Government plans to filter the Internet in New Zealand - now in full official draft
The document is officially entitled "Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System".
2.4 A person who views a website containing chid sexual abuse images is in possession of those images, if only for the period they appear on the screen. The Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System therefore will help prevent inadvertent exposure to these images and will also help prevent New Zealanders from committing crimes.
Ok, so the DIA makes it clear what the filtering system is for.
4.3.1 The list is reviewed monthly, manually, to ensure that it is up to date and that the possibility of false positives is removed.
4.3.2 Additions are only made to the list with the agreement of at least 3 warranted inspectors of publications that the material on the website meets the criterion that they explicitly show children being sexually abused.
4.3.3 All sites on the list are visited and have a report that identifies the investigating officer and what he or she saw on the site when it was last reviewed.
So there goes our fears of rogue governments filtering any site that is against its policies and dare to speak up.
5.2.1 The Department will institute an Independent Reference Group (IRG) to maintain oversight of the operation of the Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System to ensure it is operated with integrity and adheres to the principles set down in this Code of Practice.
Good move. Someone needs to police the police.
This is what someone visiting one of the blocked sites will see:
6.6 If a requester considers that they have been wrongly blocked from visiting a legitimate website then they can click on the link to the Website Appeal page to fill in an appeal.
Sounds good. It's easy to notify the list managers if there's something you think is wrongly blocked.
7. Data
7.1 What data is collected?
7.1.1 During the course of the filtering process the Department logs the following information regarding a request for a blocked website:
• Connection Number - relates to the number allocated to an ISP when it is included on the system and the type of connection eg. GIF2.
• Local IP – represents the IP address of the user – this is anonymised to protect the identity of the requester.
• Request - encompasses 2 fields: the Originating Site and the Requested Site.
• Remote IP - relates to the address of the remote site, this uses random numbers to ensure the Department cannot track it back.
7.2 What is the data used for
7.2.1 The collection of this data is necessary so that the system is able to be reviewed to ensure 24-hour 365-day uptime and no loss of business due to a technical glitch or fault, for ISPs who join the system.
7.2.2 The logs are used to troubleshoot the connections between the Department’s system and the ISP. As we are providing a service to a commercial organisation, it is our responsibility to ensure that the Department is able to offer the same level of service expected of any commercial enterprise.
7.2.3 As no identifiable information is stored about the user requesting a website, this data cannot be used in support of any investigation or enforcement activity undertaken by the Department. However, the data will be used for statistical and reporting purposes, for example to inform the Department of the level of demand in New Zealand for child sexual abuse images.
Sounds too much information about a user's IP just for "troubleshooting the connections".
8.2 The Department also acknowledges that website filtering systems are not 100% effective in preventing access to illegal material. A person with a reasonable level of technical skill can use tools that are freely available on the Internet to get around the filters.
8.3 As illegal material, such as child sexual abuse images, is most often traded on peer-to-peer networks or chatrooms, which will not be filtered, the Censorship Compliance Unit carries out active investigations in those spaces.
The DIA confirms what most tech savvy people knows: the trade of this kind of content is done under strict secrecy using protocols that are not being filtered. The DIA will continue to investigate (as they already do) and prosecute (well done).
This filter is just to prevent good people like you and me coming across this kind of material by accident - or to prevent 2.4 of happening.
In all a good cause. I was just expecting another paragraph there saying "This code is to make it clear no other type of content will be added to the filtered system at later stage".
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Comment by kyhwana2, on 25-Aug-2009 19:28
@chippo: No, this is probably your public IP.. they don't really have an easy way of getting your "private"/internal IP..
They probably misused the word "local" there
Comment by seethefuture, on 25-Aug-2009 22:22
I am still very skeptical. The mode of operation is all too familiar, which is to bring this kind of controls, oversight or rule under the pretext of doing or representing something good and socially acceptable, like not consumption of child pornography.
Most human beings will agree that it is unacceptable to consume such materials, but that is not the true intent of these filters or at least not what it will become once it has been implemented with huge success when the true nature (power) of these filters will start to reveal its colors. It will then conveniently be used against the population preventing them from accessing questionable news reporting, opposition party organizations or anti government view web sites and through many years of red tape and beauracrcy will stay there while the ruling regime is in charge.
By their own admission, described in section 8.2 and 8.3 they admitted that they are not targeting the "real" underground network, but then again we have to ask if that is really the intention or have we finally started the era of big brother and the Orwellian society.
To my critics I would say, look at history for the track record of most forms of government, they propagate the boiling frog syndrome and lure the brightest minds to be the biggest supporters of their "trust your government" message. Sorry, but
I will remain skeptical whenever a government want to "prevent or help people" from doing harm to themselves or others. This will ultimately range from thought crimes, speech crimes, freedom crimes all under the guise of "a bad socially condemned description of the day", but back at the capitol the special interests and corrupt politicians weave their sticky webs to make sure they tell you, the normal, thinking and kind to other citizens, people YOU ARE will be told what you should or should not, could or could not.
So, 98% population is controlled because of 2% bad apples. Yea, let's enforce that laws will we...
Comment by woolmaked, on 26-Aug-2009 05:02
I am not sure about this. Attempts to filter the Internet in countries like China and Malaysia has sparked opposition but i just wonder why aren't there any massive opposition to this as reasons to filter the internet are basically the same.
Comment by matthnz, on 26-Aug-2009 08:24
So does this mean that all web traffic going out of NZ will pass through one giant mega web proxy?
Maybe they will block based on site IP address? What if there are legit sites on the same IP address? hmmmm...
Comment by foobar, on 26-Aug-2009 16:17
@seethefuture: Well said. As I wrote here, "think of the children!" is the trojan horse that gets this technology accepted by the masses. In many other countried around the world this type of technology has been introduced with the same "good intentions" and pretty much everywhere the desire to use to filter more stuff became quickly apparent.
If the government would be interested in fighting child porn then they would merely call up the hosters on which those images are located. Most of them would gladly cooperate, without the need to synchronize global law enforcement, and such. But the government doesn't do that. Why not? I think the answer is clear: The existence of child porn is just too good an aliby to push this kind of technology through. The government really has no interest in fighting child porn.
In fact, considering all of tihs, one could say that the government is exploiting for a second time the children that are already exploited to further its goal of installing a censorship infrastructure...
Comment by ryall, on 27-Aug-2009 13:19
I agree with foobar, governments all over the world are exploiting child porn to implement censorship. It's not exactly subtle, but it is effective because the unspoken message is "If you speak up against content filtering you're obviously a pedophile..."
Comment by Justin Davis, on 28-Aug-2009 08:29
I like your thoughts. Can you send me a link to your other posts?
Justin Davis
Internet Filter
Comment by Brett, on 28-Aug-2009 21:06
"Specifically I am against an Internet filtering plan, but at least with this draft it seems the DIA put in place strict features"
In all other instances of "Filtering to protect the children" overseas(The US, Britain, Australia) has born out that the introduction of this type of filtering merely acts as a vehicle to broader censorship.
It is a perfect arguement. The question "Are you against child abuse" has but one right answer.
"Naturally the common people don't want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
--- Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.
Comment by Brett, on 29-Aug-2009 17:34
Touche.
Except you fell for the old defense against Godwins Law.
"However, Godwin's Law itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
But OK, Godwins Law aside. You think the govt won't take this opportunity to broaden censorship.
I say they will.
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Comment by Chippo, on 25-Aug-2009 18:58
I'm glad to see that the DIA is trying hard to alleviate the fears that have already been raised about this technology.
Still some concerns about methodology though. If I have shared hosting with my ISP and another site on that same server (With the same IP) is “hacked” and begins hosting objectionable content. Does the DIA give my ISP the opportunity to remove this content before my website is blocked as being child pornography? This will have seriously implications to MANY NZ businesses with shared hosting.
Second is section 7.1.1 and the recording of my local IP. I assume this is relating to my internal, private, IP address. This isn’t reported publicly, which means the ONLY way that they can gather this information is by installing an application on my computer to do so. Yes, it will only be a small script – but this is still being installed without my knowledge, without warning and potentially without reason.