So I am keeping track of sites of interest this evening – like I always do…. and come across this title – “Teen cracks AU$84 million porn filter in 30 minutes.” Here is the scoop – Basically, the Australian government has spent $84million as a part of a $189mil package to simply create a porn filtering system available to all Australian families. So they release this package and within 30mins a 16 year old Aussie student has hacked the system!!
I guess this whole thing infuriates me…. My wife’s response – “Why didn’t they get the kid to write the software?!?!” Interesting thought…. However, I find it crazy that as a society we would spend all this money (which seems to now be a waste) when the money could be better used by being invested in a student learning project that may actually enhance learning. What about an Angus King style innovative program??? How many student laptops could be purchased for 84mil (56,000 approx by my calculations) – furthermore, how many more schools could have a decent speed broadband connection connected to their classrooms.
I can see what will happen here – This filtering system will be made available and students will quickly have guides on getting around the filters passing around school in no time. What we create here is a challenge for students to get around something – encouraging them to access the content we don’t want them accessing – hmm what about an education program about the reasons why accessing content like this is damaging. Or perhaps parents need to take some responsibility!! Tell me would the Government have spent this kind of money 20 years ago to keep students out of the local newsagent which sold adult material or would they have simply expected parents to supervise their children?!?!
Welcome thoughts….
This is not an uncommon story, as you know. The $84 million part makes it pretty big. I was recently talking with a network administrator here in the U.S. who is challenged to prevent access to inappropriate materials from the Internet in his schools. He said that the students at his school suggested that he just give it up. They said, “There are thousands of us. There’s just one of you.”
I agree, we have to come up with a new angle. The answer is not technical. The answer is social…
The answer is in education, not filters. Kids will see and hear things in their lives that aren’t pleasant. It is our job as educators to show/demonstrate to them how to filter the information that is presented to them. This is a topic that will continue to pop up until we figure out a clear and useful way to educate the kids.
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Actually, I’m a Melbournian kid, and I happen to know the guy that did all this…
The entire program was not instigated in the interests of the poor children, but in fact to provide support for the favoured party in the upcoming election (this Saturday)…
What the opposition has done is employ this kid, which is actually useful…
However…
The government has already supplied pretty much all of our schools with broadband, and they are almost all educated on the risks… that’s just more reason to do what we do…
Personally, I’m at a private school, and our head of ICT has employed the use of an outside administrative filter called WebMarshall, which has pretty much raped us all…
You can’t win.
It learns.
And it isn’t just based on keywords.
It’s the dawning of an infallible oppression.
And we all know it.
If they really wanted to filter things, they’d buy that.
But most schools don’t, and 90% of kids don’t sit there at school looking up porn.
Besides, if we really wanted it, we’d bring it to school on a disk and save it on our users.
I’m digressing.
i’ve actually forgotten the main contention of my statements.
Oh well.