http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25213542-2702,00.htmlInternet filter list of porn exposed
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Mitchell Bingemann | March 20, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE Rudd Government's plans for a nationwide internet filter are in jeopardy after its top-secret blacklist of banned web pages was leaked.
The list, published on the internet, reads like a White Pages of porn and its release has provided a handy guide for young people to access the very material the Government wishes to banish from their eyes.
The secret blacklist, which was leaked to the whistle-blower website Wikileaks, is purportedly the same list the Australian Communications and Media Authority distributes to vendors of approved internet filters to ban offensive material -- such as child pornography, bestiality and violence.
ACMA and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday attempted to hose down concerns about the published blacklist, saying it was not the official list used by the communications regulator.
Of the 2395 web pages on the leaked list, approximately half relate to child porn -- one of the key targets of the federal Government's planned mandatory internet filter.
Many more web pages relate to online poker sites, YouTube links, pornography sites, Wikipedia entries and even links to a Queensland boarding kennel and a Queensland dentist.
"While Wikileaks is used to exposing secret government censorship in developing countries, we now find Australia acting like a democratic backwater," the website notes.
"History shows that secret censorship systems, whatever their original intent, are invariably corrupted into anti-democratic behaviour."
The content of the list of illegal, prohibited and potentially prohibited web pages is supposed to be strictly confidential and is being used as the backbone of the Government's internet censorship plan, which is undergoing trials with a number of internet service providers.
Senator Conroy has said he plans to use parts of the ACMA blacklist to block Australian internet users from accessing pornographic and violent material. Now the secret list has been made public, it is more likely it will be used by interested parties as a pornography database of unheralded proportions.
Child protection group Child Wise said whoever published the blacklist had opened up a Pandora's box of porn.
"Every 15-year-old boy in the country is going to be after this porn list," said Child Wise chief executive Bernadette McMenamin.
"The person who's done this should be prosecuted and jailed for effectively disseminating and promoting child pornography."
Yesterday's disclosure of the blacklist could also jeopardise efforts to block access to offensive material as the perpetrators will now know they were tagged by the secret list.
"The leak and publication of prohibited URLs is grossly irresponsible," Senator Conroy said. "It undermines efforts to improve cyber-safety and create a safe online environment for children."
ACMA and Senator Conroy attempted to cast doubt on the authenticity of the leaked list by highlighting discrepancies in the blacklist's size.
While the leaked list contains 2395 banned web pages, ACMA says its blacklist as of August last year contained 1061 links.
ACMA would not say how many of the 1061 links on its list also appeared on the leaked Wikileaks blacklist.
"I am aware of reports that a list of URLs has been placed on a website; this is not the ACMA blacklist," Senator Conroy said.
"There are some common URLs to those on the ACMA blacklist. However, ACMA advises that there are URLs on the published list that have never been the subject of a complaint or ACMA investigation, and have never been included on the ACMA blacklist."
Wikileaks said the disparity in the reported figure was probably due to the fact that the list contained several duplicates and variations of the same URL that stem from a single complaint.
ACMA is investigating the leak and is considering a range of possible actions it may take, including referral to the Australian Federal Police.
ACMA threatens fines of up to $11,000 a day for linking to sites on its secret censorship blacklist and said Australians caught distributing the list or accessing child pornography sites on the list could face criminal charges and up to 10 years in prison.
Also, I have word that Australian government is threatening ten years jail to anyone that sends it along, an eleven thousand dollar fine to anyone that links to it on Wikileaks, and has added Wikileaks to the block list. The same block list, mind you, that they've been swearing up and down is to block child porn only. While at the same time claiming that the leaked list is completely fake.
Since I'm not Australian and am way beyond reach of Australia's fascist laws, here are a few hits from the list:
Individual sites:
- Redtube (53), Megarotic (833), Xtube (308). Redtube is, by the way, Australia's 38th most visited website.
- 4chan (992)'s /b/ - most popular subforum on the board.
- PartyPoker (151), Australia's 44th most visited website.
- Stile Project (3097) and The Hun (2581), both regular porn thumbnail sites.
- ImageFap (601), a pornographic image hosting site.
- TOTSE (40337) - anything-goes discussion board that's been on the internet longer than you have, probably. Their members caused the Jenkem hoax, among all sorts of other sh**t.
- Lemonparty (95377), Goatse (482110), 2girls1cup (40513) - if you haven't heard of these, get off my internets.
-
This right-wing American nutjob site (752214) - or possibly it's a parody. I laughed my ass off at the gif on the front page.
General trends:
- Lots of regular porn sites, with a large amount of 18+ porn sites.
- Lots of gay porn sites, too.
- Dating sites.
- A lot of online gambling sites.
- Sites on bestiality, incest, and rape - illegal to do, sure, but fairly common fetishes.
- Fetish sites - BDSM and femdom, notably.
- According to News reports I've read, websites on Satanism, euthanasia and abortion. Didn't see them myself, but it's a long list (that I totally don't have) and my eyes were definitely suffering by the end.
Stupidity:
- Individual threads on 12chan.
- Individual images on 4, 34, and 7chan.
-
This image (NSFW) on Wikipedia (now deleted).
- One specific search on TorrentSpy - "videos hardcore".
- One specific search on RapidLibrary - which is a search engine for RapidShare and Megaupload.
- Individual thumbnails on porn sites.
- Lots of profiles and groups on social networking sites - apparently it didn't occur to them to just report said groups and profiles and get them deleted. Seems most of them have been since then.
Oh, and that eleven thousand dollar fine I mentioned? That's per day. And for linking any site on the blocklist. The secret blocklist that's illegal to possess. That so far has the websites of three businesses - a Queensland dentist, a Maroochydore boarding kennel, and a Sydney tour operator - on it. Better burn those business cards, guys.
Have some moar links:
News.com.auCanberra TimesSydney Morning HeraldWired
