🚀 go-pugleaf

In <7ofi9f$q8h$1@nnrp1.deja.com> marie9482@my-deja.com writes:

>Ok guys Steve and I have been reading all the posts on this list that
>we could find and we are still in the dark. We live in Tasmania (we
>didn't vote for Harradine) and we run an amateur adult website that is
>hosted in the US.

I'm in NSW.

>Our site has the typical warning page on the front and we have been
>told that, under the new Act, that warning page is enough to make us
>illegal in Australia.

I have an adult web site too, and it's freely available to anyone via a
simple HTML-based warning page. My site is based right here in Australia on
two boxes (one has the HTML, the other is a standard FTP server holding the
actual images, etc.) sitting next to this desk in my equipment rack.

>We have also been told that we should block our site to Aussie surfers
>but we can't find anyone who can block it 100%. On the other hand we
>have been told that there is no need to block it.

I will *not* be blocking access to the HTML pages from anywhere since I
believe that the instant you start to restrict access you are caving in to
the desires of the government. All internet materials should be freely
accessible for no charge, which is how my adult site operates.

It's also not listed in any web search engines, so it's word-of-mouth
advertising unless you happen to type in the right URL.

The only time I constrict access is when my PPP link starts to saturate, and
then I place sensible, temporary, user limits on the FTP server, but this is
not limiting who can access - just the numbers that can access.

>We are now totally confused but are leaning towards caution. Can anyone
>here give us some guidance.

I think that if you keep your site freely available then there's not much
that can be done. Ethical problems come about if you are charging for access
(are you?), or implement a password-entry method. Anything that prevents
access by anyone who comes along is circumventing the freedoms we're trying
to promote. The net is available to everyone, so there should be no
restrictions on content other than a common-sense approach which does not
involve any government regulatory pig-headedness..

Regards,

Craig.
-- 
  Craig Ian Dewick (craig@lios.apana.org.au). http://lios.apana.org.au/~craig
  Operator of Jedi - An APANA Sydney public-access site. Email me for details
 Always striving for a secure long-term future in an insecure short-term world
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