How Italian Police Shut Down U.S. Web Servers 573
gessel writes: "CNN has an article describing Italian police shutting down a U.S. hosted website deemed in Italy to be illegally blasphemous. The article goes on to describe the ramifications and U.S. efforts along the same lines."
Not really a law issue. (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like a non-story to me.
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this not a crime under US law? After all, unauthorized access was used to alter the site's contents.
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:2, Informative)
The article didn't say this, it said the cops used the suspect's computer and password. *If* the suspect gave up the password, it's not an unauthorized access.
There may have been a tradeoff - password for reduced sentencing or some such. But you can't assume it was unauthorized just because the article didn't say it *was* authorized.
(Yes, it would have been better had the story had that particular detail.)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:2)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:4, Informative)
Even if the access was unathorized it seems to me that the original post made it sound like the Italians somehow forced the ISP to pull protected speech off the net, which didn't happen at all. Whether some affected U.S. citizen has a case against the Italians is another matter.
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blessed Mother by whose opinion? Oh, that's right, by the opinion of your religion. What if other religions disagree? Oop, how dare they consider freedom of religious expression! There is only One True Church, right?
one does not have the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater,
No, but you can write about yelling fire in a crowded theater all you want.
and you can make the case that this is exactly what the Web site was doing, from a theological point of view.
How does this put a group of people in a confined space in immediate peril of life and limb?
Damned AC's. I should know better than to reply to them.
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:2, Interesting)
A critical difference between the "fire" in a theater business is that the hypothesis that yelling "fire" in an enclosed, public space can lead to danger to those persons in that space is testable and repeatable.
The spiritual damage that you propose is nonquantifiable and therefore difficult to test and/or repeat. This makes the banning of such "spiritually harmful" speech unfounded. It's no better than me saying that talking smack about Kermit the Frog is bad for the environment therefore we should ban such speech.
And, with respect to your crack about 2 billion people possibly being right
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not really a law issue. (Score:5, Informative)
The Italian government itself actually funded in large part with a grant a highly blasphemous movie [media-awareness.ca].
Again, this is making the news only because it seems picturesque to "journalists" worldwide. If you want to know why the Italian Police bothered with the site, follow the money - i.e. tax fraud and what not, which of course is nothing new or glamourous. Alleged blasphemy alone wouldn't have been enough to trigger the operation: witness all blasphemous Italian sites still around.
... and? (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet if you were to ask an American they would say their laws should apply no matter where the content is housed as long as they created it. So what is so different about the Italian authorities believing the same? Just because you can do things outside of the normal laws of your respective homeland doesn't suddenly give you freedom from prosecution for breaking them.
I don't agree with the laws in question here but that isn't for me to decide, it is for the local people, in this case the Italians to decide to change the laws or allow them to stay as they currently are.
Re:... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
[...blah blah...]
I love how non-Americans can get away with starting sentences like this about Americans and effectively generalize about 250+ million people, and yet if an American says something like that about Europeans or any other group we're accused of being ill-informed Ameri-centric assholes.
Curious and annoying double-standard.
You know what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it's stereotyping, yes, it's wrong.
But there IS a reason you see it so often... and that's because many, many americans DO reflect this attitude.
Re:You know what? (Score:2, Troll)
This is crap. People EVERYWHERE think their way is the best way, ESPECIALLY Europeans! At least America tends to save it's sharpest condemnations for the most outrageous offenders--China, North Korea, Iraq--while accepting that Europe is for the most part a decent place, human rights wise. Sure, we'd like to see more free speech, but we don't make anywhere near as much noise as Europeans do over, say, American capital punishment.
It's also worth mentioning that the countries we scream loudest at tend to be non-democratic --therefore they cannot claim it is the will of the people they rule that human rights violations continue.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You know what? (Score:2)
It's far more patriotic to state your opinion and risk being wrong, than to suppress an opinion and risk losing the ability to express it.
Re:... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
American's are, in general, Ameri-centric assholes.
I should know. I live here. I have since birth.
We believe atleast as strongly, if not more strongly than most nations, that our ways are the correct ones and we have the right to make others live by those same beliefs. Whatever we want is good. Whatever opposes us is bad.
Unfortunately, we also have the muscle to back up these stupid claims.
Justin Dubs
Re:... and? (Score:2)
I love guys like you. Completely removed from the world and bitching about the evil ways of your country. I would love for you to see how some people live and them come back and we'll see if you still have problems with the way we run things.
Before you decide to save the earth from your country, try cleaning out the half-truths and misconceptions that swim around wildly in your head.
Please stop proving me right. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Guess what? I am an American.
Re:... and? (Score:2)
Re:... and? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you make the decision to host your content in another country, then you should abide by the laws of that country. If I decided to write a parody and host it in North Korea (where it is illegal) I should be prepared to face the consequences.
Let me provide a counter example: Should China ba allowed to shut down a site in the U.S. because it was written by a Chinese political dissident? No. They can prosecute those who read the material within their jurisdiction, but they should have no authority over content in other countries.
Amnesty (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of amnesty, you need to be accepted by the country from whom you seek help. Should it work the same for ideas? If you are afraid your ideas will be censored by your home country, get someone in the hosting country to help you by maintaining your site. This way the police would have to act in the hosting company to censor the content.
So in this case, the Italian citizen should have contacted a U.S. citizen before being caught. The U.S. citizen could then maintain the site, and when the Italian police struck, would have simply fixed the site and changed the password. Then the Italians would have had to fight the case here in the U.S. where our laws would likely protect the content.
As I understand it, this is exactly what FreeNet is supposed to do without having to formalize a relationship with others to host your content. They host it merely by viewing it a few times without having to stick their own necks out.
Re:... and? (Score:2)
Re:... and? (Score:2)
Thereby negating any possible gains the Italian police achieved.
Re:... and? (Score:2)
I really don't think that's the case. I would guess that most people here would feel that the only laws that apply to a webserver are those of the country in which the webserver resides. It's kinda the principal behind Sealand.
However, the reason that most people here will likely not have a problem with what the Italian police did is because they did it in Italy. The Italians are free to make/enforce whatever laws they choose with regard to using someone else's password. If they choose to allow police to use the password of one of their citizens, more power to them. This might be objectionable to
Re:... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer to world government problems, of course, is the ability to get a friendly government to lend you a hand in nabbing that annoying server. And this is where the real problems of jurisdiction, laws, and citizen rights begin.
How they did it (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how this violates any US laws. Even though the server may have been in the US, the owner / responsible party of the site was in Italy and subject to Italy's laws. The Italian government has no right to FORCE any US company to do anything, but they didn't do that.
Travis
So.... (Score:2)
I mean, unless they got his expressed permission to access his site using his password, hacking is hacking.
Re:How they did it (Score:2, Redundant)
So the web site now says "HACKED BY ITALIAN POLICE!"
Law of the Web (Score:5, Interesting)
Bad writeup... (Score:3, Informative)
It also talks about other situations of goverments trying to over-reach their bounds to prosecute (or sue) people in other countries who've put up content in their own country, where it's legal there.
Also goes into the potential effects of this on places such as mailing lists and newsgroups.
All round interesting read, showing that a number of governments are trying to put an end to the "safe harbour" webservers.
One a more important note... (Score:4, Funny)
Jim Conway of the New York-based Direct Marketing Association worries that U.S. companies may have to scale back U.S. campaigns if they cannot assure that their mailing lists contain no European addresses.
Re:One a more important note... (Score:2)
Sign me up!
How did they get the suspect's password? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone know? It doesn't seem that US authorities are involved in this whatsoever, though.
Unless I misunderstand... (Score:3, Interesting)
So... What's the big deal again?
Sure, it offends me that the Italian government discourages free discourse, but that's a matter for the government and the citizens of Italy to work out. Just because the site was hosted in the US does not extend legal protection to the person running the site. This would be as if I, say, obtained a copy of the Solaris source and kept it on a server in Iran, and the US forced me to delete it in order to avoid jail time. Regardless of if you think the laws involved are intelligent, I am still subject to the laws of my country.
If the Italian government had somehow forced the US hosting company to remove the speech in question, then we'd have a serious problem to discuss here. However, that now being the case, I don't see what the issue is.
Want something real to worry about? Try this: an American U student is charged with theft for taping a speech by Tipper Gore [washingtonpost.com]. They say he "stole" her intellectual property. I suppose from now on we'll need expressed written permission from Major League Baseball to describe what our political leaders are saying...
Re:Unless I misunderstand... (Score:2)
Right. So, what did Gore's contract with Mr. Westmore say? Or did he agree to some invisible EULA when he walked through the door of a publically-funded US academic institution to hear a speech by a prominent US political figure?
Remember: Just because the people in charge tell you that you don't have any rights doesn't mean that you don't.
Has anyone tried to mirror the content yet? (Score:2, Troll)
Lee
Re:Has anyone tried to mirror the content yet? (Score:3, Informative)
google cache that, is still showing the site as it was.
Interesting twist.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does that mean that the US-based ISP can fire charges against, and request extradition of, the offending hacker from Italy?
Re:Interesting twist.. (Score:2)
I think this is the key point. Can Italian law authorize the Italian Police to access a resource owned by a person in Italy (who is probably a citzen), when that resource is located outside the country? It's my contention that the answer would be yes, simply because the intangible concept of owning the site resides within the owner himself, which would allow for jurisdiction.
Re:Interesting twist.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's change the data in the scenerio. Let's say that the files in question belonged to a company, or even a political group. Would it be legal for the Italian Police to change/move/delete files from another organization, because they consider it a violation of their laws?
It'll boil down to favor trading not points of law (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's make it even more interesting.
The Vatican is recognized by the UN as its own country, has its own police force, etc.
If I put up a site detailing the sex crimes of Catholic priests, along with pictures, name, and addresses of the perpetrators (and their governing Bishops who are covering up these crimes), and the Vatican decides doing such is against their law, can they break into my machine (hosted in the United States) and vandalize my content?
How about if, instead of an American citizen, I'm a catholic priest with Vatican 'citizenship', with the content hosted on the exact same machine (in America). Does an illegal break-in become legal simply because the citizenship of the data's owner happens to be non-American. Somehow, I think not.
I suspect the decision not to extradite the Italian police officer in question will have for more to do with politics (and favor-trading in this 'war against terror' hysteria we're in) than it will any points of law, fine or otherwise.
Even more interesting twist.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The article brings up several more interesting points, referring to a
The United States, too, is guilty of trying to extend its reach.
A U.S. copyright law was used to jail a Russian programmer in California for writing software that was legal in his country. He was later freed, but charges remain against his Russian employer.
They also talk about how they had to wait for him to attend a conference in Las Vegas before they could do anything. It seems like the laws of jurisdiction are beginning to show holes of inadequacy: just how do you deal with the global village?
But guess what -- there's even more. I double-checked this next bit when I first read it, just to make sure.
And because a large part of Internet traffic goes through the United States -- even if both sender and recipient live elsewhere -- last fall's anti-terrorism bill lets the Justice Department prosecute foreign hackers when they attack computers anywhere in the world.
Leaving aside cracks about UUNET for the moment, can you imagine the complexities of trying to enforce something like this if you are dealing with an unfriendly country that doesn't like to extradite to the U.S.? And while other countries may not be in quite the same boat as the U.S. with regards to Internet traffic hosting, let's not forget it's all going somewhere -- depending on where you're sending your traffic, it can go through several different countries before reaching its final destination. And each of those countries has its own complex legal system.
This is already a big problem (several other points mentioned in the article indicate this: e.g. the Yahoo Auctions/Nazi memoribilia difficulty), and will only get worse. Wait for the big ruckus to ensue when it's decided a world court is needed to supervise these issues and the U.S. is only one amongst many countries that refuse to accept any exterior jurisdiction (a la the World Crimes Court). The thing is that most of the world can actually agree on what constitutes a war crime against humanity -- but how do you cope with deciding if a page in cyberspace constitutes a crime when you've got as many options on what's legal and illegal as you do countries in the world?
More interesting twist... Re:Interesting twist.. (Score:2)
Whose laws apply (Score:2)
In the UK, we have something similar with VAT which is charged at different rates (or not at all) depending on which country I'm selling to.
Why should the logic be any different when we're working out whose laws apply?
The physical location of internet servers is largely academic nowadays, I have no idea where google is physically located, I just know that it's the best search engine on the net so I use it.
Re:Whose laws apply (Score:2)
The states are in quite an uproar about this, as it's quite common for people to buy stuff from out of state for the specific purpose of avoiding sales tax. I do it all the time when it comes to buying expensive computer parts where the tax would be more than the extra shipping.
Re:Whose laws apply (Score:2)
Re:Whose laws apply (Score:2)
That is incorrect in most, if not all, states. You are still obligated to pay the sales tax, but you must declare it yourself and send it in to your state taxing entity yourself.
Currently, an online business does not have to collect a sales tax from you in an online transaction, unless they have a physical presence in your state. Just because they are not collecting the tax for you does not remove your obligation to pay it - you can, in fact, face penalties for not sending the taxes in yourself, but so far those penalties have only been applied to purchases with large dollar amounts often involving jewelry or high-dollar art.
It is a common misconception.
(however, the Streamlined Sales Tax may soon bring many states into a single sales tax structure for online purchases, at which point the online merchant will collect the taxes even if they do not have a physical presence in a participating SST state, and that will remove your obligation to send the taxes in yourself since you will have paid them at the point of purchase)
Re:Whose laws apply (Score:2)
Re:Whose laws apply (Score:2)
Well, sort of... There is no US sales tax. The states each have their own taxes and rules. In Texas (where I live) you have to collect sales taxes if you sell to someone in Texas but not to someone outside the state. If I buy something from outside Texas I have to fill out a little form and pay a "use" tax instead of "sales" tax. I haven't ever heard of someone accually paying a "use" tax. If I buy something from a company in another state that is doing Business in Texas, they have to charge me sales tax based on their location in Texas (I think). Also most cities have their own sales tax so it can get more complicated.
In the UK, we have something similar with VAT which is charged at different rates (or not at all) depending on which country I'm selling to.
I think that is the EU's way of collecting a "sales" like tax so people won't cheat and buy something from Germany instead of the UK or other places to avoid the local taxes.
Why should the logic be any different when we're working out whose laws apply?
Mostly I don't want the UK goverment or any goverment outside the US tell me that I can't host something they don't like on the 'net. If it's hosted in the UK then fine, but if it's hosted in the US their laws just don't apply. The same goes for the US (MPAA/RIAA) shutting down sites on NON-US hosts. If it's not against the law in the UK and is against the law in the US tough shit. The US shouldn't have any recourse outside of asking politely. The same goes for everyone else.
It does not matter where the server is.. (Score:2)
Nobody prevents somebody in the US to restore that site.
The irony is... the blasphemous words contained in the site are part of the url [porcamadonna.com] and are present in the page the police put up. I guess somebody in Italy should sue the police.
Hacking (Score:2)
When will the US courts have the balls to press hacking, theft of identity, and computer fraud charges against the Italian government?
I don't know if I'm joking or not.
Re:Hacking (Score:2)
No biggie (Score:2)
The ISP should restore from backup and tell the idiot to keep his password secret.
David Farber (Score:2)
David Farber, the moderator of a popular online mailing list on technology with recipients all over the globe, envisions a time when he'll have to cut back on his postings for fear of lawsuits elsewhere.
Many countries do not value free speech the way the United States does, nor do they give speakers as much leeway in defending libel lawsuits. So mailing list mavens like Farber need to be concerned about whether items they post might violate a law somewhere.
"We live in a world where we communicate worldwide and we travel worldwide," Farber said. "If I violate some Australian law and then land in Sydney, do they throw me in jail?"
While the article makes no mention of it, David Farber is no mere ordinary citizen, he's the Chief Technologist of the FCC [fcc.gov] (yes, this is the same David Farber -- the photo in the CNN article is him)
Yes, the FCC does not regulate the Internet itself. Yet, if anyone is in a position to do something about such questionable tactics on a government policy level, it's Mr. Farber...
Re:David Farber (Score:2)
Was, for a year. He stepped down in, IIRC, January 2001.
Re:David Farber (Score:4, Insightful)
It's worth repeating that the originator of this technique was the United States with the Skarlov(sp?) case. The US, in effect, used legal pretense to abduct a visiting foreign national for breaking our laws while living and and a citizen of another country.
If another country, say Iran, had imprisoned a US citizen for speaking his mind while living in the US, the Marine Corps battle flag would be flying over the rubble of Teheran by now. But, of course, might makes right, so that will just have to remain one of life's little injustices.
As, then, will this concept of having your travel restricted by exercising your (US) rights.
Flashback ... (Score:3, Funny)
Ob Monty Python! (Score:2)
Re:Ob Monty Python! (Score:3, Funny)
Etc.
Re:Flashback ... (Score:3, Funny)
Like "The Comfy Chassis", perhaps?
We need to respect other countries extridition law (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think so...
We do not have the right to interfere with the laws of other countries (unless it is flat out human rights violatations and the enslaved are being used to build a war machine against us) Being that the USA is a melting pot, we have been taught to respect the belief's and values of other cultures.
The content was created in italy, by an italian. Being Italian myself, the story sort of took a special note with me.
Let's say someone in the US was creating kiddie porn sites and hosting them offshore. Most states in the US make it illeagle to have nudes of anyone under 18. The laws in other countries differ, you can marry as young as 14 and still be legal. Should we exempt someone dealing in kiddie porn just because their site is offshore? No! Of course not.
So if that is the logic applied here, then why in gods name would we want to impose a double standard to our allied nations laws? It doesn't bode well with "keeping the peace"
my
Re:We need to respect other countries extridition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We need to respect other countries extridition (Score:2)
Re:We need to respect other countries extridition (Score:2, Flamebait)
You are kidding, right? The USA has only respect for its own culture (if one can call it that). Britain, France and most other European countries prohibited slavery, racism et al. at least 150 years ago. The USA was still in a state of racial segregation in the fifties!
Re:We need to respect other countries extridition (Score:2)
Please. So the US outlawed slavery 10 years after Britain did. But it wasn't the US that murdered 7 million people because of their race in the 1940's.
Re:We need to respect other countries extridition (Score:3, Informative)
Still though it doesn't matter WHERE it's hosted. What matters is who created and uploaded the content from where, and what local laws they've broken.
In italy there is hardly and seperation between church and state, the vatican pretty much runs it all. The catholic religion is a very HUGE part of italian culture and to the italians desecrating the virgin is a VERY serious thing. I know this because my family is VERY italian and despite living in the USA we still hold strong to our belief system.
The thing is, the guy was in his own country when he did the offense. He probably TOLD them his password for a lighter sentance. How is that unauthorized access? It isn't! Shit if I was facing 10 years in the slag vs. 1 year for giving up my password, well then here! **********
You really gotta understand the culture, we have extridition treaties with italy for a reason. Nothing was extridited though, it italy it's probably leagle to search someones computer. There might be a law giving the state the right to do it, we just don't know because we don't live there. If there is a law like that, it's just a part of living in italy, and being a citizen.
If american hosting companies are afraid of foriegn goverments doing this to their citizens then they shouldn't do business with them. Simple as that. They should have a big ass bold lettering in their TOS like this..
We do not provide service to accounts from Italy, Cuba, China, Russia because we do not agree with thier censorship laws"
Thing is, we're so strapped for cash right now, I think many companies are more willing to make a buck than to fight for some censorship issue.
my take on it.
Deal with it.
Legal authority? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Legal authority? (Score:2)
I fail to make the connection here. How would these websties fall under either of those categories? I would imagine that anyone in the U.S. wishing to mirror the offending site would be outside the Italian government's jurisdiction. That being said I still wouldn't be suprised if they tried to so something about it. I just don't believe they'd be successful.
Just human nature. (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's face it. When people get involved things get screwed up.
Residence (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, the police seemed to act more like 15-year-old hackers than police. They "...used a suspect's computer and password to reach across the ocean and replace the offending images with the insignia of the special police unit that tracked him down." That really doesn't seem very professional to me.
New bumber sticker... (Score:2)
Re:New bumber sticker... (Score:2)
IP block blocking in the future? (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, Yahoo could have chosen to block all traffic from French based ISPs and net ranges to their Auction site in response to the French courts. While we, as technical people, know this would not necessarily block French citizens from viewing the content, as has been proven by Napster, courts do have different interpretations of what works and what doesn't.
Some ISPs have already advocated this for blocking spam -- China is the first to get listed when people talk about who to block to protect mail servers against spam, and thus whole blocks of Chinese IP addresses get blocked from mail servers.
Will this start to happen to other services as well, simply to minimize risk due to laws in other countries.
I know I'd rather block IPs from other countries than risk being taken to court
Dave
From the article (Score:3, Insightful)
italy descents into fascism ... again. (Score:3, Troll)
Jurisdictional issues (Score:4, Insightful)
There are three factors at work here:
1. The country in which the material was physically produced. Itally.
2. The country in which the author resides. Itally.
3. The country in which the material was published. United States.
Note that 1 and 2 do not necessarily have to be the same, and may be complicated.
In order for a country to have complete jurisdiction, al three categories should take place within that country: the author should be there, it should be produced there, and it should be published there.
In cases where the material is produced in one country and published in another, the country where the material was published should have jurisdiction to regulate or not regulate that material: in the case of a web-site, to take it down or not, or to censor it or not. No other country than that of publication should have this power.
That's the easy question. The hard one is which country should have jurisdiction over the author -- i.e., punishing him or not, according to laws? It certainly should not necessarily be the country of publication. The question is, should it be the country where the author resides or the country where the material was produced. They can be different. I can, for example, log into a server in Taiwan and type up a document there. In that case, the author resides in the US, but the material was produced in Taiwan.
Though this seems like a difficult question, its actually very easy if you liken it to real-world scenaries. If I -- a US citizen -- leave the United States and go to another country (for vacation) which has different laws regulating, say, murder, I am accountable only to those laws, not US laws. The laws of one nation should stay within that nations borders; they should not follow that nations citizens around the world where-ever they may go. This would require that vacationing citizens would have to consider two different sets of laws to obey -- an unreasonable request. It may even require that citizens obey two contradictory laws -- an impossible request.
Thus, the nation where the material was produced should have governing authority over the person who produced it, *provided* that person is in that nation at the time. I.e., this does not mean that the US can prosecute someone in Taiwan because he logged into a US system from remote to produce some material. However, it does mean that Taiwan cannot prosecute that person. It also means that should the person come to the US, he can be prosecuted in the US because he produced the offending material in the US, remotely from Taiwan.
Lets apply this to the Dmitry Skylarov case. This means that the US has the jurisdiction to regulate that content within the US, but not the jurisdiction to prosecute anyone who wrote that content, as the content was produced in Russia.
Re:Jurisdictional issues (Score:3, Insightful)
So. This Italian fellow should go to prison for blasphemy, and the Italian police officers that hacked his site should be extradited to the US to face their terrorism/hacking charges. Blasphemy was committed in Italy, and hacking was committed in the US.
Servers? (Score:3)
I suppose if the account holder later calls back in to complain, there's something. But it WAS his account that was used. If the police were able to find out his password, he should have made better efforts to conceal it. As it stands, no legal action was taken against the hosting company, they weren't even burdened with a request to remove anything.
I guess I'm just not getting TOO excited about this.
-Restil
BULLS*** , Sensationalism and Slash (Score:5, Informative)
What they did do, was CHANGE the content in question REMOTLEY. They made no effort to have the ISP or the US goverment TERMINATE the hosting of these sites, what they did was (probably with a rubber hose and blackjack) get the username and password and altered the site.
I hate when people say something other than happened, I read the damm headline an just about panicked that they somehow did this through LEGAL channels in the US , THEY DID NOT
What they did is no different than what a 12 year old script kiddie could have done with a username and password. they changed content, there is a HUGE difference betwwen CHANGING content and "Shutting Down" a website, if the fellow had US cronies that were willing to host it the Italians could do absolutley NOTHING about it. Im half tempted to get a cached copy and host it for the fellows. Let the meatballs try and shut it down.
Re:BULLS*** , Sensationalism and Slash (Score:3, Informative)
What they did do, was CHANGE the content in question REMOTLEY.
Buddy, the net result is the same -- the content is removed from the Internet.
Whether that's by deleting the virtual host in IIS metabase, or 'killall httpd', or FTPing in and blowing away the content, the net result is that people can no longer view the site in question.
I mean, really... the mechanics of how it occurred are totally moot. The site was taken down one way or the other, which was WAY out of their [the Italians'] jurisdiction. Period.
Cases like this remind me of Swiss bank accounts (Score:2, Interesting)
Just as we store money in foreign contries to keep it safe from our local policies, the Italians in question stored their (publicly available) information in our country to keep it safe from theirs.
Extradition of Data? (Score:2)
To further this idea, if they 'happened' to have an FBI password that they obtained, and went in and deleted files that they thought were 'illegal' to them, wouldn't that be seen as another county trying to hack the US?
Just a thought, but I am really apalled by this whole turn of events. It's really sad that those who are religous, aren't even strong enough in their faith to be able to deal with other views. They can only deal with their own and must irradicate all others.
Blasphemy? Is this the 13th century? (Score:4, Insightful)
someone in the modern world is being punished
for the crime of blasphemy -- and the country
doing it is not having their UN charter revoked,
and US Marines are not forcefully liberating the
person being held hostage by this regime.
Re:Blasphemy? Is this the 13th century? (Score:4, Funny)
HAVENCO (Score:2)
this is the perfect test of such a "country"
Hey malda - how about getting a havenco rep on a
Italian police, so powerfull :) (Score:2)
Spam quote the coolest (Score:5, Interesting)
Jim Conway of the New York-based Direct Marketing Association worries that U.S. companies may have to scale back U.S. campaigns if they cannot assure that their mailing lists contain no European addresses.
Someone let me know if this DOES happen.. I'll be wanting a European email address the minute it occurs
Whats the fuss? (Score:3, Funny)
Maeryk
US threatening my website (Score:5, Interesting)
Recently, I've been contacted by the FTC in the USA saying my site is not compliant with some new legislation called COPPA - the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act. I replied to them, pointing out that I was resident in Australia and this was reflected in the WHOIS record for my domain. I got a personal (ie. not form letter) response from one of their lawyers, basically saying they don't care where I live, and the legislation explicitly mentions non-resident sites (with some fairly vague caveats: http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.htm point 20).
They have since started sending me snail mail (based on my whois record) with friendly messages encouraging compliance, but making it very clear they are watching me.
While I applaud COPPA and support its principles, I do resent being legally threatened by another countries government.
At this point, I have chosen to remain non-compliant. I don't do anything explicitly "wrong" under the act, I don't sell kids email addresses (from an e-card page), etc. But I haven't complied to their privacy policy requirements. I want to see what they do and how far they take this. At the end of the day, compliance is a trivial task and if they get really nasty, I can become compliant in 30 minutes. But it's the principle - I'm Australian and I'm not interested in the laws of another country. I'm sure
Act of War (Score:3, Funny)
Glad I'm not President, or else I would have bombed Rome upon first mention of this incident.
A trend ? (Score:3, Informative)
It's becoming a trend to do things you want, just if you can get away with it..
Just look at USA/UK on Iraq.
Things are getting OK, simply if you can do them without beeing punished..
Stay tuned for this becoming the norm in all aspects of society..
Re:Umm, is anyone out there? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, if local authorities sat down at someone's PC and deleted their collection of Kiddie Porn, would that still be a "complete and total anathema" to most Americans? I don't think so.
Yes, here in America we respect people's religious beliefs, but don't assume that the same applies in other countries. I'm sure that to some people in Italy, the idea of combining pornography with images of the Virgin Mary is just as repulsive or more so as Kiddie Porn.
Re:Umm, is anyone out there? (Score:2)
The standard here in the USA is not so much repulsiveness, it's that kiddie porn involves physically and psychologically abusing children. That's illegal (and repulsive), whether or not it involves speech.
Repulsiveness is a poor standard. Why should you (or anyone) get to impose their standard of what's repulsive on anyone else? Especially if it's in private.
Re:Umm, is anyone out there? (Score:2)
I could be wrong on this, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but wasn't there just a court finding somewhere here in the US that ruled that even virtual kiddie porn is still illegal, even if no real children are involved?
I don't want to sound like I'm pro kiddie porn, as I'm not, but even if no real children are involved, is it still illegal and repulsive, or just illegal?
I agree that repulsiveness is a poor standard, but every country, and even regions within countries, will have different standards of what is repulsive. It just happens that here in the US, we consider naked pictures of anyone under the age of 18 to be 'repulsive' and are thus illegal. In Italy, blaspheming the Virgin Mary is 'repulsive' and is thus illegal.
Re:Umm, is anyone out there? (Score:2)
- Children are abused (ie: watching actual kiddie porn)
- Children will eventually get abused (ie: watching "fake" kiddie porn and then acting on impulses)
So in either case, so the reasoning goes, children will be harmed in the end. This brings up some interesting questions (are we therefore guilty until proven innocent, and are we guilty for having the thoughts, etc?), but again, if you accept the argument, that's where it stands. So it's not so much that the virtual kiddie porn itself is illegal because it's repulsive, but that it'll bring a tangible Bad Thing upon someone else. Whereas with the Virgin Mary bit (aha! back on topic!) the worst you can end up doing is offending someone. Well, I suppose if you believe in the whole mess, the worst you could do is burn forever in hell, but I digress.-or-
Blue Gravity? Re:US Laws? (Score:2)
Is Blue Gravity claiming ownership of the contents of the web-site?
Doubt it, that's copyright the author, under international law. But if the Italian police have violated US law, then, bearing in mind the Italian police have admitted they hacked the account, are Blue Gravity going to be restoring the web pages from backup tape? ;-)
Re:How ironic. (Score:2)