From: Harish Pillay <harish@brokat.com.sg>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 11:03:31 +0800
To: platypus@acmeonline.net
Subject: Re: Singapore
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.93.971208113312.210G-100000@shirley>
Message-ID: <199712080245.KAA30015@brokat.com.sg>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



? the Platypus {aka David Formosa} shaped the electrons to read ...
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Harish Pillay wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Well, indeed,
> > the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter 
> > out an alleged list of 100 porno sites
> 
> May I ask why thay have choosen to switch on these filters?

The story goes like this.  The Singapore Broadcasting Authority wanted to 
have a mechanism to filter out "undesirable" sites.  They know extremely
well that it cannot be done successfully but nonetheless, due to political
point scoring (1996 being election year), they had to be seen to be doing
something.  So, they trialed with the ISP the use of filter lists with 
the proxy servers to see how they can implement their censorship rules.

Then when they finally announced the policy, the SBA quickly covered their
asses by saying that they leave it to the ISPs to choose the weapon to do
the SBA's evil deed.  The ISPs, having trialed the filter mechanism, decided 
to continue with it which is just as well, for we can easily work around it.

So, today, there are an alleged 100 sites that are on the filter list.  What
these sites are, are a unknown.  Nonetheless there is an effort to 
independently discover the list (http://www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html).
Also, read http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish/fiasco for an angle on the
whole issue.

Regards.
-- 
Harish Pillay                             	  h.pillay@ieee.org
Singapore      *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish