, trial by jury, etc.). There is much debate about the need for a Bill of Rights in Australia because of the lack of legal protections for broad human rights of Australians.

According to common law - as dished out by the High Court of Australia - the judiciary does recognise "freedom of speech" as an implied right in the context of political communication and matters of public interest (ie. election campaigns, corruption, etc.). But notice the very narrow application of the right to political and public interest matters. There is no general right of "freedom of speech".

"Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is a very American "right". No such right exists in Australia - either explicit or implied.



<- Law student, currently studying Constitutional Law.

[MikeTheC]

I would really love the opportunity sometime to learn all about the history, culture, politics and societal goings-on of Australia.

[wolfen69]

Bittorrent always gives me slow and unstable download speeds

Conclusion: for an end user, bittorrent often doesn't work (correctly.)
It never has, it doesn't, and it probably never will.

you are doing something wrong then. torrents have always been reliable and very fast for me and my friends. in your conclusion, who are you speaking for? i have news for you, bittorrent is an extremely popular way to download and share files. it's not going anywhere.

i've been using bittorrent now for about 9 years and have never had a problem using it. and in case you didn't know, it is the most reliable way of getting a file that will match the original as far as integrity. the way bittorrent works is that it's always checking the integrity of the bits coming in. far more reliable than a straight download that has no way of preventing bad data from being downloaded.

[handy]

I agree, torrents are brilliant, for many a distro torrents are the prime form of distribution.

[magmon]

you are doing something wrong then. torrents have always been reliable and very fast for me and my friends. in your conclusion, who are you speaking for? i have news for you, bittorrent is an extremely popular way to download and share files. it's not going anywhere.

i've been using bittorrent now for about 9 years and have never had a problem using it. and in case you didn't know, it is the most reliable way of getting a file that will match the original as far as integrity. the way bittorrent works is that it's always checking the integrity of the bits coming in. far more reliable than a straight download that has no way of preventing bad data from being downloaded.

Bittorrent is horridly slow for me if Im downloading a popular file because the seeds are so widely spread, I end up downloading from like 1 peer x.x

Direct download is preffered for me, but sometimes I cant find what I want.