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Germany Institutes Censorship Infrastructure
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Apr 23, 2009 02:06 AM
from the not-for-your-eyes dept.
from the not-for-your-eyes dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's government has passed a draft law for censorship of domains hosting content related to child pornography. A secret list of IPs will be created by the BKA, Germany's federal police; any attempted access to addresses on this list is blocked, logged (the draft seems to contradict press reports on this point) and redirected to a government page featuring a large stop sign. The law has not yet passed the assembly, however five of the largest ISPs have already agreed to voluntarily submit to the process even without a law in place. Critics argue that with the censorship infrastructure in place, the barrier for blocking access for various other reasons is very low. The fact that the current block can easily be circumvented may lead to more effective technologies to be used in the future. There are general elections as well as elections in several of the states later this year."
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Submission: Germany institutes censorship infrastructure by Anonymous Coward
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Inc. China (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 1) Child Porn
2) Other "Offensive" Material (e.g. Nazi Material)
3) ???
4) Welcome to the great firewall
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Inc. China (Score:5, Insightful)
In other countries it has led to exactly that.
Parent
Re:Inc. China (Score:5, Funny)
China has a police force. My country has a police force. ZOMG!!!! fascist communistic dictatorship prepares to seize power and enslave us in their siberian lard mines!!!
And anyway, when climate change kicks in and the world descends into every-nation-for-itself anarchy, we're gonna need some form of authoritarian state power to enforce conscription into the armies needed to fight off the starving hordes massing on various national borders.
Parent
Re:Inc. China (Score:5, Insightful)
But look at what ended up on our blacklist here in Australia (it's also on wikileaks). It too was set up to counter the scourge of child porn.
But we ended up with blocked sites containing
euthanasia
abortion
malware
online gambling
It's not much of a stretch to see other politically sensitive topics being blocked.
Parent
What is it they say about systems and entropy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have evidence that some company is poisoning your groundwater, get your neighbors together and create a negative PR shitstorm for them! Organize a boycott of the company's products. Inform media sources that carry the company's advertisements that you're going to boycott them as well. Engage in some civil disobedience.
Wow. You're desperately naive, aren't you?
First off, your average corporate conglomerate is so fucking big that no little advertising campaign or boycott will make one bit of differenc
Re:Inc. China (Score:5, Insightful)
It's impossible to know that.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem is that the list is SECRET, and the selecting of offensive sites isn't up for discussion. You have no way of controlling the censorship.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Even worse [heise.de] [link target in German]: According to the linked page,
Translation (emphasis by me):
Re:Inc. China (Score:4, Interesting)
Norway must have a very tame Government then because here in the UK the IWF (a quasi governmental body answerable to just about nobody) has been making a serious grab for power over the last year. It started off with hidden lists of child porn sites and now is spreading / has spread to include "terrorist" material and "violent" pornography and they want to block more material.
Of course because the list is completely secret and it's not strictly a government body there is no accountability, they are free to do pretty much anything they want. My problem with this situation is not that they want to block access to some material it's the way the system is set up. It's so ripe for abuse it's untrue.
For a start the list should be open for review along with the reason for the block and a review period. There should also be an appeals process against a block which can come from either the site owner or a user (can't see this getting used all that often but it should be available).
Also, since it is essentially a Government body it should be accountable like a Government body not hiding behind some "we're a business / charity / trust and therefore not accountable" wall.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe that this necessary will lead to censorship of other "offensive" or politically incorrect material. Here in Norway, we've had a similar filter[1] in place for a few years now, and it hasn't been extended in any degree to include anything other than what has been deemed as child porn.
How do you know? You can't get to it, so how could you possibly know if it's child porn or if anything that isn't child porn has been censored??? How hard would it be to twist that rule without your knowledge tha
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
politically incorrect material. Here in Norway, we've had a similar filter[1] in place for a few years now, and it hasn't been extended in any degree to include anything other than what has been deemed as child porn.
The article you reference contradicts that claim: "Many of the sites on the list have no obvious connection to child pornography."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
by 2012 at the very latest, the first politically incorrect forum is on the list
by 2014 all not officially sanctioned are forbidden by default
2020 all internet is white-list only, registry is by request of The Party only.
RickRoll Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
If every breach is logged a huge percentage of Germans will be found out as perverts.
Re:RickRoll Germany (Score:5, Funny)
huge percentage of German will be confirmed to be perverts.
There fixed it for you.
I'm not trolling here either :) German porn is legendary . Can make you hard and sick at the same time :)
Parent
Re:RickRoll Germany (Score:5, Funny)
it is also known for great dialogues [youtube.com]:
- So that's the power box that we've been having problems with, if you could take a look...
- Sure, but why is this straw lying around here?"
- Hm, and why are you wearing a mask?
- Hmmm... well, give me a blowjob then.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:RickRoll Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
A good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
So... i2p2.de is getting a lot of press as an anonymous network in which to proxy your traffic.......
and...
The German BKA is planning to put up actual "STOP SIGNS" on the Internet?
If this does not force the average German to start participating, or at least thinking about way around this, I don't what will. Hopefully, you will see a ridiculously huge level of participation in this new networks and we can see on of these networks operate on something other than developer levels of participation.
There could be a silver lining in this after all...
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
the thing is, that the average german person things, these laws help preventing childrin from being raped...
its just to rediculus, but the people wont notice anything until it has to do with gasprices beeing increased or cars getting more expensive -_-
/facepalm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:/facepalm (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments always want to subdue and control. They see lack of control as the problem. Citing childporn/hatespeech/_______ is but a means to an end.
Parent
Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
It will only be used to block sites with child porn
and terrorism sites
and sites with info on building bombs
and "pro-ana" sites
and bestiality sites
and sites critical of the government
and copyright violating sites
and sites with violent images
and sites with malware
and porn sites
and sites with content that is considered to be offensive by some
and ...
ok, maybe you should worry
Re: (Score:2)
and "pro-ana" sites
I'm pretty hip, but I don't know what that means.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Worry by participating in, and voting for your local Pirate Party (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They're a big tent...err, pirate ship.
Re:Don't worry (Score:4, Interesting)
Germany's "Meinungsfreiheit":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Germany [wikipedia.org]
Under criminal code, some things you can't say: ...
"Disparagement of
* the Federal President (Section 90).
* the State and its Symbols (Section 90a).
Insult to Organs and Representatives of Foreign States (Section 103).
Rewarding and Approving Crimes (Section 140).
Dissemination of Pornographic Writings (Section 184)."
There are others, but Gerhard Shroder, former Chancellor, actually got a court order banning the media from mentioning his hair:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Freedom_of_the_press [wikipedia.org]
Oh, and if you curse at a bureaucrat, those worthless sacks of shit of which there are way too many, that's "Beamten Beleidigung" and you can get fined 5000 Euro on their word. Germany has Freedom of Speech like Iran has freedom of religion. Some people will undoubtedly point to it's recent past for legitimacy of some of the rules, but I maintain it's from people worshipping the concept of the state and having a strong central government.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. The literal English translation of Beamten is 'office holders'. but we call these people in the US or UK public/civil servants. Gives them a different level of expectation. Oh, and totally forget any kind of whistle-blowing website, it would have to be hosted offshore.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
and the Kitlers site . . . (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigbest.pl
That will be the first one on the list. Because it reveals that evil Nazi scientists escaped to South America after WWII, and obtained Hitler's DNA from the Russians, and have been mixing it with cat DNA to create Kitlers, which have been shipped around the world, to lead the "The Litter Box Putsch" in your area.
When your cat goosesteps into your living room in jackboots, you'll know the day has arrived.
Miserable failure in Finland (Score:5, Informative)
Short list of problems:
- 98+% false positives, including the top 7 or 8 google hits for "gay porn"
- Majority of sites are in the EU or US, yet the sites are still up
- The law only allows non-finnish sites to be on that list, yet a finnish site critical of the list is blocked.
Re:Miserable failure in Finland (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
To all the germans out there (Score:2)
When you vote in these elections mentioned in the summary, vote for someone who does not support censorship
Of course the problem with most modern "democracies" is that on many issues (including censorship, ridiculous IP laws, increased powers for the police etc) there is no-one to vote for who doesn't support it.
Oh and with all the crap the German government is trying to pull, it sounds like the German police may end up being Gestapo MK II in all but name.
Re: (Score:2)
When you vote in these elections mentioned in the summary, vote for someone who does not support censorship
They're already figuring that in.
Germany is currently ruled by a "large coalition", i.e. the two major parties rule together. Every time that has happened in the past, it has resulted in a) a crappy government (check) and b) less % in the next election for both of them (we'll see that soon).
They know this will very likely happen. Both parties are struggling to show that they were the "good" part of the large coalition and the others were the ones who made it all suck. I figure they hope to make the other lo
massive criticism (Score:5, Informative)
There is massive criticism against this within Germany.
Pretty much everyone who knows anything is against it, this includes both the people who know something about the technical details (i.e. IT people) as well as those who know something about child pornography, and even people who were abused as kids.
The summary of the criticism is:
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sources:
This article [heise.de] (in german) sums up most of the counter-arguments in an excellent way. It also includes a link to this interview [tagesspiegel.de] with someone who was abused as a child and opposes the new law very strongly.
Choice quote from the interview:
Because the government only wants to fight the pictures of child abuse, not the child abuse itself.
Hiccup in logic. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Some are.
How many times have we heard the defence "I downloaded it only for research purposes".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some are.
Most people are. If you take a subset of the general population that doesn't have a criterium which excludes idiots, you'll end up with lots of idiots in the subset, too.
Re:Hiccup in logic. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has as much to do with child porn as WMD's had to do with the American invasion of Iraq.
I'd say that's a pretty damn accurate way to put it.
Parent
The same in Denmark (Score:2, Informative)
We have the same in Denmark, except here it is the police and "Red Barnet" (child protection NGO) that maintains the DNS blocklist. I think all ISPs uses it.
We have had one case where a legal local site had porn banners, and was blocked due to having banners for a perfectly legal "lolita porn" site. He was delisted again after a day or 2.
The big problem with this list here in Denmark, is that there is no court involved in determining if the content is legal or not. It is Red Barnet and the police that acts
satire (Score:3, Funny)
If you can read german, this comment from a satire magazin sums it up very well:
http://titanic-magazin.de/stopp.html [titanic-magazin.de]
Sweden has it (Score:4, Informative)
Sweden already has this policy. It's a blocklist implemented in the DNS structure of Swedish ISP's. Thus it's easily avoided by anyone with even basic computer skills.
Officially it's to block kiddie porn, but there's no public examination of what sites are on the list. Also, it's been demonstrated several times that there's a lot of rather odd choices when it comes to blocking - i.e. a korean site about Bonsai trees is on the list.
There's been quite a lot of controversy surrounding this list, and it's been accused of being the start of a slippery slide towards censorship.
Also, it's essentially useless since it's easily avoided.
Making Blacklists work (Score:3, Insightful)
There is one way to make a blacklist work & prevent it from being abused. Keep it private to where only law enforcement (not politicians) can use it. Make it Wikipedia style to log the time & date of changes made as well as the UID & IP person submitting the changes. Then if the changes made are later found out to be inconsistent with the goal of the blacklist, you *arrest* the submitter & charge them with *felony* unlawful access to a computer system. If they want to be have a police state we can show them that it can work both ways.
"Related" to child pornography? (Score:3, Informative)
"Germany's government has passed a draft law for censorship of domains hosting content related to child pornography."
I don't know whether the summary was inaccurate, but the phrase "related to child pornography" is extremely disturbing. I run a website which frequently criticises child pornography laws, but doesn't contain child pornography. Will that be censored too?
Even if child pornography is the only material which is blocked, I still don't agree with the filter. Studies [newgon.com] have shown that the majority of prohibited material involving children does not depict sexual abuse. It is also ridiculous to claim that simply accessing freely available child pornography encourages the sexual abuse of children (the music industry certainly doesn't take kindly to people downloading their content without paying, so why should child pornographers?). In Germany, possessing a non-photographic "pornographic" depiction of a character who appears to a virtual child can result in a lengthy prison sentence. Will the filter "protect" cartoon children too?
The methods which the authorities used to push this filter are somehwhat suspect. Germany has, for some time, battled to persuade its citizens to accept internet filtering, however there is a fairly large civil rights community and a strong belief in the freedom of the internet, resulting in much opposition to such censorship. Just a week before the vote on the draft legislation to implement filters, German police coincidentally "broke up [bbc.co.uk]" a huge "child pornography ring", allegedly involving 9000 people. This was presumably a sting operation which involved the logging of the IP addresses of every visitor to a police-operated website, followed by raids on the properties linked to every IP address which had been logged. It doesn't matter that only 50 or so people will be convicted, because the authorities have already won....
Anyone who now opposes internet filtering will be reminded of the huge "child pornography ring" and accused of supporting the horrific sexual abuse of children for huge child pornography networks. Nobody can check the police's evidence because that would be illegal and a child would be "revictimised", while anyone who wanted to check would obviously be a paedophile. And so the draft legislation passed.
Re:STOP (Your IP has just been logged) (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
HA! They don't really know anything about it.
That's obvious.
However, it's not funny to have the Internet be taken away by people who access the Internet by reading a hardcopy made by their staff.