German State Alters DNS To Censor Web Sites [updated]

Rabenwolf writes: "In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the first ISP (ISIS Multimedia) has given in to pressure from the state government and has started to block foreign websites with supposedly "illegal content" by changing the corresponding DNS entries. ISIS customers trying to access these sites are redirected to the website of the local government. ISPs in North Rhine-Westphalia will have to pay a fine if they continue to provide access to sites with "illegal content" through their DNS servers. It's not as bad as China or Saudi-Arabia, but it makes you think... An article from the heise newsticker is here, and if you don't sprechen Deutsch, Google might help." Update: 11/22 15:23 GMT by T : As sqrt points out, this report is misleading: "A single technican altered the DNS Entries to demonstrate it is possible. His changes were already reversed. Heise already posted a new story about this today."

Well..

[Captain Zion]

Just use a different name server then.

Pathetic attempt

[kieran]

Anyone finding themselves redirected can use any number of simple DNS tools to find out the real IP (by querying a root server, then the authorative server), then simply access the site by IP rather than FQDN. This may sound a little technical for Johann average, but not when simple instructions are made available to them.

(This would not work with sites that rely on HTTP1.1 to tell them the name of the site, so that many sites can be hosted on a single IP, but that is less widely used than it might be.)

Site-Restriction Already retracted

[absolut_kurant]

according to this [heise.de] article on heise, the restriction is no longer in effect. According to the press officer, a technician did it on his own and not in accordance with company policies.

Re:IP addresses?

[WWWWolf]

If this is based on DNS entries, tnen what is stopping people using the IP addresses instead?

Well, this one little thing: Virtual hosts... If there's multiple DNS names pointing on same server, the server hicups if it sees someone wanting just the page and not providing the host name in Host: header.

Re:Site-Restriction Already retracted

[Cryus]

In this Press-Release [bezreg-due...orf.nrw.de] (german of course) the government claims that the ISPs efforts must have been effective because of all the e-mails they received from people complaining about this sort of censorship. I wonder how many consumers of Nazi-content are among those who (like me) protested against the governments course to violate some of our constitutional rights.

List of blocked sites.

[Cryus]

The Caos Computer Club has a transcript [www.ccc.de] of the letters sent to the ISPs by the Government. They demanded the blocking of: front14.org, stormfront.org, nazi-lauck-nsdapao.com for illegal nazi-content (which is illegal in Germany for historical reasons) and rotten.com As a site that uses pictures undermining the dignity of man and endangering the youth. I'd personaly - as a german citizen - prefer to see more money spent on media-education so people could make an informed decision about good and bad links to follow than on this campaign that opens doors to censorship (which is against our constitution btw.)

Sites NOT blocked anymore

[Rabenwolf]

As somebody else said already, the story was retracted after I submitted it. Apparently a technician changed the DNS entries without authorization from his superiors to demonstrate how easily it could be circumvented. But the state government is still trying to get the ISPs to adapt these measures. Read more about it here [google.com].

Re:Site-Restriction Already retracted

[hearingaid]

Results of Babelfish on the Heise article:

Isis takes blocking back from Internet pages

The Duesseldorfer Internet provider Isis [altavista.com] took the blocking back of four [altavista.com] on-line supplies again. " the barrier decreased/went back to the initiative of an individual technician. It corresponded not to the policy of the enterprise ", said Isis speaker Thomas Werz. It concerned itself thereby around four pages with right-wing extremists as well as force-wonderful-ends to contents from the USA, which were attainable for the Isis customers for Monday no longer.

The technician had wanted to demonstrate on own fist that a technical solution for the blocking from Internet pages was possible, in addition, easily to be gone around can, avowed Werz opposite heise on-line. This should not have occurred however in all public; Werz apologized in the name of the company at the customers. Isis aims at a political solution with the Duesseldorfer district government.

From Monday to today one had gone out in the enterprise erroneously with it, the technician in arrangement with the management concerned, stressed Werz. Accordingly a Isis spokeswoman had justified the side blocking yesterday in relation to the public.

During his public demonstration the technician had followed arbitrarily a request of the district government Duesseldorf. This had before reminded the ACCESS Provider as North-Rhine/Westphalian supervision of Internet to lock four pages from the USA. Approximately ten Provider reacted according to specification of the authority country-wide so far to it [altavista.com]. The measures are strongly disputed in the Internet municipality. Thus the chaos computer club called [altavista.com] the attempts of the district government to let Internet pages lock censorship in the Internet. "this is a crucial step into the false direction."

The district government Duesseldorf [altavista.com] tries as country-wide Internet control instance for some time to let pages with illegal contents lock by the ACCESS Provider [altavista.com]. On 13 November a hearing with 90 Internet Providern took place for this reason. At that time the providers referred particularly to technical problems, in order to lock pages from the foreign country. According to estimations of the Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA [altavista.com]) approximately 90 per cent of the more than 1000 right-wing extremists German-language Internet supplies from the foreign country are fed into the network.

See to the topic also the contribution network barrier for Fritzchen stupid [altavista.com] in Telepolis. (anw [mailto] / c't)

Ah, good old machine translation. Yet, it's still Better than Nothing. "force-wonderful-ends" :)

It gets worse

[YKnot]

Now that ISIS has stopped blocking the sites under massive objection from free speech advocates, the local government has released a press statement in which they claim that ISIS gave in to racist pressure. Guess we're all nazis now because we didn't want to allow our government to take the easy route to complete content control.
The statement is here: Pressemitteilung 467/2001 der Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf vom 22.11.2001 [bezreg-due...orf.nrw.de]

Re:Site-Restriction Already retracted

[YKnot]

Several other providers, including at least one university, still block the sites. Some have more effective blocking than DNS redirection in place.

Against the German constitution?

[BlueGecko]

I'm an American, not a German, but I thought that Germany's constitution forbade this. In particular, quoting from Article 5:

(1) Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden gewährleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt.

Or, in English:

(1) Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate his opinion in speech, writing, and pictures and to freely inform himself from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films are guaranteed. There will be no censorship.

Could someone who is German or who has studied German law please clarify?

Re:Against the German constitution?

[DarkDust]

There is the exception that you may not express hate speech, deny the Nazi cruelties or use racist expressions.

Re:Will this teach slashdot editors?

[YKnot]

The update needs an update: the blocking continues, just not ISIS but other providers, ISIS does not seem to be very open about what has really happened and according to our local government almost all who protested are are probably nazis.

Re:IP addresses?

[platypus]

Well, this one little thing: Virtual hosts... If there's multiple DNS names pointing on same server, the server hicups if it sees someone wanting just the page and not providing the host name in Host: header.

Well, two little things (one for *nix, one for windows nt):

• /etc/hosts
• $WINDIR\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

$cientology disk defragmenter in Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding what was reported by the German computer magazine c't: [cisar.org]
http://cisar.org/991203a.htm

Regarding M$ capitulation and offering to remove the code (the only time M$ has ever provided a patch to REMOVE a piece of software): http://www.zdnet.com/windows/stories/main/0,4728,2 650088,00.html [zdnet.com]

A recent issue of c't indicated that the disk fragmenter has silently been re-incorporated into Windows XP. Sorry, can't find a link.

Watch your back.

Human translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Please note that this is not the latest news. Isis has removed the blocking, stating that it was installed by a technical staff member without consulting the management.

First Blocking of Web Sites in NRW

In North Rhine-Westphalia, a first internet provider has started blocking certain web sites with alleged right-wing extremist content. Isis Multimedia Net, a provider located in Düsseldorf, already changed the respective DNS entries on monday. Isis customers now find themselves on a web site of Düsseldorf's district government when entering one of the addresses in question.

The basis for this is a request by the district goverment sent to all access providers of the federal state, asking for the blocking of certain foreign web sites with illegal content. An Isis spokesperson explained the blocking was performed due to being threatened by a fine. The goverment had informed them about the illegal content, so now they were required to act.

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) opposed "censoring" the internet. "The massive restrictions for the citizens in execising their free speech rights are unacceptable," said CCC spokesperson Jens Ohlig.

The authorities had invited various providers on November 13 to dicuss technical details of blocking internet content. In this hearing, the content providers questioned the possibility of an effective blocking of unpleasent web sites hosted abroad. The participants finally agreed to discuss technical possibilities in a special interest group.

Re:Pathetic attempt

[Cyberdyne]

(This would not work with sites that rely on HTTP1.1 to tell them the name of the site, so that many sites can be hosted on a single IP, but that is less widely used than it might be.)

Also, you can put the IP address in the hosts file; then, everything will work fine. Or just run your own DNS daemon locally (djbdns [cr.yp.to] is good for this), which is easy on *nix platforms, and you won't even notice the site being "censored" :-)

Of course, if too many people do this, the govt might grow a brain and try a more effect means of censorship; on the plus side, one-way air tickets are quite cheap these days...

Re:Against the German constitution?

[yooden]

Could someone who is German or who has studied German law please clarify?

I studied this law, as in: I read the next paragraph:
(2) These rights are limited by the provisions of the general laws, the provisions of law for the protection of youth and by the right to inviolability of personal honor.

Just as in other countries, the constitutional court will decide (if called) if this specific law is unconstitutional. They upheld Art. 5 a few years ago when someone used a very short quote ('Soldiers are murderers') of a longer text (Der bewachte Kriegsschauplatz [uni-ulm.de]), to raise sentiments against the NATO armed forces.

Re:Against the German constitution?

[pafrusurewa]

Article 5 continues as follows:

(2) Diese Rechte finden ihre Schranken in den Vorschriften der allgemeinen Gesetze, den gesetzlichen Bestimmungen zum Schutze der Jugend und in dem Recht der persönlichen Ehre.

This translates as:

(2) These rights are restricted by general laws, legal regulations concerning the protection of the youth and by the right of personal honour.

I am neither a lawyer nor German, but I guess there are German laws that somewhat restrict the distribution of Nazi ideology.

ISIS is blocking again.

[tlr]

The fake DNS entries on ISIS' server are active again. Note that they are not just redirecting www.rotten.com, but the entire domain, via a wildcard CNAME entry.