The Great Firewall of Australia, revisited

Another article from the Associated Press concerning the push Down Under toward what looks more and more like the start of a retrogression by what had grown into one of the most advanced societies outside the Western Hemisphere back to the mentatlity and sensibilities of the 1950s.

And what's worse, it appears that the technical skills of the filter vendor(s) must harken from that period. If you're going to filter using the blacklist method, you have to keep the blacklist up to date, people. This is just going to do so much to make Australia a desirable destination for business and tourism. I can just see all those bottom-line-conscious executives and vacationers who perhaps skipped traveling for several years to afford a once-in-a-lifetime trip-adults all, remember- queueing up to fly off to a magical place where the government will once again treat them like children.

I was going to link to the copy of the purported blacklist mentioned in the story as being on Wikileaks, but they're (ahem, ahem) having what I suppose could be called a "senior moment" with their servers right now. Seems they're overloaded...but not enough that they can't dun you for donations. Well, maybe-when I get the first installment of the fee I'm collecting from that Nigerian prince for helping him access his inheritance...

As if there wasn't already reason enough...

...why America's auto industry is in such bad shape, now you can be the first kid on your block with a rolling cellular-fed hotspot, courtesy of GM's Cadillac division. Glenn Fleishman over at Wi-Fi Networking News has all the gory details.

Never mind that it'll only support WEP encryption-which has essentially been nothing more than a no-trespassing sign for the past half-decade-and will cost out the wazoo, as cellular data all too often still does. If this catches on you've got to wonder how long it'll be before the first bans on surfing while driving are enacted-and how many innocents will be maimed or worse between now and then.

Besides, I'd bet anyone who regularly carries passengers who really need something like this has already rigged up a cellular-to-Wi-Fi router and AC inverter to provide it using the service they're already paying for. At least that's what I'd do.