In an act of net activism the Australian Classification Board’s website was hacked last Thursday in protest of the Australia ISP level internet filtering scheme. The hackers infiltrated the site and inserted text into the introductory text; displaying the following message:

This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ. The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC. We are part of an ELABORATE DECEPTION from CHINA to CONTROL AND SHEEPIFY the NATION, to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. All opposers must HATE CHILDREN, and therefore must be KILLED WITH A LARGE MELONS during the PROSECUTION PARTIES IN SEPTEMBER. Come join our ALIEN SPACE PARTY.

The controversial filtering plan was first announced in 2007, an $189 million anti-pornography initiative which would cause all Australian servers to filter internet traffic and block all inappropriate content.

Get Up Australia who are responsible for the Save the Net Campaign have been petitioning against the proposal and to date have achieved 99,264 signatures, a few thousand short of their 105,000 target. According to them the filtering system will slow internet by up to 87% and 1 in every 12 block sites will be block incorrectly.

There have been a few hiccups in the government’s testing plan. Back in June 08 tests showed bad results with 5 out of 6 filters degrading network performance by 20%. A leaked list of potential black listed sites also revealed many to be of legitimate content.

The hacked page has now been taken down and the HP show a page load error.

A lot of us took for granted the access to computers and games when we had when we were growing up. It’s hard for me to imagine school holidays without my SNES and Diddy Kong. Well for many kids growing up in developing countries computer games let alone computers are a whole virtual world away. There are a lot of initiatives out there trying to get technology into the hands of these kids, the most well know probably the one laptop per child project spearheaded by Nicholas Negroponte which began distributing their bright green laptops in Colombia earlier this year.

I came across another group called Play power.org who have dedicated themselves to bringing Computer Aided Learning to children in developing countries. Similar to OLPC project Playpower take a cost effective approach to the problem by looking at what is currently accessible to these kids and modifying it. They are currently targeting 412 TV -Computers in China, India and South America.

This is a great cause that highlights the staple status of play in a childs congnitive learning plus helping them develop necessary technical skills for the future. This is truly great design at work because it solves a problem, PlayPower’s work recycles old technology and most importantly makes it accessible to people who need it. Find out more about their progress at the PowerPlay blog.