Freelancing Gods 2009

So, a bit over a year ago, as we edged closer and closer to voting John Howard out of office, Rudd’s team make the stupid election promise of an internet filter. Exactly a year ago, in anger and frustration, I sent off a letter to Stephen Conroy, the then new Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Twelve months later, what have we learnt?

• Conroy is slow to respond to letters.
• Conroy isn’t particularly good at engaging in reasoned discourse.
• Conroy is good at staying on message.
• The internet filter is unlikely to be completely opt-out – there’ll just be two levels.
• Question Time is a farce and lacking in intelligent discussion.
• Those passionate about the issue have mobilised, with the EFA, GetUp, Steve Hopkins and Elias Bizannes amongst those leading the way.
• Trials of internet filters have focused mainly on HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Not IM, peer-to-peer traffic, or newsgroups.
• ISPs, including iiNet and Internode, are not fans of the proposed legislation
• The Greens and Liberals aren’t supporting it either. Nick Xenephon seems to be on the fence, and unsurprisingly Stephen Fielding of Family First wants to add legal content to be blocked by the filter.
• Conroy insists that our filter will be much like those in Sweden and Canada – yet both of those filters, according to the Government’s own feasibility study, are voluntary.
• There is a live pilot underway.

We’ve had petitions, rallies, phone bombs, emails and letters. It doesn’t seem to be making a dint in Conroy’s plans. I think face-to-face meetings is the best way forward. If your local member is from the ALP, then meet with them. If they’re not, you will have a Senator who is. If you’re uncomfortable about going alone, find some other like-minded souls. A group may well have a larger impact.

If you’re in Melbourne, that’s where Stephen Conroy is based – I’d love to hear some feedback of anyone who has met with him. I’m currently overseas, so I haven’t got around to that yet – I’ve only managed to meet with my then-local member (I’ve since changed electorates), and it was pretty clear that I knew more about the issue than he did.

I’d also recommend not bothering with arguments relating to civil liberties, censorship or keeping legal access to pornography. While I don’t disagree that these are important and valid, it’s not going to win over anyone. Personally, I try to keep the message about how the filter isn’t going to work, just like past filters haven’t worked, and thus it’s a waste of money and time. You need to express understanding that the Government’s goal is laudable, but the approach isn’t. The ends does not justify the means.

Also have alternative plans to suggest – whether that’s recommending parents stay aware of what their children are doing online, an opt-in filter for those who want it, or something like the previous Government’s NetAlert software. (Although that wasn’t downloaded much at all – so is there really the demand for an internet filter?)

Online action is great, but it doesn’t have anything close to the effect that face-to-face communication does. If you really want to make a difference, get into those politicians’ offices.

The Australian Government’s contentious ‘Clean Feed’ internet censorship proposal has got some media attention lately – and by and large, it’s been rightly critical of Senator Conroy’s plans. If you’re not familiar with it, I recommend you read my letters to Conroy and peruse nocleanfeed.com.

In the middle of last year, the previous Government commissioned a closed environment testing trial. The results of these were released recently, and the values have been used by both sides to tout the usefulness/uselessness of filters. Handily, these results are available to the public, so I’ve skimmed through the extensive PDF - although I claim no solid understanding of it all – to figure out where the figures are from.

Firstly, a few facts:

• Six different filtering approaches were tried (with the codenames Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Theta and Omega).
• These trials were conducted on a purpose-built network.
• The network is similar in scale to a Tier 3 ISP.
• The trials covered speed changes, the effectiveness of blocking blacklisted material, and the valid sites blocked incorrectly.
• Most filters were only tested against HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Gamma and Omega were also applied to emails, and Delta skipped on HTTPS.

A full grid of numbers is at the bottom of the post, but let’s go through a few comparisons.

Speed vs Blocking

The speed results here are really mixed. One (Delta) doesn’t drop much at all, but two (Alpha and Gamma) are horrific. All filters manage to block at least 87% of the blacklist – but only Beta comes really close, with 98% (losing a third of the speed in the process though).

Speed vs False Positives

Note that the scale on the Y Axis drops a bit, but we still get another set of mixed results. None of them are perfect on the false-positives front, and the closest is Gamma on 1.3% – but that comes with severly limited speeds. And really – there are a lot of websites out there. Even 1% covers a fair chunk of the net.

Blocking vs False Positives

Here there’s something of a trend, although you have to be looking for it: better blocking effectiveness means a higher number of false positives. That’s not good, people.

Takeaways?

There’s really not that much to work off here, no matter what side of the fence you’re on. The main things to keep in mind are:

• None of the solutions are perfect.
• All had issues with false-positives
• This was done on something approaching a Tier 3 ISP - will the performance speeds decrease if we applied these filters on a Tier 1 or 2 ISP? My money’s on yes.
• It wasn’t Conroy who commissioned this study, so it can’t be pinned against him.
• Delta, which is arguably the only viable filter judging by performance, still missed 9% of the blacklisted sites.
• None of the filters were tested against newsgroups, IM(Instant Messaging), or peer-to-peer traffic. I’d imagine HTTP/HTTPS filters are relatively easy, so expecting the same performance and effectiveness for other protocols sounds like a pipe dream to me.

Raw Numbers

Glossary of sorts: PPI (Passive Performance Index) is the relative speed when a filter is attached but not running. API (Active Performance Index) is the relative speed when the filter is running. CPI (Change In Performance Index) is API when using PPI as the reference point (instead of uninhibited network speeds). BRI (Blocking Rate Index) is the percentage of blacklisted sites stopped, and OBI (Overblocking Index) is the percentage of friendly sites overzealously blocked.

About six months ago, I sent a letter to the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (yes, that’s a mouthful), Stephen Conroy, raising some concerns with the ISP filtering the Government was proposing.

A few weeks ago, I received a response. It’s overly long, filled with spin and cruft, but hey, that’s better than nothing. There’s still some questions unanswered though, and new ones raised, so here’s my response to the good senator. Fingers crossed for a faster reply.

To the Honourable Stephen Conroy,

Thank you for your letter dated 26 June 2008, replying to my own concerns sent to your office in January. I appreciate the extensive details on the current Government’s plans for cyber-safety, although I feel a couple of my concerns weren’t addressed. Namely:

• The reasoning behind using an opt-out filter instead of an opt-in filter;
• Acknowledgement that this filter will slow down the internet in Australia; and
• Confirmation that it is the ACMA, not the Government, that determines what sites are filtered.

Secondly, I have some questions from what you outlined in your letter:

• Who decides the participants in the Consultative Working Group and Youth Advisory Group?
• What defines success and/or failure for the ISP filtering pilot?
• Was there consultation with the industry about the feasibility of the filtering? Or is that consultation limited to how best to implement it?

Again, thank you for your response, and I look forward to the continuation of this discussion.

Kind regards,

Patrick Allan

(A blog post where Pat cheats and just quotes heavily from the book.)

Another book I managed to get through on my break in New Zealand was the latest Quarterly Essay, Judith Brett’s Exit Right: The Unravelling of John Howard. Anyone who knows me well knows that I was extremely happy with Howard’s loss at the end of last year, so reading about what lead to the downfall wasn’t exactly depressing (unlike the excellent Dark Victory, which covers events around the 2001 election).

As well as pointing out the dangers of groupthink and following the party line (paralleling nicely with Cass Sunstein’s Infotopia), Brett had two incisive descriptions which I hadn’t heard clearly before.

The first was about how WorkChoices had such a strong impact for so many voters.

With its new industrial-relations regime the government was trying to change culture, just as Howard had accused the Keating government of doing. And the culture was resisting. The deep problem for the government was that unlike many other areas of policy, when it comes to what happens at work, people have first-hand experience, both their own and that of friends and family. And opinions based on experience are much more firmly held than those based on media reports or government advertising campaigns.

In the long interviews which Antony Moran and I used for our book Ordinary People’s Politics, there was a discernible difference between the way people talked about opinions based on experience and their other political views. On issues of foreign policy, such as the decision to support the US invasion of Iraq, most Australians have little choice but to trust the government. And if the government gets it wrong, it has no immediate impact on their daily lives. It is the Iraqis who are bearing that cost. Even with the children-overboard affair, the fact that the government lied had no immediate impact on Australian voters’ everyday lives.

But changing the power relations in the workplace is a very different matter. In trying to sell the changes to an already-sceptical electorate, the government damaged its more general credibility. If they are giving us spin on things we know first-hand, why should we believe them on anything else? WorkChoices may well be the main reason people seemed to stop listening to the government some time i the first half of 2007.

The second was in regards to Budget promises and the lack of expenditure on services.

The core problem of Australian federalism is vertical fiscal imbalance. What this means is that the federal government raises most of the revenue but the states have the most need of it, with responsibility for services including education, roads, hospitals and police, where there is never enough money. Australia’s federal system involves not just a mismatch of money, but a mismatch of accountability, which is why it is so difficult to fix.

There is a structural fracture between the level of government (federal) which bears the odium of raising taxes, and the level of government (state) which claims the credit for spending the money. There is also endless scope for blame-shifting. Why would a Commonwealth government give more money to the states for public hospitals, for example, or for TAFE colleges, particularly when the states are in the hands of the opposition party and when it can’t control the outcomes? Why wouldn’t it give voters tax cuts for which it will get the credit?

Voters keep saying that instead of tax cuts from the surplus they would prefer the money to be spent on health, education, infrastructure, the environment. But most of this is done by the states, and so doesn’t easily provide the Commonwealth with the type of big-bang policy announcements that tax cuts do. And from the perspective of the Coalition, it’s just giving free kicks to the Labor state premiers and helping them stay in power.

Neither point is ground-breaking, but I found them clear perspectives that I hadn’t encountered before.

A few notes and links on the Government finally apologising to the indigenous people of Australia, prompted by conversations with Ross via twitter and IM:

• ‘Sorry’ isn’t the be all and end all – but it’s a good start.
• Howard’s intervention to ‘save the children’ was a load of bullshit bound for failure – top-down approach, handed down from on high, by white people who don’t have a clue.
• I don’t have any solutions on how to make things better. But as far as I’m concerned anyone suggesting solutions who doesn’t work with indigenous communities should seriously consider shutting their mouth.
• There isn’t going to be an easy, clear, simple solution.
• But there are people out there putting forward intelligent ideas. Go read Chris Graham’s article in Crikey
• While you’re at it, peruse these articles by Kylie Lee and Claire Smith.
• Also topical and definitely worth reading – Martin Flanagan on Archie Roach

I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning.

The news about the Government’s plan for an opt-out internet filter has got me pretty incensed, so, for the first time in far too long, I’m sending a letter. Yeah, a proper, printed letter, in an envelope. Apparently that raises the odds that I’ll get a response, but these are politicians we’re dealing with, so I have my doubts.

The main target is Senator Stephen Conroy, but I’ll also be posting off copies to my local member, Kelvin Thomson, and the Chair of the ACMA, Chris Chapman. I was inspired by the EFA’s media release (are you a member of the EFA yet?).

Thanks to those who have provided feedback and discussion points – particularly Anthony Richardson and Jayne. Hopefully what I’ve written below will spur others into action.

To the Honourable Stephen Conroy,

With the recent announcement of the Rudd Government’s plans for a mandatory internet filter, there’s been some discussion in the media, but I have a few concerns that I’d appeciate being addressed.

Firstly, the opt-out nature of the filter. Making the filter opt-out is, I feel, implying the Government of this country doesn’t trust it’s citizens. Will people who request to opt out of the service have their details recorded? Why couldn’t this be an opt-in filter?

And who decides what gets filtered? The Government? Or an independent organisation? Each lobby group and political party will have their own opinions about what should and shouldn’t be blocked by the filter. I’m sure “Who watches the watchers?” is a quote you’ve already heard in regards to this issue, but that doesn’t detract from its relevancy.

Thirdly, the issue of speed. This filter will make browsing the internet slower for Australians – even for those who opt out. Every single request for every part of a web page will have to be checked, first to see if the user requesting the content has opted out, and then if they haven’t, to see if the content requested is censored. Of course, that’s if you’ve got a list of filtered content. If you have some system that determines whether content should be filtered as it’s requested, that’ll definitely be slower.

Let’s keep in mind the fact that Australian broadband is lagging behind the rest of the developed world as it is. Also, the same speed issues will apply even if you have an opt-in service.

Beyond the issues listed above, I also have some skepticism that this filter will be particularly effective. Let’s not forget the how easily the previous Government’s attempt was hacked. And it won’t stop people watching child pornography – they’ll just opt-out of the service. That kind of material is not really a problem for children either – it’s not something they’ll stumble upon.

The (relatively short) history of the internet has shown that it treats censorship as failure, and will route around it (to paraphase John Gilmore). From my questions and concerns above, I think it’s clear that I feel this Government’s (well-meaning) attempt to filter the internet is not only another barrier in the way of decent internet speeds and open content, but also a waste of time and effort.

I look forward to a response to the questions I’ve raised. I would definitely be happy to discuss all this with you in person.

Kind Regards,

Patrick Allan

“From space I saw Earth – indescribably beautiful with the scars of national boundaries gone.”

Muhammad Ahmed Faris, Syria

From 2004:

From 2007:

I caught the last half of SBS’ Insight tonight, which was focused on Generation-Y voters in the marginal Queensland electorate of Moreton, currently held by the Liberal Party’s Gary Hardgrave. While some of it felt pointless and bland, there were a few points from the parts I saw that grabbed my attention.

Labor – Still Clueless about the Internet

Graham Perret, the Labor candidate, was present on the show, and I caught the tail end of him talking about how Labor was using the Internet. He spoke about how it was another way to get their message out to the voters – and that’s precisely the wrong way to approach it. While newspapers, radio and TV are largely broadcast media, the Internet is far more democratised, and far better suited to engaging people and getting proper dialog happening.

This is what irritates me about politicians (particularly John Howard) using Youtube – they treat it very much as just another way to get the press release out. GetUp is making use of Youtube in a much more conversational way – there’s no reports yet on the site about how Sunday’s forum proceeded though.

People want Politicians to be Humans

There was a researcher on the show – I didn’t catch her name – who had studied Generation-Y, and (if I am remembering correctly) was talking about how all voters – not just the younger ones – want politicians to be funny and human. To be honest and approachable. To stop with the spin. To really connect with people.

Okay, maybe I’m riffing off her ideas into my own, but I think the feeling was pretty similar. I wish ideas like this would get more airplay – perhaps the politicians might actually take it on board.

Beyond the Show

On Insight’s web site, they have a temporary forum for discussion about the show. I made a few comments myself, but from a technological perspective, it’s really not an effective way to encourage discourse. You also get the trolls – even with the moderators vetting each post – just like everywhere else, which is a shame.

Of course, it’s tough to get people in a frame of mind where they’re open to other ideas, instead of just ramming their own down other people’s throats.

Peter Garrett is a shining example of why ethical, idealistic, passionate people should not become politicians.

Discuss.