From: mccoy@communities.com (Jim McCoy)
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 15:47:22 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Report from Germany on "backdoor" net-censorship
Message-ID: <v02140b00ade2903143e5@[205.162.51.35]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Ulf forwards:
[...]
> Proof of origin of
> critical articles will be processed by the server, archived in a data
> base observing privacy laws, and stored at a central facility.
> Furthermore, sample news articles will be suject to detailed legal
> evaluation. Should this result in suspicion or proof of transportation
> of illegal contents, the ICTF can launch various steps to work against
> propagation of these contents. For example, it can arrange for
> blocking of complete newsgroups or retrospect "Cancel" of articles
> already transmitted. ICTF can direct possible criminal investigation
> with help of its data base.
[...]

Did anyone else hear "Deutchland Uber Alles" in the back of their mind
while reading this?  I wonder if the gestapo.de domain name is taken
yet...

> The special problem of the News service is that information can be
> distributed world-wide, yet anonymously. This is different of at least
> fundamentally more difficult in other parts of the Internet, so that
> the volume of critical content in the News is comparably high.

It is kinda sad that these German ISPs who claim that politicians and
governments do not understand the nature of the net seem themselves
guilty of not understand that all internet traffic is effectively
anonymous, Usenet is just obviously anonymous.

> The
> ICTF will register the information availible on the origin of news
> and store them in a data base as to make it possible to determine
> who has sent an article or disguised the real author's identity, in
> retrospect.

"Papieren bitte..."  Yellow stars, pink triangles, hmmm... seems to me
that the Germans have a rather poor history regarding registration and
identity services, but they are once again proving to be good at
encouraging "collaborators."

jim