I would like to congratulate Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy within the Australian Government, for greatly assisting Australian businesses to become less secure.

Yes, you're reading that correctly, the minister for the Digital Economy has made Australian businesses dramatically less secure. He has managed to achieve this as a by-product of his highly publicised efforts to introduce censorship to protect Australian's from alleged illegal content on the world wide web.

In the days of prohibition within the United States of America, when the U.S. government band the production, transportation, sale and consumption of alcohol, large sections of the community ignored the law and took their production and consumption of alcohol underground. The net result was a dramatic rise in bootlegging, thereby assisting the rapid and dramatic growth of organised crime syndicates. After 13 years the U.S. government declared prohibition to be a failed experiment and re-allowed the licensed production and consumption of alcohol.

Just as in those days of prohibition, when large sections of an otherwise lawful community resorted to breaking the law, Stephen Conroy's efforts to censor Australia's access to the Internet is already achieving the same outcome, even before any legislation has been passed.

A number of organisations in Australia have declared they will provide, or are considering providing, instruction on how to bypass the government's filter so that people can make their own choices regarding what they do and don't access from the Internet. These organisations range from the Electronic Frontiers Australia, to Euthanasia societies who all feel targeted by Mr Conroy's attempts at moral control.

The problem for Australian business is that the techniques that would be used to bypass the Internet filter would be very similar (in many cases the same) as those used to bypass business security measures.

This means as a direct result of Mr Conroy's actions a significantly increased number of Australian citizens will know how to bypass their employer's network security, likely resulting in a significant increase in corporate security breaches by employees.

Links
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/342401/efa_mulls_publishing_filter_bypass_instruction_guide/
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/elderly-learn-to-beat-euthanasia-blacklist-20100405-rn6i.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/06/2865643.htm