Slashdot Mirror
How Italian Police Shut Down U.S. Web Servers
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."
I agree. It's also important to note that the webmaster was italian, not a US citizen. The Italian Special Police replaced images on a site run by an Italian citizen. The bits just happend to be sitting on US soil. At the worst, the US-based hosting provider could investigate the stealing of the password used to change the content just as they would any common defacer. Even that is a far stretch though.
The article says they just logged in with the user's name and password... did they obtain it volutarily, or involuntarily (network sniffer, etc...)?
Anyone know? It doesn't seem that US authorities are involved in this whatsoever, though.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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.
Is this not a crime under US law? After all, unauthorized access was used to alter the site's contents.
[...blah blah...]
I love how non-Americans can get away with starting sentences like this about Americans and effectively generalize about 250+ million people, and yet if an American says something like that about Europeans or any other group we're accused of being ill-informed Ameri-centric assholes.
Curious and annoying double-standard.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
If the content was created in one country and hosted in another country which laws should apply?
If you make the decision to host your content in another country, then you should abide by the laws of that country. If I decided to write a parody and host it in North Korea (where it is illegal) I should be prepared to face the consequences.
Let me provide a counter example: Should China ba allowed to shut down a site in the U.S. because it was written by a Chinese political dissident? No. They can prosecute those who read the material within their jurisdiction, but they should have no authority over content in other countries.
Blue Gravity's chief executive, Tom Krwawecz, said the company was never informed. And he believes U.S. laws -- not Italy's -- ought to apply.
.02 cents anyways.
I don't think so...
We do not have the right to interfere with the laws of other countries (unless it is flat out human rights violatations and the enslaved are being used to build a war machine against us) Being that the USA is a melting pot, we have been taught to respect the belief's and values of other cultures.
The content was created in italy, by an italian. Being Italian myself, the story sort of took a special note with me.
Let's say someone in the US was creating kiddie porn sites and hosting them offshore. Most states in the US make it illeagle to have nudes of anyone under 18. The laws in other countries differ, you can marry as young as 14 and still be legal. Should we exempt someone dealing in kiddie porn just because their site is offshore? No! Of course not.
So if that is the logic applied here, then why in gods name would we want to impose a double standard to our allied nations laws? It doesn't bode well with "keeping the peace"
my
It's worth repeating that the originator of this technique was the United States with the Skarlov(sp?) case. The US, in effect, used legal pretense to abduct a visiting foreign national for breaking our laws while living and and a citizen of another country.
If another country, say Iran, had imprisoned a US citizen for speaking his mind while living in the US, the Marine Corps battle flag would be flying over the rubble of Teheran by now. But, of course, might makes right, so that will just have to remain one of life's little injustices.
As, then, will this concept of having your travel restricted by exercising your (US) rights.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
The reason people say this a lot is because, of all the nationalities in the world, it's the Americans who tend to think that the world should be doing things their way, and that everyone else is just backwards.
Yes, it's stereotyping, yes, it's wrong.
But there IS a reason you see it so often... and that's because many, many americans DO reflect this attitude.
But true in a lot of cases.
American's are, in general, Ameri-centric assholes.
I should know. I live here. I have since birth.
We believe atleast as strongly, if not more strongly than most nations, that our ways are the correct ones and we have the right to make others live by those same beliefs. Whatever we want is good. Whatever opposes us is bad.
Unfortunately, we also have the muscle to back up these stupid claims.
Justin Dubs
Well, the way I would see it is that in your example, the person creating the content could be tried under the laws of his country of residence for creating the content, but the server itself and content on such could only be touched by the laws of the country in which it is being hosted.
The answer to world government problems, of course, is the ability to get a friendly government to lend you a hand in nabbing that annoying server. And this is where the real problems of jurisdiction, laws, and citizen rights begin.
it appears that the Italian police used the user's authentication credentials to alter the site. That's a computer crime, and the Italian police involved in the action should be immediately arrested if they set foot on U.S. soil. If it's good enough for Dmitri Sklyarov, it should be good enough for foreign law enforcement officials that steal computer access.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
This is, obviously, a jurisdictional question.
There are three factors at work here:
1. The country in which the material was physically produced. Itally.
2. The country in which the author resides. Itally.
3. The country in which the material was published. United States.
Note that 1 and 2 do not necessarily have to be the same, and may be complicated.
In order for a country to have complete jurisdiction, al three categories should take place within that country: the author should be there, it should be produced there, and it should be published there.
In cases where the material is produced in one country and published in another, the country where the material was published should have jurisdiction to regulate or not regulate that material: in the case of a web-site, to take it down or not, or to censor it or not. No other country than that of publication should have this power.
That's the easy question. The hard one is which country should have jurisdiction over the author -- i.e., punishing him or not, according to laws? It certainly should not necessarily be the country of publication. The question is, should it be the country where the author resides or the country where the material was produced. They can be different. I can, for example, log into a server in Taiwan and type up a document there. In that case, the author resides in the US, but the material was produced in Taiwan.
Though this seems like a difficult question, its actually very easy if you liken it to real-world scenaries. If I -- a US citizen -- leave the United States and go to another country (for vacation) which has different laws regulating, say, murder, I am accountable only to those laws, not US laws. The laws of one nation should stay within that nations borders; they should not follow that nations citizens around the world where-ever they may go. This would require that vacationing citizens would have to consider two different sets of laws to obey -- an unreasonable request. It may even require that citizens obey two contradictory laws -- an impossible request.
Thus, the nation where the material was produced should have governing authority over the person who produced it, *provided* that person is in that nation at the time. I.e., this does not mean that the US can prosecute someone in Taiwan because he logged into a US system from remote to produce some material. However, it does mean that Taiwan cannot prosecute that person. It also means that should the person come to the US, he can be prosecuted in the US because he produced the offending material in the US, remotely from Taiwan.
Lets apply this to the Dmitry Skylarov case. This means that the US has the jurisdiction to regulate that content within the US, but not the jurisdiction to prosecute anyone who wrote that content, as the content was produced in Russia.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Let's change the data in the scenerio. Let's say that the files in question belonged to a company, or even a political group. Would it be legal for the Italian Police to change/move/delete files from another organization, because they consider it a violation of their laws?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
hatespeech against the Blessed Mother
Blessed Mother by whose opinion? Oh, that's right, by the opinion of your religion. What if other religions disagree? Oop, how dare they consider freedom of religious expression! There is only One True Church, right?
one does not have the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater,
No, but you can write about yelling fire in a crowded theater all you want.
and you can make the case that this is exactly what the Web site was doing, from a theological point of view.
How does this put a group of people in a confined space in immediate peril of life and limb?
Damned AC's. I should know better than to reply to them.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Somebody mod this crap down.
Just because someone has your ID and password doesn't make it legally authorized access. Many ISPs say that the only person authorized to use an account is the person paying the bill. The ISP is the party that gets to choose who is authorized on their system, not the end user. The Blue Mountain guy quoted in the article should put his money where his mouth is and go after the Italian cops under international anti-terrorism/hacking laws. That'd be a blast.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
the police are not authorized by the ISP/provider. the access is granted to that individual in Italy. only him.
The Court's aim is not to get between relatively petty arguments between the standards of two different countries. Instead, it's designed to prosecute those who commit serious crimes such as genocide in cases where countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute the criminals.
That may be the Court's aim, but in practice given the way it's set up and the judges are appointed, it's likely to become just as politicized as the UN and the International Olympic Committee. Currently the Sudan, Uganda, and Syria (!) are members of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights while the U.S. is not. Yep, just the countries we can count on to get to the bottom of any human rights abuses.
However, the Court only steps in when a citizen of a country is not properly prosecuted by their home country.
True, but the key point is that the Court gets to decide whether someone has been properly prosecuted - not the country involved. Furthermore the Court claims jurisdiction over countries that have never signed or ratified the ICC treaty - something unprecedented in international relations.
Trying to silence critics like this is not only morally wrong, it makes you look like a frightened idiot.
Do you doubt the validity of your own beliefs so much that you have to silence those that refute it?
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Let's change the data in the scenerio. Let's say that the files in question belonged to a company, or even a political group. Would it be legal for the Italian Police to change/move/delete files from another organization, because they consider it a violation of their laws?
Let's make it even more interesting.
The Vatican is recognized by the UN as its own country, has its own police force, etc.
If I put up a site detailing the sex crimes of Catholic priests, along with pictures, name, and addresses of the perpetrators (and their governing Bishops who are covering up these crimes), and the Vatican decides doing such is against their law, can they break into my machine (hosted in the United States) and vandalize my content?
How about if, instead of an American citizen, I'm a catholic priest with Vatican 'citizenship', with the content hosted on the exact same machine (in America). Does an illegal break-in become legal simply because the citizenship of the data's owner happens to be non-American. Somehow, I think not.
I suspect the decision not to extradite the Italian police officer in question will have for more to do with politics (and favor-trading in this 'war against terror' hysteria we're in) than it will any points of law, fine or otherwise.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
-Craig
PS - Yes, I have no problem judging another culture.
Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Sooo, do you really think US laws should be exclusively applied to the internet? How far did the US govt go shutting down decss? The US govt will bend over and grease up for the corporations, so whats so surprising about the Italian govt playing alter boy for the church? I can guarantee you that the Catholic church will be here alot longer than the RIAA or M$ or any other corporate entity, after all they are one of the most successful & long lived organizations in (modern & less than modern) history. It's sort of like democrats and republicans arguing who's more corrupt, the answer is d. All of the above.
This world has to start thinking like one earth! National boundaries are made by MAN not god! Radio signals don't stop at them. Water doesn't stop flowing natually by them. Same thing for air, sound, and 1001 other things...one being the Internet. Most problems that our earth has today are GLOBAL in nature. The concept of nation states is a throwback to an earlier time before the discovery of radio and other instant means of communication and before airline flight made our earth so tiny. The whole concept is obsolete and should be scrapped. Alas, we all know that that simply won't happen unless and until something threatens the entire earth on a global scale.