I'm dumping Telstra for the voluntary filter

commentary About a year ago, Telstra, along with Optus and iPrimus, agreed to "voluntarily" apply a version of the government's mandatory internet filter to the connections of all of their clients.

Certain subset of the Australian Communications

They agreed to "voluntarily" filter out meanwhile a certain subset of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's blacklist, the complete contents of which is the basis of the mandatory internet service provider level filtering plan.

The methods the sickos use to get access to this kind of material don't leave log files around for people to check. The internet traffic flows they create are not definitive evidence that they are accessing this kind of material, and the filter does nothing to prevent them from accessing it. Nevertheless the real problem is not the distribution of child pornography. A JPEG image or an MPEG movie in and of itself does not hurt anyone. It is the content that has hurt someone — the children in it.

Somewhere in the world, sometime in that month, a child has been abused by someone — mentally, emotionally, physically and sexually — and it was captured for distribution. It is this production that must stop. You can't stop child pornography by trying to hide it. You have to stop it from being produced. And the internet filter doesn't even hide it — it might only blur it a little bit.

I could go on, however do you notice the pattern? These cretins are being identified and prosecuted. The source of this rubbish is being identified, and children are being rescued. All without an internet filter. A filter would force these people furthermore underground, and make their detection even harder — making it harder to rescue these kids from peril. A filter could to tell the truth further entrench the child pornography trade, and condemn more children to such abuse.

Until January this year, I had been a loyal Telstra mobile customer since 1996 — nearly 15 years. I've never had any problems with its service; it has always been reliable, and in the advent of mobile broadband, its coverage and throughput is second to none.

It is interesting to note that Australia's two biggest ISPs — Telstra and Optus — have more to gain than any other ISPs from a participation deal with the upcoming National Broadband Network. Is implementing the "voluntary" filter a requirement for those deals to be made? Telstra is gaining $11 billion, and Optus is gaining $800 million through their NBN deals. I however believe that the filter is ultimately doomed, however this is food for thought.

This post is by Michael Wyres, a 15-year veteran of the IT industry who has covered roles in the public and private sectors across network engineering, support and development. He currently works as a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solutions developer for a private company in Melbourne. This article was first published on his blog, Musings of a Geek, and is republished here with his permission.