Slashdot Mirror
Dutch Judge Cracks Down on Hyperlinks
The webzine Radikal (mirrored in Holland, because it has been banned in Germany) published several articles on disabling railroad trains (in the context of preventing shipments of nuclear materials); the German national railroad discovered it, and the fun has been going on ever since. Rejo Zenger writes "Today a dutch judge ordered Indymedia NL on the request of the Deutsche Bahn to remove some links from a page on their website. These links were pointing to the mirrors of Radikal sites. A few of these sites were containing two articles that have been forbidden in court before. The links were indirect links (surface links) instead of direct ones to the articles (deeplinks). So, none of the links was pointing to the offending articles directly! The judge "orders Indymedia immediately after receiving this sentence to remove and to keep removed the hyperlinks, which are placed on (a) website(s) under the control of Indymedia, if those hyperlinks lead directly or indirectly to the Radikal articles [...]". This is BAD. As almost all links indirectly point to the Radikal articles we can abolish the web now. The announcement, Dutch with English to follow shortly. The decision of the judge (dutch only)." Indymedia's press release (English) covers it pretty well. Update: 06/21 19:54 GMT by M : My summary in the first sentence has been corrected.
The verdict is surprising, since Indymedia NL does not link directly to illegal articles. Until now, only direct links to illegal material were forbidden in the Netherlands.
But how many "degrees of separation" (consectuive link-jumps) are needed until the linking is permissible. Six?
Though I'm not in the Netherlands, I cannot see how this can be logical. One might be able to extend this ruling ad infinitum.
I am the evil aardvark!
Dutch != German!
The Radikal magazine is german, DB (Deutche Bahn) is german, but the articles where published on a Dutch site (Indymedia.nl). So please get your facts strait!
Does putting a URL without making it a link (so that it has to be cut and pasted) count as linking? It's splitting hairs, but it's just conveying info that way, not linking...
that too many people in power are too ignorant of technology. No one would be dumb enough to ban a website link directly or indirectly of a website in the U.S., because in the long run it doesn't matter. The judge thinks the Internet is some tangible force he can control through judiciary action. On a side note, I thought Denmark was one of the more tech-savvy countries (even more so per capita than the U.S.A). Scratch that off my list of assumptions :)
- tristan
I guess we can start the "seven degrees of Radikaal" game.
If you can get from a site to these 'offending' pages in (say) less than 7 links then we are too close (and are forced to watch a Kavin Bacon movie, or shake the US president's hand or something)
Or maybe something like Mornington Crescent?
Hmm
troc
Wow.. I have never seen a stream of thought that starts at "derail passenger trains" and ends at "destroy a woman's mink coat."
The fact is, free speech has to be protected in all but the most extreme of cases..or not at all.
Your chain of thought that I mentioned above is a great example as to why. Do we regulate all speech that could have harmful effects for others? Or does somebody have to choose which type of ill-effects are regulated and which are not? After all cooking meth can certainly lead to some fantastic explosions, which could set your neighbors house on fire. That has ill effects.. just like selling meth does. Why shouldn't that be regulated?
And driving fast can lead to crashes.. so should any speech about how to make your car go faster be banned as well?
Even this case has an interesting free speech question. After all, the dutch magazine was using its speech about derailing trains for a "good cause" as it was dealing with the shipment of nuclear materials. Why shouldn't this be protected?
The fact is, speech is incredibly difficult to regulate and to pick and choose what can and can't be regulated is very difficult. THis is why our courts in the US have always been so reluctant to limit speech in all but the most prudent of ways (the whole yelling "Fire!" in a crowded place is one example).
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
The ruling states that, although the links themselves were indirect, they were accompanied by detailed instructions on how to locate the pages in question. It was this combination which the judge ruled illegal, not the actual link per se.
This aspect should go down well with the Code=Speech crowd: source code (in this case a direct link) is essentially the same as a description/poem/diagram describing same.
Free speech is a privilege, not a right, and it should be used responsibly - not to hurt people.
In the United States of America Free Speech IS a RIGHT... check out the constitution.
Sorry, but I want to defend the judge a bit. For some stupid reason, this information has been ordered to remain secret. Just like Americans would hide information on their president's plane from terrorists. The judge didn't say anything about hyperlinks in general, he only spoke about Indymedia's intent. Even if it wasn't a link but a Javascript-generated rot13ed copy sung as a MP3 but clearly marked as illegal, it should be judged that way. Case by case, without generalizations. Free speech is an important right. But that's what we have judges for. (As much as I hate them, and yes, I'm Dutch.)
It's easy to be for free speech, if you like the someone else is saying. It's requires some courage to support free speech that you disagree with.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Did they - and if they didn't, why didn't they - demonstrate to the court the absurdity of what they are asking. Simply pick half a dozen or so government sites and show how, within five or so links they too link to the pages the court wishes to censor. Even better if they can show such links from the court service's web site.
This may be a kind of radical idea, but how about we not derail ANY trains? Sabotage is sabotage and just because the information is targeted at one specific train doesn't mean it couldn't be applied to a different train. I prefer riding the rails without having to worry if some lunatic figured out how many stacked pennies on the tracks it takes to derail it.
Banning direct links obviously doesn't work, which is why you say it's "reasonable" to also ban indirect links of any length. So option 2 is obviously out. That leaves us with:
There are many examples, papers, discussions etc on how most web pages are indirectly linked to another. Following your own logical progression, it would therefore be "perfectly reasonable" for a ban to include the entire web. Obviously that would be silly. Which leaves us with the remaining option:
It's as simple as that. This is why law is in general really twisted and complicated - it gets far too wide reaching otherwise. Sounds to me like this judge hasn't quite grasped the consequences that result from this. Or the logic, for that matter. IANAL, blah.
like the typical "can't yell fire in a crowded movie theater". I think that is what the poster intended.
While it IS a right, it is NOT an unlimited right to say whatever you want, whenever you want, etc. Whether you like or not, there ARE limits.
The real question is: does this go past the limits?
I agree, it seems logical. 'dutch' and 'deutsch' really look simmilar, but they are NOT. The text on /. makes one mixup after the other so let's put the things in the right place.
People from the Netherlands (Nederland) are dutch (nederlands). (The word 'Holland' is ufed to refer to the western part is the Netherlands.)
People in Germany (Deutschland) are german (deutsch).
Radical is a german bulletin which was posted on www.xs4all.nl. The atricles in question were on disrupting the german railways. The 'Deutsche Bahn' (in germany, not dutch) found the articles on the dutch server and asked xs4all to remove the articles.
Xs4all is really cool. It was started about 10 (more or less) years ago by a few hackers who wanted legal and cheap access to the internet for all.
Anyway. The german railroads asked the dutch to take off the Radical site.
I hope it helps to understand the article.
Privacy is terrorism.
"i do have a problem with idiotically dangerous speech...i think shouting "fire" in a crowded theater should be illegal, which it is, "
The phrase you need here is: "clear and present danger". It's the phrase the Supreme Court of the United States came up with to describe one of only a couple of limits on 'free speech'. The other would, of course, be slander. Slander is obviously irrelevant to this discussion, so let's briefly look at the first idea. Clear and present danger describes a situation where your speech directly causes an atmosphere of immediate harm to others. Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre directly changes the environment from a safe, friendly atmosphere to a chaotic rush in which virtually everyone in the theatre could be injured or killed. The same situation exists for a person who declares they have a bomb on a bus or plane. Such speech can cause panic within the cabin, or perhaps cause the plane or bus to crash, possibly killing everyone on board.
If I had a website that said it's funny to yell 'bomb' while on a bus, or to yell 'fire' in a theatre, it's very doubtful the site would ever run into any trouble with the law. Why? Because there's no clear and present danger stemming from the existance of that site. If someone read my website, and then made the decision to go yell 'fire' in a theatre, they would be arrested, as their words caused the danger, not mine. This website is abouta bit more serious situation, yet the principle remains the same. If the website's existance caused people to be injured or to die directly and immediately, I would say it's illegal and needs to go. However, to this day, I do not believe I have ever heard of a "website-related death". If you wanted to make such a case, try going after the people who make spam ads that flash alot, and make the case of possible harm to epileptics. THAT would be an example of a website fitting the 'clear and present danger' formula; the website itself causes a situation where injury or death is likely. 100,000 people can view a website about de-railing trains and go "hmm, that's interesting" with no direct or indirect consequences. The website is not your problem, the guy de-railing the train is the problem. The person who reads the website and then commits the illegal act is the problem, not the knowledge itself. Lots of people have the knowledge to de-rail a train, yet the vast majority choose not to. Why? They know it's wrong to do so.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I agree with those smart people! The best way to show the dangers of nuclear energy is to derail a train and let the contents spill over a large area. That'll show the government!
Now, should such content be published and widely accessible? If the article is bogus and does not describe a real threat, it doesn't matter. Now, let's say that the article described techniques that actually work. It was published, what, five years ago? If it still poses a threat, we have to conclude that this kind of transport just cannot be made safe, in which case it shouldn't be carried out. If a bunch of adolescents can describe this in a low-quality rag, real terrorists can certainly figure it out as well. Whichever way you look at it, the article should not pose a threat to actual nuclear transport or rail travel.
This just goes to show again that security through obscurity is as stupid when it comes to physical security as when it comes to computer security. Sadly, much of our government spooks are living by that principle, and we all pay the price, both in loss of civil liberties and loss of life.