Re: [SLUG] Fortress .... err Firewall Australia

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008, Dean Hamstead wrote:
> I dont think it would be fair to say 'filtering will make mistakes so  
> dont use them', because that argument would therefore logically extend  
> your morality to 'police make mistakes, so get rid of them'
>
> also this thread should be in slug-chat.

[Meta: some limited discussion of directly technology-related Australian
political news doesn't seem so crazy for slug@]

Simon didn't argue "will make mistakes", that's your wording, he argued
"will not work", which is stronger.

You could possibly expand this as "on a cost-benefit analysis, given
that a fairly small number of people will be protected from unwanted
content, those people are already offered the means to voluntarily so
protect themselves to the extent that current technology allows, and
additionally a small number of crimes will be prevented, at the cost of
a substantial amount of money, time and liberty, it's crazy."

Much as how we have police who, at least arguably and most of the time,
investigate reported crime or reports of planned crime, rather than each
of us being assigned a police officer to follow us around just in case.
That would probably reduce crime to zero or nearly so (well, as long as
the police themselves don't do illegal things) but the manpower and
massive civil liberties infringement is rightly considered far too high
a cost.

Not everything which could prevent a crime is automatically a good idea.

-Mary
-- 
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html