[plug] censorship in australia

[Oliver White]

Rubbish, use aus.censorship

Bret Busby wrote:
> 
> 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
> .......................