Never piss off the sysadmin 27 Oct 200818 Sep 2017 Users, or Lusers as they are known, learn early not to piss off the sysadmin, who is God. Federal minister Stephen Conroy’s ham-fisted attempt to gag critics of his stupid paternalistic and ultimately failure-ridden net filter scheme has managed to piss off the whole lot of them. This could be fun. Anyone got the popcorn? I have the beer… This, by the way, puts Australia in the company of such civil liberties havens as China, North Korea, and Burma. Yay us. Censorship Internet filtering Politics Technology
History History in schools 13 Oct 2008 As I recall it, Australian history was deadly dull. Most of it could have been taught in a single half-year, with time to cover the second world war to spare. That’s what happens when a very few individuals live on a continent for (at that time) less than two centuries,… Read More
Censorship Online predators are not nearly so bad as the media says 7 Aug 2009 I’ve been online now for nearly thirty years, from back in the days of BBSs and 300 baud acoustic couplers. In all that time, the internet for me has been annoying, occasionally angry, and with the occasional death threat from a Christian or insane person, but I have not seen,… Read More
Censorship Internet filtering opposition gathering speed 12 Nov 2008 The Greens have sought explanations from Minister Against Broadband Stephen Conroy in the Senate. In particular Green senator Scott Ludlam asked Conroy to take back his claim that what the ALP wants is like what is done in Britain, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand; in these cases the filtering is… Read More
Lovely. I know some people from SAGE-AU and I hope they put up a hell of a fight. In addition to keeping everything running, sysadmins have a professional and ethical responsibility to ensure that technology is used in a responsible manner. That a member of a government would try to stifle a knowledgable professional from commenting on proposed policy implies that the policy is all about paternalistic authoritarian censorship and government overreach rather than serving Australia’s internet users. I give SAGE-AU credit for being able to get its name and views publicized and for taking a principled stance against what appears to be another bluenosed censor that can bear neither scrutiny nor criticism.
Hmm. “Mark Newton” is this admin’s name. That’s an anagram of “Network Man”. I wonder if this Mr Newton actually exists, or is a made up fiction by a group of admins who wish to vent complaints about being pressured to implement the filter, but not be named publicly?
Hmm. “Mark Newton” is this admin’s name. That’s an anagram of “Network Man”. I wonder if this Mr Newton actually exists, or is a made up fiction by a group of admins who wish to vent complaints about being pressured to implement the filter, but not be named publicly?
Yes, anagram or not, I actually exist. The nature of my name was discovered back in the early ’90s when a FidoNet guy called Andrew Clayton ran my name through an anagram generator that had won one of the International Obfuscated C Code Contests. I nearly fell off my chair laughing.