Posted 10/23/09 at 04:15:31 AM by Nathan Grayson

Sorry, Gabe Newell and co. You gave it your all, we’re sure, but in the end, Left 4 Dead 2’s true form proved too gore-splattered for Australians’ delicate palettes. Or at least, that’s how the Australian government sees it. Said a note from Australia’s Review Board:

“In the Review Board’s opinion, Left 4 Dead 2 could not be accommodated within the MA 15+ classification. The computer game contains a level of violence which is high in impact, prolonged, repeated frequently and realistic within the context of the game.”

“In addition, it was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters. This was a major consideration of the Review Board in determining the impact of this game on minors.”

It’s true! We totally have friends who – if you squint really hard – are the spitting images of Boomers and Tanks. Oh, there’s also that one guy with the crazy-long tongue. But we don’t really talk to him. Wait. You say the Review Board was talking about "general zombie figures"? And here we thought our colossal, bile-spewing buddy had finally found a country that would accept him with open arms. 

Ahem. Anyway, Australia’s still on track to receive a heavily censored version of Left 4 Dead 2, which is better than nothing, we suppose. Oh well. Aussie gamers, if our site hasn’t already been censored, better luck nex—[content blocked because we’re pretty sure it had a knife].

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Posted 10/10/09 at 02:26:53 AM by Nathan Grayson

Is some Left 4 Dead 2 better than none at all? We’re thinking “yes,” but that probably won’t stop Australian gamers from wishing they could tear whoever censored Left 4 Dead 2 limb-from-limb.

See, while decapitation and dismemberment are apparently physically impossible over in Australia, neutering isn’t – as evidenced by Left 4 Dead 2’s sterilized state.

“The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment,” said a note by Australia’s Classification Board. “No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground.”
 
Valve still hopes to eventually release an unedited version of the game as DLC in good ol’ Oz. That is, if it can find a way to sneak past the big, bag Classification Board.

For now, though, all those kangaroos, koalas, and Wizards Of  are going to miss out on the Violence Orgy. But don't worry about it too much, Aussie readers; the violence was only there to hide the real meat of Left 4 Dead 2: the racism. Good thing the Classification Board missed that. It was so blatantly obvious to everyone else, too. Close shave, that.  

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Posted 09/18/09 at 10:44:29 PM by Nathan Grayson

Some of you, we’re sure, are probably exercising your God-given right to boycott Left 4 Dead 2 for whatever reason. Australia, though, totally has us Yanks beat. Over there, no one’s buying the game! Oh, what’s that you say? The game’s been “banned” in good ol’ Oz? That’s why they’re not buying it? Well then, that’s no good at all.

As it turns out, Left 4 Dead 2 was refused classification by Australia’s ratings board, the OFLC. Why? Because it’s too violent, apparently.
 
“The game contains realistic, frenetic and unrelenting violence which is inflicted upon ‘the Infected’ who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently,” reads the OFLC description of the game. “Attacks cause copious amounts of blood spray and splatter, decapitations and limb dismemberment as well as locational damage where contact is made to the enemy which may reveal skeletal bits and gore.” 

As expected, Valve is a bit broken up about the whole mess.
 
“We were surprised to hear of this news yesterday,” Valve’s Doug Lombardi said. “Obviously, everyone at Valve is pretty bummed. It would be a shame if folks in Australia, or anywhere else, are unable to purchase Left 4 Dead 2 because of a ratings issue.”

Bummer indeed, Doug. Guess it’s time to start stuffing those zombies with marzipan and kittens instead of blood and bone. And maybe replace gunfire with the sound of children’s laughter. Yeah, that ought to do it.

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Posted 09/14/09 at 08:43:24 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) has released a new set of guidelines designed to limit the effect of malware infected computers. The non-mandatory code of conduct instructs ISPs to contact owners of infected PCs and provide advice to fix the problem. Failing that, the ISP may even cut service to the affected PC.

IIA spokesman, Stephen Conroy, points to a recent government program to get users to change their passwords as evidence that not enough is being done. "I think there's about two or three websites doing exactly the same thing and they all assume you've got to log on to the website. It's kind of like a web 1.0 style approach," said Conroy.

Many in government and industry welcome the proposed rules, but some worry about cost. Would ISPs actually be able to deal with the added costs of contacting users and walking them through a malware cleanup? Australian ISP iiNet said it would be happy to adhere to the new standards, if the process could be automated. So, would this policy help, or would droves of customers find themselves disconnected without explanation?

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Posted 08/23/09 at 08:06:44 PM by Justin Kerr

Making a high profile hacker arrest is respectable accomplishment, but bragging about it to his friends on the community forums is clearly a bad idea. I’m sure you didn’t need to be told this, but apparently it’s a lesson the Australian Police Department had to learn the hard way. In a recently televised take down broadcast on ABC’s Four Corners, Australian investigators raided, and sized computer equipment belonging to the administrator of an underground hacking forum located at r00t.y0u.org. Following the arrest, interrogators were able to obtain passwords, and began using the site as a honey pot to try and expose other potential suspects.

Unfortunately for Police word of the arrest leaked out quickly, and it didn’t take long for the community to discover something was up. Matters were further complicated when the police agency began taunting the forums visitors by saying “all member IP addresses have been logged, and arrests are being made”. Enraged by the comments, members of the hacker community broke into the system police were using during the investigation and supposedly gained access to intelligence contained within the federal police mainframe.

The hacker posted his own retort to the Australian police on pastebin.com mocking them for busting a couple of “script kiddies” and posted pictures of fake IDs and stolen credit card numbers lifted from police servers. The hacker continued by claiming “I couldn’t stop laughing on seeing that the federal police server was running Windows”. Apparently the MYSQL password was also left blank (opps!). Apparently this 30 minute long hack could have been faster if he “didn’t stop to laugh so much”.

Police claim the files were intentionally planted on the compromised system. Anyone buy that?

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Posted 04/07/09 at 02:50:08 PM by Paul Lilly

Twenty years ago, Crocodile Dundee would have been the first thing we thought of when someone mentioned Australia. Eight years from now, we'll be thinking of crazy fast broadband when talking about our friends from down under. That's because Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced an ambitious $43 billion project to build a high-speed, fiber-optic broadband network that would bring up to 100Mbps to 90 percent of the country's population.

"It's time for us to bit the bullet on this," Rudd said when announcing the decision. "The initiative announced today is a historic nation-building investment focused on Australia's long-term national interest."

According to Rudd, the broadband proposal would provide 37,000 jobs at the peak of construction and help boost the economy. The Government would be responsible for an initial investment of $4.7 billion, and up to 49 percent of the funds to be from the private sector. Under the project, homes not benefiting from the fiber-optic rollout will still have access to 12Mbps via wireless and satellite.

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Posted 03/17/09 at 11:08:25 AM by Paul Lilly

According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), this and other blacklisted hyperlinks will cost webmasters $11,000 a day if published on a website. The hefty fine applies to any site containing a banned URL, which was demonstrated last week when the AMA threatened the host of an online broadband disccusion forum after a user posted a link to a banned anti-abortion website.

According to The Syndney Morning Herald, the ACMA's blacklist doesn't significantly impact web browsing by Australians, but that could change if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship plan.

The newest site added to the ACMA's blacklist includes Wikileaks, who drew the ACMA's ire after it published a leaked document containing Denmark's lists of banned websites. Wikileaks had also posted Thailand's censorship, noting that both lists have expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

"We note that, not only do these incidents show that the ACMA censors are more than willing to interpret their broad guidelines to include a discussion forum and document repository, it is demonstrably inevitable that the Government's own list is bound to be exposed itself at some point in the future," Electronic Frontiers Australia said. "The Government would serve the country well by sparing themselves, and us, this embarrassment."

The Australian Government's internet censorship trials are due to begin shortly, however none of the major ISPs have been invited to participate. O_o

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Posted 12/22/08 at 04:06:54 PM by Andy Salisbury

While it’s no secret that the Australian government is a fan of censoring and filtering the country’s Internet, they’re taking a bold new step this time. They’re planning to block BitTorrent completely.

The move comes from the Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy, who wrote in a blog post that he’s planning to oversee a trial if technology could filter data sent directly between computers as opposed to data downloaded from a central server. “Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial,” said Senator Conroy.

“I'm aware that this proposal has attracted significant debate and criticism – on this blog and at other places in the blogosphere,” Senator Conroy wrote. And how does he plan to follow that debate? “I'm following the debate at sites like Whirlpool and GetUp and on Twitter at #nocleanfeed.”

Twitter away Aussies, make your fury heard!

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