Subject: [iucg] The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany

From: JFC Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:30:58 +0200

David, Joe, Peter and all,
technically this debate seems senseless, because the internet being 
discussed just does not exist. Neither in law, nor in technology. 
This is the first problem we meet everywhere. Please first legally 
define what you are talking about. So the debate may stop being 
emotional, subjective, irreal, etc. On one side we are talking of 
bits and protocols, on the other side we are talking of human 
behaviour and laws.

Let start from an example David and Joe know well: domain names. The 
worldwide claimed and acclaimed ICANN success is UDRP. The UDRP 
document starts with a legal recital, documenting the meaning of 
theterms being used, ... except what a ... domain name is. The US and 
new IETF definition of the Internet is every packetswitch network 
interoperable computer. And both understand it as under their 
political/technical jurisdiction or influence. The French law, which 
is an application of the European directives, discusses the "public 
online communication" that may use the "internet" (small "i") : it 
does not bother defining (this is no more legal but common 
terminology). The first question is therefore: what are we talking about.

What are discussed here are not laws to punish crime that would 
actually (100% or not) prevent crimes, but laws that would prevent 
bows and arrows to be able to kill specific targets [quite 
hazardeous] while everyone may have access to guns [what makes the 
debate somewhat outdated]. While also, nobody realizes that the IETF 
"standards" are just "influences" (the very IETF mission definition 
by RFC 3935) to make the Internet work in a way the IETF better along 
its own core values.

By no means they are describing any technical obligations or reality. 
It happens that the Internet we use everyday is by far more powerfull 
and versatile, and that it is actually more and more used everyday in 
ways which architecturally are sounder than the way ICANN, ISOC, and 
Govs believes it. This is no surprise for the IETF (this is plainly 
explained in the very same RFC 3935: the IETF is here to analyse, 
document, integrate new developments made outside of it). Today such 
developments are taking advantage from IDNs and are carried by China 
and hundred of millions of users.  The current technology we use 
makes intercontinental machine guns free and available everywhere.

Summary: what you discuss are the relations between two orthogonal 
things: technology and law. In addition they have different 
development cycles, no common basis (as people are not left any 
control in the way the technology is designed) and different 
"jurisdictions". Protocols are for machines, laws are for people. The 
interesting issue in Hadopi and other legislations is that they want 
to impose laws on machines to force people to respect societal 
protocols, upto making machines to judge people.

jfc

At 13:25 18/06/2009, David Goldstein wrote:
>Ralf,
>
>Laws don't ever, or almost never, stop the problem they set out to 
>do. They merely set out to reduce the problem to a certain extent. 
>There are laws against murder, yet there is still murder. So you are 
>wrong - it is analogous to speeding. Expecting any law to stop 
>something 100% is naive.
>
>As for Baptista, Dambier and their cast of fools, maybe you should 
>first understand the difference between child protection, that is 
>protecting children from unsuitable content online, and child abuse 
>where children are actually abused.
>
>And thank you Rui for a thoughtful contribution to the debate.
>
>As for suggestions tens of thousands have signed online petitions. 
>Really? So what? What minuscule percentage actually understood what 
>they were signing?
>
>
>David
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: Ralf Bendrath <[email-masked]>
>To: [email-masked]; David Goldstein <[email-masked]>
>Sent: Thursday, 18 June, 2009 12:19:55 PM
>Subject: Re: [governance] The dawning of Internet censorship in Germany
>
>I don't want to sound like a supporter of Joe Baptista or Peter Dambier
>here, but I also don't want unfounded things to be said about the
>censorship conflict in Germany. So:
>
>David Goldstein schrieb:
>
> > To use the argument that blocking child pornography is ineffective is
> > nonsensical. People still speed in cars yet there are laws against
> > speeding. It certainly changes behaviour though.
>
>No. It's about stopping cars that (maybe accidentially) head to a wrong
>direction instead of just arresting the wrong guy at the endpoint. So
>much for analogies.
>
> > However given the childish arguments put forward by people like
> > Dambier, I wouldn't expect there to be much knowledge on such issues.
>
>Don't troll unles needed, David. Especially without knowledge about the
>situation in Germany.
>
>There have been many, many, and many more arguments raised in the Gernan
>debate since April. Result: Total ignorance.
>
> > The issue is how far does such a list such as proposed by the German
> > government, and also the Australian government, go. If it's used to
> > block content such as child porn, great. If it goes further, then
> > it's a problem.
>
>The fundamental problem is: We will never know. The list is run by the
>German Federal Police, it's secret, and there is close to zero
>oversight. No judge, no prescribed procedures for taking sites off the
>(un-known black) list, no nothing.
>
>Ralf
>
>
>
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