From: um@c2.org (Ulf Moeller)
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:35:54 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Report from Germany on "backdoor" net-censorship
Message-ID: <9606131610.AA52938@public.uni-hamburg.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


A short update from Germany: The "ICTF" attorney has half-retracted
their announcement on Usenet. "ICTF" is going to be only an
advisory group for ECO members. They will make recommendations
about newsgroups that might be 'dangerous' to carry, and will
only react on individual articles when they are informed about
articles that would be illegal to keep on the news servers.

The "ICTF" plans to use a modified Cancel message format that
will only affect their members' servers.

He says that the press release was not addressed to the net
(well, they tried their best to hide it...) but to journalists
with no clue.

Of course, political harm has been done, but I am glad that the
Social Democratic Party's net expert has severly critizised this
censorship attempt in a press release and on Usenet.

For those who can read German (if you can't you'll sure find the
most important news on Declan's international censorship page), I
have put up a web page on "ICTF" at http://www.thur.de/ulf/zensur/

In September, we will see what they are really going to do
other than issuing bogus press releases.