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Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 16:21:45 +0800 (WST)
From: hardone <hardguy@GARION.IT.COM.AU>
Subject: File 6--Austrialian Federal Regulation ofBBSes

             Federal check on computer bulletin boards.
                   Financial Rev. Feb 4th Page 4

  Mounting evidence that computer bulletin boards were being used by
criminals, neo-Nazis and paedophiles has prompted a federal
investigation into their use.

  The Attorney-General, Mr. Lavarch, said he and the Minister for
communications, Mr. Lee, had agreed to set up a joint task force to
consider ways of regulating the use of computer bulletin boards.

  Mr. Lavarch said he was concerned that the bulletin boards - which
anyone with a home computer and modem could access - were being used
to disseminate "extremely offensive and often illegal material".

  "There is ample evidence that bulletin boards are being used to
distribute banned publications, including child pornography," he said
in a statement released yesterday.

  Although the Government has no idea how many Australians were
tapping into bulletin boards, according to industry submissions to the
Office of Film and Literature Classification, Australia was the
second-largest user after the US where an estimated 40,000 people
regularly used the boards.

  Mar Lavarch said in Amercia, paedophiles have been detected using
bulletin boards to contact each other and their victims.

  "Other examples of misuse include neo-Nazi propaganda dissemination,

unauthorized copying of software and other protected materials, sale
of stolen credit card numbers and the spread of other defamatory
information."

  He said it was time to look at ways to curb the growing misuse of
technology.

  "We are in an era where children operate computers as easily as
their parents rode bicycles.

  "We cannot allow advances in technology to overtake the legal and
law

enforcement measure designed to protect them, in particular, from
undesirable material."

  He said the issue of bulletin boards was on the agenda for the next
meeting of Federal, State and Territory censorship ministers in
Canberra on February 17 where the proposed new classification system
for over-the-counter video and computer games would be finalised.


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