Slashdot Mirror
German Publishers To Use Sniffers to Censor Web
Anonymous Coward writes "The IDG News Service reports the industry "is proposing a system to detect illegal content on Web sites, and block access to those sites via German ISPs." The blocks would be installed at "key Internet junctions" that would disallow access to the offending sites. Andy Müller-Maguhn at the Chaos Computer Club is quoted in the story, and calls the scheme absurd." This scheme has been floated before - looks like it's going full speed ahead.
Regardless of the moral and legal implications of this plan, it sounds technically infeasible.
* First, consider the problem of blocking data coming through proxies based outside Germany. I suppose the RPS would have to block all such proxies, *if* they can be found
* Second, the proposal to filter by URL and return a human-readable reply in response to surfing an illegal site (a nice dialog box) seems to imply that filtering would have to be done through a transparent HTTP proxy. Such a proxying service would be extremely resource-intensive and might
cause unexpected problems if the transparency is not perfect.
* Third, there are a variety of countermeasures that site maintainers can take to make it difficult for an automated sniffer to discover illegal content, or, having done so, to properly block just those sites. A simple countermeasure would be to discover the domain or IP block that hosts the sniffers, then deny HTTP requests from that source.
I suppose this scheme might be good enough to discourage casual downloads by the majority of people. It might even be socially acceptable, provided it doesn't cause problems for unblocked sites. However, anyone who cares enough to work around the blocks (which is likely equivalent to the set of people who put up with trawling Napster and Gnutella today) can do so. Not much of a contender in the online arms race, methinks.
Of course, if one only intends to enforce the ban selectively...
The automated systems will work for the Record Comapanies, enforcing a record companies idea of what's illegal, and what is not. Naturally, this idea may conflict with what society wants, needs, and has agreed upon.
Corporate control and corporate censorship all utimately benifit a corporation's income-- not the needs, desires and ideals of society. In other words, if a population suffers from censorship imposed by a democratic governemnt, they can work to remove or adjust such a regime. They cannot do that with similar controls imposed by a corporation...
But certainly, even in the presence of such technical workarounds, we must directly confront what the German publishers are doing. It's always better to have the law on your side than to have their guns pointed at you.
Of course, in a corrupt legal environment such as the one in the US, such crybaby wants pass, but not in a civilized european country such as Germany, which, in any case, has to answer to a higher legal authority, the European Union.
--
I'd also add that views or what is right and wrong change. Right now looking at xyz type of content may seem immoral but ten years from now may seem very normal. This happens all the time and can be easily noticed by checking out how music, movies, television commercials, etc have changed in the past couple decades. What will be the effect when we have a technological block in place that is now keeping us from viewing what was once considered immoral but is now perfectly okay? What if a generation of children not allowed to view copyrighted works online grows up and abolishes copyright laws as a solution. Will we have to pay these companies, tech consultants, etc to go back through and modify these programs and their rule books? This sounds like a useless tax on our society. Could we ever be sure to totally reverse the effects? The only winners sounds like the companies that sell the software.
You might think that you don't care if people are blocked into your moral view for the forseeable future despite popular opinion at the time but keep in mind the blade swings both ways. What if next year right after you get this law in place the popular opinion is very different from yours and the rules the software is given are not at all what you'd hoped for but rather quite different.
For example suddenly you find you can't access your childs homepage on their school site because the reading list includes thumbnails of the books your child has read. What happens if your church web site is suddenly blocked because you have a background image or song clip (innocently) taken from someone elses Bible site? If these sites are blocked by software rules it may be hard to get them unblocked even if you adjust the sites to fit the current laws. Do you really want to risk such problems or impose such problems on other people?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
how many invocations of Godwin's Law on this? anyone? :)
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
The law is NOT above human rights. Where the law contradicts human rights, the law shall not prevail and shall be moot, pointless, and totally irrelevant.
Now whether a law prohibiting something on the internet contradicts human rights is another issue. And it is difficult to work out because, who decides? The same stupid power-mongering politicians who made the bad law in the first place? I don't think so.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Different countries (and people) can have different ideas about what constitutes porn in the first place - for example, naked woman-breasts aren't considered pornographic across much of europe (and naked saggy-man-breasts are hardly pornographic, just unpleasant) - but run them by a fundamentalist muslim or christian, and see what happens.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
If you block all traffic to a specific site then SSL doesn't help. Because of the nature of SSL server cannot virtual host SSL so they will never have to worry about blocking multiple sites based on IP.
SSL would prevent them from blocking individual URLs because they can't read the HTTP request. You can always get around any filtering system using a proxy that supports SSL (unless they block all proxies...) but Joe Consumer is probably not going to figure that out.
One interesting aspect of SSL, is that it can be used to tunnel any data, not just HTTP request (see this) so you could use it to access Napster servers.
-- Virtual Windows Project
I wonder if Traci Lords movies are filtered. After all, Traci Lords films are legal in Germany, when she was doing them at the tender age of 16. Yet in the USA, it's considered K I D D I E P O R N
Whoa, dude, you mean there's filez so 'l33t that I can get blowed up real good just by reading the bomb-making instructions, and get high by reading the drug formulae?
Where's the URL? I gotta get me some of those!
Last time I read about bombs, the textfile just sat there on the screen waiting for me to scroll through it. Nothin' else happened.
So are a lot of people, which is why we're opposing the German government's boneheaded move.
Adrian
That means that they keep track of the websites ...
:)
Finnaly we can give those DDoS attachs a reall victim
(just imagine how fast ISP's going to dump this shit, if their computers spend ages checking this stupid lists ! )
Samba Information HQ
I'd hate to be the guy who has to sniff all of the goatse.cx links on slashdot. Those have to smell horrible.
All your dangifiknow are belong to us.
If the site uses https, then all the sniffer sees is that somebody accessed that site. But not the exact path of the contents, because the request is encrypted as well! all we need to do is to have some neutral cover page, and stick the interesting contents deep down in the site, after a long path. Thus, even "going to the site" won't help, because the censor wouldn't known where exactly to go...
The only solution to this (for the censor) seems indeed to maintain the filter rules by hand, or to use search engines to find exact URLs of potentially questionnable content.
Say no to software patents.
Very smart! The same method could actually actually also be used to access the original site... End of story.
Say no to software patents.
Quick! Somebody please moderate the parent as funny! Frogger a violent game? Oh my God!
Say no to software patents.
What is their definition of offensive and/or objectionable? To one person, things such as instructions on how to make a fur coat might be offensive. To others, sites advocating abortion might be offensive. If the government decides what is permissible and what isn't, the German people will be the worse off for it. What will likely happen is the subjects that offend the policy-makers will be blocked, whether the public finds them offensive or not.
Not to sound nutty, but this is frighteningly like an Internet equivalent of Soviet reaction to opposition to official policy. They would take dissenters and confine them to asylums until they were "competent" enough to rejoin society. While the German government isn't doing anything quite that severe, by defining social standards, it reduces its population's freedom to think unorthodox thoughts.
Imagine that the first time a Gnutella node delivers unathorized content, the IP address of the Gnutella node is added to a nationwide blacklist. No cooperating router will handle packets from that IP address. If the node has a static IP, the node owner has a problem. His box is effectively off the internet. If the node has a dynamic IP, the ISP has a problem. One of their dynamic IP's is dead. To get it 're-activated', they'll terminate the offending account.
The treaty of Versailles was a huge mistake. By humiliating Germany, it paved the way for Hitler. That's why after WWII the US helped rebuild Germany and Japan. Anyhow, the only hope for the Internet lies in the disagreement between nations about what should be censored. Every country on this planet wants to censor something. So if 'we' - presumably the US - owned the Internet, we'd enforce our censorship without fear of circumvention. And every politician would add his 2c to the list of what should be censored.
Why do you think an anonymous proxy would be any use against such a system? Alice send an http request to Bob. (Alice and Bob are hosts). Bob sends Alice the requested data. Mallet, the censor, notices that the data is 'illegal' and adds Bob's IP to the blacklist. Now Carol sends an http request to Bob. The routers drop her request. Even if it got through, the routers would drop Bob's response. So Carol proxies her request through Peter, an anonymizing proxy. Peter sends an http request to Bob. The request never makes it, because the routers are dropping all packets to Bob.
Anonymous proxies won't help at all.
Oh, wait a moment, I am.
/.ers are posting without having the slightest idea. Nearly everything (non-technical) said here about the situation in Germany is guessed wrong, in one direction or the other.
I'm not surprised but mildly annoyed that so many
Germany is neither the Last Defense of Freedom nor a pack of nazis. Please keep talking about 'KDE vs. Gnome' or the finer points of different thermal pastes until you get a clue.
Tia.
Censorship on Slashdot
What you are talking about is having someone think that they may violate the law, then just shut it down. In the United States, there is a thinking called due process.
Not, if you don't like it, shut it down. It is legal to publish Penthouse, Playboy. It is legal to publish instructions on how to make a bomb. It is legal to express opinion that is not flattering. Libel is not legal, but you have to prove that the statements aren't true. You are not supposed to use a libel lawsuit to silence critism.
If approve of someone censoring what you don't like, someone may not like censor what you say and censor you.
Fight Spammers!
From the technical aspect, you seem to indicate that it 'shouldn't take too much work' to work out the bugs. Using your example to differentiate between legitimate artwork like DiVinci's David vs. troll goat porn. Not having seen troll goat porn, but having seen David, how do you make the distinction? You ban a site because something scanning it determines what... body parts? David and Venus have the body parts you wish to ban, just generally not in the same context of the porn. Should it be possible to develop scanning that can in someway actually determine those 'parts' are within a picture, how do you determine which picture they are, technically. (Besides, every time the software ran up against a piece by Picasso, it'd probably bomb.) As for the original post, they're talking about music downloads. They certainly can't ban a site because some music title with a download happens to be present.. so what? they download the file and check the digital contents to see if it matches some supported music catalog? It's been shown that one can alter bits within a music download and yet there is not enough change to be noticed by the listener. So you check length? checksum some total? That doesn't work. And even if you could, are you going have every recording ever made of every piece of work and with every arrangement? One copyrighted piece of music sung with 3 instruments in no way is going to be identified the same as the same piece of music sung by one person with 3 backup singers and the berlin philoharmonic orchestra. Also, back to the porn issue, you do realize that includes text as well as pictures. IS there going to be a way for the system to determine porn stories from someone's thesis on language and it's demise in the 20th and 21st century. based upon what. Words? Those could be the same. We definitely have problems here.
From the subjective censorship side. You made the distinction between legitimate artwork like DiVinci's David and goat troll porn. That's your conclusion, and valid for you. Of course, you do realize that there will be many who consider the statue of David as porn. IS that for you to decide or them? Since you've made that subjective decision already, I'm guessing you believe that it's art. For you and your family, you can make that decision. Is it wise to leave that to somebody else? You say there's no 'need' to see porn. I don't disagree. Someone said there's no 'need' to see Friends, and I'd also agree. But isn't that up to you? If THEY (whoever controls this mechanism) feel there's no NEED to see works by DiVinci, are you still in agreement? Isn't that your decision? What happens when THEY feel there's no need to see a posting critical of a public official, would you agree? What if a country wanted to block news of internal problems because it'd look bad to the world. You would agree? I happened to be disgusted in how some arrogant members of the press handled coverage of the Gulf War (yet wasn't at all displased when they were captured). Was there a 'need' to see coverage? Could THEY have decided no? I totally feel, whether some were arrogant or not, there WAS a NEED to see the coverage, but that's my opinion. What's yours? Oops, then again, neither of our opinions will be necessary since it'd make no difference if THEY were controlling things.
This doesn't even get into the legal aspects. But it doesn't seem to work both because of technology or ethics. It seems to be a knee-JERK reaction for an expediant method to protect what... the top 100 or so of some corporations current music. (And I'm all for copyright protection, don't get me wrong. But it needs to be protected without infringing on everyone else.) Are YOU going to protect those who are mistakenly blocked? You don't feel that matters? If they block what you see as art, that's acceptable? I don't necessarily disagree with what you see as desirable, but I do see blinders on as to what it actually ends up doing. But that's your opinion, and you have a right to it... at least for now. Who knows once the software is installed (as even your message, containing such words as 'porn' 'bomb making' and 'illicit drugs' could easily have your words banned. I'm all for stopping crime, but this isn't the way.
I think Mr Pot should remember the comments of the head of Sony America who promised to 'block [piracy] at the routers' before denouncing a bunch of German corporate fascists. It's got nothing to do with the German government at this stage, it's just a bad idea from a bunch of seriously undemocratic organisations.
Where they also have a state-funded TV station. This means that we are not submerged in shitty gameshows and the like because the BBC is required to cater for 100% of it's audience, not just the lowest common denominator. I'm happy to pay 100 pounds a year to keep that good idea going. As for blocks on the internet keeping the citizenry down - what a joke. How many Germans use the internet as their primary source of information? Precious few I would have thought, given the high price of internet access there. I lived in Frankfurt for a while and although the city is ugly, the quality of life is far superior to Birmingham, UK where I live now.
Especially from a country where a large percentage of the population considers non-whites to be second-class citizens.
It's not the German government, it's the German record industry proposing this. Please read the article before getting on your high horses about neo-nazism.
What if Joe blow has a kiddy Pr0n site on his box, does this system block his IP or his block of IP's, does it block the entire domain. There is just to much power that could be derived from this thing. This type of system has the power to walk all over freesspeach, and even if most countries don't respect free speech, I do and that is why I don't want this. If you need another angle to look at this just think about the horror stories dealing with filtering software.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
MP3 files,Hacking,DMCA violations,Pr0n
Please contact the owner of the site to correct the problem, after the $XX reactivation fee is payed you will be reconnected to (http://www.slashdot.olg)
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Where are the corresponding accomplishments of free information in the area of music? Mutopia is great, but its contents were all public domain already. If you look in the relevant dmoz category, there is virtually no music that has been intentionally made into copylefted free information by the composer.
As long as free software could be successfully portrayed as a synonym for warez, it was hard to make any political progress. Same goes for music. As long as the free music scene on the internet consists of nothing but downloading MP3s illegally, it's going to be very hard to accomplish anything against the overreaching of the copyright holders.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews
Find free books.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to view pornography or bomb making schematics or the formulas for illicit drugs.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to watch "Friends."
But two of the three things you listed (bomb-making schematics and the formulas for drugs) have the real possiblity of killing the participent, or others around the participent. Viewing pornography perhaps doesn't hurt the viewer, but the person who is performing the pornography is often forced into the situation due to lack of money/lack of education about alternatives.
Watching Friends, while perhaps "mindwarping", will not kill you (unless, perchance, your TV blows up; or the roof caves in while you are sitting there watching it). There is a far greater chance that you will be killed by the other things.
That's why, at some small shred of a level, there's a reason for the laws against them. Independence doesn't just protect your personal rights, and also the rights of others from your actions.
Logicians seem to have this weird problem binding "truth" with "reality". This is not a signature, but an easily viewed argument considering the above guy's post, which was totally moronic.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
If that system can determine what is legal and what is not, then Germany will no longer need lawyers!
[scene: Southern {US} plantation circa 1850]
Young slave:"The boss been beatin' us every day for three weeks now, pa, ain't it time we slipped through that hole in the fence and went up north?"
Older slave:"I know it's hard son, but the law says we are slaves and ought to stay that way, and the law is to be obeyed, because we all know its always the best thing for everybody."
Yes, this IS a matter of principle. One of them is that the unjust and/or obscene laws must be fought and abolished. And *I* will fight any mindless, zombie law thumper who tries to force injustice down my thoat.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I think many people in the US live in a state of denial in this area. There are lots of rights guaranteed on paper or assumed to exist, but in reality, when it comes to privacy, freedoms, and protection from unreasonable government actions, the situation is considerably worse than in many other countries. Many policy decisions in the US seem to be hidden behind code words, and informed public debate seems to rarely takes place.
I think it would be unfortunate if Germany adopted this proposed policy (and that's all it is for now). But at least there is an open debate about it and the cards are on the table. I think if it were to be implemented, it would likely come along with other legal provisions that protect consumers. For example, one thing to put on the table for the purpose of negotiations might be a requirement for publishers to publish their content in formats that allow copying. That could be a reasonable tradeoff, giving publishers a bit more confidence that they can effectively shut down pirate sites, in return for publishing stuff in a way that doesn't lock it up in perpetuity.
What is to stop someone from mirroring the sites? Sounds like this could balloon quickly out of proportion...
duh... :-)
:-)
don't they need application layer content filtering to get what they want?
i mean, with virtual hosting, they can't filter on IP, since on the same IP you could get those nasty mp3s, and right next to this, some innocent homepage?
so they have to filter on the http request.
http transparent proxying for everyone.
now how *expensive* and painfully slow is that?
i can't see how they can get *one* isp to do this.
i had a sig, once..
sung to Eminem's "Stan"... retouched...
Slashdot's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all
The morning blue screen on my Windows and I can't script at all
And even if I could it'll all be gray but your picture on my wall
It reminds me, that it's not so bad -- it's not so bad
Dear Rob, I wrote but you still ain't callin
I left my email, my ICQ, and my yahoo chat at the bottom
I sent two emails back in autumn, you must not-a got 'em
There probably was a problem with your postfix or somethin
Sometimes I scribble email addees too sloppy when I jot 'em
but anyways; fsck it, what's been up? Man how's your boxes?
My boxes is linux too, I'm bout to be a compiler
once I learn gcc,
I'ma go on and compile for hours
I read about your Palm Pilot too I'm sorry
I had a friend lose his Palm over at the airport in Maradonna
I know you probably hear this everyday, but I'm your biggest fan
I even read all your Linux news and Microsoft posts man
I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man
I like the way you sold
Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back,
just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan
This is Stan
Dear Rob, you still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have a chance
I ain't mad - I just think it's FSCKED UP you don't answer fans
If you didn't wanna talk to me outside your Linux World
you didn't have to, but you coulda signed an autograph for Matthew
That's my Senior sys admin he's only 26 years old
We waited on a 9600 baud for you,
four hours and you just said, "No."
That's pretty shitty man - you're like his fsckin idol
He wants to be just like you man, he likes you more than I do
I ain't that mad though, I just don't like bein lied to
Remember when we met in Boston - you said if I'd write you
you would write back - see I'm just like you in a way
I never had a clue about shit either
I used to gcc shit with my wife then beat her
I can relate to what you're saying in your page
so when I feel like rmusering I read Slashdot to begin the rage
cause I don't really got shit else so that shit helps when I'm depressed
I even got a tattoo of slashdot across the chest
Sometimes I even packet myself to see how much it floods
It's like adrenaline, the DDoS is such a sudden rush of blood
See everything you say is real, and I respect you cause you tell it
My girlfriend's jealous cause I talk about you 24/7
But she don't know you like I know you Rob, no one does
She don't know what it was like for people like us growin up
You gotta call me man, I'll be the biggest fan you'll ever lose
Sincerely yours, Stan -- P.S.
We should be together too
Dear Mister-I'm-Too-Good-To-Waste-A-Packet-On-My-Fans,
this'll be the last packet I ever send your ass
It's been six months and still no word - I don't deserve it?
I know you got my last two emails
I wrote the @ signs on 'em perfect
So this is my payload I'm sending you, I hope you hear it
I'm on my modem now, 9600 baud do you fear it
Hey Rob, I drank a fifth of vodka, you dare me to code?
You know the song that was written on the comode
about that little turd that could've saved that other turd from drowning
but didn't instead he left the person on the toilet shitting
That's kinda how shit is, you coulda rescued me from drowning
Now it's too late - I'm on a 1000 downloads now, I'm drowsy
and all I wanted was a lousy letter or a call
I hope you know I ripped +ALL+ of your pictures off the wall
I love you Rob, we coulda been together, think about it
You ruined it now, I hope you can't sleep and you dream about it
And when you dream I hope you can't sleep and you SCREAM about it
I hope your conscience EATS AT YOU and you can't BREATHE without me
See Rob {*screaming*} Shut up bitch! I'm tryin to code
Hey Rob, that's my senior admin screamin from the comode
but I didn't cut the power off, I just rebooted, see I ain't like you
cause if rm -rf'd we'd suffer more, and then the boxes die too
Well, gotta go, I'm almost BGP bridged now
Oh shit, I forgot, how'm I supposed to send this packet out?
Dear Stan, I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy
You said your box is running now, how'd you like your gcc?
Look, I'm really flattered you would install 7.0 Redhat
and here's an autograph for your senior sys admin
I wrote it on the Starter cap
I'm sorry I didn't see you at the show, I musta missed you
Don't think I did that shit intentionally just to diss you
But what's this shit you said about you like to DDoS lamers too?
I say that shit just clownin dog,
c'mon - how fucked up is you?
You got some issues Stan, I think you need some counseling
so heres some more Linux stories to keep your ass busy when you get down some
And what's this shit about us meant to be together?
I sold Slashdot for thousands so now I'm a single rich geeky jetsetter
I really think you and your boxes need each other
or maybe you just need to treat them better
I hope you get to read this letter, I just hope it reaches you in time
before you hurt yourself, I think that you'll be doin just fine
if you relax a little, I'm glad I inspire you but Stan
why are you so mad? Try to understand, that overclocking requires some stronger fans
I just don't want you to do some crazy shit
I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago that made me sick
Some dude was drunk and switched his router for a bridge
and his packets were blackholed, and his DNS couldn't get digged
and in the colo they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to
Come to think about, his name was.. it was you
Damn!
sil @ antioffline
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
I live in a country where there is no REAL freedom of speech. Oh, yes, the German constitution does have some provisions for what they call "free speech" but watch what happens when I deny what they call the holocaust or ridicule or belittle jews or other unpopular minorities.. Oh and yes: Blasphemy. That's a criminal offense according to the German Penal Code. Ridule God, a religious community or Weltanschauung.. and you could get fined and/or sent to jail for something like that. You Americans on /. take all the freedom you have _left_ for granted. They've been taking away your "radical freedoms" for quiet some time now but even so you still enjoy a lot less government meddling in your daily affairs than people in Germany. Things have and are happening over here in Post Reich Germany which I guess few off you would even believe.. They are planning to artificially raise the price for meat and meat products which are far more expensive than you could even imagine in the first place by introducing a special tax.. They have mandatory state run and controlled TV networks which you have to PAY for whether you watch them or not... I could rant on and on but let me tell you I think they're certainly planning to do just that: curtail the internet that the common citizenry doesn't even get exposed to the very notion that life is a lot different and at times a hell of a lot better outside the country.
Although Germany does restrict certain political activities related to National Socialism, and like France, has a certain societal interest in supressing Nazi memorabilia, nostalgia, or political expression, the system is designed to restrict or otherwise control online music transfers.
Personally, I believe that political expression on the net should not be limited by political bounderies-- suppress Nazi sites and you essentially give China the moral authority to control Tibetan political expression on the web, but that's just my opinion.
In any case, I believe that there is even less of a foundation for giving control over information flow to German Music Companies-- which is really what this is all about.
Six million.
And with that, I invoke Godwin's Law. End of thread.
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
Just curious. I'm not very knowledgeable about encryption or stuff at lower network levels, but wouldn't using HTTPS for looking at the websites stop the sniffers? I
And you can't block ALL encrypted traffic, seeing as how there's so much business that depends on it...
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Maybe because of that rare L. Ron Hubbard collection of rap tunes, including the infamous "Fight the Thetan"?
Seriously, though, since the German government already considers the CoS a business rather then a church, then it might be listed as "illegal" in terms of fraud if they referred to themselves as a religion on any Germany-based servers.
Not that I care what happens to the CoS, mind you...
I don't think this has a chance in Hell(tm) of working right. There are just too many ways to get around it.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
What's to stop them from blocking other "objectionable" content? I don't hold much truck with the CoS, but I can see them trying to block Scientology, and the slippery slope starts...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The article describes a system that the German phonographic industry would like to see implemented... no government enforcement of this is mentioned, just that they want to open a dialogue with ISPs, none of whom, according to the CCC's spokesman, want to install it.
Bit early to start panicking, yet.
this could be just what the Internet needs to remove the filth and perversion
I totally reject the idea that somebody else should take it upon themselves to decide what is filth and perversion. I am a rational intelligent adult perfectly capable of making my own decisions in such matters.
no one has a legitimate need to view pornography or bomb making schematics or the formulas for illicit drugs
Absolutely and incontrovertably wrong.
There are many people for whom pornography is necessary to achieve normal sexual function. Bomb making schematics are an essential part of police and emergency response training. A degree in chemistry or chemical engineering requires an understanding of exactly the principles that are used to make these bombs in order to avoid their construction accidentally in a manufacturing or laboratory environment. Formulae for illicit (and illegal) drugs are required for physicians and chemists to be able to understand and treat the effects of these substances. In many cases any illicit drug is in fact a legal drug, just taken by someone without a prescription for the drug.
The fact is that there are many people that benefit from the free availability of these materials.
Your posting is one of the most dangerous and ill-advised that I have ever seen on this site. What you are advocating is an almost complete evisceration of both freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and supression of much knowledge that is fundamental to our technology based civilization.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to watch "Friends."
Both statements are equally true.
So tell me, where is the line drawn?
More importantly, who draws it?
I think "Friends" is mind warping propaganda. I want it banned. All websites about the topic should be shut down and their limbs cut off.
Even better, say I am in a minority religion and the majority religion (here in NA, that's Christianity) doesn't like it. They want it shut down. They say it's evil and makes kids shoot each other in schools (not true at all). Because of jerks like you, my say is repressed by the majority. Not only that but my views are seen as illegal. My right to exist as I am, for all intents and purposes, ends, at least in the fucked up country you want.
Have I demonstrated why free speech should be all-emcompassing, yet?