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German State Alters DNS To Censor Web Sites [updated]
Rabenwolf writes: "In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the first ISP (ISIS Multimedia) has given in to pressure from the state government and has started to block foreign websites with supposedly "illegal content" by changing the corresponding DNS entries. ISIS customers trying to access these sites are redirected to the website of the local government. ISPs in North Rhine-Westphalia will have to pay a fine if they continue to provide access to sites with "illegal content" through their DNS servers. It's not as bad as China or Saudi-Arabia, but it makes you think... An article from the heise newsticker is here, and if you don't sprechen Deutsch, Google might help." Update: 11/22 15:23 GMT by T : As sqrt points out, this report is misleading: "A single technican altered the DNS Entries to demonstrate it is possible. His changes were already reversed. Heise already posted a new story about this today."
If this is based on DNS entries, tnen what is stopping people using the IP addresses instead?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I really hope people actually think about this before replying about how this is simply wrong. Different countries have different ways of dealing with things. In America, for example, Freedom of Speech is enshrined in law - this gives an enormous amount of protection to citizens from their government, which is good, but also ensures the right of racists and others to say what they like, and recruit new members. In other countries, they frequently take a different approach, and for example consider protecting minorities from hate speech to be more important than letting everyone say whatever they like.
/is/ correct to claim that citizens need to be able to assert control, and not be powerless against their own government, but there are clear disadvatages. The same with speech - given no censorship, and no ability to assert local laws over internet content has major disadvantages, as well as the obvious advantages.
I wish people would understand that these are simply different ways of going about things, and certainly each has its own advantages and disadvatages. I don't honestly think, for example, that one groups is simply correct about gun ownership - perhaps America
A [problem threatening free speech in the U.S.] is the FBI Wiretap of the entire Internet
coupled with the Internet's unsecured DNS. The FBI could surreptitiously censor subtly or DOS sites that criticize the government, for example.Hopefully, the folks who kneejerk respond to stories about similar abuses in the US with "hah hah, the US sucks, come live in a real country" will keep this and similar problems (such as the French encryption policies and Yahoo lawsuit) in mind.
The Internet is shaking up the status quo globally, and the assaults on our freedom of speech to stop it are similarly global. If the US removes it's citizens' freedom, it affects you, whether you're in Georgia the state or Georgia the country.
Anti-hate-speech laws, whether in Germany or Francs or the U.S., seem to be predicated on the idea that the speech itself has some sort of magical power over people's minds. I think that's very wrong, and it distracts attention from where it's needed most.
A number of different groups would have you believe that the swastika was this magical symbol that automatically turned rational people into genocidal creatures: All you do is hide the swastikas and everything's okay. Remember that the Holocaust had a very specific economic and political context: For a number of reasons, the German people had endured one of the worst economic declines ever to be suffered by an industrialized nation, and they were terrified and desperate. This does not excuse what happens, but it gives a much more sensible explanation than what normally passes for historical analysis -- "We need to keep the images of swastikas away from impressionable white kids", or "Germans are just a racist people", or similar pap.
So now Germany has a problem with skinheads (though it tends to get blown way out of proportion because the rest of the world watches the country very carefully). So why is that? Is that because German teenagers can get their hands on albums by talentless oi-skinhead bands? Or maybe, just maybe, it's because the reunification of Germany has been fraught with all sorts of economic and political stresses, and there are too many scared, uneducated, hopeless Germans who are looking for a scapegoat.
Of course, when it comes to what a politician can do about it, there's really no option at all, is there? Either he can stand up and say "We should work hard to make sure that everybody has good economic opportunities" -- and be branded as some stuck-in-the-past Marxist -- or he can point fingers and say "Let's keep Nazi images off the internet!"
Do domain names matter?
It is not "thought" control, it is "publication" control. Not the same thing. You can even speak about it with your friend, you know. The word Nazi hasn't been deleted. But of course, If you don't mind seeing Germany under Nazi rule again ( America has an history of supporting right-wing dictatorships in South America, after all...), Then let them speak. Then, ten years later, YOU go fighting them. Free Speech didn't work to avoid totalitarian regime, in the 30's. Because of that, in 1945, the Americans (along with others), have forbidden any German to promote Nazism. It seems the Germans want to keep this law.
I had a lot of meetings with the BKA (something like the german FBI) about fighting criminality in the internet. And they underestimate scale and complexity of the net.
I give you one example. There is a software called PERKEO. PERKEO is able to checksum files quickly and has an internal database of known checksums of child pornography images. They argued, that most child pornography images (which are exchanged through the internet) are well known. Somewhat like 95+% shell be in the database.
In the discussion with the ISPs they argued, that it would be easy to add PERKEO to the proxy server. For every image accessed, the checksum is created and compared with the database. In case the checksum matches, the access is blocked.
When i tried to explain, that the introduction would only result in countermeasure (automatic modification of images), it was taken as unwillingness.
Every meeting (i know about) ended with the same results: Everyone is willing to fight criminals, but the is no modus operandi. The law enforcement agencies have wishes the ISPs do not consider compatible with the law and constitution.
Some politicians and law enforcers are growing more and more frustrated. So a state (Nordrhein- Westfalen) tries to work with laws that put more responisbility on the shoulders of the ISPs.
This generates confusion and the confusion results in such events like the one discussed.
CU, Martin
Sure, the US government is oppressive, except when compared to any other. No local magistrate has the power or ability to keep me from posting to this website, and should they try to do so, I have the power to sue them, undo the censorship, and get them to pay me for the exercise of that privilege.
Freedom of speech in the United States is not absolute, of course. But it is unparalleled elsewhere. In what other nation can you go to the nation's highest court and announce "Fuck the draft?" with absolute immunity?
Of course, America's thinking doesn't let YOU read the words of bin Laden, becasue your government thinks they're too dangerous and has conspired with the media to try to prevent you from accessing them.
having read through the comments, i would like to add a few things.
firs of all, it affects just one state. in germany, each state is responsible for the media by themselves. this includes things like assigning frequencies and so on.
this particular state tries to push the local ISPs (which are not the ones used by the majoraty of the people living there anyway) to block access to those websites. this has been (and will be) opposed by the ISPs, for obvious (technical and constitutional) reasons. one ISIS technician did it, to prove it was possible.
it is uncertain if such a government blocking would be legal.
i agree with all of you saying censorship is bad in general. i also believe it is wrong in this special case.
but there are some things you should take in account, before judjing germany as some repressive country.
those are, of coures, historical reasons. the nazis used media propaganda not only after they gained power, but from the very beginning of their movement, as they had the support of some big publishers. and they used a hole in the constitution of the weimar republic to abandon the constitution alltogether. to prevent this in the future, when the new constitution was made, making it protective had a top priority. protective means that any attempt to fight the constitution is illegal, and certain key paragraphs must not be changed (including the one about censorship being illegal, by the way).
so if you promote a plan to abandon the constitution it is illegal, if a party proposes to abandon the constitution, the party is illegal, and if the party has no democratic structure - guess what.
nazi symbols are illegal, denying the holocaust is illegal, basicly anything pro-nazi is.
contrary to popular believe Mein Kampf is not, but the copyright is claimed by the state of bavaria, so you can't buy it (you can't read it either, i tried it once but didn't make it past the first chapter).
i believe this should be kept up for some 40 more years. imagine you have suffered under the nazis, been arrested by the gestapo or maybe even sent to a concentration camp and you see the same symbols again on someones t-shirt.
but to get to main point: nazi propaganda in germany is illegal. so some people have their sites hosted somewhere else. 90% of german language nazi content is hosted outside of germany. so the idea is to block access to it from within germany. but three question remain:
- is it possible?
- is it legal?
- is it good?
the legal status is unclear, but critical.
the technical possibility is, to say the least, questionable.
the issue iif it is good is just being discussed. i think it's not, a proper educated mind should be able to deal with propaganda, from any side.
i wanted to write something about the different freedoms you have in europe and in the US, but i will do that in another post...
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