Australians Forced to Use Filtered Web

The Australian government is planning to filter Internet content, and citizens of the country will not be able to opt out. Instead, they'll be given the option of which set of blacklists to use: one that blocks content deemed inappropriate for children and another of illegal material. There's plenty of concern in the country, whether from librarians who worry about what might be added to the blacklist or ISPs who say that the technology is dicey enough that it will significantly slow all Internet traffic. Some tests suggest that the filters will incorrectly block about 10,000 pages from each million, which is another way of saying that one percent of all sites will be unviewable for no reason at all.

Stephen King Makes Australian Book Store Suspicious

If you worked at a book store and saw some stranger writing in books on the shelves, it might make you concerned. So the staff of the Alice Springs book store walked over to the gentleman scribbler. That's when they learned that Stephen King had made an unannounced stop and was adding his signature to his own novels, according to a BBC story. "Well, if we knew you were coming we would have baked you a cake," said the manager to the author. Just don't ask what would have gone into the cake.