German Parliament Enacts Internet Censorship Law 273
TheTinyToon writes that by a vote of 389 to 128, "the proposed censorship law to block child porn has been passed by the German government. Not surprisingly, a member of the conservative party (CDU) announced plans to also check if the law could be extended to include so-called 'killer games' like Counterstrike, only two hours after the law was passed. More [in German] on netzpolitik.org."
Re:History repeats itself..... (Score:1, Informative)
That was Hitler :)
Re:Locks only keep honest people honest (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But what next? (Score:3, Informative)
It won't reduce the amount at all. The reasons are simple, and please excuse when I use filesharing as a parallel. They actually share a few traits: First, both are illegal. Second, both use the internet as a staple medium for the transfer of content. Third, both consist of groups of people that tend to aid each other due to the "siege mentality" associated with it.
In other words, it is quite unlikely that this will achive anything in the sense of blocking child porn at all. Aside of various YouTube videos that already show you how to ignore the filters ("circumvent" is too strong a word, it sounds like there is some work, hardship or hassle associated with it).
If anything, it will make the work of law enforcement a lot harder. Until now, you could at least catch the "dumb" ones, the ones that use no proxy and download their porn directly. Every time there's a sting, you get to see a lot of people (also from Germany) arrested because their IPs have been used to download stuff. Why are people so "dumb"? Because it works. They have no reason to dig into the technical matter, they have no reason to search for solutions, they have no reason to even know about proxies.
Now they get to see a big STOP sign. What will they do? Stop getting child pron? C'mon, we're talking about the major driving force in a human being, the sex drive. They will fire up google and search for solutions. As a (for them beneficial...) side effect they will learn that 'til now they were essentially under the sword of Damocles, any time "their" server was busted they would have been in! So they learn now about proxies, they learn now how to mask behind onion routing... they didn't really want that. They are basically "forced" to use it if they want to continue seeing their porn. And they want.
So what will come out of this? Well, certainly for one, it will look a lot better on the child pron crime statistics. The next sting, there probably won't be any child porn consumers from Germany rounded up. And we'll feel good about ourselves because there are no kiddiporn enthusiasts in Germany anymore.
What the statistic fails to see is that all we accomplished is that we can't catch them anymore. Well done, Mrs. von der Leyen, you didn't manage to protect children, but you managed to protect child porn consumers.
Re:Locks only keep honest people honest (Score:2, Informative)
This is what everyone is wondering about here in Germany...
Re:or not! (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, the bullets are still in their hands. While we can whargarbl all day long on the internet, if a government really is concerned about shutting you down they will resort to the simplest, most effective, technological trick in the book: killing you. Take a good look at North Korea or China, these are examples of governments who have decided to keep control and aren't afraid to drive over a few piss-ant protesters with tanks.
This is why it's important to fight this stuff while we still have a government which we can effect with noise and votes, and not end up with an extra hole or two. It is far better to fight while the fighting is easy and winning very possible, because eventually you may reach a point where the fighting is hard and victory impossible.
Re:History repeats itself..... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, it's also spelled with an 'ie'.
Re:Honestly (Score:5, Informative)
The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
It already did. So, by politician logic, they stopped caring about us at all.
The SPD (one of the two major parties) recently formed a technical consulting committee which helped the party leaders understand Internet and other modern technologies, and helped them campaign in these new mediums, etc.
Most of the committee walked out on them in disgust after yesterday's vote.
Re:Locks only keep honest people honest (Score:5, Informative)
Because they're not actually interested in eliminating kiddie porn, or protecting children, or any of the other reasons they're giving.
If they were, what you say is exactly what they'd do. When the discussion started, some activist picked the danish block list and called up or mailed all german ISPs that hosted a site listed on that list.
Surprise, almost all of them got shut down, and very quickly.
Incidently, "delete instead of block" is the motto of the counter-movement - http://loeschenstattsperren.de/ [loeschenstattsperren.de]
Re:Locks only keep honest people honest (Score:4, Informative)