From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 23:14:18 +0800
To: "Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM" <dlv@bwalk.dm.com>
Subject: Re: Artikel about XS4ALL in New York
In-Reply-To: <quP56D21w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.970503184757.687A-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




> > The only "nice people" are dangerous anarchists bent on destroying
> > governments and buggering poloticians to death. (last part a personal
> > preference of course, the author is totally straight but would
> > nonetheless be distinctly amused to see any government official
> > butt-raped to death)
> 
> I, personally, would have to use a dildo.  Even if I were queer,
> I wouldn't get it up for a politician or a Cabal supporter.

This I can fully understand.

> > > "The Internet Watch Foundation forces the provider to remove the
> > > illegal content," he added. "This is a fundamentally different approach
> > > to responsibilities on the Internet. We think the author of the
> > > information is responsible for his own actions, not the provider."
> 
> I hope the IRA blows up these Internet Watch motherfuckers.

If I don`t get there first...

> Is this Blair guy any saner than the tory bastards?

Calling any democratic polotician, especially in the UK, sane, is a big 
mistake. However, if we may rephrase and ask if he is any less deranged 
we can safely answer "no".

I heard a wonderful comment on the cryptography@c2 list earlier that Jack 
Straw (the new Labour home secretary, who is in charge of law and order) 
may be defined as the only person for whom anal sex with michael howard 
(his predecessor) counts as masturbation. They both even look deranged 
(Michael Howard looked rather like a serial killer and jack straw looks 
like a church reject). I don`t know about crypto policy, Labour are 
supposed to be opposed to mandatory GAK but this is of course a small 
issue when put in perspective. The new labour administration are a group 
of anti-drugs, anti-"crime" misfits who I hope go the same way as the 
previous leader of the labour party, John Smith, who died of a heart attack.

Just to give you some overview of the fuck ups we now have governing the 
UK I present a list of proposals Tony Blair and his motley crew have made in 
the last year:

Mandatory minimum sentencing for repeat offenders regardless of the 
opinion of the judge.

State set curfews for all children under 16 regardless of their parents 
wishes.

Parents to be held responsible for the crimes of their children if the 
children repeat offend.

Several vague allusions towards internet censorship schemes or mandatory 
web page rating using PICS.

Minimum wage for full time employees, regardless of the empolyees skills 
or the wishes of the employer.

Further action to prevent "bias" and "discrimination" in the workplace, 
eg. "Employ this unskilled bone idle coon and we`ll lower your 
corporation tax 2%"

Further plans for yet more CCTV cameras in public places.

Mandatory ID cards for citizens (This one sounds like a joke, believe me 
it is not).

A ban on all handguns even when registered (currently all pistols above 
.22 are banned and all guns have to be registered in a process whereby if 
the applicant for a certificate has any history of political dissention 
or crime (eg. Smoking a joint, the ultimate sin against society) the 
certificate will be refused.

Yet more spending on welfare to support the pieces of shit in the gutter 
I pass every day.



> > And if he chooses not to remove the content you happen to find offensive?
> > If you truly believed in the rights of the author and publisher of the
> > information you would think about it before sending in your own
> > particular brand of thugs to "crush the mutiny".
> 
> Perhaps we should further expose XS4ALL's hypocricy by renting from the
> web space and putting up some pages they won't like.

I think this is an excellent idea, I`ll call or mail them in a few days 
to find out their pricing structure.


> > > Yet when violation of the law is flagrant, XS4ALL doesn't hesitate to
> > > comply, as it did a few weeks ago when it shut down a customer's home
> > > page called Neuroroom, which sold marijuana and other soft drugs in
> > > Holland and abroad.
> >
> > Sometimes one really wonders why we bother to set up mirrors to allow
> > freedom of information to users, when the owners of these servers,
> > supposedly in favour of free speech, do not even have the strength of
> > character or conviction to decide for themselves what they will allow on
> > their servers rather than bending over for the long cock of the law...
> 
> The ISP is not a court to decide that a web page offering MJ for
> sale is "illegal".

Absolutely, besides which, even though I believe in the right of people 
to be as bigotted and statist as they see fit, there are only so many 
causes we can support and coming in on the side of XS4ALL knowing their 
record seems ill advised to me. If they truly deserved our support they 
would retain the pages whether they were legal or not.

> > > "Basically any project we like gets free resources from XS4ALL,"
> > > Rodriquez commented.
> >
> > And anyone who guarantees to publicly lick the boots of the benevolent
> > owners in thanks for their support gets as much free space as they like?
> >
> > Of course I believe in the right to free expression of anyone and if
> > these thugs choose not to allow material they don`t like on their servers
> > they have every right to remove it. I just don`t see that setting up
> > mirrors to defeat blocks on sites that refuse to carry certain content is
> > of any value in the fight for free speech. Sure, create a mirror of
> > Radikal, but giving any credit or attribution to XS4ALL seems to be a
> > poor choice.
> 
> My understanding is that Radikal is a harmless, toothless liberal rag
> that the Germans had no grounds for censoring in the first place.
> Mirroring it is no big deal. How about mirroring the MJ page that
> the bastards at XS4ALL censored?

I actually went to the page once, nearly brought some bud but as I recall 
they didn`t have an SSL link so I chose not to transmit my CCN.

I don`t have a copy, but if XS4ALL have any balls at all they will send 
us a copy. I`ll get onto them about this later.

> Actually, I don't think mirroring is a good technology either.
> The "eternal server" posted a few days ago seems VERY VERY promising,
> I'm very exited about this technology - many many thanks.

No, it isn`t really but was, for all intents and purposes, the best we 
had. I haven`t yet seen the eternal server idea but I`ll trawl the 
archives for it.


Paul "Can`t really be bothered to re-do his .sig file yet" Bradley