To: The Australian public
The Australian business sector
All Australian political parties

From: Kathy Wheeler - Independent Web Developer
Member IQTVRA, VR-Consortium (multimedia content developers)
Member HTML Writers Guild (International HTML authors association)
Partner, Albury Local Internet (ISP)
Director, Albury-Wodonga.com (Content hosting Service)
Mother and wife.

This document is available on the web at http://www.albury.net.au/lobby/letter.html

It is with some concern and apprehension for the future of Australia's Internet infrastructure that I write to you, as voters, businesses and financial supporters of various political parties in relation to the Australian Government's proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act. Briefly, the repeated attacks by government on the Internet industry is having a seriously destabilizing effect on Australia's Internet infrastructure. There are already instances where off-shore solutions have been chosen in the face of uncertainty in the reliability and long term viability of Australian services. If we are to survive in an increasingly competitive arena, we not only need these attacks to cease, but we need assurances from the Government that Australia's basic Internet infrastructure will be preserved and protected from interference from all parties.

As you may be aware, the Australian Government has proposed certain amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 in a thinly veiled attempt to further their political agenda while masquerading as attempted regulation of online services.

There has been a lot of attitude expressed on this matter reportedly by a wide cross-section of the community. Unfortunately most of this attitude is ill-informed and deeply rooted in ignorance and inaccurate assumptions.

The proposed regulations place onerous restrictions on Internet Service Providers (ISP's - our basic Internet infrastructure) that include, but are not limited to:

I assure you the above measures will not prevent "net nasties" from reaching Australian users. On the contrary, they will even make them MORE accessible, more widely distributed and as a result of the measures users will take to retain access through illegal or alternative technology means (by-passing Australian proxies, live streaming video, bi-directional satellite etc), virtually impossible to detect or block [8].

What they WILL achieve however, include but are not limited to the following:

Enforced Proxy blocking by "censorware" requires that EVERY user request for Internet content is processed by the blocking software. This introduces significant delays in the retrieval of information. It has been estimated that the SLOWDOWN in Internet access in Australia could be several thousand times slower than is currently experienced due to the overheads of checking each and every address against a projected list of 10 million blocked addresses before making content available.

Overseas experience has proven time and time again that legitimate sites are frequently blocked for reasons ranging from an unfortunate choice of terms ("wildfree" shoe style) to purely unintended (Australian National Party home page). Overseas experience has also frequently indicated that lists of blocked sites, zealously guarded and kept secret by the commercial companies supplying the software, frequently disadvantage (block) commercial competitors, political parties and philosophies not favored by the supplier.

These same lists become much sought after and valuable items, bought and sold on the information "black market".

Sites regularly blocked by "censorware" include many general health, well-being and medical services including information on prostate cancer, breast cancer and support groups, breast-feeding and nursing mothers and drug rehabilitation and advice.

To have a legitimate site "re-classified" by the blocking software under consideration for use in Australia has been estimated at between $800-$1000, and up to a 2 year delay, with no provision for compensation for possible lost opportunity, loss of sales or damage to reputation.

It is alleged that one of the shareholder/directors of the "censorware" product (Internet Sherrif [8]) currently enjoying Australian Government support is also a board member of the TIO [9]. The TIO exercises considerable influence over Government policy and telecommunications and are moving to extend that control to the Internet industry. The Internet industry is committed to bringing to the media and public attention such inappropriate abuse of position.

The Government claims that software has improved since the CSIRO report [1] which the Government itself commissioned last year and which supported the industry claims that blocking or filtering WON'T WORK. The Government seems to be taking advice from salesmen and interested commercial parties on this issue, and is IGNORING the industry and independent specialists. A later press release issues by the CSIRO in April this year supports their earlier findings [2].

The government Senate Select committee has completely ignored over 100 independent submissions made by IT professionals who work in the industry all day, every day, and the CSIRO report, but blindly accepted the claims of 4 parties who have commercial interests in promoting their own filtering software. In all cases, the claims have been unsubstantiated, or completely misrepresented or misinterpreted by technologically naive politicians.

The Internet industry MAINTAINS the proposed scheme WILL NOT WORK. In as much as inappropriate material getting through, the "net nasties" are well ahead of the blocking software manufacturers. In an industry where it takes mere minutes or less to replace or mirror a site and broadcast the new location, blocking has no chance of delivering on it's promises. Other technologies have already been demonstrated by porn vendors that will deliver their product over encrypted VPNs using random ports which are virtually impossible to detect, let alone block. Meanwhile perfectly legitimate sites, inadvertantly blocked by clumsy software or malicious intent, lacking the money and resources of the porn vendors, will remain inaccessible to Australians.

What WILL be affected by the implementation of these proposals are ordinary Australian Internet users denied access to legitimate commercial and non-commercial material, forced to pay a considerable penalty in delayed access to ALL Internet content as well as being forced to subsidize expensive and ultimately ineffective blocking equipment at providers sites.

The blocking is intended to be implemented at the point of entry (ingress) to Australia, and at the ISP's servers. The ordinary customer/user CANNOT disable or bypass the Government blocking AT ALL, for ANY reason, legitimate or otherwise because the filtering is OUTSIDE their control. Porn vendors on the other hand have demonstrated considerable ingenuity in getting around Government censorship to deliver their material. Meanwhile legitimate content suffers, and Australian access to information across the board is reduced to the level of that suitable for a well fed, sheltered child living in a stable, ideal nuclear family, with no consideration given to the real needs of real children in our less than perfect world.

The ISP's will be forced to pass on the costs and labor involved in acquiring, implementing and maintaining the blocking software. Software which, just co-incidentally, is commercial product with interested parties holding positions on the regulatory bodies.

Many ISP's are operating on borrowed money - the costs of equipment are extremely high, competition fierce and profit margins slim or non-existent. It would not take much in the way of added costs or lost income to cripple many small to medium ISP's, resulting in unemployment, even more bankruptcies and even more consumers left out of pocket.

The Internet industry maintains a far superior solution is to encourage filtering at the END USER (customers) level, perhaps even make the software freely available, and allow the USER to control the level of blocking, when, where and if they perceive it necessary.

However, the Government seems obsessed with trying to regulate on a national, like-it-or not basis that which can not be controlled - communication of information (content), and that which should not be interfered with - the infrastructure of ISP's on which delivery of content depends.

In defiance of the facts and in the face of Industry opposition, the proposed amendments require ISP's as "Online providers", to comply with a series of rules that are technically impossible to achieve. Simply by continuing to operate, ANY ISP may find themselves in breach of the ABA's rules and liable to prosecution or facing a Federal Court order to cease operating [Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 (clause 81)].

The government acknowledges the difficulty of compliance and regulation of the Internet and yet in the next breath contradicts itself and attempts to implement an unworkable scheme that will only mislead the public into thinking the government is actually achieving something:

[EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM to the 1999 Bill amendment]:

"Online communications are an intrinsically global medium. This means that no system of national regulation, short of isolating the nation from all transborder electronic communications, can expect to control all information transmitted online. Similarly, network or service provider blocking of objectionable content emanating from overseas may not be effective, given the rapid growth of Internet sites, the impossibility of monitoring each one or monitoring all telecommunications traffic, and the relative ease with which users can by-pass domestic service providers by accessing Internet nodes offshore through the international telephone system. Nor can online service providers be made to police the content transmitted through their service (as for example a cinema or newsagent is made to in relation to conventional media), because the online service provider will often not be aware of, or be in a position to be aware of, much of the content which is being accessed or provided by users of their service."

This statement of acknowledgment is followed by a proposal for "regulatory models" within a "legislated framework" in relation to "service providers" (ISPs) which defies logic and reason. To hold ISP's to ransom over the content of the Internet is like holding Tesltra personally responsible for every abusive, threatening or obscene phone call, or Australia Post personally responsible for the content of every parcel or letter it delivers. It just doesn't make sense. Why can't our Internet and on-line infrastructure have the same "common carrier" status as Australia Post or Telstra? Why not address inappropriate or illegal material at the source? Why shoot the messenger?

The Australian Government seems to drag this issue out at random every few years. The resulting uncertainty is having a de-stabilizing effect on the Australian Internet infrastructure. At a time when we should be forging ahead with on-line content, e-commerce options and solutions, and communicating ideas we are constantly being distracted with threats to our livelihood and future.

Australia is rapidly gaining a reputation as a place NOT to host your content. If I for instance design a site for a client requiring high bandwidth access for an international market, I do NOT host it in Australia - it's simply far too expensive in bandwidth fees. I host it in the USA. More and more I feel inclined to recommend off-shore hosting options to clients as not only faster and cheaper, but less likely to suffer from some arbitrary Government interference.

Our American colleagues are already looking forward to a "brain-drain" of fresh Australian talent (to Silicon Valley and other high-tech meccas) of small ISP's forced out of business by the high price of compliance, schedule of fines and Australian bureaucratic bumbling. Beleaguered web content designers will not be far behind as we find the Australian situation increasingly impossible to deal with.

The current atmosphere of uncertainty MUST NOT CONTINUE if Australia is to have any chance of a viable and strong Internet industry. If we want a strong Internet OUR BASIC AUSTRALIAN INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE MUST BE PROTECTED FROM GOVERNMENT OR COMMERCIAL INTERFERENCE.

Indeed it may already be too late. Uncertainty is already established. The ONLY way forward from here is to legislate a NON-censorial policy in relation to the delivery mechanism (ISPs) acknowledging the unique nature of the Internet infrastructure and focusing legislative attention where it belongs - with the CREATORS of the offensive material.

The infrastructure of the Internet in Australia, the network of ISP's providing end user access, is NOT responsible for content, inappropriate or otherwise.

The Government would do well to recognise this fact and tackle the problem at the source - the authors of the inappropriate content themselves. A national and joint international effort to curb offensive material developers at the originating source - the individual authors/businesses themselves - would have a far greater likelihood of success. Attempting to block content at the ISP will only encourage disreputable content developers to implement innovative means to get their content on elsewhere while penalising legitimate content and Australian Internet users.

Let me give you a simple example:

Brian H's company profits from the sale of undesirable material. They have an Australian web site, about which a complaint is lodged with the ABA.

1. Their ISP is ordered by the ABA to remove that content and complies.

2. Brian H. can have it back on-line in minutes unless his access is also terminated - but terminating the users access is not recognised or allowed for in the Amendments. The ISP now risks massive fines ($27,500 per day!) and almost assuredly a costly court case to prove the ISP HAD complied, but Brian H. had put it all back.

3. Brian H. is determined to push his product, so just in case his ISP terminates his access he puts copies (mirrors) of his site on a number of other ISP's servers in Australia and off-shore. It is almost certainly against all ISP's AUP (Acceptable Use Policies), but that doesn't bother Brian H, who also has multiple accounts with various ISP's as Richard A.

The opportunities for deliberate mischief in "framing" ISP's by disgruntled users or competitors are enormous. You may say that "wouldn't happen", and in an ideal world it probably wouldn't. But in an ideal world, there would be no undesirable content to contend with either, and government and commercial web sites would not be hacked into. But we live and operate in an imperfect REAL world, and mischief only too often DOES happen.

So Brian H. continues his profitable little business untouched, leaving a trail of bankrupt and frustrated ISP's and an inept, ineffective ABA in his wake.

Then, of course, there are the hundreds of legitimate web sites that were hosted with the ISP's who were forced out of business. Legitimate sites now gone. Either for good or quite likely out of Australia - another boost for the US economy and a shot in the foot for our balance of trade.

What does this say for the future of Australia's Information Technology Superhighway and budding e-commerce industry - "WRONG WAY - GO BACK!!" We don't just need a "hands off" approach ... we need PROTECTION OF OUR INFRASTRUCTURE! An incontrovertible statement that neither governments nor commercial interests will be permitted to unduly influence or interfere with the independence of the Australian Internet infrastructure, a network of over 600 highly technically specialised ISP's, big and small, servicing this country and providing us the conduits for delivering our commercial and non-commercial content.

I urge you to discuss with your colleagues the destabilizing impact the Government's proposals are currently having on Australia's independent Internet infrastructure. What it could mean for YOUR business if this infrastructure of small to medium independent ISP's was to collapse leaving only a few big players in the game, mostly foreign owned, and with their own commercial agendas. Think about what THAT could mean to your own competitive position in this growing market.

Then I urge you to consider how YOU may be affected not only by the slow-down in general Internet access, but by filtering/blocking software with it's own shareholders, possibly competitors of yours, having their own commercial interests at heart - and your potential customers having no control whatsoever over the blocking methods employed.

Is Australia a free-market economy or not? Are we really a land of unsophisticated luddites and prudish fools? The people don't seem to think so. Various on-line surveys and personal interviews would indicate that at least 80% of informed Australians do not share the Senate Select Committee's views on Censorship at all [13]. This is totalitarianism by stealth.

Once most of the technical expertise and skilled content developers have left the country in search of work in greener pastures, the Australian Internet content cause and competitiveness will hold very little credibility or attraction. You may have to get used to buying more services off-shore or through foreign owned companies/competitors.

Yours sincerely,

Kathy Wheeler.

REFERENCES:

THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE IGNORED MOST OF THE 100+ SUBMISSIONS AND WITNESSES EXCEPT THOSE VERY FEW WHICH CONTAINED SECTIONS WHICH COULD BE QUOTED, GENERALLY OUT OF CONTEXT, SUPPORTING THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE'S PRE-DETERMINED VIEW.

THEY (the Committee) ARE NOT REFLECTING THE PUBLIC WILL AT ALL, AND ARE TRYING TO SUBVERT WHAT INFORMATION DOES REACH THE MEDIA WITH OVER SIMPLIFICATIONS AND SCARE TACTICS.

[1] CSIRO original report, "Blocking Content on the Internet: a Technical Perspective" prepared for the National Office for the Information Economy, June 1998:
http://www.tdce.com.au/~terry/reports/blocking/

[2] CSIRO Media Release - 4 April 1999 (Ref 99/75)
CONTENT BLOCKING ON THE INTERNET
http://www.csiro.au/news/mediarel/mr1999/mr9975.html

[3]Legal Opinion: "The Dawn Of A New Dark Age - Censorship and Amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act" - Brendan Scott, Lawyer April 1999
http://www.gtlaw.com.au/pubs/newdarkage.html

[4] EFA - Electronic Frontiers Australia: analysis, awareness and anti-censorship campaigns
http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/stop.html

The Online Censorship Resource Site
"It will cost YOU more money to be on the Internet
It will slow down YOUR internet connection
It will NOT work"
http://censorship.avs.net.au/

[5]Submission to the Senate Select Committee on Information Technologies from ALIA - The Australian Library and Information Association
http://www.alia.org.au/submissions/self.regulation.submission.html

Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday, May 4, 1999 - "When even the librarians turned against them yesterday, the good senators on a crusade to censor smut from the Internet slumped, aghast."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9905/04/pageone/pageone7.html

[6]University (Dept of Anatomy) and concerns from the medical profession (Major Australian research hospitals) that Australian research will be devastated by the restrictions to the flow of information - particularly as it relates to medical research and research hospitals.

[7]Submission to the Senate Select Committee on Information Technologies from another Australian content provider.
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/freedom/99/submit.html

[8] Censorware debunked:
A study of Clairview Internet Sheriff
http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/report_isheriff.html

"Here are the results of putting a common dictionary through the search engine favoured by Richard Alston (to be inflicted on all citizens, regardless of age or maturity or any other factor)"
http://www.cmetech.com.au/kiddie_search.html

Why Censorware Can't Work
http://www.censorware.org/essays/whycant_2_ms.html

[9]Exerts reportedly from Business Queensland - a Brisbane weekly newspaper article of 5 March 1999: ===
Brisbane based Internet service provider (ISP) Clairview has secured more than $1million from Australian investors...
...
Internet Sheriff... has captured the attention of ISPs in North America where it will be trialled next week.
...
Allan Jones ... says the the injection of capital by high-profile Australian telecommunications investors will allow Clairview to capitalise on it its worldwide patent for Internet Sheriff and other upcoming software.
...
Clairview has attracted investment from David Whitfield, Colin Marlind and Ryan O'Hara.
Whitfield, a director of microwave telco Davnet and Chairman of Caledonian Pacific Minerals, becomes a shareholder and Chairman of Clairview under the investment arrangement.
Marlind, who is on the board of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, and Ryan were partners at Corptel before it was bought out by AAPT last year.
They become shareholders and executive directors at Clairview.
Other directors are Andrew Boulus and Terry O'Leary.

[10]Pragmatism has prompted the Malaysian Government to promise no censorship of the Internet in the MSC (Multi-media Super-Corridor)
Australian Business Review Weekly article:
http://www.brw.com.au/root_brw/300697/fs_feat9.htm

Australian Broadcasting Corporation transcript (First broadcast 17/3/99):
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/archive/1999/mar/raap-18mar1999-2.htm

[11]Canada Won't Regulate Net - "7.May.99.PDT In a move welcomed by Canada's Internet industry, the nation's broadcast and telecom industry regulator said Monday it will not impose content regulations on the Internet."
"Applying Broadcasting Act regulations would have had a devastating [impact] on the growth of Canadian Internet suppliers and electronic commerce," said David Patterson, Executive Director of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association. He added that business-to-business communications will soon account for 80 percent of Net traffic.
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/19726.html

[12]Australian censorship legislation may be in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Article 19.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

[13]The community at large is NOT in behind the Senate Select Committee at all, unless it is with a desire to give them a big kick up the behind:

Sydney Morning Herald article "Censorship: Your Say"
"Most readers have expressed concern and/or outrage at the Bill"
http://www.smh.com.au/icon/990515/news.html

Results (last known) of the NineMSN Sunday program on-line survey:
as of Tuesday 27th April When asked what they were MOST concerned about - 3% were concerned about "Sex and nudity on television", 10% concerned about "Violence on television" and 87% about "Senators telling us what we can watch".

They (the Senate Select Committee and the Australian Government) do NOT have public support on this issue - nor should they have yours!

SAVE OUR INTERNET! PLEASE!

Valid HTML 4.0!
This document validates as HTML 4.0 Transitional, as an interoperable Web page that adheres to the standards set down for HTML markup (web page authoring) by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is an international industry consortium responsible for developing the common protocols for the promotion of the Web, its evolution and ensure its interoperability.

The following pages DO NOT validate according to any recognised Web authoring (HTML) standard when submitted to the W3C's Validation Service:

Parliament of Australia Web Site
Claims to be HTML 2.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 2.0.
(You don't want to see the list of errors).

Commonwealth Government Entry Point
Claims to be HTML 2.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 2.0.
(You REALLY don't want to see this list of errors).

Office for the Government On-Line
Claims to be HTML 2.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 2.0.
(An even longer list ...).

Austalian Democrats
Claims to be HTML 4.0 Transitional (good start - current standard).
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional.
(Ah well ...).

Australian Labor Party
Claims to be HTML 4.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional.
(Just plain carelessness ...).

Liberal Party of Australia
Claims to be HTML 4.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional.
(Similar errors to the Labor Party site - do they outsource to the same company??).

National Party of Australia
Well, they don't even know what level of HTML they are ...
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as .
(The less said the better ...).

Pauline Hanson's One Nation
Claims to be HTML 4.0.
Validation results: Sorry, this document does not validate as HTML 4.0 Transitional.
(This is getting tiresome ...).

Seems when it comes to the Internet NONE OF OUR POLITICIANS KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT