John Linton
I see that dimwit Conroy is still rabitting on about 'porn filters' or whatever the heck it is he seems to think is important and mumbling about "initiatives in the budget" - I suppose he has to have something to take his mind off how he's going to explain away the non-delivery of the "high speed broadband to every Australian within 2 years of a Labor government being elected".
I only reference that clown because of the gradually increasing intrusive email and post I am receiving 'demanding' that I (on behalf of Exetel of course) comply with various concepts that interfering do-gooders associated with the crazier elements of the Labor party seem to think a small ISP like Exetel should be doing.
Over the last three days alone I've received 4 emails, one fax and one letter from various organisations "requiring" meetings to ensure that Exetel is complying, or is about to comply, with their various crazy recommendations regarding making 'the internet' a safer place for children or a safer place place for corporate bottom lines.
I'm thinking of getting some T shirts made with a rip off the the "Do I Look Like A ******* People Person?" logo substituting 'people' with 'meeting' as apparently my loathing for 'face to face meetings' isn't well known enough (but then how could it be to the sorts of twinks that have been writing to me lately - I've never heard of them).
So I have ignored all of the requests on the assumption that there is no requirement for a relatively busy private citizen, even a private citizen that participates in running a commercial enterprise, to be "required" to meet with persons unknown to be lectured to about topics of zero interest - of course I may have missed the fact that the current bunch of loonies posing as a government of a democracy may have passed some legislation compelling people to listen to their idiotic rantings - anything is now possible apparently. I suppose a government that can try and enact legislation to obtain corporate trade secrets is capable of anything.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23402409-5013041,00.html
Have they read the constitution? Silly question when you look at their educational and work history back grounds I suppose - most of them would be pushed to comprehend there is one.
Irrespective of my 'head in the sand' approach to dealing with these 'initiatives' it seems pretty clear that we (the Australian public - not just the poor benighted ISP part of Australia) are about to be "nannied" to death by a bunch of grand standing wowsers who know much better than each individual Australian what they should and shouldn't be able to access via the internet. The fact that "policing" the internet can't possibly succeed and that the cost of any attempt to do such a thing will be ruinously expensive (for every one involved) is not something that these people are capable of understanding.
Apart from the resurgence in Labor party intrusion in to the operation of the internet in Australia there is a concurrent increase in the various copyright protection association's correspondence with ISPs generally - at least I hope it isn't just with Exetel.
Exetel, as far as I can determine, operates a more comprehensive and more highly responsible set of processes to deal with claims that various people connected to our network are breaching/have breached copyright at various times. I think that we have in place as comprehensive and as effective copyright protection processes as any law, Federal or State or Territory, requires of us and we comply with all requirements of those laws to the 'letter'.
Sometimes an Exetel customer will bluster and threaten us for dealing with claims of copyright breaches in the ways we do (maybe half a dozen a year) but that has never proven to be a problem - such offended people have two clear choices - deal with the claim directly with the person making the claim (under the anonymity of an Exetel provided email address) or find another provider. It has worked well at Exetel and I don't see how it can be improved and I think it's doubtful that more than two or three end users have decided to accept our offer of a termination free churn away over the past four years.
However, I get the feeling that there will be more effort put on both nannying and policing the internet in Australia until the current 'government' gets buried in the real issues of running a small country and doesn't have time for the current nonsense.
For people with young children there are a plethora of products available to ensure kids from 3 - 12 don't get in to 'trouble' on the net. One that I've seen recommended several times this year can be found here:
http://www.kidzui.com/