Australia's Minister of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy (BCDE), Stephen Conroy, appears to have recognized that his country's plan to install mandatory content filters at the ISP level is causing a public backlash. Conroy has set up several FAQs that describe the program in detail, and has even started defending the program on the departmental blog. But neither the backlash nor an apparent lack of preparation will stop him from putting the system in operation, as live tests on Internet traffic are set to begin any day now—even though the ISPs that want to participate aren't sure what's happening.

First, the practicalities. Initial lab tests of web filtering equipment suggested that the current generation of hardware had appreciable rates of false positives (filtering legal content) and false negatives (allowing illegal content through), and several models caused severe degradation of the network's performance. This isn't much of a surprise; as we described in detail, filtering content is a difficult challenge. The Australian government's own FAQ also recognizes that anyone with sufficient technical expertise can also evade the filters.

The government's response to these issues, however, is to plow ahead with live testing of the filtering equipment, using actual customers from any Australian ISPs that choose to participate in the program. The unusual reasoning behind the decision, published on a different FAQ hosted at the BCDE blog, is as follows: the preliminary lab tests didn't include a simpler form of filtering against a small, static blacklist of sites, which would presumably put less strain in the filtering equipment. So, since they hadn't tested it, it apparently makes sense to Conroy et. al. to simply roll it out to the Internet-using Australian population.





Senator the

Honorable

Stephen Conroy

That FAQ has revealed some other insights into the working logic behind the decision to roll out Internet filters. Although the previous tests and all public statements on the matter focused on web traffic, the actual live tests are expected to include the use of filters that target P2P applications like BitTorrent. The blacklist, comprised of somewhat over a thousand sites, will be provided by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. But, in a bit of a catch-22, nobody's allowed to know what sites are on the blacklist—after all, publishing the list would let pervs know where to find the child porn.

The FAQ also tackles the issue of personal responsibility. Apparently, the government had previously engaged in a multimillion Australian dollar advertising campaign to get people to start using filters on their PCs. Only about two percent of the households with children present chose to deploy them. Conroy has apparently concluded that this is an indication that most of the Australian populace is technologically incompetent and needs big brother to step in at the ISP level. Of course, Conroy would also disagree with the comparison to big brother, because the list nobody's allowed to see is guaranteed only to contain child porn sites.

Given the fact that the planned tests will be using different techniques than the BCDE's lab tests, it's not a surprise that two of Australia's largest ISPs have decided not to participate in the tests; an executive at Testra referred to filtering generally as the equivalent of trying to "boil the ocean." But news.com.au is reporting that, despite the fact that the government's FAQ says that the live testing should start in 2008 and will wrap up in the first half of 2009, the ISPs that are actually interested in taking part in the tests still haven't been notified if and when they will.

So, in summary, it appears that the government is trying to make up for the failure of an earlier PC-based filtering program by rolling out an alternative, ISP-level filtering program that they know won't fully prevent access to illegal material. They promise not to state what sites are being blocked, even as they promise only illegal content will be. To prepare for the roll out, they're doing live testing of equipment and protocols they haven't used in the lab, and not telling the ISPs when the program will be ready. It sounds like all of the worst clichés about government incarnated in a single program.