This is the English version of a German press release on ak-zensur.de
Within 12 hours, 60 child pornography sites were removed from the internet
In the ongoing German dispute over the appropriate action against documented child abuse on the Internet(child pornography), the supporters of a mere blocking solution argued that it is often not or only with considerable effort possible to remove the illegsl content or to get hold of it’s originator.
Alvar Freude of the Working Group against Internet blocking and censorship (AK Zensur) put this argument to the test. He analyzed the various European blocking lists via automatic procedures and wrote to each provider on whose servers child pornography was located according to lists. He received an impressive response: Within 12 hours after sending the first e-mail 60 websites were already deleted.
Further results and insights:
- The first reactions respectively deletions followed after a few minutes and came among others from the USA, Holland, Denmark, Russia and Germany.
- Three of the the deleted websites were located on servers in Germany.
- A total of 348 providers in 46 different countries were contacted automatically and informed of 1943 allegedly illegal websites. A previous individual analysis of the web sites content has not been made. (It is completely illegal in Germany to look at child pornographic content.)
- 250 providers have responded to the request, but they mostly found legal content. Samples that were taken afterwards confirmed the legal content.
- Ten providers indicated that a total of 61 cases of illegal content had been removed. With a simple e-mail you can achieve a lot.
- The examination through the providers showed that the vast majority of websites, including some from Germany, appeared to have no child pornographic content, some do not contain any objectionable material at all – therefore the websites were blocked in error. In Finland several domestic websites were blocked, that contain a critical examination of the blocking issue.
- The providers have not been informed that some of their hosted websites were put on the blocking lists.
- When made aware of this fact, the providers are more than willing to cooperate and remove illegal content as soon as possible.
- A certain part of the illegal material was located on ‘hacked’ websites, ie sites that were exploited through security holes to spread external material. Here too the providers were very grateful for the supplied information.
The process to shut down websites with child pornographic content does not take longer than the transmission of a blocking list. This shows the absurdity of the reasoning behind simple blocking – there is no rational reason to just block criminal content and leave it on the Internet, still accessible for everyone who uses minimal effort to circumvent the block.
What was possible for a citizens’ initiative, such as the Working Group on Internet blocking and censorship, should be even easier for the German government and law enforcement agencies and their results should by far exceed the results of AK Zensur.
Delete, don’t block – the motto of AK Zensur – is possible!
Released by: Working Group against Internet blocking and censorship (AK Zensur)
Web: http://ak-zensur.de/ (in German)
Press Contact:
Alvar Freude
presse@ak-zensur.de
+49 179 13 46 47 1
About the Working Group against Internet blocking and censorship (AK Zensur):
The Working Group on Internet blocking and censorship (AK Zensur) speaks out against the Federal Government’s planned Internet blocking and promotes an effective fight against child abuse instead of ineffective symbolic politics that only promotes ‘looking the other way’, does not help the victims and establishes an infrastructure that restricts basic public rights. AK Zensur coordinates the work of Internet blocking opponents, but is also appreciates the many activities that are happening decentralized in the on- and offline world.
The members of AK Zensur are amongst others: Chaos Computer Club (CCC), FoeBuD Association, Association of Information Technology and Society (FITUG), Forum of Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility Association (FIfF), Victims Of Abuse Against Internet Blocks (MOGIS), netzpolitik.org, the online platform ODEM.org, Trotz Allem e.V. and numerous individuals.
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Mai 28th, 2009 at 19:00
Tausend Dank für die Übersetzung! Ich nutze das gerade in meinem englischen Blog (URL oben) und werde sehen, dass es ins nächste EDRi-Gram kommt.
Eine Sache zum Namen des AK Zensur: Du nennst das “Working Committee”. Den AK Vorrat haben wir immer mit “Working Group” übersetzt. Können wir uns evtl. auch darauf einigen? Dann bleibt es einheitlicher.
Mai 28th, 2009 at 19:03
Done.
Mai 29th, 2009 at 11:32
[...] Delete, don’t block: It works! | UnPolitik.de [...]
Mai 31st, 2009 at 14:19
We have a similar situation in Australia. May I please request the same deletion be applied to the Australian Blocked List http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Australian_government_secret_ACMA_internet_censorship_blacklist,_11_Mar_2009
Thank you.
Juni 1st, 2009 at 15:33
The Australian List was among the lists AK Zensur used.
In retrospect it should not have been used because the quality of the Australian list is, pardon my language, a load of crap.
Juni 3rd, 2009 at 09:43
Hey everyone,
) – Even childern, foreigner … may. Everyone means everyone.
I just want to point out (or try to with my bad English) that EVERYONE in the whole world is allowed to support this petition, because german constitution grands everyone to write petitions to the german parliament (or any other public institution of germany). This right has the totality of a human right in germany (some might say, because we are a nation of complainers
If you can read German, in this thread of the discussion site of the online-petition, you can read exactly the laws that grand you these rights:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?topic=1564.0
(starts with a discussion to fill out the registration correctly – later that foreigners are allowed to sign the petition also)
So – why should foreigners sign a petition – THIS petetion – in germany:
1.) Even if you are a visitor in Germany, you have the right (again granted by german constitution) to get information by every (legal) public source you like – without censoring. Of course child porn illegal. But the mechanisms to block this content can easily exended to every content – and there are no general control mechanisms – the BKA (german FBI) decides by itself which sites should be blocked – the perfect mechanism for censoring.
2.) If you are in germany, and let’s say, go to an internet cáfe or use the connection of your hotel – and you reach a blocked website with bad luck, your IP is stored by the BKA. And the BKA has then officially thinks you are searching for cild porn – and because you are using internet not from home – there is the danger that it is not possible to find you the very next day. It might be not nice, if the police awaits you in the lobby of your hotel – only because some spambot or cyber-worm “helps” you to find illegal sites.
3.) The lists of blocked sites are secret. If you are not using a german provider, you will never know if YOUR homepage, blog, commercial website, ect. is blocked.
4.) This is an infrastructure for censoring – and we all know, if its installed, it will be used and extended. Do anyone in the world wants to have the germany Nation to be uninformed, wrong informed, censored? – AGAIN. History shows – we can do this quite effective and with uncontrolable consequences.
sign the e-petition to show, that even foreigners don’t want Germany to be censored again.
1.) make an account on the petition portal of the german parliament:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=register
email (repeat email), password (repeat password)
And then your name and adress:
Frau/Mann = Mrs./Mr.
Name = sirname
Vorname = first name
organisation = institution, company… (optional)
Titel = academic title if any (optional)
Straße und Hausnummer = street and house number
Postleitzahl = postual code/zip code
Wohnort = place of residence/city
Land = country
Bundesland = federal state of germany/foreign countries – choose the last one (AUSLAND) if you are not living in germany
Telefonnummer = telefon-number (optional)
then activate option “Ich bin einverstanden” – which says, you are ok with the privacy-policy of the portal.
At last prove, not to be a bot with:
“Visuelle Verifizierung” – type in the letters you see in the picture on the bottom of the site,
Then push “Registrien”-Button.
Your username is generated automatically: “NutzerXXX” – XXX is a number.
2.) sign in with the username and your password.
3.) Sign the e-petition:
You find the right one at:
https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/index.php?action=petition;sa=details;petition=3860
click on: “Petition mitzeichnen” – sign petition
Its in the field “Anzahl Mitzeichnungen” (number of signings) – the forth blue box.
Congratulations: You have signed a e-petition to the german parliament – against censoring the internet.
greetings,
M.A.
Juli 12th, 2009 at 10:12
[...] [...]
Dezember 19th, 2009 at 00:43
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by bob_bain: Delete, don’t block it works AK Zensur (in English) http://tinyurl.com/yhqlnkw (possibly similar to Wikileaks?) #nocleanfeed 7:41pm…
März 7th, 2010 at 01:51
[...] well. (Not me though. I prefer to delete child abuse images, rather than pretend they don't exist. This German study shows that it works. I also disagree in principle that simply looking at something should be [...]
März 29th, 2010 at 18:06
My name is Piter Jankovich. oOnly want to tell, that your blog is really cool
And want to ask you: is this blog your hobby?
P.S. Sorry for my bad english
Dezember 20th, 2011 at 21:55
Danke für die Übersetzung! Ich finde es super, dass soetwas gemacht wird. Kinderpornoseiten müssen verboten sein!