When there's a law being proposed, there's generally a loophole ready to exploit it. Australian legislation regulating Internet content is no exception.
"In short, we're showing people where the loopholes are," said Grant Bayley, a Sydney network administrator.
Bayley, who heads up the Australian chapter of hacker activist group 2600, is one of many hackers protesting the Broadcasting Services Amendment Online Bill, which passed the Australian Senate last week.
The bill, expected to become law as early as this week, would require Australian ISPs to block or remove adult Web content, or face heavy fines. But groups like 2600 Australia want to guide service providers and users through technical openings in the law.
A number of loopholes would allow a "mildly intelligent citizen" to legally evade any form of content regulation, Bayley said. The intent is to demonstrate that the legislation is fundamentally flawed and unenforceable.
"This paper has one aim -- to highlight the futility of attempting such content regulation by explicitly describing the legal means by which citizens can evade the provisions within the legislation," Bayley said by email, repeating the introduction to his online document.
On Sunday, Bayley posted his paper detailing workarounds that ISPs can use to circumvent the proposed law. The paper shows how to use an alternate proxy network, how to mask Web content before it enters the proxy network by changing words and server names, and how to encrypt the content, among other things.
Bayley also suggests distributing content as a "company" would to "employees," and suggests mirroring Web content so widely as to prevent effective enforcement of the legislation. He claims that all of the techniques represent legal mechanisms for evading the provisions.
The bill's critics see the law as a step backwards for Australia and the Net. Protest rallies late last week attracted 400 people, said Kimberley Heitman of organizer Electronic Frontiers Australia. The Australian Internet civil liberties group has been actively fighting the legislation.
Heitman said the EFA supports developing technical solutions to avoid the controversial bill. The group itself plans to release a workaround "product" for distribution. Heitman said the EFA will release a solution that is effective, legal, and user-friendly.
Since the legislation would also prohibit descriptions of illegal activities, forums such as the BugTraq mailing list could be outlawed. BugTraq is used to alert administrators and users to threats to their computer and network security but contains information about unauthorized access to networks.
"Breaking into computers is illegal in this country," said Bayley. "BugTraq often explicitly describes how to do this."
Other content that could be blocked under the law includes information on controversial medical procedures such as abortion and gene research; anti-government manifestos; strong encryption information; and bomb-making information, Bayley said.
Bayley said a better answer to the problem is education. The responsibility of determining what content children see can be carried out by parents, thus "removing it from minority moralistic crusaders in government."
Heitman pointed out another site boasting that it is technically impossible for the law to block content.
Meanwhile, the architect of the legislation, Senator Richard Alston, is visiting Silicon Valley this week to solicit funding for Australian tech start-ups, which could raise the ire of censorship opponents.
