At 12:40 PM -0700 12/7/97, Lizard wrote:

At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote: ... Well, indeed,

...

the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter ^^^^^^^^ out an alleged list of 100 porno sites (you can see that there is an on going URL hunt to discover these filtered sites on www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html.

And if any of those ISP's "chose" not to engage in such filtering, how long would they be permitted to stay in business?

That would be doubleplus ungood. It is the duty of all to enforce mandatory voluntary controls on thoughtcrime. And anyone who chooses not to comply with mandatory voluntary controls is clearly mentally unbalanced, and will be treated with compassion in a Ministry of Harmony recovery center. *** Seriously, I haven't been to Singapore, and don't plan to visit anytime soon. But I really can't say whether the thought control regimen is extremely bad, or just somewhat bad. What I do know is that I am deeply suspicious of claims that controls are "willingly accepted" by the majority, as some defenders of Singapore have claimed. Where rights get interesting is on the margins, not back in the herd where the sheeple live. Ditto for Germany, where defenders of German censorship claim it is the will of most of the people that they be locked up should they question details of the Holocaust, or deny that it occurred, or commit other thoughtcrimes. Oh, and the claim we just saw from Peter Herngaard, that: "The distinction is very narrow since those who call for abolition of the hate laws, at least in Germany, at the same time advocate expulsion of non-whites or the establishment of a dictatorship." is demonstrably false. There are civil rights groups in Germany calling for the "abolition of the hate laws," and yet not arguing in favor of expulsion of non-whites or for the imposition of a dictatorship. The notion that "advocacy of abolishing hate laws" = "calling for expulsion of non-whtes" is false. (Further, the notion that "calling for expulsion of non-whites" is itself an actual crime against another person is also false.) I could, for example, get on a plane tonight in San Francisco and be in Berlin by Monday evening. I could begin passing out "The Holocaust Myth" pamphlets, pointing out that the so-called "ovens" at the relocation camps were actually never turned on, and that most of the so-called exterminations of Jews never occurred. All of this without once calling for expulsions of non-whites from Germany. Or calling for the establishment of a government more dictatorial than the current one. So, would I be charged with a hate crime? Surely. And yet the other parts of Peter's predicate are missing. The way to prevent a repeat of Germany's unfortunate detour into national socialism is to just not repeat it, to not let government gain the power to build extermination camps, raid houses at night on flimsy pretexts, mobilize industry, etc. The same goes for the U.S., and other countries. This is partly why so many of us speak out strongly against the U.S. Emergency Economic Powers (National Security Decision Directives, FEMA and Office of Emergency Preparedness orders, Presidential Findings, etc.) and the plans for possible imposition of martial law (Operation Garden Plot, Operation Vampire Killer, state militias, etc.). The best way to dead off communism, national socialism, and dictatorship in general is through free speech, private communications, lots of guns in the hands of citizens, a decentralized government, states' rights, strong cryptography, tax evasion tools, and so on. Controlling free speech has virtually nothing to do with this avoidance of national socialism. (For a variety of reasons, too numerous to get into here. Read Hayek, von Mises, etc. on the virtues of open societies. And remember that "hate crime" laws almost by definition don't apply to sitting officials....Hitler would have loved to have laws in 1933 to stop citizens from expressing certain thoughts, but had such hate laws been in effect then, he surely would not have applied them to himself.) There is also the very real psychological phenomenon of "forbidden fruit tasting sweeter." Many suspect the current resurgence of Nazism and skinhead ideologies (loosely speaking) in Germany has a lot to do with the thoughts being banned. Nazism would lose a lot of its mystique if ideas could be expressed freely in Germany. As for the U.S. influencing Germany to crack down on free speech and freedom of religion, I don't deny this. But that was 45-50 years ago, and it was under military rule of a conquered nation (and imposed by victorious generals, who, given their druthers, would have probably outlawed any kind of free speech at all, given the way the military mind often thinks). Time for Germany to now have its own laws. Germany's recent actions agasint the Church of Scientology are also disturbing. (Some of my friends are active in the War Against Scientology. I am not. I view Scientology as just another wacky belief system. Think of it as evolution in action. I cannot condone state actions against religions, no matter how strange, provided their beliefs do not impinge on my rights and the rights of others. Thus, human sacrifice of non-volunteers would be actionable, but not human sacrifice of true believers. Or drug use. Or whatever.) Enough for now. I really do with The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

? the Platypus {aka David Formosa} shaped the electrons to read ...

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On Sun, 7 Dec 1997, Harish Pillay wrote:

[...]

...

Well, indeed, the top level ISPs here have choosen to use filtering proxy servers to filter out an alleged list of 100 porno sites

May I ask why thay have choosen to switch on these filters?

The story goes like this. The Singapore Broadcasting Authority wanted to have a mechanism to filter out "undesirable" sites. They know extremely well that it cannot be done successfully but nonetheless, due to political point scoring (1996 being election year), they had to be seen to be doing something. So, they trialed with the ISP the use of filter lists with the proxy servers to see how they can implement their censorship rules. Then when they finally announced the policy, the SBA quickly covered their asses by saying that they leave it to the ISPs to choose the weapon to do the SBA's evil deed. The ISPs, having trialed the filter mechanism, decided to continue with it which is just as well, for we can easily work around it. So, today, there are an alleged 100 sites that are on the filter list. What these sites are, are a unknown. Nonetheless there is an effort to independently discover the list (http://www.sintercom.org/hunt/rahunt.html). Also, read http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish/fiasco for an angle on the whole issue. Regards. -- Harish Pillay h.pillay@ieee.org Singapore *** Ask me about Linux *** http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish

At 05:30 PM 12/07/1997 -0700, Tim May wrote:

...

"The distinction is very narrow since those who call for abolition of the hate laws, at least in Germany, at the same time advocate expulsion of non-whites or the establishment of a dictatorship." is demonstrably false. There are civil rights groups in Germany calling for

Oh, and the claim we just saw from Peter Herngaard, that: the "abolition of the hate laws," and yet not arguing in favor of expulsion of non-whites or for the imposition of a dictatorship.

I think Peter's point was that most of the Germans who are calling for the abolition of the hate laws _are_ the hate groups, rather than civil liberties groups. Sure, there are a few Germans who think that free speech and assembly should mean free speech and assembly, and aren't part of hate groups, but the government isn't out persecuting them so they've got less incentive to make noise about it. Also, the folks with pure motives are arguing a pure issue, while the hatemongers get to combine their calls for the abolition of hate laws with calls for the expulsion of non-Aryans, use it for recruiting, and use it as a defense of their position.

The way to prevent a repeat of Germany's unfortunate detour into national socialism is to just not repeat it, to not let government gain the power to build extermination camps, raid houses at night on flimsy pretexts, mobilize industry, etc.

But Herr Non-Citizen-Unit May, ve're doink this for your own good. ...

There is also the very real psychological phenomenon of "forbidden fruit tasting sweeter." Many suspect the current resurgence of Nazism and skinhead ideologies (loosely speaking) in Germany has a lot to do with the thoughts being banned.

Certainly had a lot to do with kids becoming lefties in the 60s. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639