Boy Hacks Australian Government's Porn Filter

A 16 year old boy has exposed the pointlessness of trying to filter the internet. Instead of hiring local programmers to design it, the Australian government paid an overseas company $84.4 million for something called the National Filter Scheme. Boy did they get ripped off.

Tom Wood, 16, said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the Government's filter, released on Tuesday. His technique ensures the software's toolbar icon is not deleted, leaving parents under the impression the filter is still working.
A former cyber bullying victim, Tom feared a computer-savvy child could work out the bypass and put it on the Internet for others to use.
"They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one."
"Filters aren't addressing the bigger issues anyway," he said.
"Cyber bullying, educating children on how to protect themselves and their privacy are the first problems I'd fix.
"They really need to develop a youth-involved forum to discuss some of these problems and ideas for fixing them."

Leave it to a federal government to be this ignorant. It is well known that internet filters are easily worked around by the kids they are supposed to protect. Australian Communications Minister Helen Coonan was quoted in the article: "Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have never been more important."
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