Aussie Gov't Ponders Killing BitTorrent
In the season of giving, it’s often encouraged to think of those less fortunate than yourself. We here at Tom’s would like to extend our hearts and well wishes to those living in Australia, especially during this digital age.
According to news.com.au, the Federal Government in Australia has extended its scope in the controversial Internet censorship scheme. The original intent of its censorship plan was to filter out offensive and illegal content such as child pornography and adult content but it is now considering to cover BitTorrent traffic as well.
This is not a “Net Nanny” style of service were users could opt out of censored content ; communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy has revealed that this censorship will be mandatory.
Many activist groups in the country have expressed their outrage over the censorship proposal. Colin Jacobs, an Electronic Frontiers Australia board member, said during an interview with news.com.au, “If the Government would actually come out and say we’re only targeting child pornography it would be a different debate."
Jerry Yang, the still CEO of Yahoo welcomes this legislation and praised the new code of conduct as “a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted.”
Australia has already been criticized for their harsh National Classification Scheme (NCS), where books, films, games and publications are often denied to be sold in the country. The latest example was Grand Theft Auto IV, where the country received a re-edited version of the game. How is the Australian censorship scheme different from countries such as China ? According to Conroy, the difference is that Australian government will not be blocking “political” content. He claims that the scheme will follow the existing methods adopted by the NCS but will simply be applied to internationally hosted content.
In democratic societies, freedom of speech is the corner stone of basic human rights. What the Australian Government is planning to do is a very slippery slope indeed. Senator Conroy has been posting on the Digital Economy Future Directions blog, launched earlier this year by the government to encourage public feedback.
As of press time, there are 130 comments on the Senator’s post with his plans for traffic filtering. A live trial of the filtering technology is scheduled to start sometime this week but news.com.au has been in contact with local ISPs and they are all clueless as to when it will actually occur or if their filtering proposals have been accepted.
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There are so many sites on this issue, this is rather old news.
That said, Australian government sources have commented that there could be an overall slowdown for internet usage up to 80%.
You can find more information here:
http://nocleanfeed.com/
And the whole idea of outruling torrents is retarded. Just because someone uses a tool for illegal purposes doesn't make the tool bad, it makes the people using it bad. I used a torrent to download Ubuntu 8.10.
It is such a violation of personal freedoms to censor citizens use of the internet. I can't see why people aren't fighting this harder...
Stopping child pornography and other non-consensual exploitation = very yes.
Going even a step beyond that sort of mandate = very no.
This is somewhat similar to US ISPs limiting bandwidth for torrent traffic. At least we can still access the content I guess, but how useful is it at such low speeds...
It is such a violation of personal freedoms to censor citizens use of the internet. I can't see why people aren't fighting this harder...
It says adult content. The Australian government plans to filter the Internet in the whole country, so that it's appropriate for children of an indeterminate age. It's complete bull, and a serious blow to free speech. And they will end up hitting a lot of innocent sites in the process.
http://nocleanfeed.com/
GO TO THAT SITE!!!
Complete and utter rubbish again from the labour government. Us aussies are going to go back to the dark ages
lol, what's your favorite Open Proxy or VPN service Aussies?
Another case of an IDIOT government official trying to make decisions concerning technology they don't understand.
The whole idea is a total waste of money. The ISPs don't want it, the consumers don't want it, the non-government political parties don't know what's going on and only the government actually pushes for it. Anyone bent on accessing "inappropriate" material can simply do as fulle mentioned; a simple VPN service is sufficient to bypass any content filter the government could think of. And guess who was the first to make sure we know that? The ISPs.
societies, freedom of speech is the corner stone of basic human rights.
Jules: Good. Looks like me an Vincent caught you boys at breakfast. Sorry about that. Whatcha havin'?
Brett: Hamburgers.
Jules: Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. What kind of hamburgers?
Australia is becoming more and more like China with this kind of crap.
Keep your communism ways.
This is a waste of money. Anyone that knows how to download torrents can log on to a open proxy besides theres new proxies created everyday no point try to block them to.
Keep your communism ways.
The worst part is if it is successful, it will set a dangerous precedent, and other countries may follow suit.
I wish the Australia public weren't so blind to the fact that this is nothing to do with protecting the children of "working families", but it is a control mechanism for the government. Too bad that once it is in place, anyone who protests online will be blacklisted for being "inappropriate".
Keep your communism ways.
This is fascism. It just so happens most communist countries are fascist as well as communist. Communism can be Democratic, and keep many rights (like free speech).
Torrents suck anyhow. To slow for me. Goodbye torrents hello news groups.
.nzbs anyone? Sure you got to pay for a news server but the speed is so much faster, it is worth it.
www.nzbmatrix.com
Torrents suck anyhow. To slow for me.
Maybe if you use Torrents for illegal material. But all the legit torrents I've used have been extremely fast. I got 1.3MBps downloading Ubuntu 8.10.
Good for you.
Torrents in general are slow as hell.
I download 2MBps on news groups on a crappy connection.
There are a few torrent sites that require membership that are good, but the only fast ones I have seen come from the membership sites, and these sites require you to upload as much as you download. Who wants to waste all their time uploading, not my cup of tea. The up loaders are the guys that get sued more often then not.
I get 15-50kB/s on the majority of torrents, occasionally up to 120kB/s for a short while. Do you really think I can afford to have my internet filtered?
Torrents in general are slow as hell.
Torrents for illegal material are slow as hell in general.
I use torrents for plenty of free/open source material, and I get well into the 100's.
100s are slow as hell.
funny how pirates cry about PC games dying, yet continue to download them. I used to pirate, used Newsleecher, Utorrent, etc. I stopped though, smartened up. Realized that if I want more PC games to come out we're going to actually have to support the PC game publishers/creators. Yes, Pirating DOES kill a huge amount of PC Sales. Yes, you can pirate for Xbox 360/PS3 but the process is a lot more difficult. Yes, there are other factors like the computers Gcard, mem, cpu, etc that limit PC sales too. But all in all, I think we can boost PC sales dramatically and encourage game makers to keep the PC alive if we just ..slow down with the pirating.
Spore had 1,700,000 games pirated.... 1,700,000... Thats "assuming each copy costs 60 dollars" 102,000,000 dollars lost. Of course, they only receive a chunk of that, the rest goes to the companies like walmart. But even if its 50,000,000. Or even 10,000,000. That could go to even better, funner games.
But it won't, because these pirates have an IQ of 5. "gimme more games! ..pay? no, i want them for free!"
If the PC gaming area dies, to the point where games for the pc are just poorly done ports or old crappy games. I'm going to laugh, because a majority of PC gamers pirate. And this is whats going to happen.
As for the Blocking Bitorrent. Too much of this Government controlling us shit is happening, in the US, Aus, nearly everywhere. We need to do something soon. Its getting out of hand.
Too much of this Government controlling us shit is happening, in the US, Aus, nearly everywhere. We need to do something soon. Its getting out of hand.
The problem is that most of the media attention to the REAL issues surrounding this is that it's all on tech websites that only a minority read. Mum and Dad don't know a thing about it.
100s are slow as hell.
.....What? getting 500KBps is pretty great. I am talking B (bytes) not b (bits). If you think 500KBps (Approximately 4Mbps) is slow, then I suppose everything would be pretty slow for you.
But downloading a ~700MB iso in >9 Minutes is what I would consider speed.
But downloading a ~700MB iso in >9 Minutes is what I would consider speed.
I could do that via HTTP on some sites, but it would take ours via BitTorrent.
I could do that via HTTP on some sites, but it would take ours via BitTorrent.
Maybe you don't understand the Torrent protocol. The protocol doesn't limit the speed of the download. You just need enough people seeding to get those speeds, and Surprise! the open source community is better at sharing.
Maybe you don't understand the Torrent protocol. The protocol doesn't limit the speed of the download. You just need enough people seeding to get those speeds, and Surprise! the open source community is better at sharing.
I understand how it works. I have downloaded with thousands of seeds and guess what, it was still slow. It doesn't help that the protocol has a horrible amount of overhead either.
.....What? getting 500KBps is pretty great. I am talking B (bytes) not b (bits). If you think 500KBps (Approximately 4Mbps) is slow, then I suppose everything would be pretty slow for you.But downloading a ~700MB iso in >9 Minutes is what I would consider speed.
Yes that is slow. I get about 2MB download off my torrents sometimes more but normaly by the time i get that high its already downloaded.
funny how pirates cry about PC games dying, yet continue to download them. I used to pirate, used Newsleecher, Utorrent, etc. I stopped though, smartened up. Realized that if I want more PC games to come out we're going to actually have to support the PC game publishers/creators. Yes, Pirating DOES kill a huge amount of PC Sales. Yes, you can pirate for Xbox 360/PS3 but the process is a lot more difficult. Yes, there are other factors like the computers Gcard, mem, cpu, etc that limit PC sales too. But all in all, I think we can boost PC sales dramatically and encourage game makers to keep the PC alive if we just ..slow down with the pirating.Spore had 1,700,000 games pirated.... 1,700,000... Thats "assuming each copy costs 60 dollars" 102,000,000 dollars lost. Of course, they only receive a chunk of that, the rest goes to the companies like walmart. But even if its 50,000,000. Or even 10,000,000. That could go to even better, funner games.But it won't, because these pirates have an IQ of 5. "gimme more games! ..pay? no, i want them for free!"If the PC gaming area dies, to the point where games for the pc are just poorly done ports or old crappy games. I'm going to laugh, because a majority of PC gamers pirate. And this is whats going to happen.As for the Blocking Bitorrent. Too much of this Government controlling us shit is happening, in the US, Aus, nearly everywhere. We need to do something soon. Its getting out of hand.
its funny how that makes sense at all to you. If the game didnt get torrented it wouldnt get paid for either. Wana know why spore got torrented more then paid for? Suckyrom so many people wanted to buy that game but way to many of them already know securom is computer damaging. Its pretty clear securom didnt stop the people who really wanted to buy the game but refuse securom to crack and spread that game like wild fire.
Seriously dont talk about others IQ until you even get a clue what your talking about. There are handfulls of games that would sell millions hand over fist but securom kills the sales before it even hits the shelves. I have now passed up at least 10 games becuase of it. If i had known 12 of the game i paid for had it i would have never got them either. I dont play them anymore because of securom however so waste of money for me.
And most games are remakes of old games.
It is obvious that the Aussie government has very fascistic, oppressive and a middle-age of view of media-control.
I pity the Aussie citizens.
Freedom doesn't come cheap.... and if all democratic means of getting your freedom back have been shut tight then there is only one way of getting your freedom back. Unfortunately.
Weel, it is time to educate the Aussies on Usenet, proxies and VPN.
Because information is like water.... it will always find a way to flow.
And about pirating software... software companies have the wrong business model for marketing their product.
Less is more.
If people can buy the game, without securom or drm and the price is right.... then piracy will become insignificant.
As soon as the thumb screws are applied to BitTorrent traffic here in Australia I for one will be reconsidering my contract with my ISP.
Not being given the choice to use my unlimited (supposedly) high speed internet as I wish is not fair, as far as I am concerned I am no longer getting what I paid for.
I will be making applications / appeals to the telecommunications ombudsman here to have my contract made null and void. I will be happy just using what little of the internet is left to read emails and the occassional web page. Dial-up will do me just fine thankyou very much.
If everyone let their feet do the talking, ISP's will cry foul, and the Australian government will backflip like a star gymnastics olympian.
This is ludicrous,setting up an individual overseas proxy server will circumvent this crude form of internet censorship.
Yes that is slow. I get about 2MB download off my torrents sometimes more but normaly by the time i get that high its already downloaded.
I find that odd. I have a 10Mb connection, which is the fastest you can get for a residential location where I live. And somehow downloading at 10Mbps is slow?
If the game didnt get torrented it wouldnt get paid for either.
That's complete bullshit. While a percentage of people pirate because they don't have the cash to buy the game, and them pirating the software doesn't loose the developer a sale, there are people out there that would pirate a game rather than pay for it even if they have the resources and believe it's a worthy product.
Wana know why spore got torrented more then paid for?
You want to list a source for that statistic?
Suckyrom so many people wanted to buy that game but way to many of them already know securom is computer damaging.
SecuRom may be intrusive, I don't believe it damages computers. That whole SecuRom excuse is just that, an excuse. There are plenty of guides out there on how to remove it. Not to mention the average user isn't going to be effect by SecuRom.
but securom kills the sales before it even hits the shelves. I have now passed up at least 10 games becuase of it. If i had known 12 of the game i paid for had it i would have never got them either. I dont play them anymore because of securom however so waste of money for me.
I would really love it if more people did skip a game because SecuRom was on it, but they don't. It may effect sales, but not enough to effect it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support Piracy. But I think it would be great if the next game with SecuRom only got 1 sale, and 10 million players.
Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about.
1. It's extremely easy to pirate 360 games, just as easy, if not easier than PC games (as far as the end user goes).
2. Up until recent PS3 games couldn't be pirated. Even now, it's a difficult process and only works with certain games.
3. I know multiple people (well into the 50's) that bought 360's just to pirate games. It's extremely cheap since they only have to pay for a console and a few peripherals.
Sure, if you make the retarded assumption that if all of those people used a pirated copy would buy the game at $60, or buy it all.
Some pirate games because they don't have the cash to buy games, and that means no loss in sales. They wouldn't have bought the game even if they couldn't pirate it.
Some of those people may have thought the game wasn't worth $60, and would have waited until it was $20.
Some of those people may have stolen it anyway (shoplifting rather than piracy) which actually outs that store $60 that they have to pay for even though they probably only make a few dollars on each sale.
I used to pirate just about everything because I couldn't afford everything I wanted, and if I thought something was worthy of a sale, and would put it on a list and buy it when I had the cash. It probably made me more interested in buy things, as I knew what I was getting. Having little cash makes you weary on spending, and being sure of a product gave me confident in spending.
I also find it hypocritical that you comment on the IQs of pirates, when you exhibit some severe lack of thought.
Why don't you go learn something about piracy before you spout your incorrect assumptions.
I have a 20mb connection though its about a 3rd of what i could get. When the 100mb comes here in the next couple months if its not stupid expensive ill be upgrading to that.
I agree and dissagre with what you had to say but i already made the point i wanted. Obviously there are ass hats out there that will just steal just to do it but when it comes to crap like securom most people would rather not buy it.
I also find it funny people think console pirating is actualy harder then pc.
Securom has been known to damage your windows install to a reinstall state. I have one game that wont even load saying securom has detected my cd isnt the original. Even if you can get securom off your comp its to much bs its like removing a virus.
I have to goto work so i dont have time to finish what little train of thought i had here hope it made sense.