Cleaning A HTTPS Feed

For the last couple of years the Australian government has been strongly pushing a policy of Internet censorship; usually dubbed the Clean Feed, following the UK model. The first ACMA report from 2008 included some detail of attempts to filter more than just web traffic.

The ACMA report prompted me to analyse the methods by which the government might be able to achieve one of the options in the ACMA report: filtering HTTPS traffic. My report, Cleaning A HTTPS Feed: Report on the Filtering of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Transport Layer Security or Secure Socket Layer Connections, was first published last year by Atomic MPC Magazine and later by Civil Liberties Australia.

Since last year’s election and the precarious outcome, the government has announced a review of the classification system before making a final decision on how to proceed with an Internet censorship regime. In spite of the significant opposition to the scheme, both the Minister responsible, Senator Stephen Conroy, and Prime Minister Gillard have voiced continued support for censorship of the Internet.

As the government does not wish to drop this policy, I don’t wish my report into the implications of certain aspects of filtering to slip by. My full report on the methods of filtering traffic which is intended to be secure is available here (PDF).

Originally published at Organised Adversary. Please leave any comments there.