[plug] censorship in australia

[Bret Busby]

Garth Atkinson wrote:
> 
> Bret Busby wrote:
> >
> > Buddrige, David wrote:
> > >
> > > Slashdot have a link to an article about how the government proposes
>  > >From newswire.com (URL at end of article
> >
> > 30/08/99 19:23
> >
> >   IIA inches closer to Net policy
> >   Roulla Yiacoumi
> >
> >   ISPs should not engage in universal blocking of content deemed
> >   This article is located at
> > ..........................................
> 
> Yeah, very good, but this is the plug (Perth Linux Users Group) mailing
> list. Lets try and keep it that way. Im sure there are
> newsgroups/mailing list dedicated to censorship issues....
> 
> Garth

This is an issue that affects everyone on the mailing list, and a number of
people on the mailing list are ISP's.

Also, there are issues here, such as whether these "screening programs" are
going to be functional on Linux, whether they are going to be functional at all,
how they will affect a user's download speeds, system performance, system
stability, system security, etc.

Given that the feral government has apparently approved legislation to allow, or
otherwise allowed, the government "security" (or insecurity!) organisations to
breach computer security, by covertly entering a user's computer, and given that
the USA governments are on the verge of allowing software companies to remotely
disable software, the issue is one that is probably quite appropriate for the
mailing list. How do we know, and what assurances do we have, that the
"screening software" will not be so used to breach a computer's security?

Do you know, Garth, what the effects of the issue will be on the aspects of
Linux systems, as mentioned above? Do you know to what degree the applications
will interfere with, or disable a Linux box, or an Apache web server, or the
Linux mail applications, or other applications on a Linux box? Do you know
whether the screening programs will interfere with ipchains and other
firewalling and gateway software? Can you guarantee that what you believe about
these issues is absolutely correct?

If not, then, how can you say that it is not an appropriate issue to be
discussed on the mailing list?

All kinds of considerations arise, which relate to issues previously raised on
the mailing list; system stability, system security, system performance, mail
applications, proxies, web servers, etc.

But then, I suppose, depending on a person's philosophy, none of those issues
are pure Linux kernel issues, and therefore, perhaps none of those topics should
be raised on the mailing list, either.

Bret Busby
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