Brisbane, city centre. From the 27th floor of the Brisbane Sebel on Charlotte Street, taken on a small Flip Mino HD camera from 4.15pm-5.15pm, near the shortest day of the year.

Springwood, Logan City. Taken out the security mesh of Room 10 at the Springwood Hotel and Tavern. From bed you got two things from Maccas: a bar of their free wifi, and the constant waft of the deep frier.

Until earlier this week, the Sex Offenders Search application was placing several sex offenders on Sydney suburban streets. At Byran Avenue in Normanhurst, a leafy cul-de-sac leading to a park, the application listed a six-foot two white male with a record of indecent solicitation of a child. In San Souci, a man was listed as being guilty of “lewd or lascivious battery” of a victim aged between 12 and 15. Another was a blue-eyed man, supposedly living in Fairfield West on Corona Road, with convictions involving the rape of teenager.

The high-rating app is designed by Florida-based company LogSat for American families, using publicly available, privately maintained American data. It’s also available from the Australian store as a free “lite” version, or for purchase as an extended-feature version for $2.49.

The application page in the Apple iTunes store claims: “Our world can be a dangerous place. Knowledge and awareness are our first line of defence”.

One resident (who didn’t want her name revealed) was gobsmacked that sex offenders were being pinpointed near her Kings Langley address in Sydney’s western suburbs. “It’s pretty scary that any company can create an application like that and put it on the internet,” she told Crikey, “because then that information is available to anyone who can start harassing people.”

Residents along her street in Kings Langley were being listed by the application as living alongside 12 registered s-x offenders, each in a different house. In her case, next door was the house of a man guilty of sexual contact with an individual younger than 11 years old.

“I can tell you no one of that name has ever lived here,” she said.

iTunes states the application was released here on December 9 last year, with updates for the iPad coming at the beginning of April. In the States, the app enjoyed a run in the top paid applications in the US shop and received national media coverage. One Fox report called it “a new powerful tool to spot sex offenders”, featuring a mother who even recognises one of the men in her search.

The application designers say there were 44,231 downloads from the United States in the last week. There were 51 downloads from the Australian store.

Using red pins embedded in a Google Map, the application locates almost 600,000 s-x offenders in America, including photos, descriptions of their crimes and even height and weight information. The sex offender located by the software on Bedford Avenue in Normanhurst actually lives on Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn. Similar glitches are apparent in London, Paris and other cities checked by Crikey.

Roberto Franceschetti, the designer of the application, confirmed by email that the addresses had been mapped incorrectly. After reviewing his database, Franceschetti discovered about 200 incorrect entries in the southern hemisphere.

“At first glance it does appear that the majority of these 200 individual[s] are listed as ‘deported’ by various law enforcement agencies here in the US, and have been assigned an incorrect address in their records that resolves (again, incorrectly), to Australian co-ordinates,” he said. The company is now manually double-checking the data.

The application is downloadable in all countries that have access to an iTunes store. Franceschetti said all false searches have been removed from Australia, but problems persist in other countries.

He has not been contacted previously by Apple Australia about the erroneous results, which doesn’t ask designers to tailor products for different jurisdictions (Apple refused to comment when contacted by Crikey). The accompanying blurb on the iTunes store does let the customer know that the application only uses US data.

Stephen Blanks, secretary of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, is concerned the product is available to Australian consumers. He told Crikey: “Companies such as Apple, which deal in products that reveal personal information, have an important obligation to ensure that their products comply with Australian privacy standards. Apple needs to demonstrate a commitment to privacy by removing this app from its Australian store immediately, and disabling the app for anyone who has purchased it in Australia, and refunding the purchase price.”

Blanks also highlighted the problem of mistaken identity, saying the application posed a risk to people with a similar name in the vicinity of a search.

In response to the so-called Megan’s Law (named after a seven-year-old New Jersey girl was raped and killed by a paroled s-x offender in 1994) , all states of America are required to make information available regarding registered s-x offenders. While individual states decide what information is shared, and how, the federal Department of Justice runs a national s-x offender database.

The Australian National Child Offender Register (ANCOR) allows police to share information between jurisdictions on convicted offenders, but there are no publicly accessible registries. In 2007, the Australian Institute of Criminology raised several concerns with a public registry, including that offender compliance varies, offenders can still “go underground” and that the focus on a few known offenders may distract attention from the more common intra-familial abuse. That was backed by research from the New Jersey Department of Corrections, which found Megan’s Law has no impact on reducing sex crimes.

The Sydney resident thinks Apple should apologise. “This is something you can’t ignore. You can’t sweep it under the rug,” she said.

Here’s what Stephen Conroy told Australia Talks:

CONROY: The key here is that the advocates particularly – and this is a US-based argument, particularly – is that the Internet’s something special. It shouldn’t be regulated by anybody, for anything, about anything. And while that’s a great philosophical debate, the Rudd government takes the view that the Internet is just a communication and distribution platform like any other form of communication and distribution platform. And that the laws that apply in the physical world should apply in the virtual world. And this is a piece of legislation as I said that is designed to try and make it the same in a library, the same in a newsagency, the same at your cinema, the same on your TV, and the same that currently applies under Australian law for Australian hosted websites. And that the laws should apply across the distribution platform. The Internet is not a mythical, incredible thing. It’s something… it’s the most extraordinary human invention in many, many years, and it is doing incredible things all across the globe, but it also has a darker side to it unfortunately, and what we have to do is educate people, and that’s why the policy initiatives I mentioned at the beginning of the show cover a whole range of different aspects of educational programs. But as a government, if someone said, ‘Look, here is one of the 355 websites that include child abuse material, what are you going to do about it?’ And if the answer is, ‘Nothing’, well I think that’s a failure for a government in a responsible society.

You can listen to the whole program here.

Australia Talks

Let’s pull apart that quote.

1. The Internet actually is very different (from any other communications and information distribution platform)

The Internet is an interactive, generative space. Unlike watching TV or reading a published book, Internet users no longer simply consume. We snap, edit and post, share and link, discuss, find and organise – the whole Web 2.0 deal – sometimes to great political effect, like in the case of the Iranian protests; we go ‘hyper-local’, in the case of the Moscow subway bombings yesterday, where YouTube clips back-filled professional stories with amateur footage, and gave instant access where TV cameras could not go.

The Internet is very unlike other media. We can do it all from our mobile phones, uploading experiences from wherever there’s a few bars signal. We’re productive, participating members, with the tools to match. For older industries, there are handy bottlenecks in the production process where government can get in and make laws. But traditional policies find it hard to regulate user generated content and social networks – they fall through the gaps. The Internet demands new questions about how to enforce law in a world of networked production, where consumers are also authors. What do we do with copyright? How do we protect privacy and prevent fraudulent activities, like spam? Who is liable for publishing material on a social-networking platform? How do we ensure equal access to technology?

The Internet is very much unlike other communications platforms, and demands a new approach, not a super-imposing of old policies. This is because the Internet is actually set to change dramatically over the next five years – rapidly outpacing old policy ideas. The NBN will start to carry almost all of our communication and media needs – and see different sectors of government collaborate. TV, health, e-government, the Internet, VoIP… all of this will be deployed over the NBN. The Internet will be everywhere, highly-personal and mobile. Social networking has benefited from the wide-scale adoption of internet-enabled smart phones. Forty-three per cent of online Australians now own a smart phone. Relaxed cap plans offered by service providers have seen mobile social networking soar across 2009. A quarter of self-described ‘social networkers’ now do so on their phones, as well as on their home and work computers.

We saw how different the “Internet” is when Queensland Premier Anna Bligh wrote to Facebook, demanding to know what the company would do in response to several memorial sites being defaced. Debbie Frost, a communications executive with Facebook, in an interview with The Australian, said: ‘We didn’t build a site to be a publisher, we built it to be a platform. We built it to give people tools to share information with each other and I think the enormous success we’ve seen is testament to the fact that human people do want to do that and the vast, vast majority — hundreds of millions of people — are not behaving the way these few people did in Australia, so it seems to be going OK as a system’. Frost admits to some procedural sluggishness, however she claims that the problem is worse in the real world:

‘If I put up nude graffiti on the side of a church, how do you report that, how do you get it taken down in a way that’s good enough for you? It takes time in real life and on the web and we think our system is actually more responsive… If I phone you up and say really offensive things, does that mean the mobile phone operator is liable for that?’

In some cases, Facebook’s service agreement is more stringent than offline laws. They are cooperating with police on the criminal charges.

The Internet is a different beast, requiring governance, yes, but a different kind of governance. Social networking and user-generated content operate with a totally different production model in mind. The overwhelming desire to protect younger Internet users, and the consequent classificatory regime is subject to significant blind spots when it comes to such things as mobile Internet, and user-generated content. Introducing a mandatory Internet filter into an already band-aided system will only exacerbate the inconsistencies in the policy.

2. It’s not true to say the Internet is the ‘odd one out’; Everything is regulated differently.

To say the mandatory filter would miraculously create equality across platforms is wrong. State-by-state, platform-by-platform, media content is regulated differently. Online Games are one example. They are regulated like any other game (by the Office of Film and Literature Classification), but also by the ACMA, as they are considered to be online media as well. R-rated content in films watched by adults in cinemas is refused classification if it is in a video game. Another: It is possible to access X18+ videos in the ACT but not online from Australian-hosted sites. Currently no meaningful or thoroughly thought-out provisions exist for regulating the Internet on 3G networks to handsets, especially with regards to the proposed mandatory net filter. This creates a two-tiered and inconsistent content-regulation system. A user seeking content that could be blocked on one device can pull out a mobile phone to access the same content, unblocked. Different modes of self and co-regulation apply to almost every facet of the media differently, from talkback radio, to the Internet.

3. No one is saying ‘Don’t Regulate’.

The EFA is not saying this. No sensible person is saying ‘don’t regulate’. To characterise the position against a mandatory filter as ‘anarchic’, or anti-regulation, doesn’t address the concerns people have. My own view is that we do need to regulate, but in a manner that caters to the many ways in which people use the Internet, and the many various platforms for delivering content, in the number of locations they do it in, either publicly or privately. Right now, we have a fragmented, spotty policy with loads of holes in it. Introducing a mandatory scheme does not provide equivalency. It actually fundamentally misunderstands the medium.

UPDATE: For fear of sounding too libertarian (heaven forbid)… just read a great summary in Lawrence Lessig’s famous Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, writing in 1999:

Governments should intervene, at a minimum, when private action has public consequences; when shortsighted actions threaten to cause long-term harm; when failure to intervene undermines significant constitutional values and important individual rights; and when a form of life emerges that may threaten values we believe to be fundamental.

We cannot afford, obviously, to let the Internet off-the-hook. It’s about balance, writes Lessig. Balancing the risks and opportunities of an emerging world.

“Maybe he likes it up the poo valley,” jokes Cosmo, a restaurant worker downing midday beers on Sydney’s Oxford Street.

Cosmo, 24, couldn’t give a toss if Tony Abbott feels threatened. Same old, he says. “I honestly think he’s a dickhead. Period. He just wants attention.”

Shoulder shrug, eye roll, nasty jibe. The gay cafe set is unflustered to learn that they challenge the “right order of things” (Abbott’s words). “The guy’s a tool,” said one. Another: “Got other things to worry about, mate.”

Off the street, Tony Abbott’s remarks hit home-sweet-home in the online comments to news articles. “Whether you agree with him or not, at least Tony Abbott says what he thinks,” posted one Herald Sun reader. Another: “It is threatening. It always will be, as it goes against what is natural in procreation.”

If elected, will a threatened Tony Abbott wind back gay rights? Gay activists don’t think so. In fact, according to one gay historian, Abbott would find it hard to battle the rising tide of acceptance — even if he did have an anti-gay plan.

It started on Sunday night with a profile piece for 60 Minutes. Asked about homosexuality by Liz Hayes, Abbott replied, “I feel a bit threatened … as so many people [do]“.

The next day, Lateline anchor Leigh Sales asked a pink tie-clad Abbott to explain. “Well, there is no doubt that it challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things, but as I also said on the program, it happens, it’s a fact of life and we have to treat people as we find them,” Abbott said.

Gay alarm bells rang. “I’m very surprised”, Corey Irlam from the Australian Coalition for Equality told me. “This is some of the strongest language we’ve heard from any major leader of a party in the last decade against homosexuality.”

Another case of the hip-shooting honesty that pollsters say gives Abbott traction? “I take it on face value that the initial comment was off the cuff,” says Irlam. “But the second time was atrocious and calculated.”

“Wildly irresponsible, but not calculated,” is the way Dr Graham Willet puts it. He’s Deputy Director of the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. He published Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia in 2000.

“You can’t take on anything very seriously,” he says. “He just seems to say stuff.” But in this instance, Abbott probably “said something he really feels”.

Irlam and Willet agree about the negative impact of comments like these. “For people who are vulnerable — young queer people — it says that, yes, there is something wrong with what you do … and that view is being endorsed by our leaders,” says Willet.

“I’m worried about the validity his comments give to someone in the country who perhaps personally feels threatened, and that turns into actual discrimination,” says Irlam.

But the more we learn about Abbott, the more we realise we know him already. We’ve heard this language before.

In 2000, as Employment Services Minister in the Howard government, Tony Abbott pledged to protect Christian agencies’ right to hire and fire those who lived “openly at variance with Church teaching”, including gay and lesbian workers.

In September 2003, the Howard government voted against amendments to a bill allowing same-sex couples equal access to superannuation. “Look, I’m in favour of human rights, but I’m not in favour of putting gay relationships on the same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage,” Abbott said at the time.

In 2004, a mix of perceived ABC political correctness and gay visibility inflamed Abbott once more. The ABC aired — twice — a 30 second clip of a group of girls heading to a fun fair on Play School. “My mums are taking me and my friend Meryn to an amusement park,” said the narrator, Brenna. That single “s” in “mums” sparked an election-year storm. As Health Minister, Abbott said, “I think that if I’d been watching it with my kids, I’d have been a bit shocked.” (The then federal opposition leader, Mark Latham, also criticised the program, saying parents, not TV producers, should choose when to expose children to society’s diversity).

In 2006, Abbott characterised the gay rights movement as an “adult hang up”, and a burden to kids. The Tillman Park Children’s Centre in Sydney was using books that feature children with gay, lesbian and transgender parents. “I think it’s really pretty wacky stuff,” Abbott told reporters. “Kids of that age just want to get on with being kids and why should we inflict all our adult hang-ups and angst on kids. Let children be children. Let them worry about all that stuff later. Let’s not force it on them.”

Abbott certainly isn’t the only vocal opponent to some aspects of gay rights but, as Willet points out, it’s not solely the government of the day that determines the progress of gay and lesbian rights in the community. There are many stakeholders involved and it’s worth remembering, says Willett, that “[during] the Howard years we made enormous progress in terms of gay and lesbian rights, [which demonstrates that] the federal government is not the be all and end all”. Willett doesn’t believe that an Abbott government would sound the death knell of the gay rights movement: “Even if he had a plan to stop gay and lesbian rights, I don’t think he could do it.”

It was in fact the independent Australian Human Rights Commission that prompted Rudd’s 2008 omnibus review of laws relating to financial and workplace benefits and entitlements for gay people, says Willet. “You can see lots of ways in which the cabinet and the federal government don’t have a lot of power.” It happened on their watch — but it was the work of another government organisation.

Australia has been “swamped by a rising tide” of acceptance of gay and lesbian rights, says Willet. In a 2003 poll, just 34 per cent of Australians were in favour of legal recognition for same-sex couples. A poll a year later found 38 per cent of Australians in favour. By February 2006, 53 per cent of Australians thought the government should introduce laws recognising same-sex relationships. In 2007, that number had risen to 71 per cent. Most young people support equal partnership rights. The trend is clear.

Gabi Rosenstreich from the National LGBT Health Alliance agrees. “The majority of Australians are fairly sensible people and I doubt that many of them share his views of being threatened.”

While Abbott’s comments are alarming, she says, they don’t change the focus of activism. The Liberal Party doesn’t have a history of being proactive, she says, “but people learn, and we’re happy to work with them on that. At the same time we shouldn’t become complacent about the rights we have achieved.”

“The concern isn’t about Abbott’s comments rolling the clock back, its about not letting the ball roll forward,” says Corey. But he too is willing to work with anyone in power. His organisation has invited Abbott to meet “ordinary gay and lesbian Australians and their families”. No response, yet.

“We will work with anyone who is interested in the health and well being of all Australians”, says Rosenstreich. “We are not a threat to society, we are society”.

“We can’t go back,” Willet says. “We have changed spectacularly. You can hold the line. But there’s no going back.”

[pic credit: screen grab from from Casey Neistat on Vimeo; video below]

The Web Ecology Project researches social interaction and communities on the web; an interdisciplinary group based in Boston and New York City (lucky buggers). They hold research ‘camps’. This is one of the results. The report [pdf 628kb] is intended as an initial survey with some analysis – 30 interviews (why does no one stop to chat with me, but they stop for researchers?) and 201 sample sessions for data collection.

The results are interesting (if unsurprising if you’ve been on CR before – but it’s nice to get something academic). The basic trend? If you’re an English speaking young man surfing alone, who wants to speak to another English-speaking young man surfing alone, you’re in for a real treat. ChatRoulette is for you.

Here are some take outs:

There ain’t that much dick so stop whinging

Well, depends on what you think is a lot of dick. I’ve got a high threshold. 5 per cent of encounters were genitals. The researchers say that this suggests that – in spite of common assumptions – that the large majority of CR users are not nudie freaks who just want to flash and bat. Dick was outpaced by “nothing” (blank screen, empty room) at 7 per cent, and 9 per cent were altered videos, objects, masks and other weird shit like that. The vast, vast majority were actual humans (80 per cent).

Together Alone

I’ve always found ChatRoulette to be the collision course for extroverts and introverts. Exhibitionists and voyeurs. ChatRoulette isn’t a group activity for most (though it is fun to install a pretty girl and watch from the sidelines, thanks Sophie, thanks Kirsty). Of the encounters that were human (not gimp or plushie or suicide attempt), 86 per cent were surfing alone. The rest were twosomes, threesomes or more.

It’s a (young) man’s world

Unsurprisingly, for any one that’s been on CR, dudes rule big time. 87 per cent of users are male. Even in groups, you’re more likely to see the same gender – boys hanging out together, or girls (giggling) together (and making boys do rude stuff to each other — that’s not in the report, that’s just a fantasy). No analysis of sexual orientation was done in this report – are more straight guys getting their dicks out than gay? I’d like to know. Most users are aged 18-24.

Speak English

Four of the top twelve ranked countries (accounting for 34.6% of all traffic) use English as their primary language. The top user is the United States, followed by China, which maps against Internet users more generally. Europe is well represented in the top ten, in fact aside from China and the US, half are in the EU. Australia comes in at number 12.

Predictions

The report goes on to theorise that ChatRoulette is a “probabilistic online community”, “a community shaped by a platform which mediates the encounters between its users, specifically by eliminating lasting connections in the framework of the platform”. Any deeper connections must happen elsewhere.

The researchers predict a decline in dick, as more and more users come on to explore the community, rather than use it to exhibit. They predict a rise in the creative elements of the community – people playing games, music, linking to websites, and doing things to stimulate emotion (more of the crazy guy in the mask scaring you). The researchers say that if you’re on CR for sexual content, you’re going to have to click ‘Next’ more and more times to get it, which will turn you away to other websites where it’s a bit easier to get off, making CR even ‘cleaner’.

Look out for certain genres of content emerging. Like mask-wearing. The idea is that if enough users see the same thing again and again, a culture will build around that behaviour. Outside groups will start lobbing content into CR – like the blog CatRoulette, which encourages users to surf with their cat. And look out for celebrities too (the guy in the cat suit? the guy with the nazi flag). The researchers are predicting that identities will form if someone is seen by enough people.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

I produced Richard Glover’s Drive program around Sydney today. Recriminations were growing louder against Facebook for not taking strong enough action after the memorial sites for two dead Queensland kids were defaced with porn and offensive comments. And in another instance in Queensland, a Facebook user is claiming to be able to deliver a long-lost missing boy Daniel Morcombe, if the group attracts 1 million members. The Premier there has warned Facebook will loose popularity if they don’t do more to reduce offensive material.

It’s a serious question: If something happens to you or your family online, who do you complain to? Can you pick up the phone and call someone? What about this idea: an online ombudsman – a kind of referee of the Internet. Would that make you feel safer?

That’s what Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he will look at.

The social networking giant will apologise, it says, and respond directly to the Queensland Government, but they say it’s hard to control individual actions on its site.

David Vaile is the Executive Director of the Cyber Law Centre at UNSW, and we interviewed him today about if this is a good idea.

The main problem, David says, is that it’s a fast moving thing, predicated on the disclosure of personal information. ‘It’s a very profitable model for them,’ he said, ‘and a lot of people particularly young people find that to be a lot of fun.’

But with increased level of the use of personal information, more risks are generated, and young people ‘have difficulty joining the dots’.

‘You may not realise that you’re hurting them… or yourself’, David said about young users of Facebook, who face a fundamental lack of understanding of the consequences online, which can push right out to criminal behaviour like stalking, harassment, and claiming responsibility for crimes.

On the other hand, he said ‘there’s a great danger that adults get into a complete panic’. While it’s tempting to lump Facebook with trying to regulate the darker stuff put up by users, David said ‘it’s not the role of Facebook to play the role of a policeman.’

It’s a balancing act, David argues, between keeping online businesses free flowing and profitable (and with 7 million users, and millions of individual transactions every day, that’s important), and picking up what different communities around the world find unacceptable.

The problem: ‘The earlier you to get it, the more expensive it is… it’s a real commercial issue,’ he said. ‘The reality is that you need a small trouble-shooting call-centre’.

Eariler, from my notes, David didn’t think putting an ombudsman in charge was a good idea. The regular ‘needs to be activist’, he told me, to achieve results on behalf of the public, like it has been in Canada. The status quo right now in Australia is decidedly un-activist, David told me.

He called it ‘another magic bullet… holding up something heroic’. But nothing can replace the more prosaic approach of educating young people about the consequences of what they do online while still protecting people’s right to privacy.

Another layer of bureaucracy won’t be the panacea.

Europe

A massive 3 year research project for the EU by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (from the London School of Economics), EU Kids Online, says exposure to porn ranks second amongst ‘online risks’, behind plain old giving out of personal information, and before seeing something ‘violent or hateful’. Meeting an online contact in the offline world – which is probably the greatest fear in the community – is the least common risk (though admittedly one of the most dangerous). Across Europe, 4 in 10 teenagers have been exposed to online porn, although there ‘is considerable disagreement’ about it’s harmful impact on children. Far fewer teens report this exposure as distressing in any way.

America

(This info is drawn from the US Internet Safety Technical Task Force, and their 2008 report Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies.)

Roughly the same as the EU, 42 per cent of American teens have either sought out or accidentally seen porn, or done both of these; of these, two thirds had only stumbled upon it inadvertently. Nearly 1 in 10 were ‘very or extremely upset’. Older teens are more likely to seek out porn than younger teens. In fact, despite fears in the community, younger kids are more likely to see mags and movies before they see online porn; the Internet comes in third. It’s a sexy world offline, and online it seems. Of the teens that do see stuff online they don’t want to see, they don’t go back to it. So once seen, they tend to steer well clear of damaging material.

One of the great ideas behind the filter is protecting children, presumably from adults. But there’s evidence to say that when it comes to unwanted sexual solicitations, it’s not adults to be feared, it’s other kids. Most sexual solicitors are other adolescents (up to 48 per cent), or young adults (in the 20s%), with only 4%–9% coming from adults. The vast majority are dealt with by kids well, according to other research. Youth typically ignore or deflect solicitations; 92% of the responses amongst Los Angeles–based youth to these incidents were deemed “appropriate”. Chat rooms and instant messaging are still the dominant place where solicitations occur (77%). (NB. these solicitations wouldn’t be covered by a Net Filter – it’s just interesting to gauge what young people think are threats online).

The researchers included two questions with two ideas of how young people use the net. One: surfing. The other: emails and private communication. The numbers in the American report are for both. A note here: no private email or IM communication would be included in any Government attempt to filter the net. It also wouldn’t be considered classifiable by the Classification Board (personal communications are exempt).

Australia

In Michael Flood’s 2007 report on 16 and 17 year olds (Exposure to pornography among youth in Australia, Journal of Sociology, 43;45) he found that 84 per cent boys and 60 per cent of girls say they have been exposed accidentally to sex sites on the Internet. Flood does recognise that the younger you are, the less likely you are to inadvertently stumble across porno online, by drawing comparisons with the UK and the US.  He cites an Australian study among Internet-connected households with children aged 8 to 13 years, where 19 percent of children said that they had accidentally found websites their parents would prefer them not to see ‘a few times’. Almost half of the sites contained nudity or pornography.

It’s disingenuous to say a filter that blocks RC content at ISP level is to protect children. The vast amount of porn (described in most research as simply nudity or sex) would remain unblocked and freely available for kids to keep on stumbling across. The especially ‘harmful’ category of RC would be blocked for everyone; the rhetoric of child-protection is watered down when you look at the stats, and the case for more education, and a whole-population approach to empowering users comes into startling clarity.

I was actively seeking out porn at the age of 15 and 16, none of which would be blocked under the proposed scheme. Kids do it all the time, cos they’re horny; so I’m now looking into research about what teens themselves report as harmful, or not, to get away from adult perceptions of what porn means to kids.

“The good news is that those not wanting the government to filter their feed can work around any proposed filter so easily that one wonders why the government is even bothering”, writes Anthony Caruna in Hydrapinion.

“Any motivated user will be able to get around it, it will be quite easy, so who is this being targeted at?” asked Electronic Frontiers Australia vice chair Colin Jacobs.

They are right, of course. Getting around the filter makes the Government’s attempt look silly. There are loads of ways to circumvent Internet control – and you’ll get a list below. But there are are few problems with the assumption that these tools will render state control irrelevant. Biggest of all is the fact that – as if! – Australians aren’t going to re-route their entire internet experience through a proxy, in the rare likelihood they’ll stumble across uncensored RC content they don’t want to see anyway. Besides, not every one is technologically proficient, or motivated enough, to use proxy servers (there’s evidence of this in China).

Another problem is the live question of whether there will be end-user penalties if you do want to get around the filter. If you’re dodging the filter to see RC content, will the police come knocking if you’ve found access to it? What are the privacy implications of that? Will your ISP report you if they find out?

The extra steps involved in getting around net censorship are annoying, to say the least, and are only needed in the most oppressive Internet regimes that filter political content, like China. Your net slows. Graphics and video are limited. Naturally, getting around the filter will become a major story if it gets up and running (like when a 16 year old kid spent half an hour hacking and getting around the $116 million anti-porn initiative based on PC-based filters in 2006). And it will definitely show the absurdity of the filter.

But for those interested in the censorship debate, getting around the net doesn’t solve the problem of the filter in the first place. It’s still censorship. And once in place, it will have the full weight of the law behind it if you do anything wrong.

Getting Around The Filter

When I lived in Beijing, I was kicked off the internet a few times. In my mind, a giant police squad in a space-age control room was monitoring every tit and ball. In reality, the limited dynamic filtering in China may have flagged some key words (like Tiananmen, or Tibet) and traced my IP. My individual IP was blocked sometimes for hours, even up to a day. I started routing most of my risky browsing through a proxy server, which in China is itself considered a crime.

How does it work? In a great post yesterday by Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkley lays down the basics of circumvention:

Circumvention systems share a basic mode of operation – they act as proxies to let you retrieve blocked content. A user is blocked from accessing a website by her ISP or that ISP’s ISP. She wants to read a page from Human Rights Watch’s webserver, which is accessible at IP address 70.32.76.212. But that IP address is on a national blacklist, and she’s prevented from receiving any content from it. So she points her browser to a proxy server at another address – say 123.45.67.89 – and asks a program on that server to retrieve a page from the HRW server. Assuming that 123.45.67.89 isn’t on the national blacklist, she should be able to receive the HRW page via the proxy. During the transaction, the proxy is acting like an internet service provider.

(picture from Security In A Box: Tools and Tactics For Your Digital Security)

I used a service called Anonymouse in Beijing. But there are plenty of others. Reporters Without Borders publishes a Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents. I’ve combined their suggestions with those from a fantastic chapter in Security In A Box: Tools and Tactics For Your Digital Security, for this list. Feel free to add you favourite by commenting below.

(Also check out the brilliant Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship (PDF 1.5mb) from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto for even more suggestions).

Most Popular

Probably the most popular circumvention tool is a piece of software called Tor (China head Rebecca Mackinnon calls it “the tool of choice for circumventing Internet censorship in places like China these days”). It will provide anonymity as well as circumvention. Each time you connect to the Tor network, you select a random path through three secure Tor proxies. For cyber-dissidents, it offers sustained identity protection, and despite some online fearing for its flaws, a Uni of Colorado research team has declared it: “the most secure and usable privacy enhancing system available” (also via Mackinnon).

Databases of Proxy Servers

Public Proxy Servers (http://publicproxyservers.com) – a comprehensive live of anonymous and non-anonymous proxies, plus figures on their reliabilty and rating.
Samair (http://www.samair.ru/proxy/) – only anonymous proxies.
Rosinstrument proxy database (http://tools.rosinstrument.com/proxy/) – searchable
Anti Proxy (http://www.antiproxy.com/)
Multi Proxy (http://www.multiproxy.org/)

Public, Web-based circumvention

Anonymizer (http://www.anonymizer.com/)
Unipeak (http://www.unipeak.com/)
Anonymouse (http://www.anonymouse.ws/)
Proxyweb (http://www.proxyweb.net/)
Guardster (http://www.guardster.com/)
Webwarper (http://www.webwarper.net/)
Proximal (http://www.proximal.com/)
The Cloak (http://www.the-cloak.com/)
Psiphon2 (http://www.psiphon.ca/) is a private, anonymous webproxy servers system.

Other software downloads:

Sesawe Hotspot Shield (https://sesawe.net/Anchor-Free-Hotspot-Shield.html) is a public, secure, non-web-based, freeware circumvention proxy.
Your-Freedom (http://www.your-freedom.net/) is a private, secure, non-web-based circumvention proxy.

Problems with proxies

There are a few problems with proxies. Like any company, a proxy business is subject to the jurisdiction it operates under, and subject to investigation like any other. Rebecca Mackinnon writes a lengthy piece about the funding for some of these companies, especially tools supplied for the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC).  She writes that GIFC is funded by Falun Gong affiliates and the US government. Hal Roberts from The Berkman Center for Internet and Society also raises the possibility that your proxy service might sell you out: “Three of the circumvention tools — DynaWeb FreeGate, GPass, and FirePhoenix — used most widely to get around China’s Great Firewall are tracking and selling the individual web browsing histories of their users” (While this has later been denied by the specific companies involved, it makes the issue about trust, and how much you know about the service you’re using. These services aren’t the cure-all solution to filtering).

It’s also a game of cat and mouse. According to the Security in a Box site: “the government agency in charge of Internet censorship in your country (or the company that provides updates for its filtering software) might eventually learn that this ‘unknown computer’ is really a circumvention proxy. If that happens, its IP address may itself be added to the blacklist, and it will no longer work”. Bang, there goes your free-ride.

In China, you’d expect users of the net to regularly use proxies. But they don’t. Evidence shows that there is little knowledge of them, or a wide acceptance of net restrictions. 95% of total traffic is to domestic Chinese content – so to begin with Chinese people aren’t looking very far for content. So it shouldn’t be surprising that according to a 2000 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) survey of Internet use in five Chinese cities, 10 percent of users surveyed admitted to regularly using, and 25 percent to occasionally using, proxy servers to circumvent censorship (via Human Rights Watch PDF 4.5mb). My experience was that those around me only used it when they really had to. Most Chinese just viewed the major domestic websites in China, and didn’t want their net slowed by a proxy. Certainly, I began accepting the limitations of riding in the Chinese internet ‘car’ — there’s just less to see, and less expression, harder to use… I better come to terms with it. While China is very different, it would be interesting to see whether the average Australian net user would want to opt-out of the filter by regularly using proxies. I seriously doubt it.

Another significant problem is that proxies themselves don’t always offer unfettered access (just when you thought you could get away with it!) — because the bandwidth required to run them (like mini-ISPs) is expensive. As Zuckerman explains in his most recent post:

Proxy operators have dealt with this question by putting constraints on the use of their tools. Some proxy operators block access to YouTube because it’s such a bandwidth hog. Others block access to pornography, both because it uses bandwidth and to protect the sensibilities of their sponsors. Others constrain who can use their tools, limiting access to the tools to people coming from Iranian or Chinese IPs, trying to reduce bandwidth use by American high school kids who’ve got YouTube blocked by their school.

The other major concern is if the Government decides to enforce penalties for people using tools to get around the filter. Using proxies may in fact flag you to authorities. Like using a torch in a dark room to see things, it’s easier for others to see you and grab you. It’s illegal in China to use proxies, so you’re facing further risk there. In Australia, it is yet to be seen whether circumventing the internet filter will attract penalties.

But there is some precedent for some circumvention tools being illegal. Once law, the filter could be vulnerable to what’s called ’scope creep’, explains David Vaile from UNSW: “As powerful stakeholders lobby globally for a copyright filter, the potential for Australia’s ISP-level filtering project to extend to this area is cause for concern”. In the states, there is already legislation as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes it illegal to use circumvention technology to reverse-engineer rights controls on, say, your CD collection. Because of the free trade agreement with the US, Australia has taken on these regulations too. Writes the digihub blog of the SMH, ‘It’s now illegal to bypass Digital Rights Management technologies, which means TV broadcasters, record companies and movie houses are entitled to block any legal right you might have to make copies, and it’s illegal for you to bypass this.’ The DMCA prohibits even the possession of a circumvention device. So if scope creep happens, should we watch out when using circumvention software to get around the net filter?

And finally, circumventing censorship through proxies just gives you access to stuff overseas. Take down notices in Australia would still be issued – as they always have been – for any prohibited content hosted within Australia.

In the end, a government filter could just turn some Australians into fey cyber-dissidents by proxy. But I doubt many, if any, would regularly try to circumvent the internet in this way. We’re more likely to cop it on the chin.

Proxies do make the filter look silly, but they still leave the deeper gnawing question of the filter completely in tact.

[picture credit: via Flickr creative commons user atopeconlatxabaleria]

In the thick of researching Internet regulation, I hear one question over and over again. “Isn’t the Internet, by it’s very nature, free?” And the follow on question: “Is the government’s ISP-filtering plan against ‘the spirit of the Internet’?”

The gist is basically this: what impact will the filter have anyway? I’ll just get around it, because the Internet is free, always has, and always will be.

The question was asked another way by Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney the other day, when I appeared on his weekly ‘journos forum’. Richard said: ‘China can never succeed as an economic powerhouse unless it embraces the idea of open information flows and the real encouragement of creativity…’ Right at the heart of this question is the assumption that the Internet is free, always was, always will be — and that we’ve benefited from that.

I answered (paraphrased here): “No, the Internet in China has been enormously successful in preventing any opposition movement, whilst enabling the economy to grow enormously. It’s like hopping into a different kind of car, the experience of the Chinese Internet is completely different to ours here in Australia, and challenges our assumptions about the Internet being fundamentally free”.

The Australian experience of the Internet has made Australians (or at least the technologically proficient) default libertarians on this issue. Early results from Whirlpool’s annual Australian Broadband Survey show 91.8 percent of respondents do not support the idea of mandatory Internet filtering. (I say technologically proficient, because an earlier general survey conducted by ABC’s Hungry Beast showed a dramatic gap between the general public and net users, revealing that 80 percent of respondents supported the filter).

Net users in Australia have been schooled in that Cyberpunk idea: “Information wants to be free“; as soon as you put any block in the way, information, like water, will flow around and get to end-users. Where there is a filter, there is a VPN. Where there is a block, there’s a proxy server. The received wisdom is that the flow of information will always outpace the technology used to limit it. For educated, frequent users, this has been true since the net began.

This is because Australia has (largely) focused on regulating the on-ramps to the Internet (the ISPs, the pipes, the connections), and not the experience of the Internet itself, its content. We’ve opted for law-solutions, rather than technological solutions, to address community fears, like child porn. The result has been a reactive complaints process based on classification, rather than a stem-at-the-source content filter. We’ve stayed true to ‘Open Internet’ principles, allowing end-users to freely share over the open architecture of the Internet, and respond to problems in the courts and government administration, guaranteeing the transparency of process.

We’ve stayed out of any structural changes to the way the Internet works. Up until now.

David Vaile, a law professor at UNSW, argues that the proposed ‘Great Firewall of Canberra’ poses a fundamental threat to the Internet, as we’ve viewed it in the past: “As a cultural phenomenon, the Internet has generally supported freedom of communication. Filtering proposals sit unhappily with these traditional expectations”. He concludes that “the Australian filtering proposals are potentially an architectural change to a system initially designed to route around blockages, damage and obstructions (that is, the Internet) to one where these block points are mandated”. In other words, a filter would impose an architectural layer to the Internet that was never part of its initial design.

Peter Gerrand, Managing Editor of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia agrees, by arguing that Internet censorship is the biggest example of something that is anti the Open Internet movement. “The relationship with network neutrality is evident: this is the extreme situation in which particular website content is so heavily discriminated against that distribution to ordinary end users is totally blocked.”

These guys argue the proposed net filter is ideologically opposed to the Net Neutrality movement, which has taken off for very different reasons in the United States.

What is Net Neutrality?

Recently, Electronic Frontiers Australia launched a new campaign to re-double efforts against the proposed filter. It’s called Open Internet. It has three campaign messages. The filter will: 1. fail to protect children from inappropriate material; 2. fail to stop criminals from accessing and distributing child sexual abuse material; and 3. will block access to material that is currently legal to possess and view, just not to sell and publicly display.

The term ‘Open Internet’ comes mainly from the United States, where it is used almost-synonymously with the phrase “Net Neutrality”. Save the Internet, an online advocacy group, defines ‘Net Neutrality’ this way:

Put simply, net neutrality means no discrimination. Net neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination… With net neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data – not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Laurence Lessig has argued that the the growth of the Internet, and its innovation, is solely due to its open, ‘end-to-end’ principle. In his testimony to a US Senate hearing, Lessig declared that “if this Committee wants to preserve that growth and innovation, it should take steps to protect this fundamental design” (Lessig, L. 2006. Testimony of Lawrence Lessig on “Network Neutrality”).

This is the ‘Information wants to be free’ model. Net Neutrality states, among other things, that those companies or organisations providing the Internet should do so without discriminating either in the world of content or access. Basically, you should be able to get what you want, when you want it, without your service provider telling you no.

Google exec and public face Vint Cerf writes that net neutrality is at the heart of the Internet (he should know, he helped design TCP/IP): “The Internet is a general-purpose platform, not designed for any particular application and in fact neutral with regard to the applications it supports. End-users are in control of what content and applications they use and create”.

Vint Cerf argues that “no central gatekeeper should exert control over the Internet”. The architectural components of the Internet lend themselves to this reading. First, nothing is centralised. Users can communicate, and make applications for the Internet, from its edges, without having to go through some great big clearinghouse of ideas. In this system, there are no permissions given by any one in the centre of things – unlike cable network TV, users can swap and promote what they like. Only users discriminate, writes Cerf. “In sum: the very architecture of the Internet maximises user choice, creates a level competitive playing field, and promotes innovation”.

As soon as ISPs or any one else start to mess with the inherent user-free-market of the Internet, Cerf argues, that’s a threat to net neutrality.

It’s something that President Obama is committed to; it was one of his policy platforms. And the new FCC proposals due next March under Obama’s appointed head will probably enshrine detail around Net Neutrality.

Obama’s stance is a relief to organisations like The Open Internet. It’s a coalition of companies and organisations who, basically, want to keep the net neutral. Their definition of “open” is the same as Save The Internet’s:

Internet openness (network neutrality) means that users are in control of where to go and what to do online, and broadband providers do not discriminate among lawful Internet content or applications. This is the fundamental principle of the Internet’s design. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re visiting a mainstream media website or an individual’s blog, sending emails or purchasing a song. The phone and cable companies that provide you with access to the Internet should route all traffic in a neutral manner, without blocking, speeding up, or slowing down particular applications or content.

According to Google, a member of this group, some things are OK for network carriers to do, some things aren’t. In general: “outright blocking, impairing, or degrading Internet traffic should not be tolerated”. To quote from Google’s Public Policy blog, the following is out of order, and contravenes the concept of Net Neutrality:

• Levying surcharges on content providers that are not their retail customers;
• Prioritizing data packet delivery based on the ownership or affiliation (the who) of the content, or the source or destination (the what) of the content; or
• Building a new “fast lane” online that consigns Internet content and applications to a relatively slow, bandwidth-starved portion of the broadband connection.

So, to link this US history back to the Australian context, an Open Internet requires government not meddle with any technology that would impair the natural architecture of the Net. David Vaile, the UNSW law prof, concludes rather nicely:

The Australian government’s filtering proposal is inimical to both net neutrality and traditional notions of the limits of executive government’s rights to censor and restrain free speech. It is unlikely to work in practice to effectively address either the threat of child pornography/ child abuse material, or access to material with some capacity for harm. The current fascination with it may, in fact, be diverting us from the real task, which is how to listen to young people and work together with them to evolve an open and robust means for spreading the robustness and common sense they will need in the online future.

To put it simply, yes, the net filter is against some of the founding technological principles of the Internet, as described by those who advocate for greater freedom, and online rights.

But in the other corner: The Closed Internet, and China

But it’s no doubt that China has managed it’s digital economy just fine, thank you very much, by opposing the principles of Net Neutrality. And users in China, in my experience, don’t share the average Australian’s experience of the Internet as inherently free.

China net expert and academic Rebecca Mackinnon summarises this issue really nicely on her blog. China has always been a closed system, not an open one. She quotes Google’s Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President for Product Management:

Closed systems are well-defined and profitable, but only for those who control them. Open systems are chaotic and profitable, but only for those who understand them well and move faster than everyone else. Closed systems grow quickly while open systems evolve more slowly, so placing your bets on open requires the optimism, will, and means to think long term… Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet.

Hence, Google’s gamble with China. They are banking on knowing more about the Net, and knowing it quicker, than China, to gain the upper hand in the information economy.

But, China’s economy continues to soar, and its Internet users continue to grow, despite its censoring regime being antithetical to net neutrality.

So who is right? Open us, or closed them?

MacKinnon — a big supporter of the idea of an Open Internet, wants to go further, than an Open vs Closed mentality, and beyond the rhetoric of any one company, country or organisation. The Internet, she writes, is large and multi-faceted enough to require a governance of its own. She was a founding member of the Global Network Initiative. It seeks to address (and redress): “increasing government pressure to comply with domestic laws and policies in ways that may conflict with the internationally recognized human rights of freedom of expression and privacy”, around the world.

So, no. The experience of China says that the Internet is not inherently free. And Mackinnon’s group understands that “Open” is a relative term that requires all stake holders to have a say in our lives online.

But Australia’s experience of the web has been fluid, chaotic and open, so far. We risk fundamentally rewriting our relationship with that word, ‘open’, if a mandatory filter is introduced.

8 June 1996

Before I write to Snowy, I need to set the record straight about everything that’s happened. You know how I talk a lot about ‘that night ’? I’ve never explained it. It’s why I can’t forget and it’s why he’ll always be important. So much of this book has been writing history as I see it. So here goes. I can’t stop now. This is the true story of what happened that night. Let’s call it One Australian Summer.

It was Latin. The 10th of February, 1995. I ripped some paper and wrote, ‘I love you’.

All the prying eyes could see if they wanted, so I crumpled it into my pocket and shuffled my books.

The air stunk. Guys ran around like seagulls at lunch. A game of touch on the astro below the grandstand with a tennis ball or an apple; there was always an argument. Then the sweaty periods before school spewed us into pools, cold cordial and rooms with ceiling fans.

No one was listening. They hated it. So did I. I was in Year 8. First term, nearly Valentine’s Day. A time of love and fantasies on long, hot Australian nights, wanting someone to fuck. Dying to get out of school and into the water. Or better, I thought: into the sexy arms of the one I loved and would kill for.

Love: It was the feeling of fidgeting, shooting spit-balls at the nerd while the teacher wrote declensions on the board. It was the feeling of punching a hole in the ozone layer. It was the feeling of the sun beaming a single beam into Latin, right down on me.

‘Learn the first column of page 85 and bring it to class on Monday’, Mr Gorski said. ‘Stage 5 Latin test next week’.

Homework stepped up in Year 8 but I was ready for it. I already had Maths to study for and notes on ‘An Ancient Land’ pages 17-19 for History. I needed to colour my picture for Visual Arts and collect raw materials for Design. The weekend was going to be busy but I was organised.

Finally the bell. A cheer, a race for the door. One more class. School was on parade between class. Rumours circulated this morning that the headmaster would allow a ‘ties-off’ day. Seniors set up a sprinkler on the oval before being sent to the assistant deputy head, drenched.

The message came from the top: ties on, boys. All day.

I joined the throng. I was nervous in my chest and down my arms into the tendons of my wrist. I was going to do it, finally. Friday, 10th of February 1995. A day for the history books.

I spotted blond hair in the crowd up ahead. I surged forward and when I caught up, put my arm around Snowy’s waist.

‘How was Latin?’ he asked.

‘Crazy. He talks to himself’. I said. ‘In Latin’.

‘Why do you do Latin?’

‘To commune with the dead’, I did my best zombie voice. ‘When does carnival start tonight?’

‘You coming?’ Snowy looked surprised.

‘Myles is swimming the open relay’.

‘I’m swimming butterfly hundred’.

‘I thought you did backstroke’, I said. ‘Hog’.

I wasn’t going to see Myles. As if. Seeing Snowy swim could have dragged me from Perth: Body, swimmers, water. Boy, he could race. State rep and getting faster. I was jealous.

‘Did you train today?’, I asked.

‘First two periods’.

‘Lucky runt’. We walked up the stairs into the courtyard. ‘Kerrigan banged quadratics into our heads. Fucked’.

We came to the lockers.

‘You better get your novel. She went psycho last time,’ I said.

‘Shit! Almost forgot. Thanks.’

‘I’ll save a seat.’

I watched the clock tick half an hour and I realised something must have come up. Training? Music lesson? It was a free reading period, but most were sleeping. Heat had worn Miss Fletcher down. She was cool, though. She shot you a cynical smile when you did something wrong. I sat and thought about sex and romance and love for the rest of the lesson, listening to the fans.

I wanted everything out. There was no use denying it any more. I was in love with Snowy. I knew it better than I knew quadratics. I wanted to kiss him, touch him. I loved his hair, I wanted to be part of his eyes. He had the cutest bum in school. He smelled of Norsca Fresh or Rexona Sport.

At the start of Year 7, two things made me realise I was attracted to guys. The first was at a swimming carnival. I made myself not look at the swimmers, but couldn’t help it. They were so different to me, with their hard bodies. The second was when we were at a family friend’s. I went to the toilet and hanging behind the door was a Man Power calendar.

My feelings for Snowy began around fourth term Year 7. I had never felt that way before. I felt warm and alive. We did everything together. Sat together. Did homework together. Spent nights at each others’ houses. The end of 1994 came without me telling Snowy how I felt. I kept thinking of ways to tell him, but put it off.

We spent that summer together, swimming and mucking around at the beach. We saw Forrest Gump. At school, the start of 1995, things were different. I never saw Snowy. Different classes. He seemed to be ignoring me. I was the only one making an effort, and that hurt a lot. So, I decided to do something about it. Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, I thought.

After school that fateful Friday, I waited near the locker rooms. My heart raced, I saw the blond hair approaching. I was right. I saw music manuscript.

‘Lesson?’

‘Yeah, almost forgot again’.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt sweat build up. ‘I guess I’ll see you tonight’, I said. My mouth was dry. I bit my lip.

‘Suppose’, he said.

‘I’ve got something for you, Snow’. I pulled the piece of paper out and pushed it between his books. ‘Just for you’.

I walked quick smart. I went to the bathroom and locked myself in and shook for ten minutes. It was done. Now let the Gods decide.

Later, 5.30 in the afternoon, we were getting ready to leave home for the swim meet. Myles was nervous. He drank orange juice in the kitchen. ‘We’re going to be late’, he said.

Mum and Dad emerged with a picnic basket and esky. ‘I’m ready’, Dad winked.

Mum rolled her eyes. ‘OK darling. Let’s go. You good?’

‘Of course he is’, Dad said. ‘Aren’t you mate?’ He slapped Myles on the back but he was having none of it.

‘Righto’. Mum herded us out.

I listened to music in my room all afternoon. What if Snowy didn’t feel the same way? I remembered that Beatles song, ‘All You Need Is Love (la la la la la)’. I hoped it was true. I needed to experience love for the first time. I needed to get out of this closet. I needed to live gay. I needed to have a relationship. I needed to tell my friends. I needed to find out if I got burned. I needed to change.

But as we locked up and got in the car, I was scared as fuck.

We drove through the main gates of the recreation park where the swim meet was held and I was shocked by the closeness of my destiny. I wanted to jump out of the car and run home and forget my note. But I smiled at Dad’s jokes. Told Myles he’d do fine. Helped Mum with the basket.

We walked through the gate and bought tickets. The guy selling them was cute; must have been a swimmer from another school about my age. I smiled extra hard, but he didn’t smile back and I took that as an omen. Myles raced off. ‘Good luck’, we called after him. Mum sighed.

Mum and Dad set up rugs and picnics on the slope, digging out champagne and crackers. Fathers leaned on trees talking business. Mothers caught up and settled in for the night.

I sat on a bench behind the pool. To my right, swimmers were warming up in thick parachute tracksuit tops, bare legs and bathing caps. They swung their arms and made nervous shapes with their feet. There were five schools competing, all selective and private. I counted their flags lining the pool deck.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Snowy swung over the bench. ‘Didn’t think you’d come’, he said. I looked into his eyes, but had to look away.

‘Said I would’.

‘Adrian said he heard you crying in the dunnies’.

‘Family stuff. It’s fine now’. There were roadworks in my chest; surely Snowy could hear.

‘Don’t worry about it. At least your folks are together’. Snowy put his hand on my cheek. ‘Gotta go Jackie’, he said.

Then it was over.

I sat on the slope gnawing a chicken leg, watching the school team warm up. They were windmills, grasshoppers, then amputees. They split and I found myself walking there, hands in pockets. The first race was starting, but I didn’t even hear the gun. I was confident. All I could think about was Snowy, his hand on my cheek.

As I approached, he was sitting on another row of benches next to the pool under the awning with the other competitors. He took off his shirt. I could see his hard chest, I stared at his groin, then his legs. I felt dizzy, but I kept walking.

Snowy looked up.

‘Good luck’, I said.

He smirked, and gathered attention from the others. He rubbed his chest and his dick. He came closer, dancing next to me. He put his hands around my neck.

‘I got your note’ he said. There was jeering. ‘You like this, fag?’ He turned and ripped his swimmers down at the back. ‘Or this?’ He pulled his cheeks apart.

Some guys groaned in my ear, ‘Poofter’, and grabbed my crotch. I was pushed and fell.

Snowy took my hand, pulled me up and whispered, ‘faggot’ and laughed and I ran. Through the gate to the car park. I reached the car and hit the window and slid. I hit the gravel with my fists. I sucked each breath like it was my last.

The crowd cheered inside. Snowy won. I threw up next to the car.

Time passed, and the carnival was over before I knew it.

‘Are you alright sweetie?’ Mum held her palm to my forehead. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Just tired’. Mum sighed and coordinated bags and baskets.

‘Jackie, wait up’, I heard.

Snowy jogged up. Tracksuit. Blonde hair. T-E-E-T-H. He was king of the pool.

‘Congrats’, I said.

Deep down, I knew what he’d done and why. I got in the car and watched him shrink behind us.

*

Two weeks passed. The slowest two weeks of my life. Snowy went on school camps; days vanished without him. There was lots to do: I had a big project for Visual Arts. Maths exercises coming out my ears. History summaries to write. A design project to find unique materials for, and a giant hole in my heart to mend.

My thirteenth birthday was fast approaching. I wanted this year to be different. I had new friends, Zach and Adrian, who invited me to camps and taught me about their beliefs. But 1995 was already turning out bad. I marked 10 February 1995 in my school diary with the word IDIOT in red pen, right under my Maths homework.

When Snowy returned, it was the height of swim season and I barely saw him until I ran into him outside the Aquatic Centre after squads. It was the first time I’d seen him since that night.

‘Are you still coming to my birthday?’ I asked. I had invited him three weeks ago to the Lone Star Restaurant with Zach and Adrian and a few others. It served steaks and hamburgers and barrels of peanuts, and the waiters pretended to be American. The whole place was stuffed with bulls horns, cacti, saddles and had a bar with a tin roof. I loved it.

‘You don’t want me to come?’

‘I thought you changed your mind’.

‘Can I stay over after? I’m between houses’.

‘Sure’, I said. ‘Of course’. Everything was fucking normal. ‘I’ll ask Mum to call your Mum’.

It was a night like any other in our friendship. Snowy wore nice clothes; shorts and thongs and a surfy t-shirt. I could see his toes. Even his toes were cool. He wore glasses. He bought me a small card: the picture of a cow with her big pink nose in the camera, her ears sticking out sideways, and a sad look in her eyes. I studied every detail. ‘Close up cow’ was the description on the back. Copyright 1993.

He monitored me as I opened it. ‘It doesn’t say anything big’, said Snowy.

‘To Jack. Happy Birthday. From Snowy’, I read. ‘Wow Snowy, thanks. It’s a work of art’.

Later in the restaurant, we sat next to each other. He poked me. He threw nuts at me from the barrels. We were best friends.

On the way home in the four-wheel-drive, Dad turned the Pulp Fiction soundtrack up loud and we yelled the words to the street. ‘Girl,’ Snowy sang at me, funny and sleazy, ‘you’ll be a woman soon’. I was delirious on drums and slide guitar with all the roads blurring beyond the glass and Snowy holding my hand. Zach and Adrian had been dropped home; just us criminals were left in the back. I remember every song.

At home, Mum organised a mattress. ‘You guys sleep, don’t talk too late’, she said.

Snowy changed into boxers and saw me watching but didn’t react. He went to my desk in the corner of my room and looked through my collection of Mad magazines and played with the knobs on my stereo.

‘Jack’, he said. He faced away from me. I folded and put my clothes away in my walk-in wardrobe.

‘Yeah’.

‘I love you’.

He opened and flicked through magazines. I stopped and watched the outline of his back. With his head pointing down, his fringe hung in front of his eyes.

‘Aw’, I said. ‘That’s nice’.

A long silence followed. I dumped the clothes, went to the bathroom and vomited nuts, hamburger and Coke. When I came back, Snowy was standing at the bottom of my bed.

‘Jack?’

‘We’ve got to sleep’, I said.

‘What do you think?’

I couldn’t talk. I got into bed and turned around. ‘Good night’, I said. I switched off the light.

He put his hand on my leg over the blanket. ‘Jack, please’. But I moved away.

He went to the mattress on the floor.

‘Do you think two guys can love each other?’ he said in the dark.

I didn’t move. I didn’t answer. And the next day, on Saturday 25 February 1995, under my Latin homework in red pen, I wrote the word SCREWED.