A Black Day For Internet Freedom In Germany 420
Several readers including erlehmann and tmk wrote to inform us about the dawning of Internet censorship in Germany under the usual guise of protecting the children. "This week, the two big political parties ruling Germany in a coalition held the final talks on their proposed Internet censorship scheme. DNS queries for sites on a list will be given fake answers that lead to a page with a stop sign. The list itself is maintained by the German federal police (Bundeskriminalamt). A protest movement has formed over the course of the last several months, and over 130K citizens have signed a petition protesting the law. Despite this, and despite criticism from all sides, the two parties sped up the process for the law to be signed on Thursday, June 18, 2009."
I know the feeling. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gigaton Fail - (Score:5, Insightful)
For whatever naive reason I allowed myself to assume that Western Europe had finally begun to understand that police states are regressive and undesirable. Each passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer that realization has still yet to be made.
Re:Geez! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:4, Insightful)
OpenDNS is the solution.
At least until the DNS queries are hijacked.
Mein Herr! (Score:5, Insightful)
First, switch to Open DNS, second, vote the bastards out. Keep voting the bastards out until you get your bastards in there.
DNS spoofing is just one way to satisfy the law (Score:4, Insightful)
The law demands no specific way of intercepting the traffic, just one that works. If DNS spoofing proves to be unable to satisfy the law, then we will see more drastic measures, like blocking or rerouting access to alternative DNS servers and transparent proxies.
Officially the proposal is pushed as a means to combat child pornography, but politicians from all involved parties have already hinted at other possible uses for the filtering infrastructure which will be installed. The parties are quick to deny any intent to allow such an extension, but there are even official press releases clearly hinting at a not-so-hidden agenda.
Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship is *always* backed by the majority. Doesn't keep it from being a violation of human rights.
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:5, Insightful)
We've had that in Denmark for years now. OpenDNS should be the solution to all of your problems...
Do you really think that the government doesn't know about other DNS servers? I assure you there is some sort of plan and reason why they have not asked the ISP's to block or MASQ any request with a destination of 53.
My simple guess is any request with a destination of 53 is logged and then resolved at some later time. A database of people who use these other servers is maintained and flags are included such as "pedophile, hacker, warez, terrorist, etc". This list then is used to help law enforcement and or they will just come and round all of you up one day.
What's going to end up happening is someone is going to have to run a hacked all the hell bind server that takes encrypted requests on port 80 and replies back with your request which will then need to be cached locally so as not to totally hose your browsing. Then the government is going to start banning those server's IP addresses and someone is going to have to make a DNS resolver that runs in a distributed manner. Then the government will do something else, probably make it a huge crime to use any of this stuff and we will all be basically where we are now with copyright infringement which is to say that people don't respect that law and so all law becomes less respected. This is all the same as what happened in the 1930's US Prohibition of booze.
"All of this has happened before, and it will happen again..."
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Read TFA. This is not a 'police state' in the forming.
Indeed not. When the police can decide what you are and aren't allowed to access on the Internet, the police state is already here.
Re:What's Next? (Score:1, Insightful)
Dude and I thought I was the one with the tin foil hat! LOL
... laughed the man whilst talking to someone on his GPS-equipped phone.
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect political viewpoints judged "extreme" by those in power are already on the blacklist in Germany.
Hasn't Denmark put opposition political websites on the blacklist too? I recal a /. story on that.
Does anyone really think that blacklisting opposing political viewpoints is merely an "unfortunate side effect" of schemes like this?
Well ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds like censorship for the sake of censorship
You mean there is another kind?
Re:alternative dns servers; (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because that caching nameserver just magically pulls its DNS info out of thin air...
The 1st thing to come to mind was... (Score:1, Insightful)
... Way to take a page out of *China & Iran's* playbook there Germany!!
The second thing is, "Isn't this exactly what Hitler would have done if they had the internet in the 40's?"
Re:Well ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that people always assume that governments are meddling with their privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of choice when it's the same governments provide a blanket of protection?
Because, by definition, that "blanket of protection" is being provided exactly BY meddling with privacy, freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. You fail to point out that the government actions in such things are meant to "protect you from yourself."
The two are not mutually exclusive. The former is the means to the latter, and, all apologetics aside, it's utter bullshit.
Re:Gigaton Fail - (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if every single person in Iran thought that before they went outside.
I'm just a white collar guy that works 9-5. People asked for proxy servers. People wanted help setting up proxy servers. I did what I could.
I should have just watched American Idol.
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:2, Insightful)
My simple guess is any request with a destination of 53 is logged and then resolved at some later time.
I have a hard time believing that this would be the case; at least here in Denmark, everything about the different filtering we've experienced points at zero-knowledge politicians telling some IT staff what to do - and do it now!
No real blocking is taking place, just sort of placebo blocking.. by the way, on the Danish version of the 'page with the red STOP sign' it says that ones visit to that page has not been logged.
Our government, just like the rest of the 'civilized' world are acting crazy with paranoia. It seems like they (the politicians) are having a race as to whom can implement most privacy/human-rights defying laws fastest!
Re:Mein Herr! (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens when the ballot looks like this:
Please select the candidate of your choice
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:5, Insightful)
honeypot theory?
you may be right. letting port 53 outbound thru but LOGGING who connects out of the country.
yup, very plausible.
expect it to spread to other countries, too ;(
this is the century of anti-freedom, worldwide. yes, its really that bad and its getting WORSE each passing day.
Re:Old news for Finland, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, his site is blocked by the child porn list by our Keskusrikospoliisi (federal police).
Dude, that's not ironic, that's inevitable.
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what VPNs are for.
And offshore servers.
And I bet the administrators of those censorship servers read Slashdot too, so we can work with them.
Hahahaa... Seriously. This government is such a joke.
If we only had some weapon against the real reason for this all: The intimidation and getting used to this.
Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Insightful)
The real discouraging thing (Score:5, Insightful)
One other fun fact, the ruling parties (the CDU and SPD) have already mentioned using this blacklist for other things too, mainly gambling sites, Islamic sites and "Killerspiele" (sites that contain or promote violent games).
It all brings to mind that South Park baseball episode where Randy gets arrested, with one small difference, "Oh I'm sorry I thought this was a democracy".
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:1, Insightful)
Mod parent up! This is easily the most insightful thing I've read on /. in a while.
This statement:
... value security and comfort above freedom, because that is how they choose to live their lives.
Not only hits the nail on the head but outlines a fundamental deterioration of society IMHO.
Alright, perhaps that's going a bit far, but it does hit far closer to home than I'm sure many of us would like. Like it or not, those of us who value (internet) freedom are soon to be, if not already, socialists/borderline communists at best and anarchists at worst according to many.
Alright, perhaps THAT'S even going a bit far. But whatever the case, ultimately something the government doesn't control is something the government will eventually want to control (and we're already past that stage) because they need to "protect" their citizens who can't seem to think for themselves enough to realize that if they don't like something, they should just bloody well not look at it, and STFU given that everyone has different values and no one cares about theirs. And if their children shouldn't been looking at it, then they should control their bloody children.
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine the police could jail anyone they want. Publishing a list of jailed people makes you a criminal. And instead of public trials for everyone, there are only secret, quaterly checks of a few jailed people.
Sounds pretty much like a police state. The job of the police is not to judge who commits a crime. Thats the job of judges. How can it be the job of the police to judge which site is against the law? The judgement of the police must not be the end of a trial, it can only be the beginning.
Re:Geez! (Score:3, Insightful)
What I know of Silvio Berlusconi, I see a dreadful present for your country as well.
Re:Before we use the 'police state' meme again... (Score:5, Insightful)
germans tend to be technical, detail oriented and saavy and there is no way I can believe the population would WANT this.
Flattering stereotypes aside, the general populous here is just as uninformed and boon-ish as anywhere else. They take their information pre-digested from the mass media and believe that politicians act in the best interest of the people. Combine that with an outstanding history of propaganda culture in my country and you have an uninformed flock of obedient yay-sayers. Most people read as far as "child pornography" and whatever is proposed to fight it can't be wrong, now can it? The majority of internet users will never even notice the blockades until their weblogs, gambling, filesharing and porn sites end up on the "to burn" pile. I'm disgusted by the shameful lies and deceit campaigns run by elected officials and I am bound to believe that this won't change in the near future. People are just too caught up in their daily existence to realize the big picture and fathom the depths of power structures within governments. One would think that Germany had learned lessons from her past but it seems like the only lesson learned is how to effectively manipulate the public opinion. Our media and political parties are largely bound by industry rule and won't take the risk of losing ad contracts or parliament alliances to defend freedom. After all, freedom makes a ruler's life hard. A sad and remarkable episode in German history has begun. This is the beginning of some disgusting schemes to protect the ruling class and their outdated ideas from reality. Next on the list are copyright infringements, there are several officials that have already mentioned this as the next logical desirable step. I doubt we can still stop it. The way this country is run by right-wing nuts and infiltrated from left over Nazis ever since WWII ended is despicable and unbeknownst to most a reason for this direction we're heading. I would say I'd emigrate but I just can't find any country where to.
Re:Mein Herr! (Score:2, Insightful)
vote the bastards out. Keep voting the bastards out until you get your bastards in there.
I know this often gets lost on the Libertarian/Third Party crowd here, but this is how politics works in the real world. I know that we all want instant gratification, but real change takes time and a shift in public perceptions. Vote for the least bad candidate until there is a good candidate on the ballot.
Re:Mein Herr! (Score:1, Insightful)
What happens when the ballot looks like this:
Please select the candidate of your choice
Don't vote.
Do something productive.
Re:Mein Herr! (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a Pirate Party over here in Germany, and it's about time they get some more votes so the major parties start to listen.
Money and votes are the only things the bastards are interested in, after all.
Elect someone else doesn't work! (Score:4, Insightful)
The "elect someone else" option unfortunately doesn't work. Basically there are two big parties (CDU and SPD) and both want the same in most of the cases. So you can be sure that one of them will lead the next government and nothing really changes.
It's like if in the US there is an important issue where Democrats and Republicans agree on. If you are against their plan, what do you do? What chance is there that a third party is going to take the house or bring up the next president? Guess why Ron Paul ran for the Republicans? Because he knew that as a third party/independent he wouldn't even get on the ballets / into the big TV debates.
Re:Geez! (Score:2, Insightful)
We can define a new measure, the "Godwin score", which is how many times someone is mentioned in Googlespace along with Hitler.
Mike Godwin has a Godwin score of 156,000. Germany has a Godwin score of 17,400,000. Therefore Germany is over a hundred times more evil than Mike Godwin, or at least more Godwinized.
Slashdot, interestingly, has a Godwin score of 155,000.
Re:I know the feeling. (Score:2, Insightful)
That attitude is exactly what helps (and will help) the governments to pass such laws. The people who don't understand the technology, don't seem to fully understand the implications and give the government a free pass (everything for "the children"). Those who understand the technology, are usually geeks. People who are part of the "I'm a smart ass" culture and therefore will always take the (partially true) stand that "they can't really stop us, we will bypass their attempt for control".
Yes, it is possible (even easily) for well informed people to bypass such censorships, but that is besides the point and contradicts what the internet is and should be all about.
Re:insane politicians (Score:3, Insightful)
Schäuble is suffering from PTSD since that failed attack on him many years back. His medical records are kept secret.
Dude, everyone's medical records are kept secret - it's that privacy thing we sometimes talk about on /., ....
Quite frankly, these people are dangerous and criminally insane.
Sadly not unusual in politicians. I sometimes wonder whether one or both are actually prerequisites for entering politics.