Australians Soon Will Need a License to Access the Web

It’s April first in AUS, isn’t it?

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That’s right.

When personal computers first started becoming popular (I cut my teeth on an IBM PC/XT 8086 with 640K of RAM, running DOS 3.31), I started to take an elitist attitude towards people owning computers. I was of the belief that there were too many people who were purchasing and using computers that had no business using computers because they didn’t have a rudimentary understanding of how it worked, or how to maintain it.

Given that the internet, today, is filled with a LOT of people who still don’t have a rudimentary grasp of how to keep their system secure and virus-free, I’m surprised that I do not still have that elitist attitude.

The World Wide Web, although not its original intent, is for the FREE exchange of information and ideas. To limit that in any way, shape, or form is criminal. Any gov’t who is seriously considering this approach might as well be North Korea or China. This is but one step in that direction, anyway. Why not go full-throttle? <sarcasm mode off>

As much as I dislike the fact that the average Internet user doesn’t know how to keep their system secure, I abhor the prospect of instituting this kind of mandate. It’s counter-everything that the Internet basically stands for (spammers and get-rich fanatics notwithstanding.)

V/r,

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That sounds to me like a waste of tax dollars. Comparing operating a motor vehicle to the internet is ignorant at best. I think these days governments just want to see how far they can push and get away with it as this is utterly ridiculous.

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You are aware that this was an April Fools joke - or did you miss all the references to that earlier in the thread?

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nope

Read it, did not catch it. Much relieved. Thanks for pointing that out.

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whilst it is an april fools joke it is an interesting point of discussion. Should the internet be controlled more than it currently is? Google etc al announced today that it would be removing (from it’s searches) photos etc that were deemed indecent (i think it’s just children but could be others too).

Personally i think this is a good thing and more needs to be done to control what is on the internet. Is this censorship? Probably, but there is a reason for censorship. If i wanted to build a bomb in the pre-internet days i would have a reasonably difficult time finding out how. Anybody these days can find instructions pretty easily, i don’t think that is a benefit to society along with a lot of the other crud that exists out there.

For everything the internet has given us with one hand, has it taken just as much with the other?

No, but that’s the tricky issue for the web. It’s a big mess, but that’s part of having a free and open web, so we can’t have one without the other. If something is illegal that’s one thing. But just censoring what we don’t like is a slippery slope.

that is true. i guess it also depends on your countries laws as to what is actually illegal so that would be hard too, and also knowing or reading how to do something is not illegal i guess.

Yes, all dictators agree with you 100% on this point.

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whilst democracy works so perfectly… :wink:

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I can’t see the image.

While the US isn’t perfect, it’s WAY better than communism or monarchy or dictatorship.

If you’re happy living under circumstances like that, then more power to you. However, your argument that “information not available is a boon to life” doesn’t hold water, so please don’t try to promote censorship as a cure all for the world’s ills. The problem isn’t information - the problem is radicalisation and a complete disregard for innocent life.

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O my, I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned politics, even as a joke. :stuck_out_tongue:

In your opinion! There are examples of each that work or have worked well. We are continually spoon fed political agendas that our governments/dictators/media wish to push. It’s the same world over. I (on occasion) watch BBC news, Russia Today and Aljazeira which is quite interesting to see the same story told from a different perspective. Democracy can be as corrupt as communism.

but perhaps this is getting a bit too political… perhaps we should just stick to whether more controls on the internet are positive or negative

I also didn’t say those words! what i did say was that removing child porn/exploitation and how to build explosives from the ‘free to everyone’ internet is probably not a bad thing. I also did agree with ralphm on his point.

@ralphm you made a good point which led to me come to the realisation that whilst some things are illegal to do it is not necessarily illegal to have the information available. Whether it should be available morally i guess is up to the individual.

It’s a bit like if your local library from 20 years ago now stocks hard core porn next to the instructions on how to blow stuff up, right next to the front door so it’s not difficult for anyone to find. I just find it difficult to accept that it is now just seen as part of the library and everyone is happy about it just because they have more books on trout fishing these days. But i’m old fashioned and that is my problem i guess.

You didn’t say those exact words, no. But when you say that taking any information off the internet or making certain information unavailable because said information can be used for nefarious purposes, it’s essentially saying that not having that information available to the public is a boon.

This also begs the question of where to draw the line. Certain information that you consider to be bad may be lifesaving to another (ethics and morals aside.) Who gets to determine what is and is not “bad”? You? Me? Kim Jong-Un?

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this is indeed the question… one perhaps that will never be answered, at least not for a while.

I guess in the real world if i had detailed plans of a building and instructions on explosives (i am not going to blow anything up it’s just an example!! before i get every agency watching my every move) and the police turned up and found it then i would be put before a court and a judge would decide if i am lunatic or just have an interest in chemistry and architecture. But there are no judges on the internet and no (perhaps a little?) police. Which is why i come down on the side of thinking that some sort of control is better than none at all.

Taking the april fools above … is it actually a bad idea that people have to have a course on internet security? I’ve read articles claiming that online fraud etc provides vast amounts of money to terrorist organisations. Would it not be better to cut that supply off by making people understand how to be safer?

Using the above examples - are you saying that you can think of legitimate uses for recipes for home-made explosive devices and child pornography? Or can we agree that there are some things on the Internet that are just bad, period? I’m not saying I’m interested in censoring the Internet or not, just interjecting that your seeming implication that the morality of the knowledge is all dependent on its application doesn’t ring true to me. Now, there are many things that are in that grey area, but there are many that are definitely not.

Comedian Ron White (and others, I’m sure) says that you can’t fix stupid. Forcing people to go through a course to educate them on security and privacy sounds like a great idea, but it’s not a guarantee that people will actually USE what they learn (if they learn) in real-life situations. The idea of a license to use the internet is totalitarian, elitist, draconian, and provides a system that is prone to abuse by those who empower it. (If you like the show “Seinfeld”, think of the soup nazi on a global network scale. “No internet for you!”)

The weakest link in any secure network is: the people who use it. Which is why phishing scams and social engineering tactics are so successful. As a federal contractor, I am required by contract to participate in annual training for information assurance. Still, even with these exercises, social engineering and phishing / spear phishing approaches still have some success. Yes, cutting off their supply of money might make a difference, but I don’t know how much of the money they get is from scams, and how much of it is from oil bought from the middle east, and how much of it is from people who are radicalised by ISIS/ISIL/whatever-they-are-calling-themselves-today who willingly provide funds and then agree to perform terrorist acts on their behalf.

Someone (not in this forum) suggested that technology should be implemented that will automatically disable any and all technological processes that allows ISIS to radicalise youths via Twitter and Facebook, etc. Immediately (knee-jerk reaction) it sounds like a great idea. The downside to that is it will only push them further underground where they cannot be monitored. They’ll still be successful, we just won’t know about it, ahead of time. Censorship, of a nature, will only make things worse for freedom loving countries (infidels).

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As abhorrent as child pornography is, no, I cannot think of a legitimate use for it. However, the sites that host it are on the same servers that host legitimate information - blocking them also blocks legitimate sites. Can we filter? I don’t know, I’m not that technologically apt.

Legitimate use for recipes for home-made explosives? Yeah, actually, there are. Farmers who are tearing down an old silo to replace it with a new one, for one example. Sure, he could take it down piecemeal; at a high cost and slow process. Or he could plant a few strategically placed home-made charges and be done with it. I’m sure there are other legitimate reasons for home-made explosives, but I’ve already used too much work time on this topic and need to get back to work. :smile:

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