The Contents of the ACMA blacklist

Posted on 29 January 2009 by admin

…are not publicly available. You can, however, determine if a site is ON the list.

Vendors of PC based filters that were offered by the Government can be used to determine whether a site is on the ACMA blacklist by the message given when the site is blocked.

I post this mainly to defer questions about whether or not I have a copy of the ACMA blacklist. I don’t, it is not publicly available. The only way I have been able to tell that the above is possible is because I use Integard on my own PC and it blocked a google result whilst searching for the origins of a meme mentioned on Twitter.

Anyone familiar with Memes knows the particular wiki site to which I refer, but I refuse to link it here as I fear it may be illegal to do so despite the site’s frequent mentioning on perfectly legal websites.

When an ACMA blacklisted site is blocked by a Net Alert filter there is no option for a system administrator to unblock the site and the user is informed that the site is permanently blocked.

Given the nature of this site, it is confirmation that the ACMA does not just filter the illicit parts of sites, but the entire site.

My opinion here differs from some in the NoCleanfeed lobby. I don’t think that the blacklist should be available for public scrutiny. It is the unfortunate nature of blacklists to be leaked. It would take mere seconds before internet users outside of the Censorwall will be enabled in accessing this content.

I know this information isn’t new and would be known by anyone using a government filter, but it seems that everybody was surprised when I mentioned it.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Webnews
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
Advertise Here
Advertise Here