If a Bill before the Australian Parliament gets up, it will be illegal to offend anyone at all, including on a forum like this.

The test will be whether a persaon feels that they have been 'unfavourably treated'. This treatmewnt does not have to result in any measurable disadvantage - it is enough if the person feels 'offended'.

The onus is on the 'accused' to prove that their behaviour was not offensive.

s.19 Discrimination by unfavourable treatment

(1) A person (the first person) discriminates against another person if the first person treats, or proposes to treat, the other person unfavourably because the other person has a particular protected attribute, or a particular combination of 2 or more protected attributes.

To avoid doubt, unfavourable treatment of the other person includes (but is not limited to) the following: (a) harassing the other person; (b) other conduct that offends, insults or intimidates the other person.

There is a list of over 20 separate 'protected attributes' about which it will be illegal to be offensive, including race, gender, employment, social origin, education, appearance, health and medical issues, religion, political opinion etc etc.

It's also possible for a person to be 'offended' if statements are made about their 'associates', ie members of their family.

Punishment will be fines, restraint orders, and compulsory attendance at 'retraining courses'.

As the promoter of the bill, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon says: "The Bill will help everyone understand what behaviour is expected."

Roxon is on a roll, having recently beaten Big Tobacco by having cigarette packets sold in Australia painted black with dire health warnings on them.

She is also a fat-arsed crypto-fascist with little law and less politics whose idea of a good time is a quiet game of cribbage.

She is also .................................... with little law and less politics whose idea of a good time is a quiet game of cribbage.


I doubt it. Cribbage in the Royal Navy.... 15 - 2 that B:mad:d.

Just this past week in a cockpit conversation I was advised to obtain VPN services, not to protect my anonymity on any forum, but to prevent identity theft and access to my online transactions, such a banking and bill paying.

The way I understand it is that if you enter an account number and password into your computer in a wireless environment, it's possible for that information to be intercepted. VPN encrypts your entries so that if the data is intercepted it will be useless.

I'm certainly no expert on the subject.

AFAIK Ié never posted anything here that could cause me to worry about this, so see no need to cloak my identity.
Simple rule; don't post anything you wouldn't say face to face.

I have never equated Freedom of Speech with Anonymity. I think those that do have got it wrong. Why would you want to say something that you cannot be identified with? Isn't that basic hypocracy/hypocrisy - whatever, you know what I mean. Geez, if people can't take you at your word what sort of a person are you?

RJM, and with a single stroke there goes the internet in Aus.

Fascism, thinly veined indeed.

Sorry, Lon, plenty of people been in trouble recently for using words face-to-face that the other person found "insulting".

AND VPNs or proxy servers ain't much help - most fora nowadays require an email address to send you a verification link when you sign up. You would need to find an untraceable email address (i.e. that requires no verification to sign up for) AND use a VPN/proxy every time you accessed that email address.

Cheers
UFO

What exactly is the legal position regarding proxy servers etc? Are the server owners technically responsible in legal terms if their server is used by someone else?

Yes, the owners (or rather the person who's name is on the internet feed) is responsible. They'll knock on your door, serve you a warrant, interview you under caution, take your servers and do a forensic analysis on the logs etc. If you are not fortunate enough to live in a "Western" country, your treatment may well be substantially worse.

And to the OP, as SASless said.... if you piss someone off enough, they'll put enough resources into hunting you down. So to think a proxy, onion routing, or some other service is going to protect you, you are much mistaken.

Which is why .ru and similar domains are favourite.

What a wonderful piece of proposed law this will become... It reminds me of "Section 40 of the UK Army Act" of some 60 odd years ago.

"Conduct Prejudicial to Good Order and Military Discipline" to which would be added those of "Regicide", "Desertion, to the Enemy" having "Dirty Boots on Parade" and many more.

It appears to cover everything. It might keep the Legal profession expanded and occupied for many years.

This IS PROGRESS

How far back in time can this apply, retrospectively ? ( Someone used a rude word when I was there, I think it was a year ago.)
Is it world wide in application ? ( Am I liable to extradition for re-education?)
Do other languages apply, too? (I was called "Baaturi " in Kano, which may be racist...)

LT

When Charlie Foxtrot speaks you better believe him, the top ten most dangerous species in Aus quake at the merest whisper of his handle. :eek:

I get your point. I've had a couple of bans in the past for something innocuous, however I believe that I had not stated anything that would have ended up in a court of law.

I've seen a couple of flame wars, one between a number of posters here on PPRune, on another forum which lead to that becoming a shadow of itself and all posts being deleted. All manner of threats were being exchanged from legal action to a bit of wetwork. Ended up with a change of managers and a threat to close it down completely if we didn't play nice.
Come to think of it, isn't that what happened to Agony Aunt?

Was bin laden not identified by a informant who was paid huge amounts of cash rather than any internet connection or mobile phone signals.
I for one am a supporter of free speech, but not at any cost. I went on the suggested web site to check it out and i guess you could use it for more sinister applications than covering ones back on an internet forum.

BANDIT12,

Obviously we'll never be entirely sure about the intricacies of the BL case, so perhaps a better example than the one given by SASLess would be the fact the Police regularly manage to hunt down pedophiles on chat rooms and forums who no doubt go to great lengths to attempt to hide their trail.

Another example would be members of "Anonymous" who carried out various high-profile mischievous internet acts. So they were evidently quite technically competent and did their best to hide their trail, however in the end they eventually pissed off the FBI enough to put some of their manpower who managed to track down some of the high-level culprits which then lead them to the rest of the gang after some questioning.

Still another example of police investigative powers is the dumb broad in NYC who claimed she waq an aunt of a dead child in Sandy Hook, looking for burrial money. Then claiming it wasn't her on the internet after all. That may work between users on the internet but not those with elaborate investigative powers like the FBI.

That may be the case when it comes to criminal matters, but as it is likely only civil matters that will arise from posts here, adding a layer or two between you and the forum may be all that is needed to defeat any potential court orders. Particularly if those layers are placed in countries that are known to make a point out of ignoring anything coming from "the west".

you're not arguing about freedom of speech here

what you are arguing about is the freedom to breach socially accepted norms of behaviour without retribution.
In effect, the freedom to insult someone without getting a punch in the face.

If you want to use TOR or an anonymous VPN, go on, do it. See how far it gets you. Just be aware that traps can be laid quite easily: a link in a PM, a webbug in a private message........
And of course even if you manage to avoid these catches, don't forget that anonymous VPNs usually hold records and can be hacked......or subject to court action
Or the minute you hook into a filesharing program, then TOR or the VPN is bypassed
Or that e-mail address you used when you set up the PPRUNE (or whatever) account........did you make sure you were using TOR when you created that? Have you used TOR every time you logged into it? What name / address did you give when you created it? Did you use the same password as on your other e-mail accounts (the authorities can scan e-mail accounts to find those with the same password and so link users.......)

If you think you're anonymous, then you are a fool.
If you ever think you are safe from interception on the internet, then you are an idiot

For once, to my astonishment, I find myself agreeing with Milo, although I probably wouldn't have worded it quite so heavy-handedly. In the 21st century, the only way you'll ever be anonymous is to eschew all electronic means of communication and live somewhere where google earth can't see you.

Erm.... isn't that what Mr Bin-Laden thought ?