More banned Stuff!

Australia is notorious for their censorship policies against the public, but even I had trouble beliving this one:

“As a result of blatant abuse of political power, the editors of a student newspaper called Rabelais were prosecuted for publishing this article. It is republished here as an act of civil disobedience and an illustration of the appalling reach of Australia’s censorship system.

To the best of my knowledge this page violates no NSW law, nor is it in violation of Sydney University’s Code of Conduct for content providers. The Rabelais issue was classified before the “uniform national scheme” for publications came into effect, and it was classified ‘Restricted Category 1’ in NSW and ‘Refused Classifiction’ in other states. (If this page were classified ‘Refused Classifcation’ in NSW, then it would be in breach of Sydney University’s Code but would still not be in breach of NSW censorship law, which simply doesn’t cover web sites for most materials – Crime Stopper vigilantes please take note!)

This is just luck, however. Even viewing this page is probably an offence in some states of Australia (e.g. Western Australia) and its publication would be an offence in others (e.g. Victoria). And any new legislation is likely to make it illegal here, too. This article is therefore an important test case online as well as for print publications. I am encouraging mirroring of this page, to display the futility of attempting to ban information which is perfectly legal in other countries.”

You can read more about the article here.

Overt’s mirror is here.

Cyber Patrol 4 Hack, etc.

Well, “they” cracked Cyber Patrol 4. Its nice to see another blow land against censorware. As usual, this issue has
been framed by wiser than I, so I point you to some /. articles concerning the case.

The Breaking of Cyber Patrol 4

Mattel Dislikes Being Embarrassed

Mattel/Cyber Patrol Censors Critics Again

Overt was one of the lucky sites to actually get an email from Mattel’s lawyer, just scare tactics, really. Scared me.
The text and attachments of the email are available here.

SETI@Home howto posted; attention turns elsewhere.

I’ve finally gotten around to posting a howto for joining Ship of Fools, and all of the statistics seem to be working alright. I’m now going to start work on a thorough techno-advocacy page, and allowing (authorized) users to post updates to overt. Then I may add what seems to be the only real draw to personal web sites: pictures! Who knows, maybe my IP logs will turn up more than localhost for once…