From Good Morning Silicon Valley…

The Australian government spent almost $85 million on a filter to block children’s access to porn on the Net. Tom Wood, a 16-year-old from Melbourne, cracked it in 30 minutes, all the while heaping nationalist scorn on the imported product. “It’s a horrible waste of money,” he said. “They could get a much better filter for a few million dollars made here rather than paying overseas companies for an ineffective one.” The government responded by adding an Australian designed filter. Tom cracked that one in 40 minutes. Communications Minister Helen Coonan said, “The vendor is investigating the matter as a priority.” Young Tom says there are more important concerns about children’s Net safety to deal with anyway. “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.” And maybe give them some security tips as well.