How to break the Internet filter

It's been revealed that it won't be illegal to circumvent the Australian Government's proposed mandatory Internet filter, so today I show you how. There are also unintended consequences for business from this revelation

Also a couple of questions from viewers on country level domain best practice for ranking.

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Mark Dreyfus, Libs have responded.

Below is a response from Liberal Senator Julian McGauran to my question on whether the Libs would block the Internet filter legislation in the Senate.

Dear Mr Stewart

I wish to acknowledge your email of 10 March 2010 regarding internet filtering.

Thank you for bringing your views to my attention. Rest assured I will raise your concerns in the appropriate forums of the Liberal Party.

I have received many emails and letters on this issue supporting this position.

Regards

Julian Julian McGauran
Senator for Victoria
Suite 17 Collins Place
45 Collins Street
MELBOURNE VIC 3000

I'm still waiting for a response from Mark Dreyfus my local member. He had said previously to me in public he though filtering the Internet was impossible. That was before Conroy announced they were pushing ahead with it last December.

I followed the EFA directions on 'Lobbyalib'

Google & Nocleanfeed

Google is behaving very whacky lately. I'm getting Gmail news alerts on content that is months old, the index not updating as fast as it used to & Google is cool with blackhat techniques it would seem.

Fairfax Blackhat SEO

Fairfax & OMG responded last week to my vid on Fairfax Blackhat SEO . This week we do a follow up & show you a similar technique on theage.com.au, don't try this at home kids!

Nocleanfeed

The Australian Govt has announced that it intends to push ahead with its Internet filter in a monumental waste of tax payers money. This means that every packet of information that you see on the web has to pass through a Govt filter first, unless of course you add a "?" to the address or use the same sorts of tools that human rights campaigners have to use under oppressive regimes. Of course it still won't block bittorrent, Usenet, IRC and just about every other internet protocol out there but at least it will make people THINK the govt is protecting kids online. Here is what Google has to say about the Australian Govt filter. Google responds to Mandatory Government Internet Filter

Keyword seasonality

Doing some simple keyword analysis using Google tools you can quickly find what is really concerning kids online. It's also an interesting exercise in seasonal keywords.

Google Privacy

Google this week is also struggling with its motto "do no evil" as their CEO Eric Schmidt came out and explained that all your data belongs to them as long as you are using their products. I also answer some viewer questions.

 

Censorship is damage

I just heard this on Twitter from @jimmcslim and had to write about it. I've been struggling to find a succinct way to express this thought; "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Beautiful. This is what I have been clumsily trying to explain to anyone who would listen for the last 10 years.

The Net is a system designed to withstand a nuclear attack. That is what it was originally for. If Washington got taken out, the computer network would continue to run. The packets would find an alternate route to their destination. This concept has evolved to the people that use the net. They develop tools that take advantage of this digital egalitarian network and further aid the delivery of packets to their destination.

This was the case with one of the most important tools developed for communication behind oppressive regimes. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) developed by Phil Zimmermann, is a Public Key, Private Key encryption system that allows you to encrypt an email with the recipient's Public Key which can then only be decrypted by their Private Key.

The US Government was so scared of this sort of encryption that they banned its export and placed it in the same category as a nuclear weapon export. They forbade the export electronically of this technology. In protest Tshirts were proudly worn by international travelers with the source code printed on them. Books of the source code were mailed around the world and re-digitized. The human network first found a way around governments reading our emails (Google "echelon") then they found a way around distributing the source code.

Censorship is damage and it will be routed around. The Internet continually evolves, just ask the music industry.

Exetel

I just learned that the first email I received from Steve Waddington was actually a form email first penned by fellow Exetel Director John Linton. Now I understand why it didn't make sense. The contempt these clowns have for their customers is unbelievable. I find it amazing they are sending an email that tells customers they are being ridiculous.