Germany Denies Plans to DoS Neo-Nazis

Over the weekend, we learned that Germany's Minister of the Interior, Otto Schily, was thinking about DoS'ing neo-Nazi sites -- not a new form of censorship, but the first time a government has put it on the table. Each country has its own type of content so abhorrent that its censorship must not be questioned. If a Bush cabinet member had mentioned that the U.S. is considering ping-flooding Dutch providers of (what we would call) child pornography (nude 17-year-olds), would anyone protest? Soon China will take Falun Gong off the net with trin00 and Kuwait will SYN-flood rogue sites that show pictures of women voting. But anyway, yesterday, the Ministry denied such plans, so the chaotic Balkanization of the net is postponed for another six months. Yay!

My translation of the slug from the April 5 story would be:

Innenminister Otto Schily is considering paralyzing foreign Nazi websites with hacker attacks. For this, the Ministry wants to use so-called Denial-of-Service attacks. With similar methods, hackers last spring blocked out broad portions of the Internet.

And a friend's translation of the April 8 denial:

Schily denies "hacker methods" against Nazi websites

Minister of the Interior rejects assertion his authority wanted to close down Nazi websites with "hacker methods"

BERLIN. The Ministry of the Interior led by Otto Schily (SPD) denied it wanted to act against Nazi websites using "hacker methods." What will be used in the fight against right wing extremism would only be determined by the law, a spokesman said on the weekend.

The story was updated re Kuwait (not Iran) and women voting.

Re:Good Idea

Nazis have. If you ask them, they would reply that they believe that their system of morality is entirely valid and acceptable. No society believes that it is evil. What you should have said is "don't people have the same morals as me?". It's the same kind of transformation as R.A.Wilson [rawilson.com]'s "War on Some Drugs" [rawilson.com].

Re:Why post a link to highly offensive material?

"In the story's submission the submitter posted a link to Neo-Nazi content but not to pornographic content."

Obviously you didn't click the link (which was my addition, not a submitter's). It points to a collection of papers and speeches by my late friend Stig Hornshøj-Møller, who had researched the Nazi propaganda film Der ewige Jude.

Stig had argued, and persuasively demonstrated, that the 1941 Nazi propaganda film is no longer a threat to democracy, and that screening it for young people in particular can help them understand Nazi use of propaganda. And yet the film is still strictly regulated by Germany, to the point where instructors have to apply to the government for permission before using it even in the classroom.

Go check out his work [holocaust-history.org]. It's fascinating (IMHO) to see how the film has changed in sixty years from a tool of persuasion, to an object to be feared, and, finally, hopefully, to a historical document to be learned from.

Jamie McCarthy

Re:The ups and downs of censorship

> The flip side is that freedom of speech enables John Skinhead to spout Nazi propagander if he
> wishes - just as God-loving bible bashers are allowed to preach that we're all going to Hell.
> Just as I'm able to proclame my atheism and contempt for hate-mongers - as God-loving
> bible-bashers generally are.

You're making it sound like groups that actively incite and organize violence against minorities and groups that simply spout bias are essentially the same. Most countries' laws will disagree with you, and the difference between the two is usually used as a yardstick of censorship and denial of freedom of speech. There's a big difference between saying that you're a worthless human being, and saying, oh, yeah, by the way, let's organize some riots and gangs and bash your head in and kill you.

Re:Why post a link to highly offensive material?

Um, hello? How much of the linked-to site did you actually read? From the root page [holocaust-history.org] of that site:

The Holocaust History Project is a free archive of documents, photographs, recordings, and essays regarding the Holocaust, including direct of Holocaust-denial.

So, it's clearly not an example of (neo)Nazi content, but rather a site working against people who try to falsify history. I don't think you can make a case that the Slashdot editor (the sometimes-controversial Jamie) somehow censored himself by chosing this site as an example... It's a weird example, though. Your final sentence doesn't parse over here. Or if it does, it doesn't jive with the rest of your text, and frightens the living sh*t out of me.

Censorship of any form

This is what I've been fearing since the first time I've heard of a government attempting to take a site off the air that it disagrees with. This, if left unchecked, will mean the absolute end of the internet as a way to get all sides of the issues, all means of research and all ability to have honest and open discussion of any topic.

A government may have to limited right to decide what can/will be distributed within it's borders, but that does NOT mean it has the right to cross political boundries and attempt to tell the rest of the world what it can and cannot have out on it's pages.

The US is horrible with this and that is not helped by other countries who run hollering for the US to 'do something' about purely internal matters within a country.

Just because you do not like the message does not mean you have the right to silence the messenger. I wish all governments would understand that and allow honest discourse about all subjects.

DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]

Re:censorship can always be questioned

Sigh. Don't read him so literally.

Every country has a majority for whom certain taboos are sacrosanct.

Pornography?

If a Bush cabinet member had mentioned that the U.S. is considering ping-flooding Dutch providers of (what we would call) child pornography (nude 17-year-olds), would anyone protest?

I certainly would. I find the whole idea of child pornography repellent, but in Europe, sex is legal at 16. Sorry Americans, we're just plain free-er thinking than you. If you don't like what we do, it's your problem, not ours.

Re:Censorship of any form

... but that does NOT mean it has the right to cross political boundries and attempt to tell the rest of the world what it can and cannot have out on it's pages.

The authority of a nation or state derives from it's ability to focus the use of force. In essence your country has authority over you because it can forcibly detain you, not because of any moral authority. It right's are therefore those it can excercise. If it can excercise a [D]DOS, it has the right. It's nieve to believe otherwise.