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How Italian Police Shut Down U.S. Web Servers

Posted by timothy on from the old-fashioned-way dept.

gessel writes: "CNN has an article describing Italian police shutting down a U.S. hosted website deemed in Italy to be illegally blasphemous. The article goes on to describe the ramifications and U.S. efforts along the same lines."

4 of 476 comments (clear)

  1. Not really a law issue. by captain_craptacular · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looks like some Italian cops found someones password and shut things down. It's not like they forced the U.S. based ISP's to pull the content.

    Looks like a non-story to me.

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    They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
    1. Re:Not really a law issue. by captain_craptacular · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's only a crime if they were unauthorized. My guess is he gave up the password in an attempt to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for "a kind word at sentencing"...

      Even if the access was unathorized it seems to me that the original post made it sound like the Italians somehow forced the ISP to pull protected speech off the net, which didn't happen at all. Whether some affected U.S. citizen has a case against the Italians is another matter.

      --
      They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
    2. Re:Not really a law issue. by Nutello · · Score: 5, Informative
      And nobody seems to be remembering the whole issue that set this off in the first place: hatespeech against the Blessed Mother.
      For the umpteenth time: it's not just that. Since the end of 1999, Italian law has depenalised blasphemy. And in 1995 the Italian Supreme Court ruled that cursing at the "Blessed Mother" or saints does not constitute blasphemy. Only cursing at any deity (God, Allah, Buddha, etc.) does.

      The Italian government itself actually funded in large part with a grant a highly blasphemous movie.

      Again, this is making the news only because it seems picturesque to "journalists" worldwide. If you want to know why the Italian Police bothered with the site, follow the money - i.e. tax fraud and what not, which of course is nothing new or glamourous. Alleged blasphemy alone wouldn't have been enough to trigger the operation: witness all blasphemous Italian sites still around.
  2. BULLS*** , Sensationalism and Slash by CDWert · · Score: 5, Informative

    They did NO such thing, they did NOT I REPEAT NOT ! Shut down ANY web sites. They could have but they actually DIDNT.

    What they did do, was CHANGE the content in question REMOTLEY. They made no effort to have the ISP or the US goverment TERMINATE the hosting of these sites, what they did was (probably with a rubber hose and blackjack) get the username and password and altered the site.

    I hate when people say something other than happened, I read the damm headline an just about panicked that they somehow did this through LEGAL channels in the US , THEY DID NOT .

    What they did is no different than what a 12 year old script kiddie could have done with a username and password. they changed content, there is a HUGE difference betwwen CHANGING content and "Shutting Down" a website, if the fellow had US cronies that were willing to host it the Italians could do absolutley NOTHING about it. Im half tempted to get a cached copy and host it for the fellows. Let the meatballs try and shut it down.

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    Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........