European Union Internet Censorship

[Aptrgangr]

European Union Internet Censorship

Yes, it's arrived, that bright glad morning. The European Union has now decided to censor the internet:

Placing instructions on how to make a bomb on the internet will become a criminal offence across Europe under plans outlined by Brussels yesterday.
Arguments about freedom of expression will not be allowed to stand in the way of criminalising the publication of bomb-making information that could be used by terrorists, a senior EU official said.

It will be part of a range of antiterrorist proposals to be published in the autumn that will also include the collection of airline passenger data from every flight in and out of the EU. The extension of measures was promised yesterday by Franco Frattini, the EU Justice Commissioner, after the British car bomb plot and the murder of Spanish tourists in Yemen.

Internet service providers (ISPs) would face charges if they failed to block websites containing bomb-making instructions generated anywhere in the world, EU officials said.

Something as simple as telling people that ammonium nitrate mixed with diesel makes a pretty good bomb would mean that all ISPs across Europe must ban access to that site. Given that just about every UK newspaper will have that information in their archives as a result of the IRA murder campaigns means that all of them will be verboeten, of course.

“It should simply not be possible to leave people free to instruct other people on the internet on how to make a bomb – that has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” Mr Frattini said yesterday.

Shows a startling lack of logic there, don't you think? This is nothing to do with freedom of expression when he wants to restrict the freedom of expression?
Nothing on The Register yet but I would be really rather surprised whether this would work on a technical level anyway. All ISPs would have to monitor the entire internet to make sure that no page was ever visible from Europe which showed the recipes. Yes, they'd have to monitor each and every blog post, each and every bulletin board. And ban those that had them.

EU officials denied that it would be impossible to track down websites based in remote places, insisting that the local provider based in the EU could be held to account. One said: “You always need a provider here that gives you access to websites. They can decide technically which websites to allow. Otherwise how would China block internet sites? There are no technological obstacles, only legal ones.”

I'm not sure whether I find it amusing or rage inducing that the EU is now taking technical advice from the Chinese censors: but I certainly find it no surprise that this federast is going to dump all of the costs onto the ISPs. At least China has the good grace to pay for it themselves.

There are others out there who know much more about this issue than I do. Anyone care to offer a cost estimate for this plan? Include all costs: equipment, time, people etc, to set up a censorship system capable of blocking access from each and every European internet user to any and all sites globally that might contain instructions on bomb making. Don't forget to add the costs of finding those sites in the first place: and of dealing with false positives. We'll then divide that by the number of users to give us a per capita cost. We might also compare it to the damage done by terrorism. See whether it's worth it, shall we?


Franco Frattini: bansturbating madly.

Tim Worstall: European Union Internet Censorship

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

The European Union is very likely to become soon the biggest prison on earth.

[Menydh]

Nah, only the biggest joke.

Someone who is seriously searching technical and other information on how to deliver a terrorist attack is likely to use any of the many anonymous proxies for web surfing.

Given that many web proxies are located outside the judicial limits of the E.U., one can only conclude that Frattini is a clown with much power and very little brain.

[Kalevi]

EU officials denied that it would be impossible to track down websites based in remote places, insisting that the local provider based in the EU could be held to account. One said: “You always need a provider here that gives you access to websites. They can decide technically which websites to allow. Otherwise how would China block internet sites? There are no technological obstacles, only legal ones.”

I'm not sure whether I find it amusing or rage inducing that the EU is now taking technical advice from the Chinese censors: but I certainly find it no surprise that this federast is going to dump all of the costs onto the ISPs. At least China has the good grace to pay for it themselves.

There are others out there who know much more about this issue than I do. Anyone care to offer a cost estimate for this plan? Include all costs: equipment, time, people etc, to set up a censorship system capable of blocking access from each and every European internet user to any and all sites globally that might contain instructions on bomb making. Don't forget to add the costs of finding those sites in the first place: and of dealing with false positives. We'll then divide that by the number of users to give us a per capita cost. We might also compare it to the damage done by terrorism. See whether it's worth it, shall we?

The EU officials must know very well that it is not possible for ISP's to filter the internet. They also know that China, as a growing economy of 1 billion people, is as such anything but comparable to a mere internet company (not to mention the ways China sensors the net, which is not very fine-tuned: if someone uses a massive blogger site to write "anti-Chinese" material, the whole domain will be blacklisted). The officials again know this, but it is besides the point. Since the individual ISP's trying to censor the net is by no means sensible, if even possible, the only effective way is to centralize the censorship under control of the EU, and - unless they're totally lost - this is what the initiative is about. A lovely initiative indeed. The fact that everyone who really needs to is able to penetrate the censors is again irrelevant, since this has not to do with controlling terrorism but - in the long term - controlling normal citizens.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Certain local providers have already a kind of "filters" that block access to different web-sites, for example those that are considered as promoting "hate". And it is them who determine what is hate and what isn't.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Nah, only the biggest joke.

Speaking of jokes, recently one of the EU (I purposefully avoid using the word "European" in this context) official announced that in future every person would be allowed ho have one e-mail account only. Only that he didn't specify as to how such a restriction is to be enforced. Anyone can enter an internet caffe and open as many accounts he likes.

This also shows that the EU beaurocrats don't know what they are talking about.

But some shows of force are not excluded to happen, especially in countries that are not members of the wretched EU, but strive to join the "club" at any cost.

Last year hoems of a few bloggers in Croatia were raided under the accusation that they promoted "hate." And it is them who determine what "hate" is and isn't.

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by Plethon

Speaking of jokes, recently one of the EU (I purposefully avoid using the word "European" in this context) official announced that in future every person would be allowed ho have one e-mail account only.

Ok that's it, I'm taking my previous statement back.

As a curiosity concerning no-so-near-future: a scenario of actually having the needed technology for enforcing things like that while the EU still being alive and kicking makes me really, really afraid..