Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters 309
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."
Well, someone has to say it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Heil.
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say:
"I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop."
In other words... MWAAAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
MUUUWHAHAHAHAHA.
If you're going to have an evil laughter, do it right, man!
The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
and couldnt handle it... welcome to the new world order
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is depressing, so many states are bringing in their own petty versions of the chinese firewall that it's getting close to critical mass where in any country where it isn't done the call will become "well they're doing it in all these other countries!They care about the children there! Protect the children!"
they don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
When will legislators learn that censoring the Internet will not fix the problem, it will force it deeper underground. The creeps who want to look at child porn will still have access to it, they'll just get better at hiding it.
Where exactly is child porn legal to host (Score:4, Insightful)
Der China (Score:4, Insightful)
It appears Germany is returning to the days of East Germany
Re:Where exactly is child porn legal to host (Score:3, Insightful)
Where exactly is child porn legal to host to the point where it is easier to filter the entire pipe rather than having the sites taken down?
1.- It's always easier to filter the entire pipe.
2.- Questioning the filter clearly indicates you must be a pedophile. Or a terrorist.
Or both. ... Somehow. .... Maybe you strap kiddy porn to your bombs, or something.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing that I'm certain would be a part of future "wishes and plans" to censor (if not already part of the proposed filter) would be Nazi paraphernalia. Of course, it starts with the indefensible neo-Nazi sites and hate groups, but gradually, this sort of thing can begin to erode the historical record.
Could this ultimately help Germany develop historical blind spots?
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
Can be and will be are two completely different things.
See the UK block of Wikipedia and Wayback Machine.
Come on! Censor all you want. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing we need to implement a fully encrypted internet is a reason to do so.
And then the real fun will come.
Fuckers.
More people should read "the art of war" and concentrate on the paragraph about not starting battles you're going to lose until they finally understood it's meaning.
Seamless progression (Score:3, Insightful)
then go after sites that shows models that look underage... a bit more debatable
then go after all porn... something is about to explode
then block "by mistake" the opposite party web sites around next election... oops!
But, they do get it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about hosing off the slippery slope. This is why the filthy speech movement had to be crushed at all cost. There must also always be a creep du jour to shine a light on the problem, remember. Once we run out of perverts we'll see about YOUR vile proclivities.
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Filtering is not about censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a global push by certain interests to get governments and ISPs to support filtering. The reason has nothing to do with child porn, that is a justification that ensures no-one will complain... would you defend the rights of child pornographers?
The real motivation here from big business is first to block the global trade in copyrighted digital goods: music, movies, TV (Vivendi, IFPI, et al). Second, to sell masses of shiny technology (Cisco et al). Third, to lock down the computer and turn it into a controlled environment where FOSS is not permitted (MSFT et al).
Governments are eager for this because they trust big business to draw the line, and because they do not trust their citizens. They fear the end of the State thanks to a flat global digital economy, and the firewalls are about stopping and controlling that.
Note the Data Retention Directive passed three years ago which mandated the storage of data on every communication (phone call, email, web click), which banned anonymous wifi, cybercafes, and mobile phones, and which was also passed as a tool against "child pornographers and organised criminals".
This would be very depressing, since the State (and don't forget, every State in existence was born in blood) has all the power.
However, the digital society seems to have its first world leader, and IMO the old industrial world, with its censorships and tolls anti-social property models, is already on the way out.
The statistics are mind-boggling. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's do the math...
Approximately 23% of the world population is online now. There are approximately 6.7 billion people on the planet right now. So about 1.5 billion people. And let's say 5% of them are regularily active and have contribute 1 web page per month; and everybody else is a lurker and never contribute anything. That's 900 million web pages per year, or 246,564 per day. Now we know the growth is far higher than this, but let's humor ourselves with the low-ball estimate.
Now, let's also assume that someone is going to be looking at these websites. We'll say it takes 20 seconds for them to view and categorize a website for their black list. and let's assume they're slaved to their desk for the entire 8 hours, never blinking. That's 480 minutes of slaving, which gives us 1,440 reviews they can make per day. So to keep up with our low-ball estimate, they need 172 net slaves doing nothing but reviewing web pages. All day. Every day. And they will not stop until all the pr0n is found. Now... stop and realize the numbers are orders of magnitude higher. -_- Also realize that the internet is not the web. There are dozens if not hundreds of protocols to monitor, across many mediums -- cell phones, telecommunications, wifi, and good old fashioned sneaker-net.. e-mails, text messages, picture messages... the list goes on.
This, fundamentally, is the problem with large-scale surveillance of the population. It's too resource intensive. Even if you have algorithms that are 99.9% accurate in identifying "bad" material, with 900 million new web pages per year, that's 900,000 webpages that are incorrectly flagged -- 2,500 people's lives ruined by false accusation. Per day.
And just like sex offender registries and other draconian measures to keep someone who's been "touched" by the system in it forever, as soon as the technology exists to do the same thing to people on the internet... They too shall be endlessly recycled and chewed on by a faceless and uncaring system. And the justification shall be that it's okay to ruin a few innocent lives if it protects the rest of us from the big bad boogie men.
Here's my point, fundamentally. Let's say there are a 200,000 -- in Germany alone -- that are pedophiles. Out of about 8 million. And let's say that you have a method of detection where you run these people through it and 99.9% of the time, it gives the right result. What that means is for 8,000 people -- would guess wrong if you ran the entire population through it. What that means is your "99.9%" accurate system flags about 1 person in 20 as a bad guy when they're not. Of course, this assumes that 1 person per 40 is a pedophile. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's unreasonably high... So that means that the 1 per 20 is an optimistic case. Think about that. 1 in 20 people that the system flags is innocent. When the hysteria over the crime is such that the mere accusation is enough to destroy a person, is this a number we're comfortable with?
And if you're thinking it's "just" a black list.. Don't forget that your access attempts are logged. Just why were you trying to access a site we know to have child porn on it, Citizen?
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no way you can block illegal content without destroying freedom of speech. Even if the blacklist is public, there is no way of knowing what kind of content has been blocked.
The right way to treat illegal content is prosecution and/or take-down notices.
Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is like trying to stop politicians from abusing their power, wait that's exactly what it is.
If it's a public list then the argument is that it's basicly a list of interesting sites for any pedophile who's looking for sites.
If it's not public then it's utterly open for abuse.
Either way if you are told a URL is on the list either you are not able to check if it's really an abuse of the system or you can check meaning the system isn't working.
So take your pick.
A system which can be abused or a system which actually blocks content.
Even if a system effectively blocks content the pedophiles will just switch to a darknet and ignore your puny blocks making it ineffective.
So take your pick. ,easily abused and an affront to freedom of speach.
A system which is expensive,ineffective and an affront to freedom of speach.
A system which is expensive,ineffective
A system which doesn't exist.
Videogame wisdom.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freedom is only "free" if blood is freely spilt (Score:2, Insightful)
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at
No, they don't. I never granted them that right. That they do it anyways is due to an imbalance in power. As a practical matter, I have no effective way to stop them (e.g. their army is bigger than mine). That doesn't make it right.
Re:Freedom is only "free" if blood is freely spilt (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, right up until the point where making things difficult for evil people impinges on the freedom of non-evil people. When forced to make that choice, I always choose the rights of the non-evil, even if it means allowing some evil to exist. Others, apparently including you, would optimize in the other direction. I doubt anything either of us could say would change the other's mind.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
because it is not about Child Porn, it is about control.
Re:The statistics are mind-boggling. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Surly the communists were at the time, considered as bad as the Nazis.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:4, Insightful)
The irony is the Doublespeak.... er talk:
- "We must not allow children to have access to pornography or nudity!"
- "We must start teaching our children about sex and sex-related diseases - even as early as kindergarten."
Um.
So how do I, as a parent and teacher, educate my children about sex & how to avoid disease, if all the sites are being blocked by government filters? Ooops! I swear the pro-big-governent people have split personalities - the left side of the brain doesn't know what the right side is doing, and so we get contrary policies that nullify one another.
Freedom is the answer. "From time to time some persons may abuse their freedoms, but the inconvenience of these abuses is minor compared to the inconvenience of loss of liberty for all persons, also called tyranny." - Founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson
Re:Where exactly is child porn legal to host (Score:3, Insightful)
The legality of hosting doesn't really matter. Consider for a moment how easy it is to implement a national filtering proxy and add an entry to blacklist, compared to how much work actually goes into taking down a site.
Why blacklist it when you could monitor it and nab pedophiles in action? I mean, if we're heading in the police state direction, why not go for effective police state solutions? If you blacklist it, you might find a suspect, but you'd have a hard time proving that it wasn't someone innocently stumbling onto the IP. If you get them downloading pictures, then that's different.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being allowed to speak also means being allowed to speak back.
Even though bad ideas are allowed to be spoken in a society with free speech it also means that counter arguments are allowed to be made.
If you restrict the bad ideas from being spoken you also stop the counter arguments and those that would speak them assume the bad ideas are right BECAUSE of the very restrictions against them and thus the system devised to stop those ideas instead reinforces them.
Re:In other words... (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing that I'm certain would be a part of future "wishes and plans" to censor (if not already part of the proposed filter) would be Nazi paraphernalia. Of course, it starts with the indefensible neo-Nazi sites and hate groups, but gradually, this sort of thing can begin to erode the historical record.
Could this ultimately help Germany develop historical blind spots?
It'll eventually lead to people forgetting what the Nazis were about. And of course, someone will eventually decide that the gov't is hiding something because the Nazis had something right (and the gov't doesn't want you to know about it); eventually it will lead to Nazi sympathizers.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since access to pornography seems to correlate with reduction in sex crimes such as assaults, I'd have to say that no, it isn't a good thing, not for the children at least. It's quite understandable, really: a pedophile with one hand on a mouse and another in his pants doesn't have a third one to molest a child with simultaneously, and just doesn't have the energy to afterwards.
I've never quite understood why our politicians want pedophiles out in the streets, sexually frustrated and amidst all the temptations, rather than quietly masturbating with pornography and hurting no one; maybe these politicians simply hate children and want them to get molested ?
So, German politicians: why do you hate children so much ?
Ah, I guess that would explain it. I have to admit, thought, advocating a policy that will get children raped just to advance their own career is pretty low, even for a politician.
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
For basic philosophical reasons. This problem runs deeper than which party is in power today. Unlike the authors of the American Constitution, modern politicians (and much of the voting public) believe that you are a weak and helpless being who needs to be protected for your own good. Supposedly, you do not have the right to make your own decisions, but you do have the right to force others to take care of you by giving you food, housing, education, medical care, and so on. In other words, you're a baby or a pet to them, not a free adult. Until the public understands this nasty implication of the welfare state, it's going to keep voting itself into oblivion.
(Incidentally, have you been hearing the phrase "It is what it is" as often as I have lately? It's eerily like "Who is John Galt?".)
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
If all ( most ) countries censor it will eventually be turned over to the UN under the guise of WTO compliance and the 'firewall' wont be needed anymore. One world government, here we come.
Freedom: i hope you enjoyed it while we had it.
Id say time to break out Freenet for every day use but the ISPs have effectively neutered that route by introducing bandwidth caps.
And depressing isn't the right word, disgusting is more like it.
Re:Freedom is only "free" if blood is freely spilt (Score:3, Insightful)
The pretext for this filter was preventing people from viewing child porn. It is not aimed against child molesters or the people who produce child porn. It's aimed - or so the government claims - against Joe Masturbator, not Joe Predator. Hell, if it's successful, it might even turn a few of the former into the latter due to mounting frustration.
By, for example, preventing them from hiding their evil deeds with censorship ?
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:4, Insightful)
funny thing. racism isnt dead in germany. media and false education reflected the picture of a racist now a days. ppl that hate jews or whatever dont feel themselves as racists etc...
a racist/nazi in germany has a shaved head wearing boots and a bomber jacket. --- see the similarity to "how to recognize a jew" back in the NS days? nothing changed in germany.
try it out yourself with only having 3mm hair length... ppl will look at you like you just ate a baby while the german government is taking a fascistoid(?) path... without anyone noticing...
not all fascism looks like that what we already saw in history.
oh and the approach of killing child porn with a filter is in my eyes the wrong way, how about getting the pages down? how about not cooperative country receive an embargo on whatever hurts them? oh wait that would eliminate the tool to limit the freedom of any citizen on our planet...
Re:I'm less concerned (Score:5, Insightful)
- It puts in place an infrastructure to block off access to anything. The filters don't care if the list feed to them is child porn or bomb receipts or the political program of the opposition to the government.
- You can avoid stealth censorship under the flag of filtering child porn if you publish the list regularly for scrutinity. But then all people actually interested in child porn will know where to look. That's one of the reasons why any filter list which was used for a longer time was considered secret and not to be published. So this means the filter list will be a secret then.
- It doesn't solve the problem, it makes it worse. If you block the public access to child porn, it doesn't go away, it just is more harder to find. And the people creating it and putting it online are harder to find too.
- People who look at pictures of children to masturbate don't stalk real children to get sexually aroused. And they don't feel an urge to kill the child to cover their tracks.
Re:. . . and Nazi propaganda? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does that creep you out? It's history, it happened. It provides great context to what's taught in class. Wouldn't you want to know what was being said then, so that you can compare it to what's being said today? It's a primary source if there ever was one....
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In other words... (Score:2, Insightful)
So, have the Germans learned their lesson of not eradicating groups that they disagree with, or that challenge their official morals?
I'd like to point out that most Germans alive today were born after 1945 so treating the entire ethnic group (I assume you're excluding the large modern immigrant population from your generalizations) as if it were a continuously existing entity is quite fallacious. Then again it's extremely common to do so in the US thanks to WWII in Europe being only briefly covered by primary/secondary schools and blatantly centered on the limited American role.
"We saved the world from a mass of nameless, faceless evil robots who wanted to destroy freedom" is all a student needs to know. Maybe if schools bothered to provide a little bit of context for the rise of Nazism, students could gain more than a fabricated feel good bedtime story about their grandfathers and actually apply it to becoming better informed, more aware citizens. That might lead them to question their government though, and God knows we can't have that.
Re:child porn is the new terrorism (and the old on (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
So make that illegal, but leave the viewers alone. Presumably there's such material already in existence, and in plentiful numbers according to all the fearmongers, so the pedophiles would not run out of material even if nothing new ever got produced.
But of course it is simple to produce child porn without hurting children: lolicon is infamous, and computer graphics are on the verge of photorealism, even on consumer grade equipment. And in future, with advancing robotics, who knows ? Maybe we could come up with robotic lovers to solve this problem once and for all; but if we did, the moral, upright people would no doubt pass a law to keep them from being made in the form of children, thus ensuring that real ones will keep on getting molested, all in the name of protecting them.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:4, Insightful)
He's viewing a child being molested, or some more or less accurate facsimile of it. Whatever he's viewing, if it's real, it's already happened, and his viewing of it doesn't affect it at all anymore, unless the laws of causality have been overthrown. So why punish him from it ?
Go after producers, leave consumers alone; the existing material won't disappear, and with advancing state of the art in 3D software, it's just a matter of time before more can be produced without harming anyone.
No, I'm suggesting making the "masturbating to existing child porn" a safe option and "molesting children" a non-safe option, thus giving anyone interested in children an incentive to do the former instead of latter.