Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or outside Australia) you’re likely well aware of the Australian Government’s plan to censor the Web. They want to force a compulsory ISP-side filter on every Australian in the name of the often used “won’t someone think of the children!” argument.

There are two ways in which they are protecting children by implementing a Web filter. The first is by blocking access to child pornography, the second is by preventing children from accidentally stumbling across inappropriate material.

Blocking access to child pornography

Simply put this is not possible. As surprising as this may sound, there is no official paedophile Web site out there. You can’t download images of child pornography by Googling “child porn” or going to childporn.com. All a Web filter is going to do is block access to certain Web sites, but what if the offending material isn’t on a Web site? The Web makes up only part of the Internet, there are dozens of other ways to transmit and share images. FTP, DCC via IRC and BitTorrent are just a few examples. Even if there were some inappropriate Web sites that should be blocked, bypassing any Web filter is insanely easy. Using a proxy, an SSH tunnel or an encrypted connection are all relatively easy ways to accomplish this.

Preventing children from accidentally stumbling across inappropriate material

Again, this sounds like a perfectly valid reason for implementing a Web filter. But why should the Web be filtered for every single Australian just to prevent kids from stumbling across something that they shouldn’t see? Surely an opt-in ISP-side filter, or a client-side filter installed by concerned parents, would accomplish this. Why doesn’t the Government simply require all ISPs to offer a free content filter for those who request it? And what ever happened to good old parental supervision? If you’re worried that your kids may, accidentally or not, stumble across something that’s inappropriate, keep an eye on them when they’re surfing. Put the family computer in an open location. Most kids are likely more technologically literate than their parents anyway, so bypassing the filter if they choose isn’t likely to be an issue: I remember using a proxy to bypass the draconian filters in high school when I was thirteen.

Web filters are not going to solve any problems and anyone who thinks they will are kidding themselves and have absolutely no idea how the Internet or World Wide Web work. So please, Misters Rudd and Conroy, abandon this pointless plan to filter my Web, I will just bypass it out of principle anyway.