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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.
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?