In what has been a turbulent week for The Pirate Bay, they have launched quietly their anonymous virtual private network, IPREDator, to the public. The new network, like we reported before, hopes to give you anonymous access to the internet, so the ISPs won’t be able to trace your steps.

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The Rudd Government has indicated that it might be backing away from its mandatory internet filtering plan, which is composed of two filters, as Communications Minister told a Senate estimates committee that the scheme could be a voluntary one.

The statement made, reported by The Australian, is a huge policy shift from Labor as it was planning to forcefully make all ISPs in Australia to implement a filter that has been said to degrade the network speed, and cause havoc to sites that were wrongfully blocked, as seen by a leaked list of the ACMA filter.

He has also said that this new plan could be implemented if the internet industry would block the content on a voluntary basis – and not be forced by legislation, which is said to be blocked by the Liberals and Greens in the Senate.

“One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it,” Conroy told the newspaper.

The government is set to pilot the program with several smaller ISPs, along with iPrimus and Optus, in the coming month, and is said to examine the technology in a live environment. Optus has offered to allow users to opt out of the program, which could be an indication on who would like the filter, or not.

The couple who listed their tractor for a dollar on TradeMe and offered to throw in their farm for free have been left "furious" after the winning bidder was denied finance by his bank and the sale fell through.

The Catlins couple Shelley and Allan Holland listed a tractor with a catch, You buy the tractor, you get a free farm.

Shelly and Allan listed the auction for $1 Reserve and within the first 10 minutes bidding was at $5500.

The Auction fetched over 380,000 views and over 1500 Comments, with over 1400 questions answered.

TradeMe business manager Mike O'Donnell said all of the top bidders had been contacted before the close of the sale, to ensure bids were legitimate. They had spoken to the eventual winner, Wainuiomata man Lance Karanga, twice, he said.

Mr Karanga raised the auction by $16968 from $233,032 to $250,000

While the auction maybe legally binding Mrs Holland said legal action was not being considered at this stage.

Mr Karanga has also had his TradeMe membership terminated.

- Lukc Chandler Reporting for TECHGEEK.com.au

Optus, the second largest ISP in Australia, has been accepted to be part of the Australian Government’s filtering trial after being previously excluded on the announcement, being the only one out of the top three carriers that have been accepted.

Optus, along with iiNet, were denied to be participants of the trial. iiNet has since withdrew its application to participate on the filter.

“Optus is an active participant in the cyber-safety space, with a range of initiatives to help Australian families enjoy a safer internet experience,” Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy said in a press release. “The participation of Optus will help ensure the Government obtains robust results from the pilot, which will inform the evidence-based development of our ISP filtering policy.”

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Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales are in a three-way battle to become the home of the newly announced National Broadband Network Corporation, who will manage the new National Broadband Network that the Rudd Government announced last week.

Securing the network’s base, according to the Australian, would generate thousands of high-skilled, high-paying jobs that would be vital to the states’ economy during the recession – and giving a boost in the tax revenues for the states, which have been dwindling as of late.

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The Federal Government has announced that the winner of the National Broadband Network tender is, well, no one, as the Government plans to look for “partners” to help build the new $43 billion fibre to the home network as it has announced that it will manage the construction of the project.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said that none of the submitted proposals, including one by Optus, failed to meet the requirements that the Government established, saying in the announcement that “none of the bids offered value for money.”

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The Pirate Bay, being the scorn of the internet in the eyes of the music industry, the movie industry, the television industry, and other entertainment industries, has decided to launch a brand new VPN network known as IPREDator, which promises to allow you to browse the web online in an anonymous manner.

The name comes from the new IPRED copyright laws that are set to be introduced by the government in Sweden to combat the file-sharers in the country. However, people have gone against it.

The service will cost five euros a month; but it is at beta right now. Now, you have another choice to circumvent that pesky little filter that Senator Stephen Conroy wants.

iiNet has said that it has advised the Federal Government that it would be withdrawing from discussions to participate in the internet filtering trial, saying that constant changes in policies and confusing explanations of the trial’s purpose affected discussions.

Recent revelations of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s blacklist, which no one has knowledge, unless you view it on Wikileaks, as it is not under the Freedom of Information, was also another factor in why the discussions failed.

Michael Malone, the Managing Director, previously said that the third largest ISP agreed to participate was to demonstrate that it was fundamentally flawed, a waste of taxpayers’ money and that it would not work.

“We are not able to reconcile participation in the trial with our corporate social responsibility, our customer service objectives and our public position on censorship,” Malone said in a statement.

“It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the Government simply describes as “unwanted material” without an explanation of what that includes.”

Malone also said that the government should re-think its approach of the filter, and make clear what its intentions of using internet censorship which has attracting international dismay of using a filter.

“Everyone is repulsed by, and opposed to, child pornography but this trial and policy is not the solution or
even about that,” he continues. “In reality, the vast majority of online child pornography activity does not appear on public websites but is distributed over peer-to-peer networks which are not and cannot be captured by this trial or policy.”