Censorship happens

[worker201]

Google has released this thematic map showing which governments are trying to censor the internet.  No surprise - US and UK are at the top of the list.  China, of course, censors their own censorship, so there is no info available for them.  This map shows two separate items.  Requests for removal are when a government agent asks that a website be removed from Google's search database.  And a request for information is when a government agent asks for information about users visiting searching for particular sites or topics.

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

[Lead Head]

Curious as to whats so sensitive for Brazil.

[worker201]

I think a requests per capita might make more sense.  The US has 5x the people and 50x the websites as the UK, but our requests are only 2x.  Doesn't that theoretically mean that England is censoring more than we are?

However, this might make Brazil look even worse, because a much lower percentage of homes have computers there.  I have no idea what's going on down there.  Maybe their porn rules are stricter than ours.

[Refalm]

Brazil apparently sues social networking websites a lot to remove fake profiles:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-fined-for-defamatory-message-on-networking-site-20100426-tlwh.html

Brazil has sane pornography laws (18+, no Hustler, etc. magazines in plain sight), so it's not that.

[Calum]

by the way, technically an "agent" is not employed by the secret service, but works with them, so actually no agents would be asking for removal of a site, it would be intelligence officers.

And that ends today's lesson in pedantry!

PS - however this confusion seems endemic, just having a look round the internet, so please don't feel like i am making a big issue of it.

[Kintaro]

It is interesting that the Australian Government requested a blogger be removed. I wonder why, but I would guess the religious hate speech act. Poor jews, the state is so against them now they've banned even joking about them 

[yourlife]

Its an outrage, how dare they pass the DEB?!? As long as I can use Tor I'm happy.
Good old Tor, try censoring Tor clients bastards! (Brown, Cameron and anyone else who passed the DEB)

[yourlife]

Why do I have a feeling these websites will be on the goverments hitlist?

• YouTube
• Facebook
• The Priate Bay

Etc Etc Etc

[7031]

It is interesting that the Australian Government requested a blogger be removed. I wonder why, but I would guess the religious hate speech act. Poor jews, the state is so against them now they've banned even joking about them 

Haha yes, although looking at the link in the first page it also surprises me that Australia hasn't made more requests, unless all of the censorship is done internally.

Time for all of us to move to Canada? .

[Kintaro]

Tor is so slow the users basically censor themselves from any meaningful content.

A Virtual Private Server is cheap enough, http://fawltyservers.com/phpsysinfo is about $40 a month and has 750GB of bandwidth. You can register a free account and start using cgi-proxy, or SSH tunnels, you can learn more about both under Help once get get an account.

Eventually I'll start charging money, with every ban comes a black market. Though, Internet Censorship is not yet a reality in Australia on a network level, its all just takedown notices and that kind of jazz.

[davidnix71]

The problem with VPN servers is they get sued over the content passing through the server. Most have TOS that allow them to cut you off if you torrent illegally with them. If the DRM police trace your torrent through a VPN server, they won't find it hard to prove what is going through it even though it is encrypted, because they seeded the torrent themselves just so they could snitch you out.

If the VPN is accessing illegal content, unless the server is in Vanatu, there will be pressure or DNS blockage against anyone who doesn't play along.

TOR sounds like a good idea until you realize you don't know who is actually on the TOR with you. They can still snitch you out or poison the content.

The better way to bypass content controls is usenet. Yeah, you have to pay, but as long as a few people upload whatever is getting banned this week, there will be an way around blockages.

[yourlife]

Or you chould riot outside westminster

[Kintaro]

The problem with VPN servers is they get sued over the content passing through the server. Most have TOS that allow them to cut you off if you torrent illegally with them. If the DRM police trace your torrent through a VPN server, they won't find it hard to prove what is going through it even though it is encrypted, because they seeded the torrent themselves just so they could snitch you out.

If the VPN is accessing illegal content, unless the server is in Vanatu, there will be pressure or DNS blockage against anyone who doesn't play along.

TOR sounds like a good idea until you realize you don't know who is actually on the TOR with you. They can still snitch you out or poison the content.

The better way to bypass content controls is usenet. Yeah, you have to pay, but as long as a few people upload whatever is getting banned this week, there will be an way around blockages.

They can sue me all they want, every asset I own is registered in my girlfriends name and we have our own houses, thus she isn't legally my de-facto. The things we do for liberty.

Generally I simply depend on the second ammendment, and taking my own steps to stop piracy. I don't like piracy (when its not getting me cheap albums) and I don't think any FCC regulation would be a problem because they would have a hard time calling my server 'public' in the first place. In any case unless internet censorship consumes every single country in the world, I have a business model and a place to run it. I don't mind moving to South Korea or Taiwan if it comes down to it. Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito!

[Calum]

Or you chould riot outside westminster

yeah, that's a good way to make change happen, it certainly showed the government what was what when that happened before the iraq invasion.

</sarcasm>

[yourlife]

Didn't get that, if you would kindly rephrase that in a way a 14 year old autistic person would understand?

(I know nothing about Iraq, I don't watch the news, I code websites/computer programs or write information booklets/stories, not sit around rotting in front of the TV)

Yes I did just talk a load of rubbish