Appeal Of Important iiNet vs. AFACT Case Begins

Indonesian ISPs Ordered To Ban All Porn In Just A Few Weeks

from the good-luck dept

Mon, Aug 2nd 2010 2:18am — Mike Masnick

Towards the end of July a few people submitted the news that Indonesia's Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring had ruled that all Indonesian ISPs had to start blocking access to porn by August 11th (the start of Ramadan). As of this weekend, Sembiring appears to have backed off the deadline slightly, giving ISPs one month to implement a filter that would block access to porn. The NY Times is reporting, however, that ISPs are at a loss as to how they're expected to do this. So far, all that Sembiring has apparently told them is that they should use the same keyword filter app that the government uses internally, not realizing the massive difference between a work-level filter and a country-wide filter. Also, it seems to ignore the ridiculous limitations of a pure keyword filter. The ISPs are, instead, saying that if there needs to be blocks, at the very least, the government should supply them with a list of sites to be blocked. They also warn that an internet-wide keyword filter would likely slow down internet access in the country. It seems like yet another case of someone demanding that "something" must be done, without realizing that said "something" isn't really possible.

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Filed Under: blocking, filters, indonesia, porn

25 Comments

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cc (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 2:58am

Between this post mentioning porn and the last one mentioning sex, I think we're safe to say TechDirt is getting banned in Indonesia. ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 2:59am

hahahahaha, all porn?! Thats what 80% of the internet gl with that, not to mention porn can be kinda objective... what a waste of money
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Richard (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 3:51am

Keywords
How does a keyword search filter out pictures?

A few years ago I reviewed a paper (I think it originated in the region in question) that was attempting to filter pictures by looking for nipples. It was very unconvincing - I think it was ultimately rejected.
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DS, 2 Aug 2010 @ 4:01am

All internet pron? How do they deal with rule 34?
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I know stuff..., 2 Aug 2010 @ 4:05am

One way that would work is if all the ISP's closed down and didn't transmit anything. That would stop all the porn they transmit.

I wonder if they would be willing to try that little experiment.. Maybe the government would change its mind about it?
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 4:24am

i come from indonesia, it's nothing serious, sometimes the minister order the impossible just to make sure that he still has job to do...
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shanoboy (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 4:47am

HAHAH!
Good luck with that one guys!
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Michael Lockyear, 2 Aug 2010 @ 4:50am

Real Muslims (and Christians for that matter) don't look at porn...why do they need a filter? The answer (quite obvious), from the NY Times article, "The filter would begin with pornography and would later be expanded to other undesirable sites."

Even if they can scrape together a list of sites to block, circumvention is literally child's play.
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Berenerd (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 5:25am

When will people realize...
2 things have always bothered me about Christian/Catholic religions. I say this because its the only 2 I know pretty well.
1) God loves all his children. So no matter what we do, he will love us. So if we are poly S&Mers that are gay, despite what the church says, god still loves us.

2) God made human kind in his image. if thats so, god is just a dirty little pervert like the rest of us.

So with that said...why all the hate?
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Lisae Boucher (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 5:29am

I wonder if TechDirt would be blocked in even more locations if we not only mention sex and porn but also cialis, viagra and other common spam words. Anyway, it's a dumb move since those who want to view porn will do anything to bypass those filters and those who don't want to see porn will just end being blocked from many useful sites. It's just going to hurt the wrong persons...
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 5:29am

Re: When will people realize...
Power, Control...More Power, More Control.
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Joe Redmond, 2 Aug 2010 @ 5:31am

Making a Bad Thing Worse
Those 3rd worlders are really going to have to suffer. I would like to see numbers on how much porn is actually viewed in the country vs. other content. What an interesting stat that would be.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 5:43am

good luck with that
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mike allen (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 6:05am

one word
impossible
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Richard (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 6:08am

Re: When will people realize...
1) God loves all his children. So no matter what we do, he will love us. So if we are poly S&Mers that are gay, despite what the church says, god still loves us.

You are right - and if you go to the right church you will find that it agrees with you.

2) God made human kind in his image. if thats so, god is just a dirty little pervert like the rest of us.

An interesting point. I think that it comes down to the fact that we distort the image of God with our own choices.

So with that said...why all the hate?

Absolutely no justification for it at all in the New Testament. There are a few bits of the Old that can be read that way if you are so minded - but for a Christian the New takes priority over the old.

Now it is true that Jesus did get angry on one occasion - but but it didn't have anything to do with sex. It was with the moneychangers in the temple.

In general I think that a concentration on sexual morality is usually a displacement activity from the things that religious people ought to worry about. I don't think that it reflects God's priorities.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 6:42am

I guess this is how some governments think they can show they do work for something sometimes.

It is like the entertainment industry, they know it is impossible still they will throw things at the wall and see what sticks.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 7:10am

What happened? Did he get a boner?
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Wolfy, 2 Aug 2010 @ 7:15am

This is just another example of islamists trying to control all of society, not just the segment that adheres to islam's tenets.

Another reason why ALL religions should be shunned.
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interval (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 8:05am

Re: Re: When will people realize...
Please stop feeding the troll.
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v, 2 Aug 2010 @ 8:14am

They need to bless every computer with holy water. The only way to stop it to try to convince people as to why porn is bad for them. Not making it more taboo thus making it hotter. They can expect porn traffic to increase
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Phillip Vector (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 10:43am

Porn
I once worked for a company that wanted me to put in a porn filter on the server. I asked them to please define porn and then I will block it. I didn't hear back. I think they got the point I was trying to make.
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Super Best Friends, 2 Aug 2010 @ 3:45pm

Hmm that new thing they call internet, it sounds bad.
Shut it down now!
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 2 Aug 2010 @ 7:14pm

Re: one word
Actually, that’s ten words.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Aug 2010 @ 7:57pm

i'm in the said country...this is what you get if your so called IT minister has no-IT background. Plus you get crappy internet speed (we're the 159th from that speed rank story yesterday) yay us :(
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Jay (profile), 2 Aug 2010 @ 11:41pm

Quick question
Why not just ban sex? Problem is solved in ~ 60+ years. Then they all have nothing to fight about.
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