Study on Internet Censorship in Germany

An anonymous reader writes "There is a report on Germany forcing ISPs to censor the Internet by faking DNS entries. ISPs also seem to use this to steal mail and generally screw up the Internet. Next thing they plan is using BGP to break routing to unwanted webservers. Scary."

Comments

No no no...

[FroMan]

They have it all wrong. It must be the US that is doing this. We know the US is the source of all censorship.

</sarcasm>

I love how everytime folks dislike a law (many of them bad) declare that they are going to move to Canada or Europe where freedoms really mean something.

Well, lets see. Strike out Germany, they censor the web. Strike out France, they also prevent auctions on WWII artifacts. England with their video cameras and national ID cards are out.

To tell the truth, I found I was able to get the the stormfront site that one of the links mentioned. Why? I live in the US. While we do have freedom issues here, I don't think they are quite the same as many other countries.

Here, you are allowed to go against popular ideas. You can be a racist if you like. You can hate whites, blacks, anyone you want. You can hate the government or current administration.

In the US you are able to create your own website and report any news you like. Infact, you can go to any website you wish, and you will actually get there (barring internet routing problems). The government isn't going to force ISPs to route around you.

While many of the reactionary laws from 9/11 are causing problems, we have Ashcroft fighting to keep those laws on the books. You know why? Because, they are not permanent, there was a sunset clause put into the law. You know what else? Ashcroft isn't having an easy go at it.

So, next time that you want to throw a temper tantrum that the US is removing your freedoms, keep in mind we could do much worse. We could be making it so you could not go to German sites or French sites or muslim sites or Christian sites.

This isn't to say we should have these PATRIOT acts and such, but here we have the power and ability to fight laws like that. I think our energy is best used in that fashion, not whining how some other country that has a good law here or there but also has some other horrible laws.

Re:No no no...

[crow]

You do have some good points in your rant. But what about Canada, Denmark, Sweeden, and such? The USA isn't as bad as some make it out to be, but there are examples of where it could be better.

Re:No no no...

[FroMan]

Any of those might be fine, as might Germany, France or England.

Myself, I have other issues with many of those other countries. I am not a big fan of being taxed any more than I already am. I don't know the tax rates in any of those countries, but I'd bet they are more than the US. I don't like the idea of nationalized health care, as Canada has, and Denmark and Sweeden probably have (I could look it up, but not worth it).

My point original point was that the US isn't this draconiam state where the government decides what you eat, where you work, what entertainment you are allowed. Folks seem to forget that.

Its easy to rail against the US when you are sitting infront of your GHz class machine, in air conditioning, eating 2000 calories a day. A US citizen has it pretty easy over all. I just mainly think that a lot of the folks here (especially teens and mid twenties folks) don't really appreciate the history of the US and the foundations of the country. Sure, we cannot rest on our laurels of history, but we can draw knowledge and drive towards a future.

Re:No no no...

[Lars T.]

Sure, ignore that the US also blocks websites. Also ignore that i had no problem accessing stormfront.org from the largest german ISP - as if I would have missed something but American Nazi Scum. But American Nazi sites don't get blocked by King Shrubya and his merry dudes.

Re:No no no...

[dk.r*nger]

The government isn't going to force ISPs to route around you.

I think that is a very naive statement. I'm pretty sure that in august 2001 you'd have sworn that the government would never [insert power given to government by the patriot act here].

Europe isn't perfect, either. In Denmark we are currently dealing with very xenophopic legislation - and it isn't even caused by post 9-11 panic, "we" just don't like other peoples. Add 50+% income taxes, and I wouldn't want to live here, had it not been my fathering country.

Re:No no no...

[Lars T.]

Al Jadzira for one, among other non-streamlined news-sites during the war you keep getting lied to about. And the sites that Pennsylvania blocked but won't name.

Re:No no no...

[GigsVT]

[US govt doesn't] decide what you eat,

As long as it isn't one of the many forbidden herbs, in which case you could go to jail.

where you work,

Unless you want to work for a government contractor and happen to enjoy the aforementioned forbidden herbs. All government contractors are required to give drug tests.

Or maybe you want to conduct business on Sunday, or sell alcohol, things that are still forbidden in many areas.

what entertainment you are allowed

Unless you want to:

Have anal or oral sex (in most states)
Have sex before marriage
Be homosexual
Hire a prostitute
Watch porn on broadcast TV
Smoke a joint in the privacy of your own home
Crack a commercial DRM product
Trade music online
Light a bonfire (california emissions laws) ....

I mostly agree with you, things aren't too bad here, things are a lot worse in some aspects in some other countries. That doesn't mean there aren't severe limitations on what is allowed and what is not.

Re:No no no...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is resistance against censorship in Germany. Many respectable organizations and individuals have expressed strong objection on an abstract level, practical ways around this kind of censorship are discussed and tutorials are written to illustrate the futility of filtering methods. But we still have this stupid law and politicians in the regional government who work towards enforcement in their realm of influence. So yes, we're rightly accused of using inappropriate measures to further inappropriate causes. That doesn't mean you can lean back and use our failure as an excuse to reject all accusations against your society. An example: AFAIK, very recent deregulation will allow further concentration in the broadcast media market. That isn't technically censorship, but concentration reduces the diversity of opinions, which can have very much the same effects. Then there's the DMCA, etc. etc.

Not only is the method idiotic and broken...

[Tuxinatorium]

...But the cause is idiotic as well Censorship never accomplished anything of value except perhaps limiting little boys' access to likenesses of the human body, if you see that as valuable, and stopping reporters from giving out so much information about troops that the enemy starts watching CNN for combat intelligence. Everything else that censorship has done was destructive.

What's all this then?

[fm6]

This whole discussion has me scratching my head. I can't find any reference to this alleged DNS-censorship that isn't online gossip. Nothing on an actual news site. I've found reports that German companies want to implement this kind of censorship and of course all these claims that they've already done it. But I just don't see it. Why isn't the German equivalent of the ACLU raising a stink? Why is there no actual news?

Perhaps somebody who actually understands how DNS works could convince me this isn't just a black-helicopter urban legend. Until then, I'm inclined to put this with that guy that "proved" that whitehouse.gov was registered in the U.K.!

Re:What's all this then?

[amorsen]

You should not necessarily be surprised that the Germans accept blocking of neo-nazi sites without much discussion. I may be wrong since I am not from Germany but from Denmark, but anything related to nazism seems to be almost as offensive to a German as child pornography is. Imagine that there were sites with child-pornography operating openly in some other country. Do you think the US providers would be told by the government to block access to those sites? And do you think any civil rights group would raise more than a murmur over this, apart from perhaps issuing a report about how badly the blocking is implemented?

In any case, such blocking is interesting from a technical viewpoint. Doing it in DNS is easy and it scales well, but it is also easy to circumvent. Doing it by inserting a black hole route in BGP is easy for the first couple, but routers will not be able to handle an unlimited number of /32 blackhole routes. As long as the router does not melt, it is a pretty effective method. There are other methods, but they all suck in at least one way.

And then someone invented Freenet. Practically impossible to block. It will be interesting to see which country that will be the first to make it illegal.