Slashdot Mirror
Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."
Heil.
in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say:
"I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop."
In other words... MWAAAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
and couldnt handle it... welcome to the new world order
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
When will legislators learn that censoring the Internet will not fix the problem, it will force it deeper underground. The creeps who want to look at child porn will still have access to it, they'll just get better at hiding it.
It looks like the lights ( of freedom ) are going out in Europe again, and this time it's world wide.
.. to the point where it is easier to filter the entire pipe rather than having the sites taken down?
I record my sleeptalking
Everyone should watch the film "The Lives Of Others"
It appears Germany is returning to the days of East Germany
DeutschBags
This made more sense when you posted it in the article about the UK. This one is obvious trolling. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1093209&cid=26466199
archive.org... ups...
how they want to filter, any technical details ?
ip or url/dns based hmmmm ?!
"The not-for-profit wants to make it clear that "we only add URLs to our list and blocking is implemented by our member companies to ensure only access to specific URLs is blocked. "
hmmmm this means url based is your choice ?! pf tsss.
so what does it take ? a cname randomize gateway ?
u can never filter us.
Ok.. CP rings and traders know how to host websites in nations either without laws or with rampant corruption, but they don't know how to run a proxy?
What manner of idiots are these bureaucrats? I think they make this woman look intelligent.
Heck, ted stevens understands the internet more than these schmoes.
Anyway, ZEIG HEIL germany! Lets whip out those arm bands next!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Vee haf Vays, of making you block", and slapped them in the face with her black leather gloves, that matched perfectly with her black leather coat.
Ilsa, she-wolf of the Internet.
FTFA, she also stated: "Die meisten Menschen werden diese Stopp-Seite nie sehen." Which means something like, "Most people will never see this stop (block) page."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The only thing we need to implement a fully encrypted internet is a reason to do so.
And then the real fun will come.
Fuckers.
More people should read "the art of war" and concentrate on the paragraph about not starting battles you're going to lose until they finally understood it's meaning.
Why once they are in power they forget about the people and go dick crazy doing whatever they want for our "own good" despite our opposition? I don't get it.
1st block sites that show/promotes child pornography... looks ok
then go after sites that shows models that look underage... a bit more debatable
then go after all porn... something is about to explode
then block "by mistake" the opposite party web sites around next election... oops!
It's all about hosing off the slippery slope. This is why the filthy speech movement had to be crushed at all cost. There must also always be a creep du jour to shine a light on the problem, remember. Once we run out of perverts we'll see about YOUR vile proclivities.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at; child porn is illegal in most countries and in some countries regular porn is even illegal.
so, yes, governments already censor other media (what do you think happens when customs find kiddy porn in your luggage?), thus it is to be expected that they try to censor the internet as well.
Off course there's a fine line between censoring and censoring. However, if your government is doing a reasonable job of providing relative free "old" media like tv, print, radio etc. I don't see a reason why they can't be trusted with the internet, there's no reason to be so paranoid.
And let's not focus on the government here, let's focus on the scum that brought this about; the child abusing kiddy porn people. Yes, some people will always find a way to do evil but let's make it as difficult as reasonably possible for them.
1.- It's always easier to filter the entire pipe.
2.- Questioning the filter clearly indicates you must be a pedophile. Or a terrorist.
Or both. ... Somehow. .... Maybe you strap kiddy porn to your bombs, or something.
Everyone knows those who question the filter are conspiring to plant porn bombs in public places.
While descriptions of porn bombs are vague, palistinian terror groups are known to construct similar devices consisting of a cylinder of C4 wrapped in several inches of hustler magazines.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I hate when that happens.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
There is a global push by certain interests to get governments and ISPs to support filtering. The reason has nothing to do with child porn, that is a justification that ensures no-one will complain... would you defend the rights of child pornographers?
The real motivation here from big business is first to block the global trade in copyrighted digital goods: music, movies, TV (Vivendi, IFPI, et al). Second, to sell masses of shiny technology (Cisco et al). Third, to lock down the computer and turn it into a controlled environment where FOSS is not permitted (MSFT et al).
Governments are eager for this because they trust big business to draw the line, and because they do not trust their citizens. They fear the end of the State thanks to a flat global digital economy, and the firewalls are about stopping and controlling that.
Note the Data Retention Directive passed three years ago which mandated the storage of data on every communication (phone call, email, web click), which banned anonymous wifi, cybercafes, and mobile phones, and which was also passed as a tool against "child pornographers and organised criminals".
This would be very depressing, since the State (and don't forget, every State in existence was born in blood) has all the power.
However, the digital society seems to have its first world leader, and IMO the old industrial world, with its censorships and tolls anti-social property models, is already on the way out.
My blog
Well, let's do the math...
Approximately 23% of the world population is online now. There are approximately 6.7 billion people on the planet right now. So about 1.5 billion people. And let's say 5% of them are regularily active and have contribute 1 web page per month; and everybody else is a lurker and never contribute anything. That's 900 million web pages per year, or 246,564 per day. Now we know the growth is far higher than this, but let's humor ourselves with the low-ball estimate.
Now, let's also assume that someone is going to be looking at these websites. We'll say it takes 20 seconds for them to view and categorize a website for their black list. and let's assume they're slaved to their desk for the entire 8 hours, never blinking. That's 480 minutes of slaving, which gives us 1,440 reviews they can make per day. So to keep up with our low-ball estimate, they need 172 net slaves doing nothing but reviewing web pages. All day. Every day. And they will not stop until all the pr0n is found. Now... stop and realize the numbers are orders of magnitude higher. -_- Also realize that the internet is not the web. There are dozens if not hundreds of protocols to monitor, across many mediums -- cell phones, telecommunications, wifi, and good old fashioned sneaker-net.. e-mails, text messages, picture messages... the list goes on.
This, fundamentally, is the problem with large-scale surveillance of the population. It's too resource intensive. Even if you have algorithms that are 99.9% accurate in identifying "bad" material, with 900 million new web pages per year, that's 900,000 webpages that are incorrectly flagged -- 2,500 people's lives ruined by false accusation. Per day.
And just like sex offender registries and other draconian measures to keep someone who's been "touched" by the system in it forever, as soon as the technology exists to do the same thing to people on the internet... They too shall be endlessly recycled and chewed on by a faceless and uncaring system. And the justification shall be that it's okay to ruin a few innocent lives if it protects the rest of us from the big bad boogie men.
Here's my point, fundamentally. Let's say there are a 200,000 -- in Germany alone -- that are pedophiles. Out of about 8 million. And let's say that you have a method of detection where you run these people through it and 99.9% of the time, it gives the right result. What that means is for 8,000 people -- would guess wrong if you ran the entire population through it. What that means is your "99.9%" accurate system flags about 1 person in 20 as a bad guy when they're not. Of course, this assumes that 1 person per 40 is a pedophile. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's unreasonably high... So that means that the 1 per 20 is an optimistic case. Think about that. 1 in 20 people that the system flags is innocent. When the hysteria over the crime is such that the mere accusation is enough to destroy a person, is this a number we're comfortable with?
And if you're thinking it's "just" a black list.. Don't forget that your access attempts are logged. Just why were you trying to access a site we know to have child porn on it, Citizen?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
this might open quite new and effective Denial of Service attacks ... the so call "cross child pron scripting".
happy owning
Most chlid porn isn't distributed over http, this is a complete waste.
~= scwizard =~
I am opposed to elitism in general, but people who are so easily manipulated with FUD tactics and those who think voting expresses only ideological affinity, should not be allowed to vote.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
This made more sense when you posted it in the article about trolling. This one is obvious troll-food. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1093351&cid=26467943
PS -> This is DanTheStone posting as AC for obvious reasons.
Why would anyone have a problem with burning pages deemed degenerate by ze deutsche government? Only degenerates themselves (who'll be next).
Or what Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri taught me: Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at
No, they don't. I never granted them that right. That they do it anyways is due to an imbalance in power. As a practical matter, I have no effective way to stop them (e.g. their army is bigger than mine). That doesn't make it right.
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
Does Goodwin's Law still apply even if references to Nazi Germany are factually correct? :-)
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
Cisco SONA (Service Oriented Network Architecture) will be the end of the internet as we know it. Once fully implemented, applications will request resources from the network. Then, not only the data can be filtered, but what applications access the network.
I agree, right up until the point where making things difficult for evil people impinges on the freedom of non-evil people. When forced to make that choice, I always choose the rights of the non-evil, even if it means allowing some evil to exist. Others, apparently including you, would optimize in the other direction. I doubt anything either of us could say would change the other's mind.
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
Is anyone keeping tabs on internet censorship legislation?
Is there a site?
It seems, like "terrorism" was an excuse for anything and everything under Bush and his bitch (Blair), "child porn" seems likewise an excuse for internet censorship.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
This has nothing to do with slowing the flow of child porn. The "save the children" battle cry serves one purpose and one purpose only: to get legislation passed. So, legislation of any variety can have this intent stamped on the front regardless of its actual intent, and people will accept it.
But the government doesn't actually care about child porn. What they DO care about is stable cash flow through the economy. They care about this because their primary actual (as opposed to theoretical) sources of political power are wealthy individuals/corporations who care about a stable cash flow. This should all be quite obvious to anyone who is paying attention.
This filtration technology will allow them to erect not-perfect-but-sufficient barriers to international trade to ensure that regional price controls can remain intact (while labor trade can freely shift from region to region, allowing for a minimization of production costs).
As a side benefit, it will allow them to block politically-charged sites or individuals, thus strengthening their control over society's activities (control which they want, of course, for the same reason...stable cash flow).
While this legislation will be completely ineffective in reducing the transmission of child porn, it will have a significant economic and political impact (despite its imperfections), and that is what the real goal is.
I don't give two shakes about the children.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
It's not that hard to set up opportunistic encryption, especially if you own your own name servers. That would be a good first step toward a more private internet. All we need is an excuse for people to start using it...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Sieg Heil.
im boss who r u
She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.'
If you don't know what they'll do then don't start a trend in a direction and with an open door which can be abused. Let individuals and families protect themselves from what they don't want to see. Arrest those who abuse children and leave the rest of us alone!
Of course, in order to protect our children from porn, they'll have to monitor all our online access. Instead of mandating the web sites put porn tag in the Metadata, that way we can decide for ourselves what web site to look at .. :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
Talk about illicit content... I find Google's turn-the-other way with respect its Blogspot.com blogging site to be interesting. I guess Google-hosted porn is OK, but private citizens' is not?!? What a joke. I bet you never see a Google site on a blacklist...
All discussion aside, opinions, reasoning, solutions, workarounds, and moot points, let us all who are interested in this issue pay careful attention to this list which the BKA is maintaining. Much will be learned by simply examining the particulars of who they wish to censor.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
I never granted them that right.
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights," and that's fine (unless you're an atheist, in which case I guess you're out of luck). The practical matter of "rights" is merely governmental quid pro quo. Your nation offers you something -- whether it's healthcare, or a high minimum wage, or paid maternity leave, or whatever, and also makes some demands on you: mandatory military service, restricted Internet access, driving speed limits, a ban on personal assault weaponry, etc. Every nation has a different mix, and you get to choose where you live.
Believe me, there are plenty of people in the US who would happily give up their "right" to an all-access Internet in exchange for their "right" to free healthcare.
It seems to me that most people misread this article. It's an _initiative_ and not legislation. That someone is trying to legislate internet censorship doesn't mean that there is censorship.
It won't necessarily go through, but if it does it might get kicked out again by the constitutional court for violating the constitution.
es ist fur die kindern!!!
Seriously, we'll have federal elections (and a bunch of other elections: european parl., state-level) this year, but I doubt that anything will change.
CDU: Merkel's party, Conservative, currently drifting to the middle. Schaeuble, our Minister for the Interior (which includes police in Germany), is one of the worst surveillance guys, and he's a CDU man. Lots of other 1984 fellows, too. --> No option.
SPD: Social democrats. One of the two big parties (together with the CDU). Currently in a coalition with CDU. Some good guys in there, but many others (including most of their MPs) agreed to laws like this. Used to be my party, but obviously it no longer is.
FDP: Liberal. Have a lot of good guys regarding civil liberties (including three who have repeatedly and successfully went to the courts to struck "Anti terror laws" down). But I don't like their economic model, and above all many of them have no backbone.
Greens: Same as FDP regarding civil liberties and surveillance. Might be an option (although for me they are too naive on the environmental area), but voting greens will mean a SPD-Greens coalition (because FDP and Greens are the smaller parties and usually form coalitions with one of the bigger ones).
Left party: Just a bunch of populists.
The reason why such a lot on internet censorship etc. is being passed now might be our "Grand coalition" (CDU+SPD), which has a strong majority. However when I look at other countries, I see similar problems, so that can't be the only reason.
Unfortunately many people willingly give up their freedoms if the government gives them an excuse (terrorism or child porn), but they just don't see how a filter like that could easily be transformed into an anti-government-criticism filter.
All that surveillance scares me. What the hell is wrong with my country?
PS: For the German-speaking guys around here, have a look at this essay by Burkhard Hirsch (an FDP man). An excellent explanation on why civil liberties are so important.
Implementing American notions of security one goose-step at a time.
est. 1949
What's most worrisome is that the excuse is so, so bad.
Child porn? On the open web? Really?
I'm pretty sure at this point, anyone peddling child porn is entirely doing it through encrypted networks and through isolated darknets even. All the low-hanging fruit of publicly available actual child porn has either been dealt with or can be dealt with in a manner far, far less heavy handed than web filtering. What good does filtering the general web do?
Crying "child porn" is just the sugar to make the poison go down.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
What *really* creeps me out are these reprints of Goebbels stuff, that are being hawked today: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1871736,00.html.
The government doesn't seem to need to take any action against that.
The joke is that the publisher is a Britain.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Considering there is:
1) Porn
2) Hardcore Porn
3) Crazy Hardcore Porn
4) OMG doesn't that hurt Ultra Hardcore Porn
5) German Porn
The Germans want to censor the internet now?
I can just see their internet filter:
If Hoff = Protrayed.Badway
Then Internets = NIEN!
Else
Then Internets = JA!
Endif
I'm far less concerned about this. Why shouldn't we block this material? This isn't "free speech", not by a long shot. It's unprotected by the constitution (speaking from a US standpoint), and therefore, at least in the US, the government has every right to block it, especially if we as a society support banning this sort of material, which probably 96% of us do.
As far as the firewall being used for other things goes, I'm not too worried about that either. We still have a constitution, courts, and an elected slate of representatives. The constitution clearly defines what the government can and can't do, and the courts help protect it. And if nothing else, should our representatives put this technology to use banning anti-government speech, we can vote the whole lot of them out. So I'm not concerned about this being used for other things or being some sort of "scary slippery slope".
Now, if you are worried that our representatives will use a filter for blocking true free speech and that our people WON'T throw them out, well, then you have bigger problems than a filter. Because in the last analysis, the constitution is nothing more than a sheet of paper that we delegate power to. If we respect it, it has power and works, but if we have a whole population that doesn't know or care about constitutional protections, then the constitution is powerless and worth nothing, and the government can do whatever it wants. I would argue that has already happened, and our federal government being involved in enough stuff to need four trillion dollars next year is probably proof enough.
But in principle, I have no problem with the government banning unprotected stuff like this. Never, including at our nations founding, was this sort of material considered protected free speech. We should go ahead and do whatever we want, including block out all this content, until we actually see the government break the constitution. Only at that point do we need to get worried/take action.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights ...
You make my point for me. My inalienable rights exist independent of the government. If's up to me to choose what rights *I* grant *to* the government. Deciding what I get to read (on the Internet or otherwise) is not one of the rights I've given away.
Every nation has a different mix, and you get to choose where you live.
Not true. See also: Illegal Immigration. As accidents of birth go, being born in the USA is certainly a much better deal than being born in most other places on Earth. I freely admit I've got a much better situation than somebody born in $(Random_Hell_Hole). That I have it better than most doesn't preclude me from pointing out the imperfections, or require me to accept them.
Believe me, there are plenty of people in the US who would happily give up their "right" to an all-access Internet in exchange for their "right" to free healthcare.
Apples and Oranges. Everybody in the US has a right to health care. They just don't have a right to require somebody else pay for it. I'm not asking taxpayers to fund my Internet surfing -- I'm saying that the government has no business deciding what I'll read.
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
I'm pretty sure at this point,
How do you know this? Please speak clearly into the microphone, and don't mind the good officer who is getting ready to arrest you.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
must maintain the illusion of control. If people saw that the government cannot control the internet, then they may doubt their ability to do everything else. If they truly wanted to control the internet they would maintain a white-list, and block everything else. A blacklist only blocks the technologically-challenged.
Sadly, it seems like the world is going crazy these days. The US, Australia, the UK, China, and now Germany (and God knows how many other countries).
I swear I'd move if I knew I could outrun the spread. Is there any country left that has a decent standard of living, widespread broadband, a complete lack of censorship laws, lenient gun ownership laws, and that I could make a living in as a programmer?
English speaking is a plus, but I'd be willing to learn a new language. Hopefully it'll stay that way b/c I don't know if I can take running from country to country all my life.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The pretext for this filter was preventing people from viewing child porn. It is not aimed against child molesters or the people who produce child porn. It's aimed - or so the government claims - against Joe Masturbator, not Joe Predator. Hell, if it's successful, it might even turn a few of the former into the latter due to mounting frustration.
By, for example, preventing them from hiding their evil deeds with censorship ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Och, are ye nae?
A braw bunch o miserable bastids, aye, that they were. Och.
Noo awa wi ye, or I'll put the heid on ye.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What we're really seeing is an underhanded attempt by big media to start gaining control over what is available on the internet. They want to get rid of all the small players and return us to the halcyon days of TV where we could only choose between CBS, ABC, and NBC. (PBS too, but who watched that?)
Once they get control of the gateways to the internet, then they start being able to put competitors on the block list, until we're back where we started. I expect it to take 10 to 20 years for the full plan to take effect. This ain't about the children at all.
If it's that bad, they won't block those, but make them publish what they want.
Imagine the uproar... Thousands of workers not able to get their morning-paper.
Some time ago, some dude compiled a list of the sites that are being filtered in Finland: (German is in cooperation Norway concerning this filter):
http://maraz.kapsi.fi/sisalto-en.html
Let me quote:
Content breakdown:
The list features 1047 sites, nine of which have been confirmed to contain child porn. Only one of these hosts it â" the same one that Matti Nikki reported more than a year ago!
251 pages, roughly a quarter of the whole, contain gay porn. Only 4 contain lesbian porn.
I agree, and have started to question whether we really need any laws at all, other than the most basic "stay off my lawn" rules -- because after a certain point, laws cease to protect citizens, and serve mainly to create new classes of criminals. And eventually we arrive at the old Soviet jape, "All things not compulsory are forbidden".
If I must choose, I'd prefer more evil to less freedom. The interesting flipside is that more freedom also means I'm more free to defend myself (if necessary) against those small evils that are increasingly being micromanaged by the gov't.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Actually, I really, really hope they'll add bild.de to the list. They are actually among these that support government censorship (and also think that video games train kids how to use guns and are the root of all evil)...hey, I'm saying this just in jest, as much as I hate the Bild, censoring it would be bad. Yes, they should be brought to justice, but censorship is the wrong way.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Bild.de? Why would they block a webpage that gives pointless, mindless and completely irrelevant news to the masses to keep them entertained and distracted?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Uh border router routing tables?
Am I missing something?
Or won't that work for child porn that's published inside Germany, because they don't track it down or prosecute it?
-- Terry
This is the exact opposite of what you want to do. IF you have lists of human verified child porn links, you dont block them. You find out who owns the machine and content and go kick in their door with some police with big guns. If the server is a hacked server or its otherwise impossible to find out who uploaded the porn or if the uploader of the porn is located in a country that isn't willing to go after the pornographers, you dont block it. You LOG every access to the URLs in question so that you can find out who was accessing the child porn (and collect enough evidence) so that you can send the police with the big guns over to THEIR house and bust them.
Blocking the porn just forces it deeper underground and makes it HARDER to catch the people who are actually uploading, downloading and sharing these files.
Hmmm, seems to me as if the terrorists are now no longer the draught horse du jour.
You see, back in the summer of 2001 every organisation that wanted to control the masses and that wanted to impose some new law to restrict everyones rights and freedoms and turn society into something they could control used (the fight for) child porn as an argument.
For example, the European Cyber Crime Convention was initiated back then and I was told that it worked like this:
Some entity (like a three letter agency or the police) wanted to put laws into place that would allow the state (or the police) more fascistic control over the people. So they made strong lobbying efforts to get it pushed through legislation and practically no politician could afford to oppose it as then the TLAs might have said something like:
"Hey, but we need this legislation in order to fight child porn. You are against the legislation so you must want to support child porn!"
What this meant was that if you ever wanted to take away some serious liberties from the people, all you had to do was find a way in which you could connect your evil, fascistic surveillance state agenda with an argument on how this would help fight child porn and you had carte blanche to it.
Now, then came 9/11, and after that the obligatory "we need to take away liberty X" statement was no longer justified with "in order to fight child porn" but instead was instantly replaced with "in order to fight terrorism".
This now seems to have been replaced yet again by the child porn argument. For example today in Austria a new ministress of justice [pun intended] was introduced and immediately remarked that it would be on her agenda to act against child porn. Terrorism on the other hand side seems to be a total non-issue.
So I guess that means that the people of at least the central european countries are more likely to accept further restrictions of their rights and liberties in support of the fight of child porn and no longer in support of the fight of terrorism. Interesting indeed.
See my comment above.
So, apparently: we are at war with child porn; we have always been at war with child porn.
Australia is trying to do this, so what does Germany do, COPYCAT. But looks like Australia's is doomed to failure with not enough support. Government requires Greens & 2 independents to pass bills, they don't have the Green's support on this one.
The timeline is more complicated. They started the "war" on child porn first as I recall, about the time the "war" on drugs was widely acknowledged as the arrant sham that all the bogus "wars" seem to be. Anyway the drugs war didn't have potential to provide excuses for control of the internet and communications. It was mainly used for justifying dubious interventions in countries to the south of the US (still is), as a means of ensuring enormous tax-free revenues for organized crime (legalization would cripple drug income), and as a means of jailing and oppressing large numbers of African Americans.The "war" on terrorism, while it had other uses, also seemed to start about the time the "war" on child porn was failing to provide sufficient internet control traction - probably because the means were not available to control the internet then. These means are not fully available now either of course, but the juggernaut has a life of its own, the internet is far more pervasive, and politicians are as silly as ever
It is also worth noting that the whole child porn and censorship thing started to arise as a major issue when the then war on adult pornography - mainly waged by an unlikely coalition of fundamentalist christians and militant separatist feminists in the 1980s - was in the process of utterly failing, prior to the rise of the ubiquitous internet. Outside of Islamic countries, that old war has been well and truly lost, and besides that industry was simply worth too much money to interfere with Repressive forces that had aligned themselves with that war simply moved on to ride the bandwagon of the new wars. The war on child porn was a perfect vehicle, piggybacking nicely on the child abuse witch hunt phenomenon. They began by criminalizing formerly 100% legal depictions of 16-17yo teens in sexual activity in many countries, thus rendering millions of images illegal, then they moved on to try to criminalize formerly 100% legal nudist and art photography images, only sometimes failing in that endeavor.
In short, the frontal beat up on adult porn failed to be useful,so they are using the war on child porn to obtain more broader controls.
PS: Which is not to say that child porn is not evil. But inappropriate, misdirected controls against the general web like this so clearly achieve nothing other than serve another agenda of control.
I think the time has come for much closer scrutiny of government ministers and the conduct of the personal lives, past and present.
We must never allow a child molester to access the reigns of power, and consequently we should introduce legislation to require all ministers to submit all aspects of their personal life for public scrutiny so that we can be absolutely confident in the morality of our representatives.
I just know they will support this...
i really should use preview more often or set plain text as default somewhere... i cant understand html option on a geekboard anyway ^^
> Do you live in Germany?
> I do, and I have friends who go around not with 3mm of hair, but with no hair at all, and they've never been discriminated against.
> Of course, if besides shaving their heads, they dress in nazi "colours", then they will feel society's pressure, but that's nowhere near unique to Germany.
i received discrimination plenty times and i live in a wealthy area in w. germany. when you see me you wouldnt be able to put my clothing style into any sub culture, period. the stereotype neo nazi look would be the most far fetched look...
what are nazi colours? you cant name anyone a nazi just because of the clothes (exception would apply to swastika on them or SS-uniforms or similar.) sure any subculture has its dress code but still....
> Secondly, discriminating against jews isn't racism, which I find kind of revealing on how much thought you put into your comment before typing it.
sentences like that show me that you dont think about what i wrote thus not able to understand what i am saying. i am sorry but i like to write my thoughts this way therewith i am able to see who really is interested in an open minded discussion rather than to hoe on somebodies opinion. besides even without a proper explanation and usage of the right term for jew-hate you like to concentrate more on incidentals like the wrong usage of that term rather then the real issue. (the real issue would be irrational hate against anyone.)
i received discrimination plenty times and i live in a wealthy area in w. germany. when you see me you wouldnt be able to put my clothing style into any sub culture, period. the stereotype neo nazi look would be the most far fetched look...
Discrimination exists everywhere. I'm just arguing that Germany isn't specially bad in that respect. In fact, I consider the German people one of the most accepting of personal or cultural differences.
Maybe you were unlucky, or maybe you're confusing the feelings at a lower level and interpreting general impoliteness as something else because you start from a position where you feel you will be discriminated for having a shaved head.
Or maybe you're right and I live in the only area of Germany where you can have a bald head and lead a normal life. I do travel a lot in this country, though, and have friends in every direction, so I guess that's probably not true.
Or maybe you shouldn't have gotten that swastika tatoo on your forehead (just kidding :-)
what are nazi colours? you cant name anyone a nazi just because of the clothes (exception would apply to swastika on them or SS-uniforms or similar.) sure any subculture has its dress code but still....
Well, I can't put my finger on it (though your description from your original post fits the bill), but it's not like skinheads are usually discreet. I mean, it's not as obvious as a member of the KKK in uniform, but you can tell clearly, just as you can usually tell if someone is dressed like a metalhead.
But the formula for looking like a neo-nazi isn't simply = take average normal guy + shave head.
sentences like that show me that you dont think about what i wrote thus not able to understand what i am saying. i am sorry but i like to write my thoughts this way therewith i am able to see who really is interested in an open minded discussion rather than to hoe on somebodies opinion. besides even without a proper explanation and usage of the right term for jew-hate you like to concentrate more on incidentals like the wrong usage of that term rather then the real issue. (the real issue would be irrational hate against anyone.)
I think your sentiments are wrong, and they may come from the same misinformation that led you to type "racism" instead of "anti-semitism".
Besides, I didn't concentrate on the incidental -- it was a footnote in my post.
As much as I like free markets, two dollars and Ayn Rand will get you a two dollar burrito and Ayn Rand. She's just not fungible enough.
There has been a massive move in Europe and Australia by governments to monitor data at the ISP level and they use any excuse to try to do so !!! why you ask? is it really about cp or drm ? no it is this movement "ZEITGEIST" and they fear other movements that could arise through the internet... these movements preach outright revolution a change to the status quo, they challenge the human mind ... fight censorship fight it hard dont let governments and corporations tell you what you can and cant read or see ......