German Police Arrest Admin of Tor Anonymity Server

An anonymous reader writes "In a recent blog posting, a German operator of a Tor anonymous proxy server revealed that he was arrested by German police officers at the end of July. Showing up at his house at midnight on a Sunday night, police cuffed and arrested him in front of his wife and seized his equipment. In a display of both bitter irony and incompetence, the police did not take or shut-down the Tor server responsible for the traffic they were interested in, which was located in a data center, over 500km away. In the last year, Germany has passed a draconian new anti-security research law and raided seven different data centers to seize Tor servers. While back in 2003, A German court ordered the developers of a different anonymity network to build a back-door into their system."

Comments

Typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

should it be from the good guys never win dept.? or am i missing something about the almightiness or Tor?

Re:Typo?

[Anonymous Coward]

you got the first post and you wasted it on THAT?!?

Re:Typo?

[doti]

Yeah, that's really a waste.
"FR1sT POOST!" is much more constructive.

Securty vs Freedom

[downix]

People that trade freedom for security shall recieve neither.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[m0ns00n]

Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA. I wonder how far this will go until western rooted terrorism comes on par with middle eastern terrorism. If the western governments continue to assault their people like this, terrorism will only grow in scope and severity. Their war on terror will obviously only generate more of what they are fighting. Too bad the politicians slept in class.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[downix]

Too true. There comes a time when a government turns on the very people it was designed to nurture, and the results can be disasterous.

Does anyone recall the French Revolution?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

I do.. took us weeks to get it to revolve

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[h4rm0ny]

Good luck to this guy. Tor is very useful in preserving our privacy. Electronic communication has been a massive free party for government and police surveillance as people have been sending their communications around in ways that are as secure as a postcard. Now people are catching on and taking their privacy back and these agencies are reacting with aggression. If they want to snoop on someone then they can go through the traditional channels and not crack down on the anonymity and privacy of all of us, which serves a vital social purpose.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Original Replica]

Does anyone recall the French Revolution?

Our leaders, both in the EU and the US, paid careful attention to the lessons learned in the French Revolution, namely that as long as you keep your people well fed and entertained, you can do whatever you damn well please. In the French Revolution, the people storming the Bastille had nothing to lose. But our level of comfort is carefully maintained to keep actual violent revolt from ever happening. Even the poor in our countries have too much to lose (thanks to government programs)to risk anything angrier than waving a slogan on a posterboard sign.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if anyone's thought of this, and it admittedly sounds like paranoia...but the war in Iraq is giving them very valuable practice on subordinating a populace with terrorism. You could say our efforts against terrorism are not being very effective over there, but keep in mind that they'd really have to take away many many freedoms in order for us to give up what we have; there's a reason why most terrorists (not the leaders) are either psychotic or poor. The latter have nothing to lose.

Bottom line? If you put a frog in cold water and slowly increase the temperature to a boil, the frog won't move. There's now experience on how to effectively silence any rebellious frogs.

There's also the small fact that terrorists can obtain AK-47s for less than a good handgun in the US. They get supplies from other nations. How would this work in the US? Assuming the military goes along with it, I don't think there'd be much we could do...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Wowsers]

Generally, we have no politicians with a degree in IT, but all useless subjects like politics, art, history etc. and these people are the ones pulling the technology strings of government (and hence your country). Many politicians don't even know how to send an e-mail!!!

Politicians only believe in headline grabbing nonsense like we must crack down on internet porn, without understanding what they are saying and complexities. It helps that the masses are equally as thick so don't see right through the politicians, so they can say what they like.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[sholden]

There's also the flip side, that US soldiers get to see how effective terrorist tactics are against an better trained and equipped force, and bring that knowledge and experience back home with them: http://www.counterpunch.org/lind12062006.html

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

What class was that? What steps would you take to prevent terrorist acts such as bombings, gunnings-down, etc?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[KDR_11k]

Problem is the people trading it aren't the people receiving the consequences.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

"Too bad the politicians slept in class."

On the contrary, they were wide awake.

Who do you think benefits from a totalitarian state? The politicians. The leaders.

Sure, a lot of them are idiots, but on the whole they know that they're not in the job to help the citizens -- they're in the job to help themselves. Ubiquitous surveillance, in vogue now with the War on Terror, is exactly what they want. The populace under their thumbs is what they desire.

Most of them don't even see anything wrong with that. They often believe that they know better, and that they'll do the best job if they're free of red-tape restrictions.

They aren't dumb, and they aren't intentionally evil, but you could say the same of most oppressors through history.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[JackMeyhoff]

They only have the authority that YOU GIVE THEM. You can take that away just as easily. Turn your back on the government that you give authority to and they will go away. I have had the police knock on my door many times in a dispute with my neighbour, I never opened the door. Why? BECAUSE I DID NOT GIVE THE POLICE ANY AUTHORITY OVER ME to come in :) They have no power if I do not give it to them. Easy. Now get your act together, government is made up of people. People only have power of you if you let them. Ignore them, they don't exist.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[nightgeometry]

Kinda off-topic, and whilst the saying is a good one, if you put frogs in cold water and slowly heat, they will jump out before they boil.

Frog boiling according to Victor H. Hutchison the George Lynn Cross Research Professor Emeritus of Zoology.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Daimanta]

Does anyone recall the French Revolution? Does anyone recall the bloody results from the French Revolution?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

Don't sanctify it.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

You are a brave man.
I gotta warn you, I know of localities where the cops break down doors. If that ever happens in your area, to your door, who are you gonna call? Or do you just plan to break out the ammo?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any countries that do have a similar or better level of comfort that isn't being carefully maintained to keep violent revolts from happening?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[DaedalusHKX]

Actually, politicians respond to "someone should make a law about that", or "someone should do something about that".

The masses generally scream that "why doesn't someone do something about it"... whenever something is printed in a newspaper.

Most people with IT degrees aren't very "social" and rarely run for office, if ever.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[temcat]

What class was that?

The Ruling Class, naturally.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Kopiok]

This is MUCH worse than it is in the US. While there are questionable laws and such, look at Britain and Germany. Britain has cameras on every street corner and Germany has ridiculously restrictive "cyber"-laws.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[jc42]

... US soldiers get to see how effective terrorist tactics are against an better trained and equipped force, and bring that knowledge and experience back home ...

Hmmm ... The same lesson seems to have been "learned" by US soldiers back in the 1960s and 70s. But there's little evidence that the general population or the political system has incorporated any of the lessons. The current US government certainly didn't learn anything from Vietnam; few if any of them were over there, and they seem to be actively inviting the same sort of fiasco. A current joke: "How is Iraq different from Vietnam? George Bush has been to Iraq."

It's also quite clear that the current crop of US soldiers have never been taught anything about the Vietnam War. It's a topic that's rarely if ever mentioned in the history classes in the US school system, for which history seems to have stopped 50 or 60 years ago. What little is known by the current crop of military recruits was mostly learned from Hollywood movies. See "Rambo" for details.

It's true that military historians have studied guerilla warfare in great detail. But there seems to be little evidence that our leaders have ever looked at such studies. To see a detailed example of this, google for "Battle of Algiers". This is a thoroughly documented topic. George Bush and his crowd claim to have read the famous book about it. But looking at their actions, you'd conclude that most have only seen the movie, if that. They certainly didn't learn any of the lessons, because they're making the same mistakes that the historians describe the French government making back in the 1950s, with the same results.

History definitely does seem to be repeating itself. And it doesn't even rhyme ...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Sique]

The people storming the Bastille were just looking for anything they could damage. The Bastille was just a luxury prison for noble people, it was not the fortress the legend tried to turn it to later. It was defended by a women's batallion, and the commander of the Bastille was ready to turn it over to the leaders.

When the front line was just starting to enter the Bastille peacefully, people further behind were pressuring and thus it turned into a mob, raging through the building and raping and massacring the female soldiers who had long ago surrendered.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[iminplaya]

Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA.

More like a repeat of the '20s and '30s. I'm sure some find the whole thing rather nostalgic.

Too bad the politicians slept in class.

They are beholden to weapons manufacturers and dealers. "Terrorists" are their best customers. And probably pay cash, so everything's off the books. Politicians and Wall Street hoodlums are wide awake and laughing all the way to the bank. The only thing they are fighting is a recession in the arms trade. That's why the urge to get places like Libya back on the client list.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Daimanta]

The best sailors stand on the shore line.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

This account differs so substantially from the standard version that I am going to have to ask you to provide your source.

(Not because I think you're making stuff up - I have no doubt that the standard version of the story is very inaccurate, as most founding-legends tend to be - but because I'd like to read further about the modern understanding of events!)

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

"BECAUSE I DID NOT GIVE THE POLICE ANY AUTHORITY OVER ME"

Did you take the considerable time and money to actually purchase some land or do you just own real estate?

If you just own real estate you don't own ANYTHING, as real estate is an indefinite agreement of lease.

If you just own real estate someone else actually owns "your" land and you have no claim of authority over it.

If you just own real estate and some company finds an interest in "your" land - guess what? eminent domain switcharoo - not your land - too bad for you.

Ignoring a monster might make you less stressed but it won't help you if that monster comes for you.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[h4rm0ny]

It's also quite clear that the current crop of US soldiers have never been taught anything about the Vietnam War. It's a topic that's rarely if ever mentioned in the history classes in the US school system,

You're kidding me? I'm not disputing what you say as I've never been through the US education system. I just find it astonishing that Vietnam doesn't feature in a large way in the history classes. Though maybe it is the large scale protests against it that would be most troubling to some in power today.

I can think of two strong reasons, if you need any, why guerilla warfare is not focused on by the US. For one, there's a huge arms business in the US which is essentially a means of taking tax money from the people and diverting it into private pockets, and for this to work the focus needs to be on big expensive toys. Putting guerilla fighters as emphasis does not fit with that goal. But more importantly, perhaps, is that guerilla tactics work on your home terrain in a population that is sympathetic to your cause. The US doesn't contemplate defence. Its military focus is on invasion, for which guerilla warfare is less appropriate than air power. (My opinion)

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[darkmeridian]

Modern Western-rooted terrorism still has a long way to go before it matches up with modern Middle Eastern terrorism. Sharia law and Muslim states where women are stoned for adultery, where limbs are amputated for petty thefts, where not practicing Islam is a capital crime, where executions are by beheading, where courts are religious, where women have to wear burkas, where women can't go to school, where women are locked into a burning schoolhouse because male firefighters can't be allowed to see them without a burka, where suicide bombing civilians in malls, trains and buses is considered okay if not a religious duty, where torture and beatings are considered par for the course, where prisoners routinely die from neglect and starvation, where gassing your own citizens is a good idea in governance, where developing a nuclear bomb to exterminate Jews is a legitimate government goal, where the connected are allowed to walk around and rape anyone they want without fear of recourse, where the Internet is not allowed, where pornography can get you killed, where dancing, music and movies are illegal, where freedom of speech is at the whim of the religious leaders, where rule is by diktat, and where religion is state are much, much worse than Western nations if you're concerned with liberty and security.

Call me a flamer, or a troll (see my posting history to see what Slashdot does to people who disagree) but unless you're moving from Germany or America to Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, you've already voted on this issue with your feet.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[DrSkwid]

Frogs don't stay in the water, they try and get out.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[FailedTheTuringTest]

Women's battalion? I find it extremely hard to believe that such a thing existed in Europe of the 1700s. Wikipedia says that La Bastille was guarded by "82 invalides (veteran soldiers no longer suitable for service in the field)" and 32 Swiss grenadiers. And contrary to "raping and massacring the female soldiers", Wikipedia seems to say that only seven of the Bastille defenders died -- one in the fighting, and six afterwards.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[sholden]

I take it you didn't click the link.

The bringing it home, was American soldiers pissed off with the government for getting their friends killed and providing the standard "not a lot" support once they get back home and the war is done returning to their previous lives, not the military establishment learning anything. Some percentage of which (given normal demographics and probability) return to criminal elements or plain old gang life, except now they know all about the details of using an IED to take out a police car.

Note: a tiny number of people - the vast majority of American soldiers are normal law abiding citizens before they were soldiers and will return to such after they finish being soldiers, but the whole idea is that insurgent tactics don't require large numbers, they're designed to work against the superior force after all.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

They are beholden to weapons manufacturers and dealers. "Terrorists" are their best customers. And probably pay cash, so everything's off the books. Politicians and Wall Street hoodlums are wide awake and laughing all the way to the bank. The only thing they are fighting is a recession in the arms trade. That's why the urge to get places like Libya back on the client list.

Terror rains drenchin', quenchin' tha thirst of tha power dons
[...]
What we don't know keeps tha contracts alive an movin'
They don't gotta burn tha books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
[...]
They rally round tha family! With a pocket full of shells

Damn I love the lyrics to that song, always relevant.

The Wikipedia Entry has a good description:

"Bulls on Parade" is a song released by Rage Against the Machine in 1996, and can be found on their second album Evil Empire. One of Rage's signature songs, it deals with what is commonly referred to as the "military-industrial complex", which is the tendency of industry (the arms industry in particular) to encourage military action in order to gain military contracts, and therefore increase its profits. Lines such as "Weapons; not food, not homes, not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal-animal," and "what we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving / they don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em" are just a couple of examples of the several allusions to the military-industrial complex throughout the song. With the words, "Terror rains, drenching, quenching the thirst of the power dons," the song suggests that the fear of terrorism is used to manipulate the American populace into supporting dubious military action. The phrase "terror rains" also serves as a double entendre, which suggests that "terror reigns" by way of the government terror as a tool.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Pecisk]

You nailed it. Congratulations. But what next then?

Seriously, I have no idea. I only know that while being so "peacful" (pratically aimless and desperate and boiling inside), our society becomes more and more violent and without any principles and concepts.

It is "good enough" horror.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that in the homeland laws exist that make it possible for law enforcement to access your house? Even if you're not around? Just like they can pick you up from the streets? Without telling you why you are going to jail? Without having the right to talk to a lawyer? Oh, and they can torture you as well to get you to tell the truth.

The rights one has have changed and.. Ohhh look! The final episode of Friends is on!

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Toinou]

There is no such thing as a standard version of the french revolution. In fact, there is as many versions as political views.
What is clear is that the revolution was such a bloody event, with deep disorders, that the french people accepted democracy, half heartedly, only in 1870.
And France was the most powerful country (politicaly and economicaly) in Europe in 1789, and never was again after that.
About the bastille, it was a prison for priviledged people, and the prisoners were put again in prison shortly after being freed.
If you want a realistic view of the revolution, just read Chateaubriand (mémoires d'outre-tombe) or Hugo (1793).

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[rho]

The bringing it home, was American soldiers pissed off with the government for getting their friends killed and providing the standard "not a lot" support once they get back home and the war is done returning to their previous lives, not the military establishment learning anything.

That's not what I got from the article. I got that soldiers returning from Iraq will go back to their gangs or ethnic organizations with the knowledge and understanding of how to erode the political power of the State with few resources and manpower. A handful of divisive grievance groups can do great damage with such knowledge. It doesn't really have anything to do with the dissatisfaction of the American soldier, but rather with unexpected lessons learned.

I think it's less likely to occur in America where the culture is a lot more homogenous and the standard of living pretty good as compared to some of the shitholes in the Middle East. But Lind isn't entirely talking out of his hat.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

This is MUCH worse than it is in the US.

It's a bit of this and a bit of that. For example, you can be totally fucked in the US just for buying/selling cannabis seeds (some Canadian guy being extradited to US and facing potential life sentence for sending seeds by post to US). In the UK it's perfectly legal to buy/sell seeds and all the necessary equipment to grow them; and to buy bongs, papers, pipes etc. freely. The cameras are a bit sinister but in pratice they don't really affect you; if you're out in public you generally tend not to do anything dodgy in the obvious public places where the cameras are sited. Overall, I'd rather live in the UK with the cameras than the US with the mad hysterical destroy-your-life-for-one-spliff drug laws.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[baboo_jackal]

Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA.
Sorry, but Germany (and most of Europe for that matter) has been far more screwed up than the US for a long time now. Europe has long been on the socialist pathway to economic ruin and irrelevance.

What's interesting is that there seems to be a reversal of that trend with the elections of Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, and Gordon Brown in the UK. Those three are the major ones. In addition, consider all the ex-Soviet nations who are running their nations Reganomically (and having great success so far).

If the western governments continue to assault their people like this, terrorism will only grow in scope and severity. Their war on terror will obviously only generate more of what they are fighting.
This is absurd. If Western governments continue to espouse leftist policy and dogma, people will eventually get sick of them and vote somebody else into office. It's the so-called "governments" of the Middle East that sustain and support global terror. But, hey. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, right? So, good luck with that, I guess.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

the correct quote is:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Essential is the key word. Everybody gives up freedom for security.

here's another one:

i before e except after c

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[unlametheweak]

I gotta warn you, I know of localities where the cops break down doors. If that ever happens in your area, to your door, who are you gonna call?

The most realistic alternative is to call the news media (or anyone you know who has a video camera).

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ccguy]

I have had the police knock on my door many times in a dispute with my neighbour, I never opened the door

You must be the kind of neighbour I'm looking for. Where do you live? If I don't have to move very far I might talk my wife into it :-)

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[sholden]

So you got from the article basically exactly what was stated in the sentence you trimmed from your quote of my paragraph?

Or are you just disagreeing with the motivational aspect? In which case from the article:

"""
Well educated in the ways of successful insurgency, they will come home embittered by a lost war, by friends dead and crippled for life to no purpose.
"""

Note, I don't agree with everything in that article, it just happened to be the flip side of the post I replied to.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[causality]

You're kidding me? I'm not disputing what you say as I've never been through the US education system. I just find it astonishing that Vietnam doesn't feature in a large way in the history classes. Though maybe it is the large scale protests against it that would be most troubling to some in power today.

Yeah, our leaders thought of that. This is why there is a government monopoly on the educational system (they call them "public schools" but really, "government schools" is a more appropriate label) that requires some serious cash to avoid (private schools aren't cheap). And I agree with the grandparent that in school history classes, history ended about fifty years ago or so -- World War II was the last topic covered in any public-school history class I have ever taken, and even then important topics were left out, such as why we ended up with the current system of employer-provided benefits (the government froze wages during that war and this was a way to get around that), the effect of which is that today most people cannot afford to buy health insurance on their own and therefore lose bargaining power on the job market.

Because of omissions like this, most other Americans are quite ignorant regarding the historical basis of most of our social programs and the way government economic interference can have consequences for many years to come. I would suggest that another problem with the way history is taught is that policies and events are not approached from a "qui bono?" (who benefits?) perspective, of which "follow the money" is one expression. This failure artificially makes the politicians of a given era appear to be more selfless than they truly are, and conveniently omits the historical basis for being distrustful of authority today.

Anyone wanting an under-represented perspective on the American public schools may find this to be an interesting read. I can't help but feel that if the media actually did its job, viewpoints like this would be well-known and people would be able to judge their validity on an individual basis. Instead, you hear about the occasional scandal by specific individuals involved in the school system but the entire idea of whether we should have government schooling is never questioned (and the fact that there is a very good reason why the Communist Manifesto insists on it is never mentioned).

I believe it was Neil Boortz who once said, "if you send your child to a Catholic school, they will be taught that Catholicism is GREAT! If you send your child to a Protestant school, they will be taught that Protestantism is GREAT! If you send your child to a government school ..."

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Threni]

> People that trade freedom for security shall recieve neither.

People whose computers are used to traffic child porn, pirate software and information useful to terrorists should probably not expect too much security either.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the JEWS, stupid... They are shitting themselves because the truth about the 'Holycause' is all over the internet. Millions of people are aware of what JEWS are doing to destroy white countries, and to demand WE pay them for something that never happened...
Hence they want to silence any dissent.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[NoOneInParticular]

Just put a lid on the pot, and see them squirm.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Right after I turn on the video camera, I'll call 911 and say there's people breaking into my home impersonating police officers. Real police officers wouldn't have any reason to break down my door, so any reasonable person woud assume they're criminals.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[kefler]

Funny, the version I loaded on wikipedia just now says it was 'Dramatic Prairie Dog' and Jack Bauer who were guarding the Bastille. I'll have to reload again.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Demolition]

Are you perhaps thinking of the Bolshevik Revolution? On October 25, 1917, a women's battalion tried to defend the Winter Palace against the Red Guards. Upon the battalion's surrender, several of the women were reportedly raped and at least one committed suicide afterwards.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

so 107 are still alive?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[z4ckpete]

who are you gonna call? Ghostbusters.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ArhcAngel]

as long as you keep your people well fed and entertained, you can do whatever you damn well please.

That's funny.....The Roman Empire thought that was true but got a wake up call when it's citizen's still revolted because they were so bored. Watching Christians being fed to the lions no longer "entertained" them.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[MrNaz]

You really think the media will publish something the government does not allow it to publish? Where do you think they get their broadcasting licenses from, and who do you think can make a excuse to revoke it? Furthermore, are you aware that most of the corporate board members who govern these corporations cross-pollinate with the same people who are in government? Heavy weights from the public and private sector move back and forth so often that there is no real operational division any more.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[MrNaz]

The only way to rid society of an overbearing government is to kill them. History has shown that once people have power, they will hold on to it until you literally pry it from their cold dead fingers.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[akijikan]

The quote is "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." So its not saying you won't receive either, just that you don't deserve them.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[sjames]

They didn't say one word about it or anything from that decade when I was in school. After all, if they did they'd have to admit that a bunch of people thought drugs are good, war is bad and that authrity should be defied.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[nurb432]

And some, lose both due to persecution for standing up..

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Repton]

Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA.

Remember that Germany has proportional representation. The people have the ability to bring about real political change if they want to..

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[mrchaotica]

Huh? The Roman citizenry never revolted (Rome's various "civil wars" were fights between one rich patrician and another, not large-scale popular uprisings); Rome fell because it was invaded by foreign Gallic and Germanic tribes. All the bread and circuses did was weaken the Empire so that the barbarians had an easier time of it (and then again, they might have invaded regardless, since they were fleeing the Huns).

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[OrangeTide]

it's considered suspicious when someone refuses to answer the door to the police. if they know you are there, they will bust down the door and drag you down to the station and eventually release you a few hours later. There is nothing you can do to stop them because in that scenario nobody is going to be on your side.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[OrangeTide]

Last I checked you don't need a broadcasting license to print and distribute a newspaper. If it is for-profit all you need is a business license from ANY local government. And in this case the federal government is relatively weak because it lacks the influence at the local government to stop them from giving out business licenses to specific "undesirables".

People wish there were all these big conspiracies, but any Katrina victim knows that the US government is not evil, just incompetent. I know there are plenty of other governments here in the New World that are ran, to one degree or another, just as badly as the US. I would not be surprised, but I don't know for certain, that some first world European nations are also ran by incompetents.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Dun Malg]

it's considered suspicious when someone refuses to answer the door to the police. if they know you are there, they will bust down the door and drag you down to the station and eventually release you a few hours later. There is nothing you can do to stop them because in that scenario nobody is going to be on your side. That's absurd. Nobody rational would consider failing to answer the door at midnight, even for peole claiming to be police, "suspicious".

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[mrraven]

Just watch the movie Brazil to find out what this will like.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[bladesjester]

The US doesn't contemplate defence. Its military focus is on invasion, for which guerilla warfare is less appropriate than air power. (My opinion)

Actually, gureilla tactics can indeed be quite effective for an invading force. In fact, it's one of the things that recon units do - slip into enemy territory and create as much havoc as possible to throw the enemy off balance and send them into a panic. While the enemy is trying to figure out what is going on, they can either be attacked with a larger force or smaller forces can try to strike at vital targets (crucial infrastructure, leaders, etc).

It's especially useful when you want the country to be relatively intact at the end whereas air strikes tend to turn things into rubble.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[dougmc]

Most people with IT degrees aren't very "social" and rarely run for office, if ever. Most people working in IT don't have IT degrees. They either don't have a degree, or have a degree in something else. For example, my degrees are in physics and astronomy.

Give it a few years, we'll get more geeks in office.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Smauler]

the elections of Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, and Gordon Brown in the UK

Gordon Brown wasn't elected in. Blair just resigned and Brown was the only person to stand for Labour Leader. I'm not certain where you get the idea he's less socialist than those before him either. I can't think of a Prime Minister in more than the last quarter a century more socialist than Brown

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

A current joke: "How is Iraq different from Vietnam? George Bush has been to Iraq."

Not a good one. He's been to Vietnam. The rest of your post is similarly misinformed(or misinformation?).

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[DaedalusHKX]

Nah, most geeks I've known in school, kept saying "we want someone to do something about it". They kept going to rallies, listening to speakers and kept voting for Hillary or Al, or George. They clamored for change only because that's what the slogans said.

Me, I'm disillusioned with the political system, but those who still believe ought to get their asses in gear if they expect change.

Either run for office locally and change things locally, or keep dreaming nationally and watching the schmucks keep shafting ya.

That's my ten cents on that issue.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[fractoid]

You think that the media won't publish something that sensational, just because the government told them not to? If anything I'd be afraid of the media manipulating public opinion to control the government, rather than the government manipulating the media. Or it could just be the media and the Government collaborating to make me THINK that... hmm, I see where this is going...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I was beginning to think there was something wrong with my clock. It showed the day as being almost over, but I hadn't yet reached my daily quota of at least a dozen /.ers who quote/misquote/paraphrase "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" and get modded up for it.

However, you have provided #12 for me - I can now safely go to sleep and be assured that the sun will rise on the morrow - thanks!

That probably came across as overly harsh, but versions of this phrase are getting repeated so often (here and more broadly) that it's already reached the point where I think a lot of people don't actually consider its significance.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[fractoid]

Incoming "you ignorant anti-Islamic bla bla bla who dares to call it how you see it, you must be a slave of the western media, you obviously don't know any real muslims because I know two and they're both not terrorists" in 3, 2, 1...

Face it, if you're white, and either Atheist or Christian, you have no right to an opinion. Fun, innit?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

True enough. But at least some cops know this. What happens if they drop by at noon, or at 8 pm?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Nefarious Wheel]

I read a neat American document once, can't remember which one off the top of my head, but the beginning was something like "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..." ...should be able to Google the rest. Old document though, don't suppose people refer to it any more, probably not relevant but the language sounded nice.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, politicians don't send and receive email. They receive internets.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. As 'Brave New World' demonstrated, people have learned to love their oppression.

And to those who haven't read it yet: run, don't walk, to your nearest library and read a book written in 1936 that is chilling in its poignant commentary on today's society.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Cute quote, but it also works in vice-versa. Think about it from the point of view of someone who is more concerned with security than liberty. The more freedoms we give ourselves, the more insecure the country becomes. Fighting crime becomes harder, tracking terrorists becomes harder (both can disappear in a sea of anonymity), businesses feel less inclined to invest in a market where the consumer is king and the companies are slaves. The people start to lose some of their protected freedoms, not by draconian government legislation, but by paralysis by fear, lack of proper enforcement, and lack of quality facilities to exercise certain freedoms. For example of the latter, the movies industry would become really, really anaemic if copyrights were to be abolished in favour of the right to copy, which would severely curtail said right since very little new material would be produced. Basically, in order to maintain your freedoms, you need a stable and secure base on which to build them on.

That said, this arrest is a step out of line. I'd have prefered the mandated back-door option if it didn't compromise the anonymity so much. It's a tricky situation indeed...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is something strange, and you don't know if it's good.
Who are you going to call?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing you can do to stop them because in that scenario nobody is going to be on your side.

Remeber that when you next time hear the word "innocent". Police are backed up by the gov, the gov is backed up by the people. Only kids are innocent.

We all believe that we can pass the buck of responsibility around in our elaborate and complex social and jurdical systems. We believe that somehow, when it's passed around enough it diminishes and vanishes and nobody's responsible when we all are "just doing our jobs".

You, me, them, we are all equally responsible to the kills and injustices our govs commit as the soldiers and lawyers are. Silent acceptance = pulling the trigger.

What had this to do with your comment? It is this: when they aren't on your side, they are against you. Your neighbour is your enemy. They are all your enemies. All those who aren't on your side. It isn't their fault though, people form up complex systems when all they want is live happily and secure. Then those systems are let loose when all people forming them are only doing their jobs. Those systems become runaway animals. They start bashing down doors while single individuals even inside them think somebody is still controlling them somewhere somehow.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[trenien]

I don't know about Hugo's book, but to consider that Chateaubriand's "Memoire d'Outre-Tombe" is a reliable view of the Revolution is, at best, laughable.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? The Roman citizenry never revolted (Rome's various "civil wars" were fights between one rich patrician and another, not large-scale popular uprisings)

There were several city mob revolts both in Ancient Rome and in Byzantine Empire (in Konstantinopolis). However, those never had any plan in case they seize the power, they were sheer destructive vent-outs.

Civil wars ... well, they appeal on 'obligations' citizens have to their state. Each contender pretends on legitimacy and requires those within his reach and under his power to support him. Partial peace was possible in certain, faraway, neutral provinces, as long as war lasts. After one of the contenders wins and installs in power, those who stood aside get punished. Therefore, I can imagine those wars being, you know, for real.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

They're getting better though, now it only takes a day.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[zero_offset]

That doesn't work so well either. My father made the mistake of dating a chick who turned out to have a connection to a very large, very dangerous biker gang. And they had deep connections to the local sheriff's department. When the shit hit the fan, he called the media. They showed up, decided it wasn't exciting enough, and left. We nearly got killed.

If you're not selling ad impressions, they don't give a flying fuck about what's happening.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[dave420]

So the terrorism the US is suffering is caused by US citizens blowing up the US in Iraq because of the US's stance on domestic technology? I don't see how crackdowns on various technologies creates terrorism. A technology such as this isn't necessary for existence, and fighting for existence itself is what most terrorists are about. Maybe your life is too cushy for you to realise that.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[wertarbyte]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_scandal

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck terrorism, or rather Islam. It's written goal is world-dominance.
http://jihadwatch.org/

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018134.php

Religion of peace? They are creating a massive sleeper cell all over the US.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[speculatrix]

There comes a time when a government turns on the very people it was designed to nurture, and the results can be disasterous.

they already have in the USA, the UK and other parts of Europe. however, the population having been nurtured on a diet of reality TV, made fat and complacent, the citizens haven't much noticed nor do they care. However, when the next big recession comes, the populace will get exceeding upset at the amount of money the gov'ts have wasted on so calle security measures that haven't worked on only taken away their privacy.

I genuinely believe that western gov'ts have become afraid of their peoples, that the burden of taxes, regulation, invasion of privacy, loss of rights, and corporate rape of society will lead to a dramatic swings in the political landscape with mass contempt for the government and police.

The Roman Empire didn't collapse due to invasion, it rotted away at the core. Are we also allowing our society to rot from the inside out?

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[teapot_giovanni]

No, those were vampires....

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Arthur B.]

If you think the French revolution was about freedom, think again. True, it did start with good ideals but it soon turned into a bloody experiment in socialism eventually giving rise to Napoleon and modern warfare. Not exactly the kind of example I'd take to make my point.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

that never seemed to save anyone appearing on COPS.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[wezeldog]

Just don't call Ghostbusters II...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Bloodoflethe]

when they aren't on your side, they are against you. Your neighbour is your enemy. They are all your enemies. All those who aren't on your side.

This view is simplistic, at best, and one of the main reasons that the country is so damned polarized. Let me reword this for you: "If they aren't with me, they are against me." This concept completely ignores the fact that people can live and work alongside each other with nonconflicting goals and non-conflicting views.

This kind of view of the world is the equivalent of believing "The world should be as I want it, regardless of how it affects others."

It is a cornerstone of the might-makes-right mindset that various decried forms of government have followed.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[illumin8]

Germany is soon becoming a screwed up democracy like the USA. I wonder how far this will go until western rooted terrorism comes on par with middle eastern terrorism. If the western governments continue to assault their people like this, terrorism will only grow in scope and severity. Their war on terror will obviously only generate more of what they are fighting. Too bad the politicians slept in class.

I heard a story on NPR today that right-wing conservatives in Germany want to create a registry of muslim converts. They think this information is critical in order to know who "might" commit thought crimes aka Terrorism.

Didn't they learn their lesson last century? I seem to remember another religion where Germany created registries of members... It turned out pretty badly if I recall correctly.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the unification of Germany had nothing to do with its increasing role in Europe. No sir, that's due to those horrible undisciplined Frenchmen that dared to be fed up with the policies of the various Louis. After all, every one knows that trickle-down economics are optimal. Not that anything was supposed to trickle down but let's not pause at that.

And modern historians are completely unreliable. All those leftist, communist tendencies abounding in current-day academic ivory towers make them fail to see the truth. To get a realistic account of the situation, you need the story of someone deep inside the turmoil, unable to get some perspective, and with ultra-royalist loyalties.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ravenshrike]

Medicare and SocSec account for approx. 2.5-3 trillion a year in debt. Of course, because the govt. uses cash accounting which is about as honest on a large scale as your average compulsive liar, this isn't reported in the yearly tab. Meanwhile the much, much lesser yearly amount spent on defense is strictly that and not predicated on the future in any way, shape, or form. Not to mention that both SocSec and Medicare as well as most pension systems are long-term insoluble, which the math easily notes if anybody bothers to look at it, but everybody ignores it because they refuse to take responsibility for the fallout in the case of the politicians, or responsibility for themselves in the case of the average joe.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ravenshrike]

Actually, at least for small arms, the US is the worlds best customer. Well, except for that cheap chinese shit. There the terrorists are the worlds best customers. The US would be even better customers if it weren't for extremely ineffectual gun laws that don't actually solve any violence problem. Mind you, if you get enough of them on the books they tend to solve political opposition problems quite nicely.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ravenshrike]

Alles in ordnung.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ravenshrike]

*shrugs* The lists themselves, no matter what of, are not the problem. It's just info. The problem is what the people in power will do with that info. Of course, the EU is fucked, partly because of their socialist tendencies and partly because of that overwhelming abortion of a government that spans the continent which accedes to the UN and ICC in its decisions. Unless there are major changes, it's heading down the fucking drain long term. The US still has a chance, but given that it would require the majority of the population to pull its head out and actually look at how much power the govt. wields and find offense with that, it too is most probably fucked in the long term. It depends in part upon how the Parker decision turns out and whether the Supreme Court justices will actually do their duty. We'll see.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[ravenshrike]

We don't need to contemplate defense because we have more weapons per capita in the hands of civilians than any other country on earth and those who legally hold weapons tend to be better shots than your average soldier. This combined with the military infrastructure already in place means that any actual invasion of the US is just plain FUCKED.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[DM9290]

"Last I checked you don't need a broadcasting license to print and distribute a newspaper."

And you'll fund this effort how? You'll dream of doing something like this why? Poverty and lack of education, is just as much a form of state/corporate sanctioned oppression as censorship. They all go hand in hand to further the accumulation of power for its own sake.

We are currently innundated with messages from school to mass media that truth is merely a matter of opinion, and everyone has one; that lying for self-gain is normal and altruism doesn't exist. So even if you published the truth, the only people who would believe you are the one who already know, everyone else assumes that you have some angle. Because we all know that only a crazy person would actually ruin themselves economically in order to try to express ideas for no self benefit, therefore ultimately the only reason we accept for publishing something is 'profit motive'.

Todays heros are billionaires and corporate executives. Heroic for being the best at being greedy. If you aren't a greedy manipulative self-centered materialist no one cares what you have to say. You are a threat to our paranoid workaholic, black and white way of life.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Your country is simply the best and can win against everything.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[jafac]

BS, at my American public school, in 1983, in (required) US History class, we spent 3 months on the Vietnam Conflict. They taught us the phony Gulf of Tonkin incident, the French colonial involvement (and smarmy handoff), war profiteering, the whole 9 yards. Don't tell me they don't teach kids this stuff. That's bullshit. The problem with this is, kids take this lesson, go to college, join the young republicans, or watch FoxNews, and learn that the reason we didn't win in Vietnam, was because we didn't clap loud enough (not because it was immoral, or the wrong approach to assymetric warfare...) . So these same bastards are standing around watching the Iraq war, shouting at the rest of us "Clap louder!" -

We're not in Iraq because we've forgotten history, or because we didn't teach it. It's because we let it get spun the wrong way, then we put these incredibly misguided people back in power; (Bush, etc.) after we KNEW that they wanted a Vietnam re-do; because by their many public statements since their time in the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 41 administrations (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove) - they've made it plain that this is what they believe. Were American voters stupid to trust this team? Recycled miscreants from Watergate? Yes, absofucking lutely. And that's what we got. 8 more years of VietNam, Watergate, Iran Contra. I would have been happier with 8 more years of Monica (hopefully, Gore would have chosen a more attractive intern?)

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[internewt]

Fuck, and I wasted my last mod point in another discussion. I've have modded your post up as +1 ranty and paranoid but insightful. There are a lot of people who benefit from the way the world works, the status quo, and the I feel that the effect of all these people "not rocking the boat" is that the poor are kept poor, education inequalities etc.. There are also no doubt individuals pushing for more authoritarian/facist governments, just as there are those doing the opposite.

I used my last point modding some troll who was making claims along the lines that Christians doing X is OK, but for others to do X it is wrong. I marked it funny, hoping it undermines his argument if he was being serious, and pre-emptively quenching any flames ;)

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[causality]

BS, at my American public school, in 1983, in (required) US History class, we spent 3 months on the Vietnam Conflict.

So because you were fortunate enough to receive a higher-quality education in history than I did, that means that what I said is bullshit? You do realize that I spoke exclusively of my own experience and never claimed that it was universal (in that I never said "all, each, and every last school handled this just like mine did!"), just that I believe it's common enough to have a significant impact?

Having said that ...

The only history class I ever had that went over Vietnam was a course at my high school that was actually for college credit ("Advanced Placement" is what they call it when they cut the insult to your intelligence by half while multiplying the amount of homework by three). This consisted of a series of videos, which selectively included footage from the era, that dryly explained "this is what the politicians said, this is when X battle was fought on Y date, this is how many people protested and where, and this is a news clip from when the decision to pull out was announced". Most of the video about the protesters never included anything they said or believed, except a few clips showing a guy with a painted-up face at a microphone screaming at the crowd with every other word bleeped out. There was much talk about the casualties we sustained and the idea of trying to contain Communism (i.e. the official story) but there was little discussion about how to approach an asymmetric war, about the morality of the war, about who benefitted (both politically and financially) from the conflict, and what there was to learn from its failure. The bias expressed here should be rather evident and the number of experiences like this I had in public school (with most subjects other than "hard sciences" like physics or mathematics) are why I came to value the idea of self-education. To me, a college degree is not a measure of intelligence or wisdom; it's a measure of whether you are willing to work hard (to achieve memorization) for goals and requirements that are transmitted to you by other people, which is why employers value them. For pragmatic reasons, such a degree is still a good investment, but I certainly enjoyed Samuel Clemens' saying that "I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education."

I strongly agree with you about what happens when we allow history to be spun by people with a statist agenda, which both of the major political policies demonstrably have when you consider that they overwhelmingly prefer to increase the size and power of government rather than curtail it. You are kinder than I am to merely refer to Bush etc. as "misguided"; I see that he has expanded the power of the executive branch more than anyone else during my lifetime and I simply cannot believe that this has all been some big accident. Personally, I believe he is humble enough and patient enough to allow people to think he's stupid to encourage his political opponents to underestimate him, which means he should be taken more seriously than most. But let's assume he is merely misguided; in that case, I submit that the misguidance is institutional and will continue so long as all of political power is dominated by the same two parties and reinforced by the media (that spin didn't become so widely promoted for no reason). I believe that political parties are doing to politics what the trade guilds of old did to the various trades, in that their only purpose is to entrench existing powers by raising the bar for newcomers who don't play by their rules. If I am wrong about this, then a minor party candidate should achieve the presidency or a majority in one of the houses of the legislature at least once every couple of decades, but this has certainly not been the case.

For what it's worth, even if you and I completely disagree regarding some points of this subject, I very much appreciate the intelligent and thoughtful reply.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[h4rm0ny]

We don't need to contemplate defense because we have more weapons per capita in the hands of civilians than any other country on earth and those who legally hold weapons tend to be better shots than your average soldier. This combined with the military infrastructure already in place means that any actual invasion of the US is just plain FUCKED.

Yep. It's a shame that the USA's rich are just going to sell the country, company by company, home by home, to other countries such as China and India. It's not so easy to fight economics with guns. The richest people of the USA seem to now be entirely freed of the bonds of nationality and are quite merrily taking the nation's capital abroad. US debt has skyrocketed since Bush came to power. The american people wont be conquered, they'll be sold. And the weapons wont be guns, they'll be downsizing, health insurance and home repossessions.

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[tehcyder]

People only have power of you if you let them. Ignore them, they don't exist.

With that attitude, I'm not surprised you have problems with your neighbours...

Re:Securty vs Freedom

[baboo_jackal]

Whoops. Yeah, you're right (about the election part). My bad. But the deal with Brown is that, yeah I know he's the freaking Labour poster-child, but his modern political leanings are really hard to pigeonhole. Based on what I've managed to dig up (when compared to the rest of Europe), he acts like someone who's economically conservative sometimes...

I don't know. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part that the UK can reverse its course down Hayek's famous road...

do it, do it nowwwwww

[Anonymous Coward]

ya!

gestapo

[king-manic]

The gestapo is alive and well although less outright evil then before. Germany has some very restrictive laws especially related to speech. I wonder if it's an over reaction to the WWII and the Nazi's or if it's a remnant of that type of mindset. The belief that force is appropriate to fight ideas.

Re:gestapo

[flyingfsck]

Yup, the Nazis are very close to the surface in Germany. They are a real and continuous threat. Hitler actually won his elections...

Re:gestapo

[justin12345]

Congratulations! You were the first to Godwin the thread! Here are your lovely prizes...

Re:gestapo

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hitler actually won his elections

Actually he manipulated and rigged the elections. Thank god that sort of thing never happens today...

Re:gestapo

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh good, the Nazis are back. A quick question: In the Family Guy episode where Brian and Stewey travel across Europe, what does the german tour guide spout as he throws up the nazi salute?

Re:gestapo

[nospam007]

The gestapo is alive and well although less outright evil then before. Germany has some very restrictive laws especially related to speech. I wonder if it's an over reaction to the WWII and the Nazi's ...
--
It is. All Nazi 'logos' etc (even old collectible stuff) are forbidden , denial of the holocaust is a crime, etc

Re:gestapo

[saxoholic]

Isn't part of Godwin's law that, as soon as a nazi reference is made, the discussion should stop? If so, I guess I'm in just as much violation as the rest of you.

Re:gestapo

[JSchoeck]

This is not true at all. Germans (I am one) have very liberal rights, especially compared to UK or US citizens. The only thing that is restricted over here is denial of the Holocaust - which I think is a very good thing.

So please don't say shit about Nazis being close below the surface sibling poster. There are some, a few thousand, and they are monitored and very much protested against.

BTW: Hitler DID win the election in the 1930s. The German people had quite a different perspective back than, sadly.

Re:gestapo

[Anonymous Coward]

in TFA they talk about german police raiding homes of people who think different - is it really a case of godwin if someone compares them to the gestapo?

Re:gestapo

[Haeleth]

Isn't part of Godwin's law that, as soon as a nazi reference is made, the discussion should stop?

No, since you ask. :)

(Godwin's Law is an observation, not a decree; it observes that there is a strong tendency in any online argument for one side to compare the other side to the Nazis, and suggests that this will become increasingly likely as a debate grows longer. That's all.)

Re:gestapo

[nem75]

The police officers in question belonged to the regular force, not to any kind of secret (Geheime) state (Staats) police. Furthermore the restrictive laws you mention are very clearly narrowed to specific cases and topics. Whereby Freedom of Speech is established by article 5 of our constitution; yep, we actually thought we'd better include this right away instead of amending it. But as in every country under the rule of law you don't get unconditional freedom of anything, there are always constraints. I'm sure there are precedences in the US limiting Freedom of Speech in very specific circumstances.

I won't even go into the silly "Germany - Nazis" Pavlovian reaction you displayed.

Re:gestapo

[Jozer99]

To be fair, the topic of the thread IS police raids by the German government, so its not a huge stretch.

Re:gestapo

[complete loony]

And you sir should stop verbing nouns.

Re:gestapo

[Anonymous Coward]

The gestapo is alive and well although less outright evil then before. Germany has some very restrictive laws especially related to speech. I wonder if it's an over reaction to the WWII and the Nazi's or if it's a remnant of that type of mindset. The belief that force is appropriate to fight ideas. That mindset didn't begin with Hitler.

Re:gestapo

[shutdown -p now]

Germany has some very restrictive laws especially related to speech. I wonder if it's an over reaction to the WWII and the Nazi's or if it's a remnant of that type of mindset.

There are several clauses written into the German constitution which allow for, and even explicitly promote, such laws. They were mostly put there under insistance of the Allies, which were still occupying West Germany when the constitution was drafted.

Re:gestapo

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I don't think the problem lies with Germans so much as it does (in varying degrees) throughout all people. Let's face it, people are a sucker for some well-delivered rhetoric. Thankfully, we've now passed Hitler, and we are more aware of what extremes Nationalism can get to, as well as the charisma of a person doesn't necessarily correspond with their leadership skills (or their sanity). I know some would argue that this is a sign that we haven't learnt from Nazi Germany, but I disagree. Any curtailing of rights != fascism. There's a long way between banning certain software tools and an isolated arrest and fascism like Nazi Germany had. I guess that's why we have (had?) Godwin's law.

Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[heinousjay]

Come on, Eurotrolls, what do you have to say now?

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[ShaneThePain]

You'll be modded flamebait or troll. But you are right.
Manifest Destiny, brother.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the irony of the slashtards, that the parent poster was modded down for stating the blindingly obvious.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[marcello_dl]

> Come on, Eurotrolls, what do you have to say now?

Four words:

No Software Patents (yet).

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[JamesRose]

Iraq? :{P

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[bumby]

All I have to say is that we are going downwards, and I don't like it a bit.
In fact, I'll probably move away from here (sweden) asap.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[heinousjay]

So you're still free to steal the ideas of others. A wonderful exchange.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from the Nazi Nation? Maybe the tor guy was a jew ...

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany is a Zionist Occupied Government. The Jew hates your freedom more than the nazis were ever alleged to have.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... you are moving away from Sweden, aren't you? It's about the worst of the quasi-North Korean European states.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[YrWrstNtmr]

In fact, I'll probably move away from here (sweden) asap.

To where?
Aside from a private island, a lot of people look at Sweden as the Holy Grail....a western Mecca. If even the Swedes are looking to move out, where is there left to go?

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

"Aside from a private island, a lot of people look at Sweden as the Holy Grail....a western Mecca."

Would these people happen to live in or have a lot of contact with Sweden?

Trust me, there's lots of people thinking of other European countries than their own as a western Mecca - in reality, I don't think there are any Meccas for us around. I wonder what will happen when it becomes clear to most of them.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[DaedalusHKX]

Cheers mate, 3 friends of mine from Sweden are no longer "swedish citizens"... they've repatriated to places where the total state theft... ahem... "taxation" is a bit less than 100% :)

I still had to sit back and contemplate how an entire population would take what happened in Sweden sitting down. Insane taxes, socialized everything, prohibited self defense, despite gang and racist violence towards white, blonde swedish girls... very worrisome that a Nordic population would so utterly surrender themselves to what is clear aggression, both by incomers and their own government.

Is it truly as bad as my friends have told me or is it the panacea of socialist heaven? (One of them moved to London, England and said it was an "improvement", and that really worried me.)

As one of those former Swedes said to me after moving out here... "we're tall, we're blonde, but stop thinking we're vikings". Too bad, I kinda liked the idea of her in chainmail and sallet. :P

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[starling]

Habeas corpus.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[anti-pop-frustration]

Let's keep this in perspective, this is both stupid and unacceptable but Germany is still the first country of Privacy International's Privacy index. Germany and Canada are the only countries in the world whose legislations are considered to have "Significant protections and safeguards"

The United States and the UK are respectively categorized as "Extensive surveillance societies" and "Endemic surveillance societies".

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[marcello_dl]

> So you're still free to steal the ideas of others.

Or we could allow silly patents like you do, patent roman and greek alphabets whose prior art are belong to us and watch americans resorting to cyrillic if they want to sell software here.

Oh wait, "PEAKTOP" is a cyrillic rendition, IIRC. You gotta go arabic, or chinese.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Teun]

Maybe you mean Euro fan boys?

First I have to ask, Euro as compared to what, North America, South East Asia?
Or Euro as in the cradle of the culture presently spanning most of the globe?

Europe, as a continent and as an Economic Union is a collection of related nations that have a history of fighting each other, the Germans have had by their sheer number and central location a large influence in the development of what is now Europe.

But the German nation developed late, only about 1 1/2 century ago, until then it was a collection of many small fiefdoms.
And in these few years of German Unity they were the source of two of the most destructive wars the world has ever seen.
It is unavoidable this has influenced the German legal system, yes it has influenced culture and legal systems in all European states.
The fear for a third war has brought us Europeans together, presently there is a generation getting into power that has no personal memory of the worst days but those that have studied are still careful in dealing with that old violent history and the misunderstandings that caused most of it.
The historically strict German legal system has translated these fears into sometimes very paranoid rules and laws.
Because the 'old' Germany was already know for it's rather black and white policies it might be more noticeable to people from the outside. For Germans this type of strict adherence to the rules seems kind of in the genes.

I therefore object to ideas that there is such a thing as a European element in the issue at hand, sure Europe has after 9/11 tried to have a unified front with the US towards terrorism but the way these laws are now being interpreted in Germany are in my view not typical for Europe as a whole.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[aztektum]

Who needs software patents when it sounds like people would be better off no using computers there at all?

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Go, Go Frattini! Go, Go undemocratically selected comissars! Do not let us search for genocide! We actually might learn something from the past! Let thy' Darfur continue! (.. Must resist .. building .. an A-bomb...can't stop myself.. bomming)

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[damienl451]

I have a problem with Privacy International's Index. How credible is it when the UK and China are both described as "endemic surveillance societies"? Hello: one is a democracy, the other a totalitarian state where people get jailed for their beliefs and voicing their political opinions too openly. Is there a "great Hadrian Firewall" in England? I don't think so.

The major flaw in their study is that they seem to focus on one very limited aspect of "privacy", i.e. wiretapping,etc. What they should also take into account is whether there are clear rules governing admissibility of those materials in court. After all, if the government can listen to what you say or watch what you do but cannot use it in court, why should you be too worried?

And don't forget that most European countries are now restricting freedom of speech in unacceptable ways. Take a look at this EU directive: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=216962. Someone who criticizes Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any other religion might be charged under this statute, since it might be argued that he is inciting hatred against members of this religion.

All in all, I think the US is still 'freer' than most countries in Europe: can you be a holocaust denier in Europe? Can you reveal a politician's dirty secrets without being charged for slander or libel (in many European countries, if it is a 'private matter', you're not even allowed to prove in court that what you wrote or said is true).

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Toinou]

For cyrillic, don't forget that Saints Cyril and Methodius were born in Thessaloniki, in Greece.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Haeleth]

Cheers mate, 3 friends of mine from Sweden are no longer "swedish citizens"... they've repatriated to places where the total state theft... ahem... "taxation" is a bit less than 100% :)

How did Ikea manage to become a global brand, and its founder one of the richest men in the world, if the Swedish state is so anti-capitalist?

Look, every single person in the world believes their taxes are unreasonably high. This is rarely true. Wikipedia provides an interesting chart, which shows Sweden as having high personal taxes (but somewhat lower than France, Germany, and Belgium), and pretty reasonable corporate taxes (where the supposedly more capitalist USA has among the highest listed). God only knows if the chart is accurate or meaningful, of course, given the source. :)

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be mistaken, but I believe European countries are involved in that situation as well. So my question is, do you admit your government was misinformed too? Or just blindly followed another nation? This is in general about the European nations in the coalition, seeing as I don't know where you live.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[bumby]

It's not really the taxes which I dislike, I'm a student ;) It's more the general moral amongst the citizens, and the way of thinking. The country is way too neutral, we bend too much according to what other countries (and EU of course) says, and it's reflected amongst the population. Few people stand up for what they think, and if you do you'll be labeled a proud idiot. We even have a name for the phenomenon - "Jantelagen". You're not allowed to be proud of yourself, and you're not allowed to think outside the political box. To be honest, I'm sick and tired of it.

I guess some people think Sweden is cool because of the pirate bay and how it's pretty much "ok" to download copyrighted material and such. But my guess is that we'll be just as the states within a couple of years.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[cortana]

Switzerland sounds pretty good.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[cortana]

Remember that it's only income tax. It doesn't count their equivalent to National Insurance which is basically a second income tax in the UK, at something like another 10-15% in the UK; Value Added Tax, which is a tax we pay whenever we spend something (17.5%)... capital gains tax, inheritance tax, taxes on transactions such as stamp duty.

Also ISTR something about Sweden having an additional tax on net worth--something like 2% per year! Though that may only be Internet true--can anyone verify?

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[cortana]

Quaint. :)

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[DaedalusHKX]

Interesting. I know the USA has been hammering local businesses, and that most of the people here are looking at the WTO and other legislature as "anti business" (while it merely gives a fantastic loophole for offshoring various things and avoiding the heavy taxation placed on locals here.)

I wouldn't put too much weight in the wikis. Wiki should be a "guide" in your research, not an end all resource.

Most "estimate" charts don't include property taxes, social "health/wellfare" taxation, or other such "add on" stuff that is usually missed because it isn't subject to a visible deduction on a paycheck. If the individual is taxed to the limit of outright revolution, while the corporate taxes are low, that isn't exactly what I'd call a "free market" or "capitalist" society. Corporations have become more valuable than individual men and women when evaluating economies nowadays... Most individuals are content to be treated as livestock, but there are enough of us who refuse that treatment that they still have to tip toe around our "archaic sensibilities".

I hate to tell you this but
Look, every single person in the world believes their taxes are unreasonably high. This is rarely true. is actually an incorrect statement.

Taxes are ALWAYS too high. Short of slaves, I know of no ancient group that paid as much as 50% of their yearly revenue (not income, which legally refers only to PROFIT, but actual revenue/recompense/actual pay, what you might term "pre tax income".)

The American revolution of 1776 occurred because of a tax hike to the insane tax percentage of 14% tax!!!

For 14% tax Americans (between 5 and 10% of the colonists) rebelled against their king. Today we struggle to survive under 30%+ "income tax" plus sales tax, fuel tax, food tax, ammo tax, tobacco tax, alcohol tax, vehicle tax, property tax, etc. Add them all up, instead of just looking at "income" tax. Your 10000.00 piece of crap toyota corolla racks you up 400 bucks worth of vehicle tax. Don't forget registrations, licenses, utility taxes, etc. By the time you're done, if you do an honest bit of math... you pay at LEAST 50% of your yearly remuneration to the government.

If you are a frugal and good shopper, I bet you could accomplish MORE with that money than the local, state and federal government can EVER pretend to offer. Their education system is sub par, their civil protection system (cops) has never been on time except to give citations... (I've been robbed in my own home some time ago), their medical system drugs kids who are merely being kids, and in general they are a merely looking for an excuse to provide themselves with a job at the expense of the "taxpayers" at large.

Sorry if my cynicism offends you, but I can think of many better ways to spend that cash than to pay for wars of aggression, murderous invasions, and for roads that take millions to fix a mere 10 or 20 pot holes over the course of 10 months (since I ran construction teams, I've seen the waste that goes into government contracting... those doing the work never see the millions being expended on "road maintenance" or "infrastructure maintenance". That money must go somewhere else.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[rubberglove]

yes, unless you happen to be an immigrant

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[trifish]

Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

What does this got do with freedom? If someone turns you in telling the police that he received bomb threats from your IP address (which happened in this case), the only thing the police can do is investigate. And that inherently involves obtaining physical evidence, in this case seizing the computers as soon as possible before the suspect (yes, a potential criminal) destroys the evidence.

Now if there had been no freedom in Germany, the man would have not been released within a few hours with explanation he is innocent.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[yalla]

First: Trifish is right. After all, I was treated fairly and only little violence was used (means, I was cuffed and my civil rights were violated). And as trifish correctly pointed out, I was released shortly after the interrogation. They even drove me home. Nonetheless, it was an experience I didn't wanted to make.

Secondly: I don't get the focus of all the discussions up here on /.

It's not about Nazis, Fascism or whatever, but merely about the incompetence of the police and the lawyer of the state. All those discussion are bizarrely drifting away in a mix of Kafka and Godwin.

The whole point is:
1) If you run an exit-node in Germany, think about the consequences.
2) Don't count on the competence of the authorities.
3) Prepare your family if you run a node.
4) Get a lawyer in case something goes horribly wrong.
5) You have the right to remain silent. Use it. (Unlike me, who just came back from a pub-crawl and was in the mood for extensive talking. Gnaaa.)

There's no great master plan of the evil German government to destroy Tor.

Alex.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

"3) Prepare your family if you run a node."

Or, simply, "DO NOT RUN a node". The message is clear enough. Is TOR worth more than my life or possessions? No, it's not. Uninstalled pronto.

Everyone smart enough to read between the lines will do the same. TOR is dead. Bury it and get over it.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[yalla]

I don't agree, Tor ain't dead. It's just a bad idea to run a Tor exit-node in Germany. You can still run a middleman-node. And other countries aren't (yet) that aggressive. Just have a look at the Tor node-statistic[1] and see: It's not dead. Tor is still one of the best tools for privacy on the internet we have.

Alex.

[1] https://torstat.xenobite.eu/showstatistics.php

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[Kattspya]

Because it was only in the late sixties the taxes started rising to greater heights.

The total taxation of a normal worker in Sweden is about 60%.

"Employer Fee": ~30%
Income tax: ~30%
VAT on normal goods: 25%
VAT on food: 12%
And so on.

Re:Ah Europe, progressive land of freedom

[trifish]

1) If you run an exit-node in Germany, think about the consequences.

I'd omit the "in Germany" part.

silly germany

[wizardforce]

Do they not realize that the vast majority of people who use that software do not live under their laws and thus make the law utterly useless either way? of course they do, it isn't about actually solving problems, it's about looking like your trying to solve problems. it works in every country.

Re:silly germany

[ScrewMaster]

it works in every country.

Except in those countries which offer their people no accountability or transparency from the outset, and consequently have no need to rationalize their self-serving behavior to said people. I don't presently live in one of those places, but as things are going, I will end up in one of those places by simply staying where I am. There's something very wrong going on here.

Whatever this is, it's not just the United States that is affected. A number of nations are going down this road ... I don't know if fear of terrorism is an adequate explanation. I agree, it's being used as a template for justifying all kinds of authoritarian activities, but there's a lot of high-level multinational power mongering going on and we're not privy to the details.

The excessive desire for power (is there a medical term for it? Megalomania perhaps?) needs to be something for which politicians are regularly checked (much like high-end call-girls are regularly tested for disease), with not having it a prerequisite for holding public office.

Re:silly germany

[westlake]

Do they not realize that the vast majority of people who use that software do not live under their laws?

If the users aren't German, then the users can be ignored. The geek seems to favor local authority only when it is convenient.

Re:silly germany

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The excessive desire for power (is there a medical term for it? Megalomania perhaps?) needs to be something for which politicians are regularly checked (much like high-end call-girls are regularly tested for disease), with not having it a prerequisite for holding public office. Dunno what country you live in, but the only countries which I know about that have mandatory health checks for prostitutes only apply them to the mid-level - the ones who work in brothels. Every one else at the bottom (streetwalkers) and the top (call girls) are either completely unregulated or outright illegal.

The only time a call girl gets checked is when she wants to be checked. Which really isn't a good model for regulating politicians.

Re:silly germany

[ScrewMaster]

Okay, but I still think you took my original point.

Re:silly germany

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm not mistaken, Switzerland has a limit to the number of years politicians may serve in office, and it's not extremely high. Seems to work for them.

Re:silly germany

[ScrewMaster]

The United States has been toying with the idea of term limits for Congressmen for decades. They won't do it (fox, henhouse, etc.) Al Gore was once asked about that issue, and with his usual complete straight face he said, wide-eyed, "But, but ... that would deny Americans the benefit of professional politicians." I'm not picking on Democrats in particular here: the Republicans are just as power-hungry.

From my perspective, the "professionals" have had their chance and blew it. Maybe we should get back to using amateurs, like the Founders intended. Serve your term, then get out and live under the very laws you created.

Re:silly germany

[CopaceticOpus]

The trouble is, big corporations are entrenched with the two parties as much as they are with individual candidates. Even with short term limits, a candidate still needs to get chosen by one of the two parties to have a good shot at winning an election. And in order to get rubber stamped by either party, you have to first show you can play ball and suck up to the right special interests.

500km?

[flyingfsck]

That puts the server in another country I guess. Anyhoo, it sounds like is time to escape Honecker and the Stasi and jump the wall... Uhh, what?

Re:500km?

[linuxIsLife]

you mean firewall ?

Re:500km?

[Anonymous Coward]

That puts the server in another country I guess.

Germany (even pre-reunion Germany) isn't THAT small. It probably was in a different federal state but since this is about federal law (as most of Germany's law as opposed to the US) that doesn't make any difference.

Suggestion

[markov_chain]

I propose to suspend Godwin's law for this article, because it will be really difficult to have a debate of any depth.

Re:Suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a Nazi would suggest that.

Re:Suggestion

[jc42]

I propose to suspend Godwin's law for this article, ...

Heh; good suggestion.

In high school, I took a couple years of German from a teacher who was born here in the US, of German immigrant parents. She taught us a lot of German proverbs, and one of the first (also the title of a well-known folk song) was "die Gedanken sind frei", or "[my/our] Thoughts are Free". Her point was that the sort of repression recently imposed by the Nazis wasn't at all an aberration in German-speaking society; it was really just an extreme case of something with a long history in that society and many others. The proverb (and song) long predate the Nazis, and make the point that the authorities may be able to punish you for what you do or say, but they can't control your thoughts. She commented that she had often heard older Germans (in Germany and the US) muttering this phrase or quietly humming the final line of the song when some political big-wig said or did something that threatened citizens freedoms. She made it clear that this was often as appropriate in the US as in other countries.

It was sorta fun being taught such quiet resistance in German. Some of us did understand that, contrary to all the propaganda telling us how free we were, her job could well be in danger if certain people in the local government understood what she was teaching her students.

(Another lesson explained why that "die" in the proverb isn't best translated literally to English as "the", and why a pronoun is a better translation in such cases. It's a subtlety that the above wikipedia page gets wrong. It's sorta like why, when Kennedy declared "Ich bin ein Berliner", he was actually telling the audience that he was a jelly-filled doughnut. ;-)

Re:Suggestion

[fm6]

Shut up, you Nazi.

Re:Suggestion

[XchristX]

It's sorta like why, when Kennedy declared "Ich bin ein Berliner", he was actually telling the audience that he was a jelly-filled doughnut. Er, that's an urban legend

No

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be the gut guys, since it's German.

Re:No

[ATMD]

And also the sort of people who operate Tor servers have a tendency towards obesity...

Kind of makes sense.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

So you have illegal traffic coming from your machine and intentionally can't point out who it came from, and you chose to do this willingly. How are you not liable for that traffic? It would be different if this was just a hosting provider who provided service in good faith that someone took advantage of, this is someone running something INTENTIONALLY untrackable.

If you don't think he should be held accountable for the traffic from his machine, whats to stop anyone from running tor and then either directly or through tor doing any illegal activity?

You could argue most digital crimes shouldnt be crimes at all (and I'd agree), but thats a different argument entirely

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[chris_eineke]

So you have illegal traffic coming from your machine

Well, that's not entirely true. He doesn't know if it's 'illegal traffic' or not. Might as well be a Chinese citizen trying to read an American blog about democ.,,, HAHAAHA, I'm sorry. I couldn't write this a straight face. :-P

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Watson Ladd]

The US Navy uses Tor to talk to intelligence sources. Chinese dissidents use it to send uncensored news to the west. And criminals can just use botnets. Criminals already have anonymity, it's the rest of us that Tor is designed for.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't think he should be held accountable for the traffic from his machine, whats to stop anyone from running tor and then either directly or through tor doing any illegal activity?

Nothing. The people running Tor servers believe that the potential for illegal activity is vastly outweighed by the need for anonymous unhindered free speech. Crime is bad, oppression is worse. Capisce?

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[flyingfsck]

OK, s'pose you are living in a town on a small lot and you have two neighbours that just moved in from the countryside and they insist on chatting politics while leaning on the fence facing each other accross your property (You see that in small towns!) Are you responsible for their hate speech?

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

"So you have illegal traffic coming from your machine and intentionally can't point out who it came from, and you chose to do this willingly. How are you not liable for that traffic?"

Same way that the postman isn't liable for delivering stuff that he doesn't know the source or legality of?

(the communication channel being a public service and all that...)

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

And the Internet was designed for intelligence sharing and military use. Does that mean I'm not wasting my weekend playing WoW and downloading porn?

Intent on design != only use, or even most common use (see: napster)

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[v1]

Simply because a few people abuse a fredom does not justify outlawing it.

That's like the idiots that don't want stores to sell crowbars because some burglers use them to break into houses. Common sense here says my right to buy a crowbar without obtaining a permit from the government is not a fredom that should be revoked simply because some people abuse it. If you don't like them using a crowbar to pry open your front door, find another way to deal with them. Don't revoke a right from me.

This is just a government's typical reaction to a situation where something is happening that they don't like, and they can't come up with an effective yet reasonable way to stop it, so they take draconian measures to make it stop, regardless of the fredoms that get trampled upon. Most of the rights abuses we see nowadays can be tracked back to this thought process.

Laws like this follow closely with "the end justifies the means" line of thinking. The end (alone) never justifies the means. If every reason you have for passing a law can be reduced to that one pilar, you are making a bad law.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[BitterOak]

It would be different if this was just a hosting provider who provided service in good faith that someone took advantage of, this is someone running something INTENTIONALLY untrackable.

Built into that statement is the implicit assumption that law enforcement has an inherent right to track any Internet traffic back to its source, and that any intermediate service providers have the obligation to build their systems in such a way that this tracking is possible. Essentially you are saying that no one has the right to anonymous speech.

Like any technology, however, the anonymizing power of Tor can be used for both good or evil. It can be used by whistle-blowers to expose government corruption, and it can be used by pedophiles to distribute kiddy porn. It can be used by Chinese dissidents to criticize their government, and it can be used by terrorists to disseminate instructions on manufacture of explosive devices. So the question is, do we punish those who provide the technology because it can be used for evil? Evidently the German government has decided the answer is "yes". It's hard to argue for one side or the other because I think it comes down to personal values. I value free speech including anonymous speech, but I grew up in the American culture. Thomas Paine distributed his widely influential document Common Sense anonymously and it is possible the American Revolution would have ended differently had he not done so. One does wonder if highly oppressive regimes like the Nazis would have been able to hold power so long if the citizens had easy access to anonymous speech.

I think the value of services like Tor outweigh the disadvantages, so I do hope the German policy is not emulated by other countries.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another analogy: Suppose someone comes over to you and gives you an envelope and says "oh, you're heading over to the warehouse today, right? Can you give this to Bob?"

You decide to honor the request, because you're a nice person.

Are you liable for the contents of the envelope? Does it matter whether or not the people you are doing the favor for are friends, acquaintances, or strangers?

TOR is just a collection of people helping each other be anonymous. The fact that some people exploit those favors for criminal ends is basically irrelevant.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Intent on design != only use, or even most common use (see: napster) Clearly it is being used by a sufficiently large number of the "intended people" if this guy was able to collect 100 legit account details with just one Tor node: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/11/1730258

Gun manufacturers aren't responsible for the crimes that gun users commit.
Car manufacturers aren't responsible for the 4,000 automobile related deaths that occur each month in just the USA.
Toll road operators aren't responsible for drug smugglers that drive on their roads.
ISPs aren't responsible for their users who pirate music and movies.
etc, etc

If you aren't willing to take the bad with the good then put your money with your mouth is -- go live in a cave and only wear a hairshirt because in a free society there is hardly anything that can't be misused. That's the price of freedom, bub.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[BillyBlaze]

So should we should shut down all ISPs, because unspecified illegal traffic may be flowing from their routers?

The only difference here (besides that there is no specific allegation of illegal traffic in this case), is that it's more difficult to tell who's a router and who's the source. I can understand governments getting antsy about that, but making laws against it is about as stupid as making a law that P==NP. The law is just denying a property of information, namely, that practical anonymity is feasible.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[pjt33]

More likely to be embassy staff checking their e-mail.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Gun manufacturers aren't responsible for the crimes that gun users commit.

They are if they don't follow all the laws regarding selling of guns (including full background checks on the applicant). If you provided a service where anyone could grab a gun out of a bin in a dark alley behind your house intently set up so that no cameras are around so you purposefully can not tell if its used for legal use or not, you bet your ass you're responsible for what happens with them.

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[trifish]

The US Navy uses Tor to talk to intelligence sources.

Any trustworthy reference to prove that claim?

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

From: http://www.onion-router.net/

This Is An Official U.S. Navy Web Site operated by the Center for High Assurance Computer Systems in the Information Technology Division of the US Naval Research Lab

Re:Kind of makes sense.

[thegrassyknowl]

So you have illegal traffic coming from your machine and intentionally can't point out who it came from, and you chose to do this willingly

He chose to use his system to help protect his and other's privacy from snooping at any level. You do realise that anyone on the network path between you and your connected host can snoop on the data you transmit/receive and can form a profile on you and who you talk to even if you use encryption don't you?

Tor and Freenet are not about being able to serve illegal data without getting caught. They are about protecting privacy. Vanilla encryption doesn't provide anonymity because if one end is compromised then it's still easy to know where the data went (and possibly just go there to find out what was transmitted/received). Tor and Freenet increase anonymity. It's much harder to find out that person A is talking to person B, without compromising every node along the path, regardless of whether persons A and B are trading pictures of naked underage bombs or talking about the weather in East Idontgiveashitsville.

Chilling effect

[jc42]

We can now easily predict that the German government will soon find it difficult to hire people with an admitted knowledge of computer security topics. If you were German, would you admit to such knowledge to an official questioner?

Sorta like how the US government has been complaining about the difficulty of hiring Arabic translators, despite the statistics from a few years back saying that there were several million US residence who were fluent in Arabic. (And, contrary to the jokes going around, they aren't all gay. ;-)

It's commonly known as "shooting yourself in the foot".

Re:Chilling effect

[sco08y]

Sorta like how the US government has been complaining about the difficulty of hiring Arabic translators, despite the statistics from a few years back saying that there were several million US residence who were fluent in Arabic.

Try 600,000, by the last census. I've worked with Arabic linguists before. The problem in recruiting is that the pay isn't all that great, the job is incredibly boring and has no career advancement. You basically have to be smart, but not too smart (or you'll already have a better paying job) and be able to get top secret clearance, which involves the government going through your affairs for the past 7 years. (Maybe that's for secret, I forget...) Also, I've spoken to guys trying to pass the test in Chinese and Portugese. It's not just a matter of being fluent in the language, you have to be fairly knowledgeable of the grammar of it. You know how most English speakers don't know what an adverb is? That's a problem in other countries, too.

Re:Chilling effect

[jc42]

Try 600,000 [US Arabic speakers], by the last census.

Such numbers are notoriously variable, as they depend on your definition. Here's an interesting article on the general topic. They mention that different studies differ by around a factor of two for the number of "speakers" of English, Spanish and Hindi. I've read a number of similar discussions that mention such problems as whether children are counted (probably not if you're counting voters or looking to hire translators) or whether there's any sort of social or political stigma to knowledge of a language (as often happens with minority languages).

But your other points are quite relevant. Translation is a difficult job at best, and doesn't usually pay what it's worth. When you add in social stigmas and official repression, it's not at all surprising that government agencies might have problems hiring translators for an "enemy" language. Even when there are people capable of doing the job (perhaps with a bit of training), they often have good reasons to not want to get involved.

Re:Chilling effect

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Sorta like how the US government has been complaining about the difficulty of hiring Arabic translators, despite the statistics from a few years back saying that there were several million US residence who were fluent in Arabic. (And, contrary to the jokes going around, they aren't all gay. ;-)

I think there's a key difference between the security law and the US translator issue. It's not illegal to speak Arabic, be an Arabic translator, have any number of Arabic books and training aids, nor is it illegal to teach Arabic, and you don't get arrested or go to jail for admitting that you know Arabic. In fact, I'm not even sure what the comparison is here, I know that many US policies are flawed at best, but I'm not sure where the parallels are.

Re:Chilling effect

[drspliff]

Take into consideration the amount of variation in the Arabic language, you've got modern standard arabic and then tens of other major colloquial variations which can seem almost incoherant to each other with it's widespread use.

Finding translators of Arabic to English (or languages spoken in countries surrounding Arabic speaking countries) isn't a problem at all.

The real problem comes from being able to make accurate translations very quickly, which inherantly means having travelled a lot and learning about, investing in this as a career goal is hard considering you're only likely to get relatively average pay with no real career advancement. (it's on the same level as data entry or all day copywrighting... a boring droll task)

Re:Chilling effect

[_KiTA_]

We can now easily predict that the German government will soon find it difficult to hire people with an admitted knowledge of computer security topics. If you were German, would you admit to such knowledge to an official questioner?

Sorta like how the US government has been complaining about the difficulty of hiring Arabic translators, despite the statistics from a few years back saying that there were several million US residence who were fluent in Arabic. (And, contrary to the jokes going around, they aren't all gay. ;-)

I doubt it'll be hard at all. Once they have them all in jail, they'll be able to dictate terms of their release. "Hey, tired of that cell? Work for us at 50% what your worth, and we'll make our trumped up charges vanish."

Let's just get it out of the way...

[d3ac0n]

NAZIS! NAZIS! NAZIS!

Ok, now that we can all move on with a more in-depth discussion.

mod 0P

[Anonymous Coward]

said. 'Screaming the point more it aatempts to thEy want you to

A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[patio11]

He was arrested. He will now go into extended negotiations with a prosecutor, during the entirety of which he will have a lawyer present. If the negotiations don't go favorably for him, he will have a fair trial. He will probably be convicted of it, which is an occupational hazard of doing things which the government has illegalized. After being convicted, he will be given a first-time-offender wrist-slap, probably a few months of probation and a stern warning not to do it again. Perhaps he will spend a few months of not-terribly-rigorous time in jail -- I'd bet against it but I'm not German. He'll lose quite a bit of money to attourney fees, less whatever the Tor community raises for his defense (I'm not optimistic), and probably have some equipment seized.

You know what doesn't happen?

He doesn't get summarily executed.
His wife doesn't get raped at gunpoint.
His child doesn't get burned in an oven.

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case. If you want to convince people of the rightness of deploying a Tor network, keep a cool head and do not use any goose-stepping analogies, because they will brand you as a perspectiveless fanatic who is not to be taken seriously.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Lord Kano]

Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

Except, of course, for the fact that the Nazis made something illegal that was perfectly legal in the rest of the sane world.

LK

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[GNT]

You know what doesn't happen? He doesn't get summarily executed. His wife doesn't get raped at gunpoint. His child doesn't get burned in an oven.

Slippery slope. Right now that doesn't happen. What about in 5 years? What happened IS fascist. It's the first step in all-out fascism. Those who refuse to learn from history...

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[gowen]

You appreciate that the phrase "slippery slope" is an abbreviation of the phrase "slippery slope fallacy", right? And you know what a fallacy is? A line of reasoning that is not correct.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[xtal]

Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

Perhaps if more people spoke up sooner, the camps might not have happened. The rise of the third reich did not happen overnight.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[bhima]

I think you have completely missed the points of people who make comparisons between the fascists of the 1930's and today's western governments. It isn't about the actions of the fascists of the 1940's... summary executions, rape as a weapon of the state, state sponsored genocide being perpetrated now, today but rather people fear that the signs we see today will metastasize as they did in the 1940's.

One can see in the news and on the internet these changes in Character of the United States:

        * Nationalism in the United States has turned to nasty xenophobic bigotry with splash of jingoism with a patriotic veneer.
        * Human Rights so important to the founders of this country have been reduced or abandoned.
        * Many right of center Americans have identified Muslims as enemies of the state and immigrants as the cause of financial hardships and increased violent crime in their community.
        * The US spends more money, today on its military than the rest of the world *combined*.
        * The US media has changed in recent years, the is one outlet which is a blatant propaganda arm of the current administration and the others are controlled by select few very, very wealthy men.... today the news reported in the US is markedly different than the news reported in other nations (and the assessment of freedom of the press has plummeted in the last 15 years).
        * The national obsession with security is also remarkable... many experts decry the stupidity and ineffectiveness of this yet nearly monthly there are reports of egregious and or silly interference of security officers.
        * Religion has become a remarkably scary thing in the US. Politicians are expected to profess belief in Christianity, yet politicians of other faiths are viewed with suspicion and men who profess no beliefs are reviled. A sizable minority of Christians today believe that the United States should not be a secular national but rather a Christian nation and there are Christian Reconstructionist groups in government today furthering this goal.... it's a plank in ideology of the NeoConservative group the Project for a new American century whose members have been in power in the US for the last 7 years.
        * Corporations are held above citizens in todays America. The interests of corporations are promoted within the government by a byzantine system of lobbyists and special interest groups who wield far more power than any citizen's group.
        * Cronyism within the administration of George W. Bush has been significant and harmful. Do I really need to list all the incompetent people in positions of power, or can I just say "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job".
        * The elections today have significant irregularities and those people in government irresponsible for them have done little to ensure and accurate and fair count.

Now it's true that to date there are a few examples in the above list that equate to violence seen in 1940's Europe. As it is also true that United States of America does not demonstrate all the qualities of Fascist States.

However it's also true than everything on that list is worse than it was 10 to 15 years ago. So I my opinion it's time to stop objecting to the comparison.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[temcat]

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=284555&cid=20423519

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Skapare]

No, Germany has not slipped back into being a facist state. But it is slipping. There are elements in the government trying to give it a push in that very direction, just as there are similar elements in the USA. The problem is not enough people are pushing back. Until it becomes widely recognized what is happening, not enough people will. This is what happened in the 1920's and 1930's. People who warned others about what was to come were not taken seriously.

I agree: analogies to activities of the Schutzstaffel (SS) or its secret police, the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo), are not accurate representations of what is going on. They are, however, a representation of what many people, including myself, believe could happen, or will happen (again), if people fail to become aware of these wrongs, and fail to put a stop to it. The visualizations from the late 1920's to the early 1940's just need to be put in the correct context of "what could be". Sadly for millions, people looked the other way when the NSDAP rose to power and committed so many atrocities. If they look the other way again in this case, and in similar cases likely to happen further, then nothing was learned and those millions died in vain.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Rebelgecko]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, "only" about 40% of the world's military spending is done by the United States. See, isn't that a bunch better? :-p

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[cliffski]

says who? in the 'sane' USA, the state electrocutes people. to some of us in western Europe, that seems insane. should we consider the USA to be a fascist state?
Have a little perspective yourself, not everyone agrees with you on what should be legal, and what should be illegal.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[DavidTC]

Wikipedia's wrong, because there is quite a lot of off-the-books spending that doesn't show up.

But taking the US government at their word, it's worth noting that, literally, the country everyone thinks is the biggest military threat to the US, the only one that might invade us, China, spend 8% of what we do on their military. That's total, not relative to their and ours economy. As they have a much bigger army than ours, it basically means their entire army is very poorly equipped and wouldn't last an hour.

The only ones between us and China are the UK, France, Germany, and Japan, in that order, with the UK at the biggest with 12% of our spending.

The only entity that is even plausibly a threat to the US is all of Europe, which combined spends 54% of the US.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[MarkVVV]

Except that it always start like this, by taking your rights away from you...it's a slow and gradual process, but in the end, you what happens? You'll get summary executed. They'll rape your wife. Your son will get burned in a oven. Man don't learn from the past, and unfortunatelly, history repeats itself.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Saint V Flux]

"Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case."

Yes, there is - passing pointless laws as a way to control your citizens and make sure that you know of everything they do. Also, for the three things you list as "won't" happen - you don't know that. You assume that they won't happen, but with the level of power that the government has, there's nothing anyone could do about it if they chose to do those things.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[kocsonya]

People throw around the word fascist when they see something charactersitically fascist. For example, when the 'state' trumps anything 'civil'. When the individual does not matter any more. When the state and the corporate world become intimately intertwined.

Fascism is *not* summary executions, torture, rape and pillage. Fascism is an ideology which values not human beings but abstact constructs such as the state, glory, heroism, nation and whatnot.

However, fascism, since it states that the individual is nothing, tends to constantly evaporate any civil liberties still remaining and of course more and more strictly dictate what the citizenry can (or must) do. Keeping people in fear is a very efficient way to achieve the above. Now you can use all sorts of things to plant fear in people, starting from the 24/7 propaganda about the dangers of an imminent nukular ter'ist attack, through the black car with people in dark leather coats at your doorstep at 3 in the morning, to the less subtle police SWAT raids on your home, to publicly executing innocent people on the Underground, up all to the more extrame cases of child rotissery you mentioned.

Nevertheless, those are just methods from which a fascist state can choose from. Torture is not an indication of fascism; torture happens where fascism is not involved and fascism can be instated without any sort of torture. A state which marches on the way of taking away individual rights while empowering the state/corporate elite *is* fascist, whether it does summary executions on the spot or not.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[vertinox]

After being convicted, he will be given a first-time-offender wrist-slap, probably a few months of probation and a stern warning not to do it again.

Censorship through extreme or mild measures is still censorship.

In the end if you can't speak anonymously, then it does not matter if you are shot on the first offense or simply fired from your job. You still don't have your freedom.

The question you should really ask, is it worth living a life in which you are not free?

Keep in mind both the revolutions in America and in France were egged on by anonymous authors.

Some suspect the famous humanist Erasmus wrote Julius Excluded From heaven anonymously to criticize the warrior Pope Julius II for his aggression against other states (Pope Julius II actually oversaw the sieges directly of expanding the papal states). Had he put his name on it he would have been excommunicated or put to the stake.

The point is that even though Tor can be used for evil it also prevents the powers that be (if they so ever get to be corrupt) from abusing that power. If they use means that don't involve your life or limb and you still do not have the ability to speak out anonymously then you are not truly free and your voice is at the whim of a government entity.

What is the point of speaking if you have no mouth?

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound very tolerant of fascism, citizen. Are you suggesting that it needs to go as far as gassing Jews before people need to step up and dissent? I believe in freedom, and your comment seems radical in the extreme to me. That somebody would suggest that railroading a dissenting person who believes in freedom with a corrupt law restricting speech doesn't equate to the kind of abuse that comes before full-fledged fascism is madness.

I notice you called it a fair trial, and I think you should know that trials are no longer fair in western societies. The courts now rule not in the spirit of the law, but the law itself. The juries are not informed of their right to nullify. And the police, much like in the Nuremberg trials, just follow orders.

Where is your line in the sand? At which point do you decide that enough is enough? The Germans didn't even make that connection during the Holocaust because it didn't effect most of them. Would you be one of the masses who simply ignores the abuse going on around you simply because it doesn't effect you? The time to sound radical is now.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[sesshomaru]

Weimar was really nice. Extremely liberal, extremely cutting edge in the arts for the time. It didn't take very long for it to turn into Hell.

Any signs of authoritarian government anywhere trouble me, but in Germany it has that extra-special tinge of evil. They don't seem to be working very hard to prevent history from repeating itself.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[heinousjay]

Good rebuttal. Brought in an offtopic parallel to something totally unrelated in service of bashing the US for now reason. Extra Slashdot points for you. Also, I was lying about that being a good rebuttal.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[mabinogi]

I assume that rather than just using wild speculation and throwing around the term "slippery slope" that you are going to present some evidence that shows that it is likely that the current situation would slide towards fascism? Because I'm afraid your post in itself didn't. You just said "Slippery Slope" on its own, like it was some sort of magical argument winning talisman.

Those who refuse to learn from history... Again, another magical argument winning talisman presented without support.
Which particular history does this parallel, and what makes the current situation similar enough to the situation in that history that we can reasonably use it as a model?

At the moment we have one data point - how can you extrapolate anything from that?

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[shava]

Running a Tor server is not illegal in Germany.

We deplore the treatment of our German volunteer at the hands of his law enforcement authorities. No one should be subject to such unjustified treatment.

The irony of all of this is that the actual Tor server involved in their putative investigation was 500 miles away in a colocation facility. Did they consult a network security forensics expert at all?

Tor is used by journalists, bloggers, human rights groups and many others for good ends. It acts as a "caller-ID block" mechanism for your Internet address. This is a basic element of Internet privacy, and is used by many individuals around the globe -- including military personnel and law enforcement.

But again and again we have seen Tor server operator volunteers harassed by law enforcement officials who are not adequately trained in Internet security.

We encourage law enforcement to contact us to better understand how Tor can help law enforcement, and how law enforcement can distinguish a Tor server -- which is no more liable, as far as we know, for the traffic that crosses it than any ISP, router, or switch that passes traffic without taking responsibility for the content of the traffic.

Shava Nerad
Development Director
The Tor Project

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[hackus]

"He doesn't get summarily executed.
His wife doesn't get raped at gunpoint.
His child doesn't get burned in an oven."

Mmmm....mighty fine line there what you describe.

How many times in history can we define where governments take small steps up to the above, and each time citizens proclaim it fascism?

Right now in the USA, the constitution of our country is looked upon a merely a "historical" document, nothing really practical to base a government on.

I mean, right now you have people arguing that the right to bear arms is really not needed anymore, and that it causes too many problems for example. Even arguing that the only people who should have the right to arms is the military or police.

These people honestly believe that the USA government couldn't possibly turn on its citizens, or its systems of law and justice could not either.

I point this out because the government has already marginalized most of the population in this country as both the democratic and republican parties themselves are widely known to be corrupt and simply corporate fronts to tame the populace. (i.e. as long as the population THINKS voting is making a difference and they THINK they are choosing candidates, they will not interested in what is really going on.)

Small steps to fascism do not need to be compared against its extremes. History shows us they are all the same and have the same tragic results.

Almost all of it is due to human greed, and the lust for power.

The only sure thing we can count on, is that in the end all governments, with no exceptions, crumble to dust and the tyranny they leave behind form better lessons for us to begin again.

The USA will not be any different.

-Hack

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Stripe7]

Article says he was released with apologies once someone with some knowledge of what Tor was and did showed up. That he was arrested in the first place, just shows the lack of computer skills in that portion or the German Police. Hopefully they have taken steps to correct what led to his arrest. This is happening all too often as police departments all over are lacking basic knowledge of many of the modern technologies, but they go off and arrest people based of the mistaken belief that they know what they are doing.

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Anonymous Coward]

Nationalism in the United States has turned to nasty xenophobic bigotry with splash of jingoism with a patriotic veneer.

This is nothing new. Especially on immigration issues, current xenophobia is actually much less than that against Eastern Europeans around 1900, or the Germans and Russians before them.

Human Rights so important to the founders of this country have been reduced or abandoned.

The level of human rights present currently in the USA is much larger than what could be imagined by the founders (see the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, and remember many of "the founders" owned slaves). Constitutional Amendments and Supreme Court decisions have dramatically expanded human rights in the USA over time, but perhaps there has been slight reduction over the last few years.

The US media has changed in recent years, the is one outlet which is a blatant propaganda arm of the current administration and the others are controlled by select few very, very wealthy men

The largest US media corporations are Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS, General Electric, News Corporation. These are all publicly traded companies and answer to their investors. Only News Corporation is largely dominated by a single person (the Murdoch family owns about 29% of the company.) If anything, there was probably more direct ownership and control of media companies by rich individuals in the past (see William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, etc.)

As to be "a blatant propaganda arm," I think you can look on CNN any day and see reporting that disagrees with administrations views (such as "the surge is working").

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Anonymous Coward]

But both BEFORE and during those rapes, burnings, etc., things go alot easier for the fascists if they control the media, restrict anonymous communications, etc. In other words, destroy the ability to protest anonymously, persecute those who then protest, etc., and pretty soon, you CAN rape, burn, and pillage with impunity...

Re:A little perspective for everyone thinking that

[Lord Kano]

says who? in the 'sane' USA, the state electrocutes people.

We don't put people in prison for saying politically unpopular things. Though it's quite assholeish, it's completely legal for someone to praise Hitler in the US. In Germany, they'll put you in jail.

LK

Nazis?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a result of Jews humiliating Germany and it's people post WW2, it's funny to label this story as "Nazi" because these draconian aka JEWISH laws are the result of Jewish influence on Germany. You cannot even display a swastika flag in your front yard like a person would normally display whatever flag of their choosing. In the Southern US, some people might choose to display a Confederate flag, a "Don't Tread On Me" flag which was a flag of a state during the confederacy (I believe it was Virginia), or some other "politically incorrect" flag belonging to a group.

I believe you should reedit the story to add "Jewish" as a category for this story.

Re:Nazis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Preach on, brother.

Udo Vogit for fuhrer!

Re:Nazis?

[downix]

Ahem, you really need to learn your history.

The "Dont Tread on Me" flag, aka the Gadsden flag, was a flag bourne in the American Revolution, not the Civil War. The Rattlesake, before the Bald Eagle, was the symbol of the United States itself.

How can we take your anti-semitic comments in any kind of serious manner when you do not even know the history of the very symbol of the American Revolution, no, the core values of the United States itself?

Bully I say, Bully!

Re:Nazis?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Jews are not the only semitic people? Your comment could be contrived as being anti-Arab, as well as several other population groups.

Didn't we just get a Microsoft forced upgrade??

[Anonymous Coward]

"We know this because the JAP operators immediately warned users that their IP traffic might be going straight to Big Brother, right? Wrong. After taking the service down for a few days with the explanation that the interruption was "due to a hardware failure", the operators then required users to install an "upgraded version" (ie. a back-doored version) of the app to continue using the service."

So JAP was ordered to put a backdoor in their program and they forced an upgrade on everyone. Didn't we just get a forced secret upgrade from Microsoft?

HELLO, has anyone dissembled that upgrade?

Re:Didn't we just get a Microsoft forced upgrade??

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. You're just being paranoid. Everyone knows that Microsoft has always spied on its users.

Re:Didn't we just get a Microsoft forced upgrade??

[maztuhblastah]

Now also might be a good time to take a look at the source for Tor too...

BUT german laws say

[erlehmann]

that someone who is merely routing data is not liable in any form.

for example, "Teledienstgesetz" (translate this as: Telecommunications Act) says

TDG 9
(1) Diensteanbieter sind für fremde Informationen, die sie in einem Kommunikationsnetz übermitteln oder zu denen sie den Zugang zur Nutzung vermitteln, nicht verantwortlich, sofern sie

      1. die Übermittlung nicht veranlasst,
      2. den Adressaten der übermittelten Informationen nicht ausgewählt und
      3. die übermittelten Informationen nicht ausgewählt oder verändert haben. which boils down to to:

telecommunications providers arent liable for other ppls information, if they
1. didn't initiate the connection,
2. didn't choose the recipients and
3. didn't choose or change the information.

Re:BUT german laws say

[v1]

so if they have a law that doesn't help them catch criminals, and they make a new law that contradicts an existing law so they can proceed, which takes precedence?

Re:BUT german laws say

[BillyBlaze]

Hopefully the one that doesn't infringe on basic human rights such as free speech and habeas corpus.

Re:BUT german laws say

[garry_g]

Dream on ... current discussions about drastically reduced personal freedom rights show what the future is going to be ...

To make a long story short:

- Politician suggests a new law
- other politicians pass it
- court finds the law isn't constitutional
- Politician is p@ssed
- Politician demands changes of the constitution in order to prevent IYFV (Insert you favorite villain) from not being pursued by the law

Problem is, both major parties are backing this, when not, it's just for alibi, they will back down earlier or later (usually earlier, latest after the next elections)

Brave new world ... :(

Re:BUT german laws say

[endymion.nz]

This will be one of those laws designed to protect big business (telco's) rather than individuals.

Re:BUT german laws say

[nem75]

Which is why he was released after being interrogated.

Re:BUT german laws say

[J_Omega]

Unfortunately for this guy, and other "ppls," they are not telecommunications providers.
The TDG 9 referenced doesn't seem to protect individuals, only corporations. ?

Re:BUT german laws say

[dysfunct]

That entirely depends on the definition of "Diensteanbieter", as a literal translation would read "service provider" and could actually mean anybody or anything that offers services. For instance, in my (EU member) country, 4 or 5 different kinds of telco providers are defined, like "somebody who stores informaton for others" and "somebody passing along data for others". The spirit of the law is that if you only forward data for others (which makes you a "provider for telecommunication services", regardless of being an ISP or hosting a proxy server on your DSL line) without modification you can not be held liable for those data.

First Amendment!

[Nimey]

But... but... doesn't he have any First Amendment rights?
[/merkin]

But to go to ha-ha-only-serious land, our laws seem to extend to other countries anyway. When it suits us.

you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

But I don't see any reasonableness in prosecuting an inherently reasonable law. Like that (black) high school student who had the book thrown at him for having sex with his (white) girlfriend because she was a couple years younger than him and broke an asinine law in Georgia.

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

So what? Was Mussolini German?

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Teun]

Interesting link with a scary story.
Thank God that in Germany the Spirit of the Law is much more balanced with the Letter than in Georgia.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[shutdown -p now]

But I don't see any reasonableness in prosecuting an inherently unreasonable law.

You're right, but there is no "fascism" or "nazism" in that either. These words have very specific definitions; please do not dilute their importance by misusing them.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

you make it all sound so reasonable

It's a shame that that's a problem for you, because it really is reasonable. It's not freedom or liberty, but it's still reasonable. From what I can tell, he isn't downplaying anything too much (perhaps the punishments could be a little harsher, but I doubt it). It's not fascism just because it would be more convenient from a rhetorical perspective to call it fascism.

BTW...

People throw around the word fascist to describe any policy they don't like (that core observation is the heart of Godwin's law). Excepting the geographical accident that places both of them in Germany, there is NOTHING analagous between Nazism and the actions of the government in this case.

So what? Was Mussolini German?

... I think you missed the point. All the GP was saying was that the fact that it's in Germany is not really relevant, and is not really an excuse to break Godwin's law.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Bios_Hakr]

There is a lot more to that story.

In this case, there was a guy that everyone "knew" was a creep. He had been accused several times before of imposing on his younger girlfriends. They never could get anything to stick. When they finally found something that *would* stick, they threw the book at him.

Judges tend to be pretty reasonable people. The judge made the right call in this case.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

There is a lot more to that story.

No, there isn't.

In this case, there was a guy that everyone "knew" was a creep

Hearsay.

Judges tend to be pretty reasonable people. The judge made the right call in this case.

The judge was just following the law. It was the asinine prosecutor that ignored his discretion and ruined a kids life to make an example out of him. Note he didn't explain to the jury just what would happen if they rendered a guilty verdict.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

It's a shame that that's a problem for you, because it really is reasonable.

You must be a big fan of Dick Cheney then. He can talk about an issue in grave, serious tones but is generally full of shit, whether he's selling the non-existent connection between Saddam and Osama (long after even Fox news stopped pushing it) or his meeting John Edwards for the first time at their debate in 2004, when they had met at least three times previously.

Or, in other words, you can talk about something in reasonable tones, but it doesn't make it reasonable.

I think you missed the point.

No I didn't, but thanks for asking.

All the GP was saying was that the fact that it's in Germany is not really relevant, and is not really an excuse to break Godwin's law.

Of course it is: Germany + fascism. If I were this guy, I'd be calling them Nazis right to their face.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

These words have very specific definitions; please do not dilute their importance by misusing them.

We aren't. They are entirely applicable in this case.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Bios_Hakr]

I highly recommend you read the Snopes and Wikipedia entries on the guy.

He had exposed himself in class before. He also had been suspended for fondling a student.

In the case in question, no one could link the boy and the girl. They had one class together and did not know each other. After school, he went to a place where she worked and raped her.

They could not charge him with rape due to the fact that there was no evidence of her fighting him. Not that a 100lb white girl had a chance against a 250lb black man...

So, why would a virgin have sex with a man she barely knew in the back of a work trailer after school?

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Scudsucker]

I highly recommend you read the Snopes and Wikipedia entries on the guy.

Snopes has no entry for "Genarlow Wilson". The Wiki page does talk about him being found not guilty for...

After school, he went to a place where she worked and raped her.
 

...bullshit, if you're talking about the same party. In any case, he was never convicted of rape, just under a poorly written law that had no "Romeo and Juliet" clause.

Nope, sorry, his conviction was a complete crock. As are attempts to justify it with hearsay now, as the whole thing was caught on video and the facts of the case are not in dispute. The judgment of the prosecutor and the state government are, however. The state changed the law so this wouldn't happen again, but unconscionably did not make it retroactive.

Re:you make it all sound so reasonable

[Bios_Hakr]

There must be a rash of harsh convictions then:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/dixon.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Dixon

Please note that in the GW case, both the boy and the girl were both black. The conviction was not a case of a black boy going to jail for having sex with a white girl.

HA! Denmark upped the ante

[Splab]

yesterday when the powers that be introduced the logging act. All data connections, emails and phone calls has to be logged and kept on record for at least a year. Beat that!

Re:HA! Denmark upped the ante

[Arkan]

Easy: 2 years of retention in France for any internet connection. And the ISP are the one footing the bill for processing power/storage/whatever it takes to comply.

--
Arkan

Re:HA! Denmark upped the ante

[Anonymous Coward]

That is easy to defeat. Just use IPv6... no one else is :p

yep, the firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, probably the berlin firewall. Too bad the firemen had to put it to sleep. Burned too many people you see... The environmentalists threw a titty fit saying it was causing global warming. Now they got a polar bear to lure nature into sending cold winters. They think nature doesn't know geography. And the yearly fest meant to scare the winter away has been banned. Anyone found wearing a costume will be thrown to the polar bear. A sacrifice to mother nature. Maybe then she'll forgive us...

Jesus what have I been smoking?

Re:yep, the firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

as someone who lives in germany, I find your post very sensible and on the spot.

German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[erlehmann]

He will probably be convicted [...], which is an occupational hazard of doing things which the government has illegalized. as i pointed out, the thing he did isn't a crime.

the point is, that this is either
a) police stupidity
b) scare tactics

i'd safely bet on the latter.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[DaedalusHKX]

There are two types of crimes.

Malum in se --> Bad in and of itself. These are true crimes. Anyone who has them done against them will object to these... they have victims that can always be identified. These crimes can always be identified as the initiation of force against a victim of some sort. Even the dumping of chemicals into the water supply has human victims.

Examples of things that are bad in and of themselves...
--rape (physical invasion), murder(deprivation of life), kidnapping(deprivation of freedom), extortion, fraud, robbery(deprivations of property), arson, torture.

Malum prohibitum --> Bad by prohibition/legislation. This is stuff that politicians have legislated illegal... they have nothing to do with wrong, or being bad, but merely with being against the agenda politicians support.

Examples of things that were banned by decree...
--personal encryption, personal privacy, marijuana, hemp, freedom of association, freedom of speech (almost gone), freedom of movement (papers please), personal safety (such as victim disarmament laws / gun control, remember that ordinary Jews (not the Zionist bankers) were disarmed in 1938 in Germany by government decree and they gave up their arms!!)

Remember this the next time a politician sells you a "necessary" step... it generally means they need you to willingly surrender your natural rights. Next time you glorify the "Jewish victims" remember that they surrendered their arms and their lives by merely consenting and walking into those death camps. Fear or sheeple syndrome, something made them consent to walk in there instead of fighting to the death to stay, life and die free. Every animal fights for its life, yet humans surrender everything by mere request. Amazing species, I must say.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[Chandon Seldon]

Malum in se --> Bad in and of itself. These are true crimes. Anyone who has them done against them will object to these... they have victims that can always be identified. These crimes can always be identified as the initiation of force against a victim of some sort. Even the dumping of chemicals into the water supply has human victims.

Not all crimes that, as crimes, appear to meet the criteria for this category are crimes in themselves. Consider a law against fat guys going shirtless at the beach. If the law becomes culturally integrated, people will flip out when they see a shirtless fat guy and claim to be horribly victimized - but there's no real harm caused by fat people not wearing shirts. Further, if it became culturally accepted that seeing shirtless fat guys traumatized children then there would be actual cases of children being horribly traumatized by it - simply because of the social feedback from the people around them that they are expected to act that way.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[DaedalusHKX]

Yes, but in any free society, you can also pick on the fat guy.

Maybe if it happened, more fat guys would get in shape. I did it. Long story, but if a man wants to do something, nothing stops him. Same for the ladies.

On the other hand... who's the idiot who came up with the idea to teach our kids that seeing something will traumatize them? It is the fear of excelling that makes most people complacent. Afraid of blood? Take a class on first aid. Afraid of sharks? Go shark fishing. Afraid of guns? Take a rifle or pistol class. Afraid of freedom? Try it :) Challenging fears and beating them down is more liberating than all the fancy documents written by our ancestors. Hence why I love coming on here now and arguing in my free time.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[Chandon Seldon]

On the other hand... who's the idiot who came up with the idea to teach our kids that seeing something will traumatize them?

This is actually more important and basic than that. The question is this: What sort of idiot parent would *ever* let their kid be told that they should be mentally traumatized over anything? I don't care if your kid just stepped on a land mine and lost his leg - you tell him "you'll be fine" and smile at him as you apply the tourniquet. Hysteria or "omg that's so horrible" will just create mental damage on top of the physical damage.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[DaedalusHKX]

What sort of idiot parent would *ever* let their kid be told that they should be mentally traumatized over anything?

Bingo! Fully agreed on that one. Its what I meant to say in my post. Thanks for putting it into crystal clear "your kids, your choice how to raise them, be it good or bad."

Its like the schools that "build self esteem" by banning kickball and tag. Boggles the mind, it does.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[muffel]

Next time you glorify...

(I don't even want to repeat that drivel in a quote)

I once asked my parents something along the lines of "why didn't they just overrun the guards". I was about 4 years old. What is your excuse?

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[alexo]

the point is, that this is either
a) police stupidity
b) scare tactics

i'd safely bet on the latter.

My bet is on Hanlon's razor (especially in light of this post).

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[DaedalusHKX]

I asked my parents the same question during my youth... in regards to the communists... "grandpa tried, but he got sold out by his neighbors who wanted his land, in the end nobody got the land, it was *collectivized*... but he still died."

As I found out a year later after asking questions... I was in America... gone from among the communists... for the time being. Guess we didn't go far enough, judging by what I see today :)

And I'm not talking about "overruning the guards" after you'd already given up your privately held arms during the 1938 gun control act. I recall that a lot of Jews were looking to "flee to Palestine" and were sold out by their own saviors, and turned back around. Those who tried to flee to the USA found a similar fate. Much of this isn't told in history class anymore, but the Jews that "died" were mostly sold out by their own leaders, same leaders who allowed their followers to be disarmed and encouraged them not to fight back, decisively.

You guys had that 1938 Enabling Act/Gun Control act, in Germany... and like good little sheeple you turned them in. I expect something a bit different in this country... the majority of mainstream christians will probably be no different than mainstream jews in 1938. They will bleat along with their version of the pacifist rabby, the sellout preachers in this case. However, there are those both on the "left" and "right" that aren't mainstreamers.

What you failed to ask your parents was "why didn't you have guns and food stashed aside and either fight back or get the hell out of there?"

As I've said before, this coming decade should be MOST interesting. We'll see if the sheeple syndrome catches on again, or if its resisted by enough to allow the bleaters to cull themselves from among us and leave the rest of us alone for once.

Re:German gov hasn't outlawed anonymity (yet)

[Anonymous Coward]

Challenging fears and beating them down is more liberating than all the fancy documents written by our ancestors. Hence why I love coming on here now and arguing in my free time.

...are you trying to say that you fear slashdot?

Old Memes vs. Karma

[erlehmann]

People that trade old memes for karma shall receive neither.

Re:Old Memes vs. Karma

[Haeleth]

People that trade old memes for karma shall receive neither.

Dude, this is Slashdot. About 80% of highly-moderated posts are ignorant misquotations of old memes.

(The other 20% are either car analogies or people citing statistics they just made up.)

Re:Old Memes vs. Karma

[PrinceOfStorms]

You might want to check your figures. I get 80.55% and 19.45%.

Re:Old Memes vs. Karma

[Psmylie]

87% of all statistics on Slashdot are made up on the spot.

in the long run, germany will be better

[erlehmann]

in building a police state. it will be a democracy and you will have political parties, but also everyone will be labeled a criminal. and every dissident will be labeled a "dangerous" criminal.

as i (and some others) see this, everything is part of a puzzle:
data retention, camera surveillance, the federal trojan, spying w/o court order, criminalizing "hacker tools" etc.
the goal is to build a repressive society to somehow grant "stability" in a period of multinational crisis (which probably means shutting down critiques at will). hint: which large asian nation likes "stability" , too ?

Scare tactic.

[ScrewMaster]

People are making a big deal out of supposed incompetence of the German police in that they didn't even get the actual Tor server. Who cares? That's irrelevant. This is not about taking down a single Tor node. This is about sending a message ... run one of these and you are at risk, and when we decide to confiscate your property we're not going to be too careful about what we take. They probably figure that will be enough to keep a bunch of nerds in line.

Re:Scare tactic.

[DaedalusHKX]

That's why you nerds need to get in shape, learn to fight, physically.

You need to be able to tranmit 2700 foot per second (sorry my metric is rusty) lead packets, encapsulated in copper wrappers. You must have your own transmission hardware, and a steady supply of appropriate packets :)

Why do you think they're tip toeing in America? Lots of people fly those Gadsden flags, but MORE people can transmit at very long ranges :) And a remarkable number of them (especially out West and down South) have learned the lesson of the War between the States (Civil war to the rest of the world)... most of these southwestern types have the "appropriate transmission hardware".

Re:Scare tactic.

[Anonymous Coward]

That can backfire. Just take MediaDefender for example. Not just over 6000 emails leaked, but recently a phone call as well.

I think the whole thing went overboard no matter how much one hates the guys, but the lesson is there. Piss off the right internet users and they'll bite you where it hurts.

Re:Scare tactic.

[John Hasler]

> Those who hammer their swords into plows, will plow for those who do not.

It's plowshares, not plows. And anyone who knows what a plowshare is will realize how similar a sword and a plowshare are and how quickly a plowshare could be hammered back into a sword.

Re:Scare tactic.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

This is another situation where standardization saves money - standard size packets are just fine and a fair bit cheaper than other packet sizes of similar effecacy. More important to general welfare is the ability to run and hide - if you're considering using your packet transmission devices against larger groups, the ability to choose the ground is paramount, and being in good shape is necessary.

Fire that lawmaker

[jonfr]

However wrote that securty "law" sould be fired and never allowed to write anything close to a rules or laws. This laws are ofcourse only going to make Germany the favorite spot for virus makers, since securtie flaws dont get fixed.

Happy new computer virus infected Germany!

(Or rather, to hell with it.)

Re:Fire that lawmaker

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany doesn't care about IT. The country is an industrial powerhouse, an economic giant and home to an automotive industry second to none. They can import the IT they need and pay for it.

Computers skills are not as important as nerd would like to think. Get over it, because in the next years Europe will enact draconian laws which will push IT development into the third world, and European WILL behave and learn to live without software development. The European economy doesn't need them. The European citizen does not need to know anything about computers beyond everyday skills.

Europeans crave security above all things. They will obey. They will comply. Don't harbor any illusions.

Re:Fire that lawmaker

[jonfr]

Without a IT, the rest of economic is going to go down the tube. One cannot be without the outer. Or did Europe suddenly stop using computer without me noticing ?

Re:Fire that lawmaker

[Anonymous Coward]

As said before, they can import what they need. Or does every nation need a host of programmers? Does industry need a slew of new apps every day? They simply decided that letting German citizen have free access to security tools was too dangerous, the same way the British decided their citizenry should not have access to firearms. This does not mean that nobody can carry a gun in Britain, the police and the army can. In Germany, only some authorized individuals will have access to these tools.

Or do you seriously think a potful of amateur coders is essential to the economic well-being of a nation? Get real.

I predict

[erlehmann]

it probably won't be enough.

thats why I use this instead

[talledega500]

http://www.mysecureisp.com/

In soviet Germany...

[ShakaZ]

piracy is OK, privacy NOT

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

That practice is so old it has even a Latin name: panem et circenses, aka bread and circus.

RIP Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Born in the USA, 1969
Killed in Europe, 2007

Sieg Heil. Enjoy your wurstels.

EXCUSE ME

[Anonymous Coward]

Little criticism of Israel is NOT Anti-semitic.

WE have been living in JEwish supremacy oppression for so long. They control everything. It's time to fight back!

HEIL HITLER! SIEG HEIL!

Re:EXCUSE ME

[downix]

Hrm? Who was criticizing israel? Heck, I criticize Israel for a lot of their narrow-minded policies. You have no concept of what you speak of, and those with small minds should not try for such large words.

You, my dear sir, have been brainwashed by those above you. They sick you like an attack dog, making you revile a group while they steal your money, resources and livlihoods, leaving you with nothing but your hatred. You poor pitiful fool. So long as you hate blindly, you are a slave. Break free of the bonds within your own mind, embrace your true friends, those that your masters wish to have you hate, rise up, free yourself before it is too late...

Re:EXCUSE ME

[Anonymous Coward]

So how exactly is this poster brainwashed and how exactly is he anti-semitic (i.e. he is against all of the semitic peoples of the Earth)? Don't waste paragraphs on some trite righteous fantasy about being a brainwashed slave when you can't even formulate a cohesive argument.

First They Came for the Jews

[GoatRavisher]

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. -- Pastor Martin Niemöller

... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[mi]

In a recent blog posting, a German operator of a Tor anonymous proxy server revealed that he was arrested by German police officers at the end of July.

Had it really been the Nazi's Gestapo, he would not be posting anything in September...

Zonk et al. really need to glue a nicely printed and framed quote of the Godwin's Law on their beds' footboards, to make it the first thing they see waking up...

Godwin's Law /prov./ [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[temcat]

There is a cowardly tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress

There, fixed it for you.

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[jstomel]

Err... Zonk didn't mention the Nazis or the gestapo in his description. I don't see how he's responsible for how people choose to tag it.

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[mi]

There is a cowardly tradition ...

There, fixed it for you.

O, brave one! Don't be too modest — describe your heroic acts against oppression to us.

Have you called a policemen Nazi? Were you sent to a labor camp over that — tell me, I'll try to help your family survive, because, surely, they were fired from their jobs, their modest property confiscated, and they must now be starving. Brown-shirts must be beating them up weekly...

Oh, I know, you must be in hiding — I understand. What did you do to the Regime — post it all, Revolution needs to know its heroes!..

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[temcat]

No, this tradition is cowardly for completely different reasons. It happens that bringing up Nazi or Hitler helps to logically prove some point due to these being more or less universally agreed negative ethical constants, but some people dislike it very much because then they have no arguments against it. An example: a person of that sort says that all the laws should be obeyed, then you ask "what about laws about Jews that were passed in Nazi Germany?". Then s/he will readily cry Godwin law, but won't admit s/he is wrong. When such people are moderators, they like to kill valid arguments with the Godwin axe just because they don't like where the discussion heads.

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[mi]

Oh, I see. Well, if such is your definition of "cowardice", why don't you define "black" as "relecting all colors" to really confuse matters?..

As for you rejection of Godwin's Law, well, I'm will to wait for you to grow up...

Re:... nazis, gestapo (tagging beta)

[temcat]

It's not definition, but rather an example of cowardice. A person who is afraid to admit s/he is wrong and tries to cover it up by shutting down the discussion under the Godwinian pretext is a coward.

As for growing up... I don't think it's a very grown-up thing to shut down a discussion by a keyword hit. One should probably grow up just a little bit more - to outgrow the Godwin's Law.

Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[wimmi]

Since governements and corporate organisations all over de world are "cracking down" on people for all sorts of economical, ideological and behavioral docrines nowadays, it sure seem to boil down back to the Nazi regime during the 1930's era.
Godwin's Law appears to ridicule and downplay the comparison with, and fear of returning to, that time. It makes social-political discussions impossible, since you cannot seem to bring up the Worst Case examples anymore.

As my Grandparents said about WWII: "This will happen Never Again!". I, for one will always question any fascist law or corporate intimidation and point out Nazi (or emperial) parallels where appropriate.

Godwin's Law should be put againt the wall!

Re:Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[DaedalusHKX]

Yeppers, but your grandparents probably both knew how to carry, maintain and USE Garands or Enfields... I strongly doubt the majority of the youth are that capable anymore.

I heard a proverb from my own friends of that WW2 age (quite old now)... They made it up to sing to the "Cops" song.

"Good men, good men, good men, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you. Will you come out with your hands over your head, or on the trigger of your gun?"

Re:Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[rich_r]

Yeppers, but your grandparents probably both knew how to carry, maintain and USE Garands or Enfields... I strongly doubt the majority of the youth are that capable anymore.

I suspect that they weren't taught that skill from the cradle. I have no doubt that should conscription again become a necessary evil, the youth of today will perform as well as those in WW2.

Re:Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[DaedalusHKX]

Actually I seem to recall that familiarity with arms at home was far more common in the 20's and 30's than it is today. The youth of today are performing ADMIRABLY against poorly armed, poorly trained and unarmored/starving civilians in the middle east. It is curious how well they would do against trained killers instead of desperate fanatics.

Frankly I am hoping it doesn't happen because I have friends in the military, and I don't see them very well off if things head south and real "enemies" show up, instead of the "fish in the barrel" scenario we're seeing in Iraq/Afghanistan right now.

Re:Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Europe we're talking about. The european youth is not trained to use firearms, and in fact in many countries it would be illegal. When the time comes, Europeans will roll over and accept the new Reich, as they have always done. As long as they have a King/Duce/Fuehrer to follow, the Europeans will happily raise their right arms up in the air and follow orders.

Re:Why not suspend Godwin indefinite?

[Ihlosi]

The european youth is not trained to use firearms, and in fact in many countries it would be illegal.

Ever heard of "mandatory military service" ? We got that over here, and not just in wartime.

No it isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Refer to Wikipedia (in lieu of any basic text on the finer points of debate and rhetoric. It CAN be fallacious, but need not be.

Re:No it isn't

[mabinogi]

It is fallacious when it is used as an argument against something without evidence that there exist the conditions that would make a slippery slope likely.

In this case, the usage was highly fallacious - it was implied that the comparison with Nazism was justified because of the existence of the concept of a slippery slope - no actual evidence of a slippery slope was given.

If the argument had demonstrated other events that presented evidence of the slippery slope, then it would have been somewhat justified.
But in general, the slippery slope argument is not an argument, and it cannot support a point on its own, which is why it is a fallacy.

Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[mi]

People that trade freedom for security shall recieve neither.

The actual quote, which you failed to attribute, is by Benjamin Franklin and reads:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

Note the adjectives "essential" and "temporary". To earn the "Insightful" moderations, which the clueless mods have given you already anyway, you must demonstrate, that the given-up liberty is essential, and that the gained security is only temporary.

Can you? I don't think so...

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[1lus10n]

just because his statement is the exact one made by a famous dead guy doesnt make it any less true.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[BillyBlaze]

Franklin is not placing limits on the types of liberty and security that it's acceptable to trade, but rather making a blanket statement that liberty is essential and security is temporary.

That said: anonymous speech is pretty darn essential. I hope we can agree that free speech is essential, and in the face of governments that happily restrict it, anonymity is a necessary tool to exercise that right without getting imprisoned or killed. And the security we would gain is temporary - if the ter'ists, pedophiles, Holocaust deniers, or pirates are using Tor, and we shut it down, they'll just switch to something else.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Haeleth]

I hope we can agree that free speech is essential

Sadly, many people will not agree with you on this point.

The type of freedom of speech that people have fought and died for in the past is predominantly the very specific freedom to dissent -- the freedom to stand up in public and criticise the ruling party, or to argue with the beliefs of some religion, without being imprisoned for subversion or burned for heresy.

Most people, at least in the West, do believe that this form of speech should be protected absolutely. However, the simple fact of the matter is that many of them also sincerely believe, after mature consideration, that there exist other forms of speech that should be restricted. You've identified several of them yourself -- terrorist manuals, holocaust denial, and suchlike. There are some other obvious ones you haven't mentioned; so-called "hate speech", for example, which is now already illegal in many Western democracies.

Is this bad? The debate is ongoing. To you, it may be "self-evident" that anything other than total freedom of speech will inevitably become a "slippery slope" that leads to other forms of speech being restricted. But to others it is equally "self-evident" that unrestricted speech will lead to the spread of evil beliefs that will cause material harm to many people. These people don't care what Franklin said. They fully intend to vote for politicians who will give them what they want. (And don't count on the courts or your constitution to protect you... the constitution is just a bit of paper, with no inherent power; it could be amended, and if it was, even the Supreme Court would be powerless to stand up for those rights you now take for granted.)

The only way to convince these people that they are wrong is to refute their arguments and produce arguments of your own that they cannot refute. And I'll be blunt: "Franklin said so" is an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy and no argument at all. On the other hand, an argument of the form "banning racist speech will, in and of itself, have $SPECIFIC_NEGATIVE_EFFECT on your daily life" could be powerful and compelling... if you can fill in the blank convincingly.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Joe Jay Bee]

When it's repeated roughly 4 million times a day on every YRO/politics article on Slashdot, it does kinda lose its punch.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[timeOday]

The actual quote, which you failed to attribute, is by Benjamin Franklin and reads:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

Uh, no... the actual quote, which you both misquoted and failed to attribute, is: "to live, or not to live, that is the question," and it is by William Shakespeare. Sheesh, you messed it up so much it took me a minute to identify. Although I'm not sure why you are using that quote anyways, since it's entirely irrelevant.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

demonstrate, that the given-up liberty is essential, and that the gained security is only temporary.

Dear fucktard, Anonymous free speech is essential to rat out corruption.
The security gained by prosecuting Tor users is temporary, because the people the government are trying to stop will find a new means of communication.
There, you happy now, you little fucktard?

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't get hung up on technicalities of the English language. What the original poster posted is a feeling that is echoed by the growing masses of people who are DONE with this phoney war, Presidential Facist Regime, and the broken Congress fed by special interests who no longer hide in the background. You may approve of the current actions that have been taken by our government since 9-11 and feel safe from harm from the forces conspiring against us from without. However, it's the forces from within that are building up albeit slowly. It won't surprise me that any movement of change to successfully be carried out here will be done by concerned citizens who wish to reform and repair our broken Republic. I just hope it's results as a quiet storm with no casualties(that we know of). I keep my fingers crossed but history repeats itself over and over.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[smclean]

Who said he was quoting anyone?

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[einhverfr]

Most people, at least in the West, do believe that this form of speech should be protected absolutely. However, the simple fact of the matter is that many of them also sincerely believe, after mature consideration, that there exist other forms of speech that should be restricted. You've identified several of them yourself -- terrorist manuals, holocaust denial, and suchlike. There are some other obvious ones you haven't mentioned; so-called "hate speech", for example, which is now already illegal in many Western democracies. I am actually opposed to anti-hate-speech laws, and laws which ban holocaust denial and the like. Terrorist manuals are another case and I oppose banning them on yet other grounds.

None of these relate to some abstract undeniable right to say whatever you want. Clearly the freedom of speech is the right to dissent. And although a strong case can be made that hate-speech is a form of dissent especially when criminalized, my own case against this does not rely on this premise. (However, in the US, hate speech is protected as a form of dissent, see Brandenburg v. Ohio. IANAL though.)

Hate speech laws are ostensibly passed in order to help people get along together in a diverse community. Those laws however do impinge upon one fundamental right in a democracy: The right to equal protection under the law.

The reason is that hate speech laws are fundamentally impossible to apply properly across the board. In particular laws which are designed to protect a few specific minority groups (such as holocaust denial laws) do not provide equal protection for everyone. Some groups (particularly Jews, in part because they are both an ethnic and a religious group and so tend to get the benefits of both sets of protections) tend to benefit while other groups (for example, Arabs and Muslims) tend to be discriminated against.

As for terrorism manuals, I think that these should not be banned, but not for any reason other than pure practicality. Such manuals offer security personnel unparalleled opportunities to keep up on likely tactics by terrorists and thus help do their jobs. Hence terrorist manuals have plenty of legitimate uses in line with ensuring public safety. The arguments for allowing terrorism manuals to be published are the same for allowing or even endorsing full disclosure of software security problems.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[rapidweather]

Searching around using Google, I found the quotation this way also:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Which is it? Absolute right to publish or restrictions on hate speech? I have no problem with people being able to publish a book that says that the Holocaust never happened because the laws that restrict that would also restrict publication of non-mainstream accounts of history.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[podwich]

Of course, you just misquoted what has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Oddly, your misquote just so happens to support your point. Interesting, hmm? Here's the actual quote:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Note the conspicuous absence of the word "an" before "essential liberty". It appears to me that he's not specifying giving up an inessential liberty for safety, but that one should not give up liberty. (Researched by Richard Minsky, see http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReader$605 )

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[mi]

Franklin is not placing limits on the types of liberty and security that it's acceptable to trade, but rather making a blanket statement that liberty is essential and security is temporary.

What makes you think so? I don't see it this way at all — the adjectives become rather redundant in this case. Franklin surely had his way with words — a persuasive speaker, and established writer, I doubt, he would've blundered like this.

Whoever said, your interpretation would not make sense — if the security to be gained is permanent, it may make sense to trade a non-essential liberty for it. Heck, one may even agree to give up an essential liberty.

For example, a large (and vocal) part of Americans argue, that giving up the liberty of carrying guns is worth the increase in security. Whether they are right estimating the gain is another story, but I suspect, the original poster (who misquoted Benjamin Franklin while criticizing the Germans), agrees with them...

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[gnuman99]

I have a BIG problem with people that public books on Holocaust denial. Yet, I would prefer that they are able to public such books.

On the other hand, free speech has it limits. Free speech to criticize is OK. Free speech to incite violence is NOT. Hate speech is also NOT (incite violence). Also, you cannot stand up in a crowded movie theater and start shouting "BOMB, BOMB!!".

Order, law and good governance are the most important pillars of our society. Free speech, while important, must not trample on any of these. Also, I say law in general terms as in judiciary. Not any particular law! There are bad laws that needs to be struck down because they are not compatible with "good governance" nor "order".

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, a large (and vocal) part of Americans argue, that giving up the liberty of carrying guns is worth the increase in security. You're seriously using a revisionist approach to what Benjamin Franklin, who signed the Declaration of Independence, said to argue against the Second Amendment?

While we're--let's say--"reinterpreting"--here's what Benjamin Franklin should have said:

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve to get the fuck out. (That means you, mi (197448)) People like you are the worst philosophical and moral disease this country has ever seen in its 231 year history. When revolution happens, I'll be the first to tell the rest of us with guns that you don't need nor deserve our protection. Because of people like you, let's hope it is also a civil war. We can get rid of the useless dead-weight we've accumulated.

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

That said: anonymous speech is pretty darn essential. I hope we can agree that free speech is essential, and in the face of governments that happily restrict it, anonymity is a necessary tool to exercise that right without getting imprisoned or killed.

For a democracy, free speech is very essential. Right up there with the right to vote. That said, truly free speech can very well be detrimental to democracy, specifically fraudulent and libellous speech. Also, free speech relies wholly on the freedom and ability of others to exercise free speech back, and competent judgement. For example, child porn is restricted because children are deemed unable to make such a big decision as appearing in porn, and thus child porn is not considered protected free speech.

And the security we would gain is temporary - if the ter'ists, pedophiles, Holocaust deniers, or pirates are using Tor, and we shut it down, they'll just switch to something else.

By the same logic, we should stop enforcing any crime because people will just find another way to do it. Yet we still bother with enforcement, and we still pay for police. I wonder why that is?

Re:Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[ravenshrike]

Most hate speech cannot be considered incitement to violence. For an incitement to violence charge to occur, one has to be advocating immediate action. Now, depending on the speech itself, one might get a conspiracy charge out of it, but incitement must be immediate in nature or have immediate consequences.

Trusted Computing can help

[SiliconEntity]

Tor users should run Trusted Computers. This is a technology that lets remote observers check the software configuration of the system they are connecting to. Most people think it is only for DRM but actually it has many privacy-protecting uses. If a Tor system were a TC, remote Tor clients could check that the Tor server was not logging connections, running a version of Tor with a back door, or doing other things to infringe privacy. Then if you were asked by a court why you didn't add features to your Tor software to log users and such, you could explain that if you did so, remote clients would be able to tell (due to Trusted Computing features) and so they would refuse to connect to your system and refuse to use it. Likewise if you were ordered to run a backdoored version of Tor it would not be effective, because people could see what you were doing.

Ironically, Trusted Computing, hated by the larger Internet community, can actually play an important part in protecting privacy. It is unfortunate that uninformed opposition has slowed the adoption of this potentially very useful and helpful technology. I am working hard to advance Trusted Computing and I can't wait for the day when I can run transparent servers which remote clients will be able to validate and trust. Someday I expect that all Tor servers, anonymous remailers and other privacy protecting technologies will run on Trusted Computers.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[base3]

And the endorsement keys will be held by Microsoft and the NSA. Amusing thought nonetheless.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[domatic]

The problem is that Trusted Computers will have keys built in that the owner of the machine doesn't control. These will be used by major software vendors and the entertainment industry against their own customers. If the TPM was a blank slate utterly under the owner of the PC's control then I'd agree with you that TC has beneficent uses. Unfortunately, TPM is slated to be used as a built-in universal super dongle and that overshadows any positive use of the technology; I only tend to favor technology that can be used for me rather than against me. I'm funny that way.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[SiliconEntity]

The problem is that Trusted Computers will have keys built in that the owner of the machine doesn't control.

Right, but keep in mind that nobody controls those keys. Only the TPM chip owns and controls them. And they are used exclusively to let the TPM chip say (and sign) information about the software configuration.

In the Tor case, if the Tor operator controlled his TPM keys, then he could be coerced into producing false information about his system. He could say that there was no Tor backdoor when actually he had been forced to install a backdoored version of Tor. This undercuts the whole point of Trusted Computing for secure networking. It would make the statements by the TPM useless.

So you've got to have those keys being owned and controlled solely by the TPM chip. It's not that big a threat, it's just a little chip and you can shut it down any time you like. But you can't make it lie, so if you use it, it's going to tell the truth.

I have faith and confidence that being able to reliably tell the truth won't be the end of the world. This is the fundamental point where I seem to differ from Trusted Computing opponents. To me, the truth is not a threat.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[LuSiDe]

The NSAKEY story in Windows 2000 was a BS/FUD story. Bruce Schneier made a good analysis on this one. I'm sure you can find it on his blog, or via Google. There are worse offenses Microsoft made regarding privacy. This simply wasn't one.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[base3]

The NSAKEY has nothing to do with Trusted Computing endorsement keys; it was related to application signing keys wrt CryptoAPI. (Although I do doubt that it was completely FUD, and there's probably someone at MS from that time missing a job and security clearance.)

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[bbtom]

To me, the truth is not a threat.

Okay, can I read your bank statements? Or maybe the passwords for your porn site memberships? The truth isn't a threat, remember. So why not tell us?

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[SiliconEntity]

Okay, can I read your bank statements? Or maybe the passwords for your porn site memberships? The truth isn't a threat, remember. So why not tell us?

There is a difference between being able to tell the truth and protecting privacy. It is in fact useful to be able to truthfully give out some of this kind of information. For example, being able to truthfully and reliably provide bank statements will be helpful in getting a loan or entering various kinds of business transactions. Imagine a world where it was somehow impossible to provide verifiable and trustworthy information; would that be a better place? It would destroy many efficient economic arrangements that we take for granted, and make us all poorer.

So I am grateful that it is possible to tell the truth about things in a way that is believable. All too often on the net we have the opposite problem, there is no way to know what is true and what is not. Trusted Computing can provide a small piece of truth which is useful for certain applications, some of which as I demonstrated in the grandparent posting would be extremely valuable for protecting privacy.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[bbtom]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Just as a point of interest, how does proving that something came from a particular computer herald in a new world of truth and justice as opposed to encrypting it with a public key. If my bank sent me, say, a signed, encrypted XML file containing my statement, I could forward the relevant components to a lender with a session key.

I'm not sure how Trusted Computing reintroduces trust to computing. Being able to prove that a file came from a particular computer doesn't prove much to me. Surely, we can do most of the nice things that is planned for TC with public key encryption - albeit without the dubious DRM benefits that the TC platform could potentially inflict upon us?

I can see advantages in the TC approach, but I don't know how this protects us against abuse by the hardware manufacturers working in concert with the large software manufacturers.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin)
Comment: http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/

iD8DBQFG7jftmxsZOKak9U4RAilRAJ491PI7YxDjNa1CNhhxe3tCXUw3KACffl+E
gO5AjL6KBQs75oabqZoETRM=
=cW4K
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[illumin8]

If a Tor system were a TC, remote Tor clients could check that the Tor server was not logging connections, running a version of Tor with a back door, or doing other things to infringe privacy.

Why does it matter, when they could just as easily sniff all outgoing traffic upstream from the Tor node and catch anything that is unencrypted? Like that guy in Germany did when he got all of those embassy passwords.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[SiliconEntity]

I'm not sure how Trusted Computing reintroduces trust to computing. Being able to prove that a file came from a particular computer doesn't prove much to me. Surely, we can do most of the nice things that is planned for TC with public key encryption - albeit without the dubious DRM benefits that the TC platform could potentially inflict upon us?

Those are great questions and I appreciate your open-minded spirit.

TC does far more than prove that a file came from a particular computer. It lets you securely verify that you are communicating with a particular program; potentially, one that you know the source code for. And it lets you know that the program runs in its own "jail" or partition, isolated from other programs and also from user actions. The program can store data such that no one else, no other program, no other user, no other operating system, can read it.

TC gives distributed software an unprecedented degree of autonomy and independence. It lets peer to peer software operate across a network with almost the same security as if each piece were running on a separate computer that no one could control. This is going to enable a whole new world of software development opportunities of which we can barely imagine the full implications.

A few obvious possibilities are distributed games, grid computing, internet voting, as well as privacy networks like Tor, anonymous remailers, anonymous chat, and many others. The ability to write software that can actually trust in the integrity and identity of its remote pieces will enable these and many more new developments.

IMO the reflexive opposition to Trusted Computing has been the biggest mistake the online community has ever made. It has turned this marvelous invention with all of its potential into a twisted caricature of itself, focusing on just one of its many possible uses.

Why did this happen? Ultimately, I am sorry to say, it was due to greed. Greed on the part of Internet users who fear only one thing above all else: that they may no longer be able to download music, movies and other content for free. The ironic thing is that TC probably wouldn't even do that much to stop content sharing, because these types of content can always be copied, at worst by putting microphones in front of speakers and video cameras in front of monitors. You'll always be able to take content. But fear of possible improvements in security technology enabled by Trusted Computing that could make content sharing somewhat more difficult has overridden all other responses.

The good thing is that Trusted Computing does not yet exist. I am doing my best to build Trusted Computer systems which will be used for "good" purposes and in that way to demonstrate that the common view of the technology is far too limited. I hope to have some demonstrations running within a few months.

Re:Trusted Computing can help

[SiliconEntity]

BTW I hope that whoever moderated the parent post "funny" realizes that it was a serious comment about how this new technology could improve privacy on the net, something that ought to be of interest to every user. I don't know if the moderators thought it was funny because it had never occured to them that Trusted Computing had good uses, or if they were being sarcastic and moderated it funny because they disagreed with the point. Either way, it is not actually funny and perhaps meta-moderators can help make that clear.

Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law.'

[alfs boner]

I really, really hope you get cancer.

Incorrect!

[Jane Q. Public]

You are just plain wrong. The phrase "Slippery Slope Fallacy" came from the phrase "Slippery Slope", not the other way around. The fallacy has to do with asserting that a Slippery Slope exists when in fact it does not. It has NOTHINNG to do with actual slippery slope situations, which can and do exist.

And I am inclined to agree that this is one of them.

Yep

[DaedalusHKX]

You're right.

The Nazis were german socialists. The Italians were fascists, Spain at the time was Fascist, and 1900-1930 America was prone to glorifying fascists and pretty much anyone that opposed communism. Hence why whoever studies history will find that many newspapers and radio broadcasts gushed all over Hitler at the time. Course sometime later they did a remarkable "about face" and gushed socialism... prodded the populace to fight on England's side.

Re:Yep

[Breakfast Pants]

Say it isn't so.

Not The Same Thing

[Jane Q. Public]

That does not do the same thing as Tor, at all. The only kind of surveillance this really protects you against is at your local ISP (or employer, or IT department on your own intranet), because the data leaves the MySecureISP servers unencrypted exactly as though you had not used the service at all. And your IP and other information are still being broadcast to the recipient(s).

The "security" you receive from MySecureISP is really very little security at all, unless you suspect your own employer or ISP of intercepting your traffic.

Tor, on the other hand, secures the ORIGIN of the data from prying eyes. Your IP is no longer present once it leaves the Tor server at the other end.

Arguably, combining the two would be pretty darned secure... but slow.

Re:Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law

[Night Goat]

Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law.'

I think a new generation of Internet users just started hearing about Godwin's Law recently and now they're fascinated by it. I'm not sure why.

Re:A little MORE perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascism doesn't appear instantly, it's usually a process. Having the Tor network made illegal seems to me, clearly, a part of that process. What we have here is yet another government requesting access to all their citizen's communications, and that is, IMHO, a surefire way to reach true fascism soon. Backdoors made mandatory? the police busting his door and arresting him at night for no serious offense? We should all be VERY afraid of this kind of behavior by our governments.

I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[aepervius]

But did ANY OF YOU read the frigging article ? Let me quote it for you with relevant part in bold.
The police were investigating a bomb threat posted to an online forum for German police officers. The police traced one of the objectionable posts on the forum to the ip address for Janssen's server. Up until his arrest, Alex Janssen's Tor server carried over 40GB of other random strangers' Internet traffic each day. Showing up at his house at midnight on a Sunday night, police cuffed and arrested him in front of his wife and seized his equipment. In a display of both bitter irony and incompetence, the police did not take or shut-down the Tor server responsible for the traffic they were interested in, which was located in a different city, over 500km away. Janssen's attempts to explain what Tor is to the police officers fell initially on deaf ears. After being interrogated for hours, someone from the city of Düsseldorf's equivalent of the Department of Homeland Security showed up and admitted to Janssen that they'd made a mistake. He was released shortly after.

Summary : somebody saw his server was the originator IP, somebody reacted quickly, a bit like the US homeland departement IMO could have done, and fell on the face because 1) they gathered the wrong PC 2) once the dust settled they recognized their error after being interrogated for horus. Not DAYS. Not MONTH. Hours. Sure it sucks but it was a bomb threat, in other word there was urgency, and they did not torture him, they did not water board him and pretend afterward it ain't torture. They interrogated him for hours and released him and admitted mistake.

And people here are taking comparison to loss of liberty and Nazi ? Hellllooo ? Knee jerk reaction ?

Re:I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[LuSiDe]

The analogy to be drawn could be something akin to people hiding a radio, guns, Jews, or Resistance Partisans in their house in occupied territory during WWII, or a spy situation (or an Axis living in Allied or Neutral territory cause it goes the other way around as well, of course). Yes, less radical because people don't get murdered in this situation but the point is the same: you stick up your neck for the freedom or life of others [often whom you don't know] and you are the one who gets the heat in the name of protecting something/someone because a very small part of those you stick your neck out for 'betray' the freedom you provide which leads to 'dogs of war' coming after you.

This can happen to anyone who runs a Tor exit nodes although I bet there are countries where the threatment you receive would be worse. Let this be a conscious warning to Tor exit nodes administrators. If you do not wish to stand for similar heat, don't join 'em. And, the JAP/BKA story is old, and was stupid on JAP's side because BKA has no legal ground to backdoor your server without your consent.

Re:I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

How much are hours of your time worth? Do you seriously think he will be compensated? Is an apology enough to make up for HOURS of interrogation? If they had water boarded him, what would your excuse be then? It sounds to me like the police made the knee-jerk reaction. And guess what? Nobody will be held accountable. It will be the citizen exploited, because the state is always right. So he loses his freedoms for hours and he just has to deal with it. Fascism is incremental.

Re:I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[illumin8]

They interrogated him for hours and released him and admitted mistake.

He was still interrogated for hours when they could have just done better police work and realized their mistake BEFORE arresting him, dragging his name through the mud, and subjecting him to hours of sleep deprivation and "interrogation techniques." Just because they don't physically torture you doesn't mean mental torture (sensory deprivation, witholding food, water, and medicine) isn't just as bad, if not worse.

Re:I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

So, YOU won't mind if we mistakenly hold you against your will for a few hours? No problem, right? Dickhead.

Re:I see a lot of knee jerk reaction

[bentcd]

He was still interrogated for hours when they could have just done better police work and realized their mistake BEFORE arresting him, dragging his name through the mud, and subjecting him to hours of sleep deprivation and "interrogation techniques." Just because they don't physically torture you doesn't mean mental torture (sensory deprivation, witholding food, water, and medicine) isn't just as bad, if not worse. This has little to do with Tor as such though. In principle, it's just some guy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and got mistaken for a suspect. When this happens, it is expected that he will be brought in for questioning and since Germany is /not/ run by the Gestapo, it is expected that he is promptly released when the mistake becomes clear to the police.

So long as the police remains imperfect (and I don't see how perfection can be possible in this field), these things will happen from time to time. All things considered, this seems a fairly benign mistake to make. It's not like he was shot seven times in the head, like some other European police organizations have been known to do.

What is going on in Germany?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why this one democratic country (oh, plus the US) keeps coming up with the dumbest laws. Where else can you not run tor? Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Somalia (just kidding)

I'm a German ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and I feel awful about it. Nothing to see here, Germany was, is and probably will be a land full of idiots ruled by monkeys.

Ill remember to avoid those groups

[unity100]

with that tradition :

There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.

nazis are one of the biggest lessons that have happened to mankind. if some bunch of idiots can not realize that there are places that this example should be recalled, then its not worth to waste words with them.

rise of the fourth riech?

[aktivator]

what's new?? the germans are fucking nazies anyway.
must be the rise of the fourth riech...

That silly sprog

[CircularHowler]

should have bought a house in a Tor neighborhood.

mod parent up...read the article

[Anonymous Coward]

nt

Wolfs are abound!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well honestly I think people need to be monitored. Its not like the FBI or CIA are going to come to your workplace and laugh at you for your taste in porn.
But, they will come and arrest you for whatever incognito criminal act you may have been evolved in.

Frankly, I am scared and worried for my country(USA), with the ("I" deserve everything) attitude while being more concerned with Paris Hilton. We
should be filling our thoughts with alternative energy, opensource movements, legal rights, and health.

If you think that someone shouldn't be watching after the sheep then your kidding yourself because you are either the wolf or the sheep.
As long as there is sheep there will be wolfs to eat them.

You seem to confuse fascism with nazism ...

[redzebra]

read the first paragraph of each wiki entry and look at the characteristics of both. You're arguing that a government is not fascist because it doesn't have the characteristics of nazism.

Most world powers match at least half of the fascist characteristics. It's not because you feel there's nothing wrong with the policy of the government, that the policy isn't fascist.

Note that the core observation of godwin's law is just common sense : meaningfull discussions normally end once you start insulting the other side

Dont....

[PrimeNumber]

....turn around, uh-oh
Der Kommissar's in town, uh-oh
And if he talks to you
And you don't know why
The more you live
The faster you will die

The regularity of anti-German FUD

[vorlich]

We have been through all of this Red Herring before and it won't make any difference. There is no point trying to understand how unimportant this discussion is if you don't understand today's Germany. Germany is the biggest exporting nation on Earth and it is the biggest player in the EU - which is the biggest market on Earth. Post war Germany actively chose the social democrat model for their economy and political system. It has the finest constitution in Europe (modelled on the US but containing substantially more pages!) the welfare state supports everyone and the growing economy provides the work that creates the wealth that pays for all this. It is normal for such a society to create a bunch of laws odd to English speakers - but then my own country doesn't even have a written constitution and our councils tax the individuals home. The present day German is focussed on career, personal improvement and health and very little else.

It is an unusual characteristic of Germany that everyone suffers from angst (fair enough, they invented the word) but the angst is all about really unlikely events (acrylimide in barbeque food causing cancer for example) and yet they throw caution to the winds the moment they get in a car.

This angst condition is so endemic I have christened it "Fright Club". Only a few weeks ago they were obsessed with "wifi smog" people were switching of their routers and phones to protect themselves from this new scourge. It didn't appear to stop them from watching television or listening to the radio, but there you go - science and magic confused or just interchangeable.

Coupled with this angst is another curious condition called Gründlichkeit or thoroughness. Gründlichkeit is just so much part of the German character. Back in Scotland you could read the important parts of the Blue Book tax guide in the bookshop and easily identify any new legal tax avoidance strategies. You couldn't do that with the German Tax Books because there are about 127 of them (the last time I tried to count them). My accountant just photocopies pages out and sticks them in the tax return. You have to pay canal tax but there's no canal and you don't get one either.

In Germany when you change your address, you have to inform the special municipal department -Wohnamtmeldegung- (department of names and addresses)of the change and fill in three forms. A group of students could not understand how this did not exist in Britain or USA. "What's to stop you getting on a plane, flying to the UK, robbing a bank and then flying home?" was their completely serious question and my answer: "Even German bank robbers don't normally use their identity cards or leave a forwarding address during the robbery," leaves them completely unconvinced.

Conversation with Wohnamt Official:

Official:"What is your father's occupation?"

"He's dead, what difference does it make?"

Official:"I have a space in the form for it"

"which job would you like?"

Official:"His last one..."

Official:"What religion are you?"

(proudly) "Agnostic"

Official:"You can have: Catholic, Protestant or atheist."

"But I'm an agnostic"

Official: Ticks 'atheist'

As for thoroughness, Non-German partners are often very surprised when they clean the entire house from top to bottom only to have their partner point out that they forgot the single cup they drank their post cleaning coffee in which is standing on the immaculate sink - dirty. There is no mention of all the good work, because the concept of balancing good things against negative things (one good thing outweighs loads of bad things) is rather specific to English speakers. German anthropology uses the concept of a linear measure of perfection (or distance from it!) and the streets are so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Well, almost but this is the real reason behind this action, more national character than conspiracy.

Germany has these laws and they pale into insignificance compared to the UK's

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[the eric conspiracy]

So why exactly do you make the same off-topic post any time there is an article on Slashdot that is unfavorable to Germany?

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[mabu]

Actually agnostic is a subset of atheist.

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Lost_In_Specs]

Agnostics are just atheists without the strength of their convictions.

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Lehk228]

no, agnostic means that one believes that the truth of god/ no god can never be truely known. this is seperate from belief in god{dess|es|s}


Agnostic atheist means you don't consider it knowable but do not believe
Agnostic theist means you don't consider it knowable but do believe (most christians fall under this category, emphasis on faith)

Gnostic atheists believe that it can be known and that there is no god
gnostic theists believe that god exists and can be proven to exist (5 sided bananas, etc.)

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post, I definitely know where you're coming from. Just two things I'd change.

"If you live in Germany then it stands to reason that you observe the German laws and render unto Ceaser, that which is Ceaser's."

If you are a German then all German laws apply to everyone else in Germany but you yourself. Germany doesn't have many criminals but they are in no way law abiding cititzens.

As far as rendering unto Ceaser I'm not too sure about that either. Even when I lived in Italy I never know so many people lying or hiding facts to avoid taxes.

Germany is one of the few countries (maybe the only one) where I like the government and overreaching society but not the general character of the majority of the individuals I meet.

Greetings from Bavaria

Captcha: "pompous" does that mean me or the Germans?

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[dunkelfalke]

that's okay, nobody likes the bavarians ;-)

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

This post must be a copy/repost. I am pretty sure I have read large parts of this text before (on Slashdot?)... or this is the strongest dejavu I haver had.

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing one option:
those that know that God exists but do not believe (in Him).

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[ShiNoKaze]

I noticed this too. He probably thought it was really well written and can't stop pattin himself on the back for a job well done.... a long time ago.

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Gen.Anti]

Not necessarily "never". Actually, the prankster is half right. I wonder if you realize you left out this obvious option; namely, to believe it's possible that it's possible to prove [Gg]od.*'s existence, and to believe it has not been proven that either it's possible to prove, or actually that \& exists{0,1}. Or is it not agnosticism? A dictionary def. does exclude some options you included, though.

Re:The regularity of anti-German FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in Germany for a couple of years and moved around several times. After one trip to reregister my whereabouts, I was complaining about the whole process to a German friend.

Him: You don't have to do that in America?
Me: Nope.
Him: Then how does the government know where you are at all times?
Me: Exactly.

Actually, it's...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are various variants of this, there is no record of the exact wording of the original. He repeated it several times in various forms.
The order should be, roughly: Communists, trade unionists, socialists. Sometimes he included the sick, sometimes jews or jehowah's witnesses. But historically, they started with the communists, and by the time they came for the jews (1940), they had long come for Niemöller himself (1937).

fucking Germans.

[entr0pic]

nothing changes.

Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[DrYak]

Are the western going nutcrack because the masses are too lazy and too much occupied having entertainment ? Or is it because the general population isn't actually asked often enough what voters think about law passed by their representative ?

Personnaly, I think that what most western countries actually lack, is direct democracy. The currently most dysfunctionnal western democracy cited are similar to USA, i.e.: representative democrary.

I have the feeling that the representative flavor can function very well (people elect representative that think like them and make the decision that people like) up to one point. After which the whole system turn into a ploutocracy, where the power is in the hand in those who'll manage to funf/finance/pay/corrupt the biggest lobby.
In a system like the USA, with the massive amount of cash needed to be active in the pollicital scene, the best funded party wins and takes the decision its sponsor asked. Whereas, in a direct democracy such 'buying' of decision is much more difficult, as in the end the decision is taken by the population and one need to corrupt a huge part of the voters instead of just paying a lobby.

Also, with representative democracy academic milieu have little to say about politics. Often, the representing politician may lack the necessary knowledge to take into account all possible outcome of some crappy decision. So they take it anyway. And nobody is goind to stop them anyway, because they *ARE* supposed to be taking the decision.
Whereas in a direct democracy, the final decision is going to be taken by the population anyway. Thus, this leves more room for academic expert and such to try to teach and give enough explanation so the voters can take a much better informed decision. (Imagine what would have happened to the German anti-Hacker law, or the USA PATRIOT act or the USA net-neutrality debate if in the end the poeple themeself had to take the decision)

Granted direct democracy has its own bunch of probleme, like the whole pollitical procedure working at snail speed (or at least that's what we see here around in Switzerland), but at least asinine decision tend to be less often made, maybe because of some pollicital equivalent of Linus' law.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Original Replica]

Yes, much of the democratic world is suffering under the weaknesses of Representative Democracy. Namely too much influence by special interests and too much focus on election issues and almost no focus on deeper problems. Unfortunately one of the other weaknesses of Direct Democracy, is that it doesn't traditionally work well for very large countries. I do have to wonder if the information age would change that though. The internet would in theory allow the voters to have a more robust knowledge of issues that are outside of their hometown or home state. However the internet doesn't seem to have done much for politicians being any better informed on issues, and many American voters are willfully ignorant of anything but their side's propaganda when they get to the voting booth. I fear ultimately that the reason we are having such governmental problems right now is because in a Democracy the People get the Government they deserve. We have lost our national sense of community and pride, and so we vote greedily and selfishly and get greedy selfish government.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Cassius Corodes]

While direct democracy is an interesting idea - if people are too drunk, stupid and lazy to keep their representatives honest, what is the likelihood they will take the issues any more seriously if they voted for it themselves? The parties involved would just run ad campaigns to help "educate" the voters on each issue, and you are back to the same problem with votes being won by the richest interests. Solid education of the people helps any form of government run better - and I suspect that is the real issue.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[turbidostato]

"I do have to wonder if the information age would change that [direct democracy] though."

You can consider it based on your own case: you have the power to stay in touch with current political decisions. I don't know where are you from, but surely they make their govern acts public and readily accesible on the Internet. Do you take the time to know what's happening lately? I mean, to the detail level needed if you were to take part on the decision process.

Last friday on my country, the Congress Acts show:
Education Ministry: A correction of mistakes on a Law regulating Primary Education curriculum.
Work and Social Issues Ministry: Approval of an extraordinary order regarding forest fires.
Industry, Commerce and Turism: Modification of an order law to take it into accomplacy with EU regulation about Metrology Control.

That's only the "General Dispositions" sections. Then it comes new asignations to public positions; then public contracts and concurses; then "Other Dispositions" and finally some "Relevant News".

Are *you* able to track all this issues *daily*? If you are not, then you *need* somebody to represent you. Even if only "General dispositions" where passed to laymen, what is going to be your opinion about the modifications to a law regulating control of Metrology Tools and Methods going to be? Have you really a formed opinion about the need for the public test on primary teachers to be valued 50% the lecture, then 30% curriculum presentation and 20% a practical activity or it will be better reduce the lecture to 40% and increase the practical activity value up to 30%? Because exactly *that* is what your representatives (and their working teams) expend their time.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Original Replica]

I am writing from the USA. While it is possible with some digging to find out most of what legislation is being considered or passed in the state and federal level, there is the problem of many issues being bundled up in a single bill to be passed (earmarking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmarking) It is common practice here for Senators and Congressmen to hide special projects inside of larger bills. For example, there may be a bill up for vote that is titled "Education Reform Proposal #108" but the actual text of the bill is thousands of pages long. The first few hundred pages might actually have to do with education reform, but there will also likely be the funding for a bridge for one county, a tax break for a very specific company or industry, a regulation exemption for some other industry, and any other special things the politicians promised special interests that would be unable to pass as on their own merit. The result is that it is very difficult to know the entire contents of any bill to be voted on, and it is near impossible to have any bill make it as far as the voting stage without several earmarks being attached. So I do not know that I actually vote any better than my representative.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The internet would in theory allow the voters to have a more robust knowledge of issues"

The problem though is that the majority of voters are, quite simply, drooling fucking idiots with no clue how to form an opinion based on "robust knowledge of issues."

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[turbidostato]

"So I do not know that I actually vote any better than my representative."

Well, apples to apples. Of course you can have somebody trying to fool you like this (while I doubt this is focused to fool your representatives, but to fool *you*, the elector -they probably know quite well what they are voting, but "hiding" it on a 1000 pages bill will make it easier for them to avoid public repercusions). But that's independent to the fact you have direct or representative democracy. The thing that it is not independent is that no matter if you go representative or direct, decisions about the nitty-gritty details of goverment still will have to be taken. Are you ready to expend the vast amount of time requiered to be in touch with all those details -even more, are you ready to take the time in order to gain enough expertiseness in the fields involved so you can make an *informed* decisions about them? I bet not.

The problem of our current representative democracies is not the "government machine" itself but a whole society built around it. On a "classic Greece" scenario, you would have the time to make informed decisions because you could expend most of your time at the agora (maybe modern agora being the Internet), instead of working (that's what slaves are for); we hipothetically could have a society like this, being machines our modern "slaves" but instead of this, we have to work long hours to earn a live (and due to this we have high population densities that make government more complex too). That means you need representatives for a *lot* of things (think most of services: you could have the time to directly contact farmers for your food needs, but due to current status, you must delegate on your local market) and that includes government.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

there is the problem of many issues being bundled up in a single bill to be passed

For example, there may be a bill up for vote that is titled "Education Reform Proposal #108" but the actual text of the bill is thousands of pages long. The first few hundred pages might actually have to do with education reform, but there will also likely be the funding for a bridge for one county, a tax break for a very specific company or industry, a regulation exemption for some other industry, and any other special things the politicians promised special interests that would be unable to pass as on their own merit

It is a sort of forgery, intentional deception or fraud of citizens and public. Therefore it is unjust conduct of government and as such it also constitutes an usurpation of a freedom and theft of sovereignty of the people. It should be outlawed, unconstitutional practice and hidden/offtopic paragraphs should be automatically void. Also, why would ANY bill require so much detail that it comprises thousands of pages? It is impractical and non-useful. If a legal idea is not clear and obvious, it is dangerous and it only enlarges legal insecurity of citizens.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem though is that the majority of voters are, quite simply, drooling fucking idiots with no clue how to form an opinion based on "robust knowledge of issues."

I wonder how that opinion was formed ...

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[turbidostato]

"If a legal idea is not clear and obvious"

Maybe it's because the concept beyond it it's not a clear an obvious one. Real Life (TM) is not television, where someting either can be exposed on three minutes or it doesn't exist. Real Life is sometimes complex, not clear and unobvious. Maybe the Constitution can be clear and obvious since it should deal with the general basements of society, but laws are there to take care of a lot of corner cases and unobviuos implications. Of course, if you can achieve the same goal with five pages than with 500, much the better, and making it 1000 pages for the sole purpouse of hidding "unlawful" bills I'd consider not only fradulent but openly treason (yeah, the kind of fault it's the only to recieve death penalty on civilized countries, so hard I consider such a misbehaviour).

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[EatHam]

Given that you are on /., I can assume that you don't even read articles (I know I don't). Therefore, I can assume that you would not read Education Reform Proposal #108 either, and would only read the summary. You would end up voting "yes" when had you read it, you would realize that you voted for $1 for education, and $1,000,000,000 for a cheese museum.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[db32]

I seriously hope you are joking. You can't possibly be serious that Direct Democracy is a good thing. I can tell you EXACTLY what would happen with the USA PATRIOT Act and net neutrality. It would be over, the USA PATRIOT Act would have cameras on every street corner and the major phone/cable companies would have their way with things. You must be insane.

I swear to God I know a guy that voted for Bush because a cartoon fucking donkey on a Snickers commercial said "I invented the internet" and he knew that was a lie! These people shouldn't be allowed to vote as it is now, and you want to give them more power?! Christ at least in the current systems the lobbyists have to give something to get something, under Direct Democracy all it would take is a few flashy ad campaigns and the whole thing would be a done deal. Now aside from the fact that our easily swayed undeducated populace would vote for whatever the magic picture box told them to, we have the tyranny of the majority problem as well. So a few trivial issues would get sorted out quicker...yay people don't care about smoking pot so maybe it will be legal, but most people still don't like them gays so good luck on that one.

Pull your head out of your tiny little world and look how many people AREN'T outraged about the USA PATRIOT nonsense. It is a rather small and loud minority that is upset about it, everyone else drank the fucking koolaid and chants "If you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide". Which is a PRECIOUS short step from rounding up all the people that are upset about it with "You must be hiding something and we are going to find out what it is you terrorist supporter!" Then they all grab their torches and pitchforks and lock your ass away to be tortured into a confession. But hey, thats what most people wanted so its Direct Democracy goodness.

Re:Lazy masses ? Or direct democracy ?

[Meski]

Pressure your representatives to vote down bills that contain extra laws that are not relevant to the title of the bill. If a bill is worth passing, it should do so on its own merit.

Godwin's law = revisionist history

[gorehog]

Fuck Godwin and his dumbass law. Hitler was not so evil that we cant talk about it. By avoiding the comparison we may allow equivalent and greater evil to occur.

Furthermore, how can we have a conversation about German facism without mentioning Nazis? In fact, the Nazis are the gold standard of facism. One cannot discuss facism without discussing Nazis and Hitler. Godwin's law has the effect of stifling conversations that identify and eliminate fascism.

Re:Godwin's law = revisionist history

[nietsch]

Maybe you should look up first what Godwin's 'Law' actually stated before you try to copulate with it. He stated that no usenet thread can continue for ever without somebody referring to Nazism etc. in it. (sorry too lazy to look up the actual wording). He does not give any judgement about that or those threads his statement proves true in. So it is not Godwin that is forbidding you to talk about your beloved leader.
So unless you want to fuck peoples statements that rain is wet too, I suggest you go and develop another fetish for yourself.

PS: where would you put your genitals anyway, is there a hole of some sort in some statements, or is thinking about it while masturbating good enough for you?

Re:greenspan

[pitu]

I kinda thought he paraphrased greenspan ( currently popular in other news)

he wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2970788.ece

Re:Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law

[cortana]

That's harsh. I generally only wish cancer upon people I see spitting on the ground, or who talk/eat/use their phones in the cinema.

They tried this legislation

[MrKaos]

In Australia. A great many letter were written and sent to federal legislators, the problem was also explained to many civil liberties organisations to get thier assistance. Eventually the legislation was rejected, but more because I think the right *language* was used.

At least in the letter I wrote, I pointed out that making security tools illegal would only stop the legitimate use of these tools and cause economic damage to the country by not allowing the good guys to mount an effective defense. Nefarious use of the tools wouldn't be stopped because they were conducting illegal activities anyway evectivley making the legislation counterproductive. I think it's because these terms were used, the magic "economic" word, and many other pragmatic arguments that legislators responded by rejecting the legislation.

I think Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said;

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Released after few hours? Mod this thread up!

[KWTm]

After being interrogated for hours, someone from the city of Düsseldorf's equivalent of the Department of Homeland Security showed up and admitted to Janssen that they'd made a mistake. He was released shortly after.

This is an important point that needs to be brought to the attention of Slashdotters. Currently, the parent post is modded up to a maximum already, but in my sort-by-modpoints view of the Slashdot comments, this thread is still far down the list, preceded by other threads with more numerous upmodded replies. The comments on this thread should be modded up further so the thread floats to the top, at least for those users who sort by modpoints.

I volunteer to have this inane reply of mine modded up. Go ahead, don't worry about my karma overload --for the sake of the Slashdot community, I'm willing to deal with excessive karma.

(Yes, I am trying to be funny.)

The Nazis are not pleased.

[Anonymous Coward]

And, before you know it, the US will be doing all it can to appease them.

Misquoting - Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[MrKaos]

Except that the actual line is...

"Those who would give up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY to purchase a little TEMPORARY SAFETY, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SAFETY."

and the strange form of 's' that was being used that slashdots forum can't display. Franklin had something far more appropriate to say on matters such as these.

and this site has a scan of the ORIGINAL section of the document.

Except that in a letter to David Hume Franklin denies he wrote that and researchers now think it was a fellow diplomat named Richard Jackson who said that.

So you could say "Those who are pedantic with pseudo-quotes deserve a slap in the head with a wet fish - including me"

So mod me - "+1 - slap with wet fish"

Re:Misquoting - Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[mi]

My source is this obnoxiously-named domain.

Either way the quote contains the adjectives — to qualify for the dire prediction, the liberty needs to be essential and the expected gain in security (or safety — interestingly, in Ukrainian and Russian these words are the same. I suspect, in Franklin's times there was little distinction between them in English too) — only temporary...

Re:Misquoting - Misquoting Benjamin Franklin

[MrKaos]

Mi I'm afraid the wet fish doesn't care, but you can take solice in the fact that you can at least eat the fish. Get a friend to hit you with the fish as a pennace for not checking and then use some lemon and terriaki on the fish cook for 15-20 mins per side and serve with chips - mmmmmmmmmm.

Who cares, Benjamin Franklin say's he didn't say it in the first place, I could say

Those who would give up sex to purchase a fish dinner deserve neither sex or fish dinner - and I still wouldn't be misquoting BF, just the quote.

Your quote says 'Those who give up' whereas the quote says 'Those who would give up' implying the pre-meditated act of choosing to give up. Your quote says 'an ESSENTIAL LIBERTY' whereas the quote say's 'ESSENTIAL LIBERTY', implying all liberty is essential as opposed to the liberty to choose which wet fish you are going to get hit with and 'to purchase' implying that the permanent state has been traded for a temporary state. Pedantic, to be sure but the little words are important to the considered meaning.

Don't sweat it mi, I'm not really sure this mis-attributed quote is entirely appropriate here anyway, because one would presume the German Geeks didn't turn around and say 'oh, this will make us safer if you make these tools illegal - please crush our ability to counteract organised crime with this ill thought out peice of legislation', I'm more inclined to bet they went kicking and screeming with this retarded peice of legislature, fought it all they could and then lost. i.e, they were not part of the crowd that 'would' give up essential liberty because they knew it would make them less secure. They saw no benefit giving up the liberty, were unwilling to, their choice to give up the liberty was taken from them, they gave it up - but given the choice they would not give it up.

Beside's my Ben Franklin quote is more appropriate -"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."- and BF actually said it.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a big fish to fry.

Democracy?

[phorm]

Hmm, actually from what I've seen, they're happy to let you *talk* about democracy and freedom in the USA, it's just when you start trying to practice it that things start to turn downhill.

Of course, I'm Canadian, and while I'd like to be able to say that things are much better, there's a downhill slide here as well.

For example, the Ian Bush shooting, which has now faded somewhat from the news. We have a cop who insists that - as an act of self-defence - he shot and kill a young man being held in custody. Investigation into blood spatter showed the given account of events was unlikely, and then suddenly the blood-expert finds himself facing disciplinary hearings and investigation. Of course, they wouldn't need an expert if the camera o the holding-room hadn't been turned off at the time...

So yes, if you live in Canada, the USA, Germany, or wherever, have a good laugh at everywhere else in the world, but remember that - for average citizens - justice, freedom, democracy, and many others may end up being more of a concept than a reality. Maybe one day you too, will end up as a provocative but quickly forgotten news article.

Re:Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

if you eat your phone, you just might get cancer...

Re:Oh great, another nimrod spouting 'Godwin's Law

[fractoid]

People eat their phones in the cinema up your way? Sounds uncomfortable!

You cannot Rule The World if :

[Anonymous Coward]

someone can send "secret" messages that your decoder ring won't work on. "All hail to the Führer!"

Where is the balance found?

[MrKaos]

But don't get me wrong - I'm not sure what it is - because it's a grey area, and the sheer volume of Human fuckedupedness is immense.

So what about "The Torture manual's", or "how to blow-up your local nuclear reactor" instructional dvd's? What about videos of people being murdered? Laws are a response to community you can't say "censor whatever is illegal or immoral" because it is subjective.

I value freedom of speech most highly but I recognise that there are abuses of freedom of speech. At the same time I don't mind being offended because it opens my eyes to new forms of fuckedupedness, fucktards and fuckerisation. Maybe we need to completely open up everything and see how fuked we are, but that draws the wrath of the 'think of the children' crowd. Maybe only under 18's should be subject to censorship, but I also think that if you work, you should vote.

I think what you say is completely rational and balanced and very well considered and I agree with you, but the reality is this thinking is sadly in the minority, therefore the capability for our society to be rational and balanced is knobbled by the fact that the fucktard:rational ratio is, well, fucked. Thinking is hard work and most people hate hard work, whereas, thinking is actually cool and people who think should have sex more often. I also think that traffic lights should automatically adjust to your IQ points and allow you to pass, cause your smarter, thus giving smart people more time for more sex, but I don't think it is going to happen anytime soon.

The battle is very much against ignorance, today the cry of a freeman very much is "SALE". Things like this show that even a country like Germany, who has once survived despotism can go there again and even America is begining it's slide into despotism, which I beleive was another Benjamin Franklin opinion where he said words to the effect 'The constitution won't save America from despotism forever' - but don't slap me with a wet fish because that's only from memory.

Re:Where is the balance found?

[einhverfr]

First, thank you for your kind words of support.

So what about "The Torture manual's", or "how to blow-up your local nuclear reactor" instructional dvd's? What about videos of people being murdered? Such things would be great resources for police, investigators, and security personnel. Note that there might be an argument about vidios of people being murdered from a privacy perspective. But the key thing to note is that the murder is the malum in se crime. The fact that there is a murder means that there is a crime, and I doubt that, except for terrorists, that anyone would go around bragging of the crime.

In short, forcing such speech underground in these areas is not really a matter of essential liberty but rather the fact that it reduces public safety. Most of us here should know what security through obscurity is worth :-)

Re:Where is the balance found?

[MrKaos]

hmmm, there is some interesting points that you have got there. Wrt murder videos I was thinking of snuff videos where they have intent to display the contents of the videos for some sort of weird thrill, but your point in fact is still valid, a crime has been commited.

Thanks for a well considered discussion.

Who'll run this, if it happens?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

The FCC covers broadcast TV and broadcast radio only. That still leaves CNN, YouTube, and various newsmagazines. Better than nothing. This site can post the print vs.
If it involves cops breaking down doors, the local broadcast media (if any) will probably cover it. The question would be, as you noticed, whose side they'll be on.

Re:Who'll run this, if it happens?

[ravenshrike]

CNN. You expect CNN to rationally report something like overused police power? Heh. The fact that you think you can rely on any of the mainstream to report something like that until after an uproar over the issue is already started is fucking laughable.

There is no permanent security

[gnuman99]

You do not seem to understand the basic concepts behind the words.

Security is always, ALWAYS, temporary. You CANNOT gain permanent security. EVER. Even if you locked yourself up in a fortress, protected by 10 battalions of heavily armed private militia, that is NOT permanent security. The circumstances of your security are ALWAYS temporary. The current government is temporary. World order is temporary. Your life is temporary. Franklin underlines temporary security, because it never lasts. EVER.

Similarly, an essential liberty refers to any liberty as essential. Liberties like freedom of speech, freedom of movement, right to your life, etc are all essential. There are no liberties that are non-essential. This is by definitions of what liberty means. You lose any part of that definition, and you lose more than you ever gain through some temporary security.

  * autonomy: immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence
  * freedom of choice; "liberty of opinion"; "liberty of worship"; "liberty--perfect liberty--to think or feel or do just as one pleases"; "at liberty to choose whatever occupation one wishes"
  * personal freedom from servitude or confinement or oppression

http://www.google.ca/search?q=define%3A+liberty&hl=en

These are very general freedoms and we are losing them one chip of the security hammer at a time. Yet, we will NEVER get security because true security is a state of mind. Think about it - you are never physically secure in this world.

Example. People in UK allowed CCTV cameras to be put everywhere. They lost their liberty of freedom of movement (at least anonymous movement). They "gained" their security because they thought "it will fight crime". Result is that crime rate has not decreased. But the liberty will not be restored. Citizens of UK, and London especially, lost liberty and gained nothing.

Re:There is no permanent security

[mi]

You CANNOT gain permanent security.

Security is relative. Although 100% is not achiveable, gains can, obviously, be permanent. For example, I can travel between cities without serious fear of being robbed on the highway today — a dream for the medieval travelers. This gain in security is as permanent as the state. And should the state collapse, I'll have those liberties I traded in for the security back.

People in UK allowed CCTV cameras to be put everywhere. ... Result is that crime rate has not decreased.

My understanding is just the opposite, actually — the crime did come down slightly, but — more importantly — the number of unsolved crimes plummeted. Putting the criminals behind bars is expected to pay off.

What are sources for this information?

Re:There is no permanent security

[gnuman99]

My understanding is just the opposite, actually -- the crime did come down slightly, but -- more importantly -- the number of unsolved crimes plummeted. Putting the criminals behind bars is expected to pay off.

Criminals are not put behind bars. If you get mugged, the criminal, if caught, will not spend years and years in jail. They'll be out quick, if ever caught. Only serious criminals are put behind bars for long periods of time and these were generally solved before any CCTV.

What are sources for this information?

cameras to fight crime, right?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1501533.stm

Well, now,

80% crimes unsolved:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousands+of+CCTV+cameras,+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/2071496.stm

'A report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (Nacro) which was based on Home Office research, revealed that of 24 studies carried out in city centres, only 13 showed crime had fallen since CCTV cameras were installed.

Crime rates rose significantly in four other cities.

" It was allegedly going to give us these magnificent benefits of reducing crime " '

Obviously that did not happen. With all the cameras, crime should go down a lot. It barely budged. 80% of crime unsolved - that number speaks for itself.

Cebit should be boycoted

[Anonymous Coward]

After all this crap, it would be nice, if noone shows up for cebit anymore. And Oktoberfest as well. There are better places for that. In Estonia for example :)

So in other words...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

...you have it pretty good? The quality of life is improving (throughout the world)? What, do you think we can only be happy when we're loudly whining, and that contentment is just a prison of complacency? Do you think that things are better when we have nothing left to lose but our lives? Yeah, I'm sure that's what's happening: the Government (ooooooooh!) is just fattening you up so Dubya can declare himself Supreme Lord of Earth, and can stand on your bare back and whip you for the shear sadistic pleasure it gives him.

I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are the idiots tagging this article with the tag "gestapo"?

I'm sure if someone hacked your PayPal account or your website from a Tor exit node you would be among the first ones to call the police on that EVIL IP.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably right.

But then I'd expect them to pursue and arrest the "someone" who hacked the account, not simply round up the first person they can find (the guy operating the proxy) and throw him in jail. Investigate him, certainly - maybe he's part of the "ring" - or maybe, he's just your average geek who values freedom and anonymity.

Mush, room and cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

For your info: Germans state security agency claims they have solid info that terrorists actually have an ex-soviet atomic warhead, not just a mere "dirty bomb" and they in fact plan to explode it in Germany to achieve Afghanistan military pull-out and to replace secular democracy with islam (there are 10 million+ turkish and kurdish migrant people in Germany working in the lowest-paying jobs, totally unintegrated into the white society).

This time it is not just peas at stake. Of course you are not worried, as geeks are well known resistant to girls and gamma radiation.

Re:Mush, room and cloud

[ardor]

Name your source for it being an actual nuclear bomb. And the Islam thing. Schäuble said there is the danger of a dirty bomb but NOT an actual warhead. Nuclear warheads are no simple devices, they require skill to handle, otherwise it doesn't detonate, or it may even blow up while being armed etc.

As for the integration, while there are too many unintegrated ones, 100% is way too high a number.

Did anyone RTFA?

[gravis777]

The problem was not he ran a Tor server or anything like that, the problem is with law enforcers not understanding technology. I mean, they simply checked the weblogs, saw the IP address of the person who supposedly posted the article, traced the IP address to such and such, maybe with a whois, and arrested and questioned the person. Sounds pretty cut and dry. The issue is, all he was was a proxy server for the real person who posted bomb threat, and after questioning for a couple of hours, they let him go. All this really goes to show is that you cannot hold John Doe at IP address such and such accountable, as said IP address may not even be issued to the person who actually did the "crime".

Plain English Amendment

[catman]

It's been suggested by RAH, but this one seems that it might actually be practical: http://ags.freeforumhost.net/lofiversion/topic25458/

Re:Plain English Amendment

[turbidostato]

"It's been suggested by RAH"

Then you must consider this: can there be concepts that by there very nature cannot be properly expressed full sense on a discurse with a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score lower than 14? Because if that's the case, then we can imagine a situation where any "proper" law that "grasp" the concept must be expressed with a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score of 14 or higher, even in theory. Or is it you position that if anything is so complex it shouldn't be regulated by definition?

Re:Plain English Amendment

[catman]

Mod parent +5 insightful - I suppose I was being a bit flippant.

"can there be concepts that by there very nature cannot be properly expressed full sense on a discurse with a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score lower than 14?"

Hm. ISTR that messrs Gödel & Wittgenstein had something to say on the matter. But I do believe that laws and regulations should be understandable. I still do not know whether it is legal in my country to watch CSS-protected DVDs on my Linux machine. Such ambiguity should be resolved, IMHO, and if it can't be resolved, the law should be repealed.

Of course there are fields of regulation and legislation that are directed at people with special interests and skills - such as rules for commercial coastal fishing that may contain concepts and words totally alien to, say, a sheep farmer, but if an ordinary coastal fisherman cannot understand the rules, well, how can he obey them?

Re:Security vs Freedom

[fritzk3]

who are you gonna call?

Ghostbusters.

And BTW, if you need the number, it's 555-2368.

(Yes, I know that from memory.)

Not for Bomb threat.

[aepervius]

You don't often have the time to make a proper long investigation in case of bomb threat. Oh, and his name was NOT dragged in the mud. had he not told himself he was arrested, nobody would have known.

You must be new here

[pimpimpim]

Didn't anyone tell you? Slashdot and its users stopped using new material about 5 years ago. Since then, we've just been posting and reading the same old shit over and over again, it's more efficient that way. Let me put it in an understandable form:

1. Read dupe article 2. Copy-paste sort-of-relevant post from last time 3. ... 4. Profit!

Re:Security vs Freedom

[shentino]

Sure, and let me know how that works when you're 1 on 1 with a playground bully 5 times your size. Just because it isn't granted doesn't stop it from being forcibly taken. This is why armed robbery, wrong as it may be, actually works. When someone has a gun to your head you damn well better do what they say or you'll get your head blown off. Besides that, once they do so, you're dead and can't resist, so they get both your life and the goods. Sensible people would rather lose the goods than both their life and the goods, ergo, the armed robber is in charge through usage of force, and certainly NOT because the victim grants "authority", especially if they refuse to surrender. Same way with government. They can do all sorts of things to make it very costly for you to fight back. Secret executions, indefinite "terrorist detention", or silent seizures. Just look at all the trouble poor old Kevin Trudeau has to go through with the FTC.

ObCynicism

[Guppy06]

"The current US government certainly didn't learn anything from Vietnam;"

1. Conscription makes the war much more personal to the middle class majority, rather than the already-marginalized poorer families that produce the bulk of military volunteers. Make up any shortfalls with mercenaries instead; they can't be prosecuted for atrocities.
2. Don't ignore the press: they're liable to go out and find things you'd rather they not find. Keep them occupied and content with canned reports of good news to send back home. Especially useful are the "But they're worse!" reports of the enemy's atrocities (in this case, such videos are often volunteered by the enemy themselves).
3. Anti-war protests are best dealt with by diversions rather than head-on confrontation. "Free speech zones" help to marginalize both the protesters and their message; lazy journalists are given a non-story about a non-event.
4. Keep the stated goals personal. Conflate Iraqi insurgents with Al Qaeda, a group that attacked the United States directly. Nobody ever believed Ho Chi Minh was going to attack targets in the US.

I could probably think up a few more if I were awake.

Fascism is indeed an ideology

[Iowan41]

Its three main planks are: Rejection of the concept of the transcendent objective, signified. That personal moral responsibility is a bourgeois notion to be rejected. That the greatest good is the Group Will to Power. Transcendent objective, signified are such things as the Torah, the Bible, the incarnation of Christ, any objective truth from 'outside'. Identity politics, State totalism, deconstructionism, those are fascism. Judaism and Christianity cannot be, they are antithetical in philosophical belief. But the real fascists like to make that accusation, for the same reason that they hated the Jews 60 years ago - that transcendent objective, signified, which they brought into the world, telling us that there is right and wrong, that we all have sinned, and that there is a way to forgiveness. And that the State or the "Race" are not ultimate.

Re:Security vs Freedom

[JackMeyhoff]

This is why the constitution was created, no? The same paper that you ARE NOT DEFENDING no?

Re:Security vs Freedom

[shentino]

Don't get me wrong. I love the constitution, and if the government would actually stick to it like it's supposed to, we would have far fewer problems.

Much as I hate to admit it, there are still parts of the government that don't account to the people. The CIA, the NSA, and "big brother" in general.