Australians who want uncensored access to the web

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EVERY Australian with an internet connection could soon have their web content automatically censored.

The restrictions are planned by the Federal Government to give greater protection to children from online pornography and violent websites.

Under the plan, all internet service providers will have to provide a "clean" feed to households and schools, free of pornography and other "inappropriate" material.

Australians who want uncensored access to the web will have to contact their internet service provider and "opt out" of the service.

Online civil libertarians yesterday warned the freedom of the internet was at stake, while internet providers were concerned the new measures could slow the internet in Australia to a crawl.

They said it was a measure usually associated with oppressive regimes and was no alternative to proper parental monitoring.

But Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said everything possible had to be done to shield children from violent and pornographic online material.

"We have always argued more needs to be done to protect children," he said.

Senator Conroy said the clean feed, also known as mandatory ISP filtering, would prevent users from accessing prohibited content.

"We will work with the industry to get the best policy," he said. "(But) Labor is committed to introducing mandatory ISP filtering."

Senator Conroy said the Australian Communications and Media Authority would prepare a "blacklist" of unsuitable sites.

It is unclear exactly what will be deemed inappropriate material.

The adoption of mandatory ISP filtering comes on top of the former government's offer of free internet filtering software for home computers.

Chairman of internet user group Electronic Frontiers Australia, Dale Clapperton, said mandatory filtering eroded freedom and would not improve online safety for children.

"China, Burma and Saudi Arabia and those type of oppressive countries are the only ones that have seriously looked at doing something like this," he said.

"In Australia, which is supposedly a liberal democracy, the Government is saying that the internet is so full of this material that it must protect us from it by trying to block it."

Mr Clapperton feared that parents would be lulled into a false sense of security.

"Parents should not allow their children to use the internet unsupervised," he said.

"Stuff that should be blocked will inevitably get through and stuff that should not be blocked will not."

Family First senator Steve Fielding, who has campaigned for ISP filtering, said he would be watching the Government "like a hawk" on the issue.

"Australian families want more (internet protection) and deserve more than they are currently getting, and this is a real test for the Rudd Government," he said.

A report by the Australia Institute in 2003 showed 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls using the internet had experienced unwanted exposure to sexual material.

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THE "clean feed" filtering system Communications Minister Stephen Conroy hopes will halt internet porn has already been defeated by British researchers.

Richard Clayton, of the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, said the innovative blocking system CleanFeed, devised by British internet service provider BT, could be circumvented in a number of ways.

"At first sight, it's an effective and precise method of blocking unacceptable content," Mr Clayton said. "But there are a number of issues to address as soon as one assumes that content providers or consumers might make serious attempts to get around it."

The report is more bad news for those hoping to block violence and pornography from their internet. Although filter salesmen talk up their wares, the reality has never quite matched the industry hype.

Former communications minister Helen Coonan moved away from insisting internet service providers offer filtering after a 2006 NetAlert study showed the filters were expensive, difficult to set up, frequently inaccurate and drastically slowed the network performance.

Six filters were tested under optimised conditions, but the best responder resulted in an

18 per cent reduction in relative performance, while the worst cut performance by 78 per cent.

"The better-performing filters can process data at between 30-80Mbps (millions of bits per second), which would still provide sufficient performance for a small ISP," the report said.

"However, for larger ISPs with faster upstream connections, the use of such filters would severely reduce their performance levels."

Instead, Senator Coonan opted for providing families with free filters for home

computers. But a teenager immediately bypassed the NetAlert anti-porn filter, simply by assuming his parents' profile on the home PC.

The Internet Industry Association has consistently warned of the technical difficulties involved in introducing such filters on ISP servers.

IIA chief executive Peter Coroneos said any clean feed policy would have to be balanced against the likely financial and performance costs.

Internet users would face slower access to websites, as every search request would have to be checked against official blacklists. And although there are millions of pornographic websites, the system would only block those listed.

Telstra BigPond spokesman Craig Middleton said yesterday: "We stand alongside the IIA and other ISPs in the view that PC-based filtering, in the hands of a responsible parent, is the only workable solution."

Warren Cann, executive director of the Parenting Research Centre in Melbourne, said that although filters offered some protection, parents still needed to monitor their children's activities online.

Meanwhile, a 2007 survey of internet filtering in public libraries found available filters were unreliable and inaccurate, often preventing access to legitimate content while allowing undesirable content through

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