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Can The Net Be Censored? The Ernst Zundel Affair by Charles Gimon and Nizkor Shofar
by grarpamp 19 Nov '19

19 Nov '19

http://www.skypoint.com/members/gimonca/censor.html http://nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/z/zundel.ernst Can the Net be Censored? by Charles A. Gimon for INFO NATION InfoLogo This year is shaping up to be the year of Internet censorship. Yet as the pro- and anti-censorship sides of the argument do battle in the United States and other countries, a third view is being tested. Is it even possible to censor the Net? It's been assumed that the Internet is immune from censorship, that its architecture makes it impossible for any one organization to control. That assumption is now on the line, as some governments around the world are learning just how difficult the Internet can be to control, while others continue to make plans for a clampdown on Internet freedoms. The most aggressive moves against the Internet have been coming from the new Germany. The San Jose Mercury News of January 27th, 1996 reported that Deutsche Telekom, the national phone company in Germany, had blocked its customers' access to Web Communications of Santa Cruz, California. One of Webcom's customers, a Canadian citizen from Toronto named Ernst Zundel, had put up a web page on Webcom's server to speak for a controversial point of view called "Holocaust revisionism". In a nutshell, a "Holocaust revisionist" is someone who believes that the Nazis didn't actually kill millions of Jews during the 1930s and 1940s--or at least not very many. Most people file Holocaust revisionists in the same category with people who still believe the earth is flat. Nevertheless, in countries that do not have the constitutional guarantee of free speech that Americans have, expressing such views can be illegal. (Zundel had already been brought up on "hate speech" charges in Canada.) (pic) Ernst Zundel In Germany, Zundel would be guilty of "Volksverhetzung": roughly, instigating the public to hatred. German authorities couldn't touch Zundel on the other side of the Atlantic, but they did start an investigation into whether Internet providers who made his page available could be charged with the same crime. Deutsche Telekom, which provides Internet access through its subsidiary T-Online, several German universities and other sites fell into line and blocked access from their sites to webcom.com, even though no court order had been served. The threat of charges had been enough. For free-speech activists, the challenge had been made. If the German government could block Internet access to sites it didn't like, other governments were sure to try the same thing--even the United States, where President Clinton was on the verge of signing the "Communications Decency Act" into law as part of a huge telecommunications reform bill. It was impossible for the Germans to censor only one page--blocking webcom.com meant stopping a range of IP addresses. Free-speech supporters figured that if Zundel's site was copied to the best sites on the Internet, the German government would be forced to cut Germany off from the Net completely, slice by slice. The first Zundel mirror site was put up by Rich Graves at Stanford University. With an address including the line "Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views", Graves put up a complete copy of Zundel's web site on one of Stanford's servers: if the German government wanted to censor, they would have to do without the Internet resources at Stanford as well. Soon mirror sites popped up at major universities all across North America. Declan McCullagh, a tireless Internet and free-speech activist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, put up a mirror site of his own. McCullagh was already known for opposing CMU's own attempt to limit Usenet access, for helping to expose the bad research in Marty Rimm's "Cyberporn" study, and for working with the Justice on Campus project to counter "politically-correct" campus speech codes. Most of the University sites were supportive of the spontaneous free-speech movement. Only one mirror site, the one put up by Lewis McCarthy at the University of Massachusetts, was forced to close down. UMass administrators stated that they didn't want "political material" on their servers. None of the original sites were supportive of Zundel's views, only of his right (and everyone's) to freedom of speech. Within a few days, though, the wild fringe was heard from, and other Zundel mirror sites were put on the Net bywhite supremacists at the University of Texas, Georgia State and America On-Line. The culture-clash between the free-speech activists and the "white nationalists" was very real. At least one page lied about Declan McCullagh, saying that he was in full support of Zundel's views on the Holocaust (he wasn't at all). Notorious white supremacist Tom Metzger claimed that Zundel staged the whole thing as a publicity stunt. Yet as the statements from the far-far-right got wackier, the basic rationale of the free-speech activists was proven correct: good information will drown out bad information. Expose the views of Zundel and others to the light of day, and they can be cross-examined into oblivion, maybe even laughed into it. By the early morning of February 2nd, a traceroute from gatekeeper.rhein.de to webcom.com showed that the blocking had been lifted. The battle appeared to have been won. However, it was announced that the investigation had been broadened to include AOL, which had only been offering access in Germany for a few weeks. CompuServe, which had already been forced to block access to several Usenet newsgroups by a prosecutor in Bavaria in January, was placed on notice that it was part of the investigation as well. (As of this writing, the investigation had not come to any conclusion.) The freedom of speech message in the campaign had not gotten through to everyone in the United States, either: the Simon Wiesenthal Center faxed university higher-up at all the sites stating their disapproval of college sites hosting the Zundel pages, and ignoring the "Not_My_Views" disclaimers. At exactly the same time as all this was going on, the French goverment was learning a similar lesson. In France, Dr. Claude Gubler, who had been the personal physician to the late President Mitterand, published a book, "Le Grand Secret", about his career with the President. It included personal details of Mitterand's suffering with prostate cancer, which the two of them had kept secret from the public for years. Forty thousand copies of the book were issued before a French court could issue a ban on it on January 17th. One of those copies fell into the hands of Pascal Barbraud, owner of an Internet cafe in Paris. Barbraud took the book, scanned it, and put scanned images of each page of the book on the Internet. French citizens who couldn't get a rare paper copy of the book could now read it on the Net--as could anyone else in the world. The French government wasn't pleased: Barbraud was soon apprehended on "unrelated charges". Barbraud wasn't the most techno-savvy person on the Internet, either: the scanned images in his site were huge, and took an agonizingly long time to view. Stephane Etienne, a grad student at the University of Glasgow in the U.K., wrote a script that tried to connect to Barbraud's server again and again until a full copy of the book could be reassembled in Glasgow on January 27th. Over that weekend, Sebastien Blondeel and Declan McCullagh (who was putting up a Zundel mirror site at the same time) converted the images of the pages into ASCII text, which reduced them to small files, easy to read and fast to download. The full text of "Le Grand Secret" was put into McCullagh's web pages at Carnegie Mellon, where they can still be read today. The French attempt at censorship had failed. (Grand Secret Logo) In spite of these developments, other governments continue to try to control the Internet. The most vocal government in favor of Internet censorship (with the possible exception of the United States) is the People's Republic of China. Beijing has been making efforts in two different directions: funding and expanding Internet access on one hand while threatening to prosecute Net hooligans on the other. Internet service providers are kept on a tight leash by the Chinese government. Only about 1000 or so Usenet groups are allowed into the country. China was brash enough to congratulate German prosecutors when CompuServe blocked access to certain Usenet newsgroups under pressure. Whether the Chinese government is technically capable of censoring the Internet is another question. Identifying and following every packet of information within their borders would be just about mathematically impossible. If the Chinese government lives up to its press releases and prosecutes people for transmitting "pornographic and detrimental information", it will have to do so by singling out individuals; there is no way to stop traffic of any kind, good or bad, in a world with anonymous remailers, strong encryption, and distributed networks. As Australia and New Zealand consider legislation comparable to the recently enacted--and immediately enjoined by court order--"Communications Decency Act" in the United States, the question that remains is not whether the Internet should be censored, but whether it's even possible to censor it. You can find the original Ernst Zundel site at: http://www.webcom.com/~ezundel/english/ Rich Graves' homepage is at: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/ Declan McCullagh has the full text of "Le Grand Secret" at: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~declan/ The fight-censorship mailing list, where much of this was discussed, is archived at: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org And for a well-researched critical response to Zundel, you can browse the Nizkor Project's pages at: http://nizkor.almanac.bc.ca Charles A. Gimon teaches an Intro to the PC class at the English Learning Center in South Minneapolis. He can be reached at gimonca(a)skypoint.com or ay778(a)freenet.carleton.ca. Back to my net writings. Back to my home page.

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Losers in the Epstein System
by Ryan Carboni 18 Nov '19

18 Nov '19

Any system that mistreats the losers will be afraid when their winning streak ends. >From the documentary Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger Thirty years ago, my wife and I purchased a liquor license. Then we had the liquor store up and running by Christmas. We poured our heart and soul in it. And then, lo and behold, I get a knock on my door one night, I'm at the house, my wife's down at the liquor store working, and it was Kevin Weeks and Whitey Bulger at the door, and I didn't know, what the hell do they want? "You got a problem." I said, "I don't... what problem?" He says, "Listen, we were hired to kill you." I'm like, what? He said, you got to understand, the other liquor stores, they hired us to kill you. I just couldn't believe it, I didn't know what to even think, I was dumbfounded. Actually, I froze. He said, "But what we're going to do instead of that, we're just going to become your partners." I said, "No, you're not becoming my partners." And then, Bulger's right there. He's just staring at me, and just grinding his teeth like, "You don't understand, we're taking the f*cking liquor store." I was like, "It's not for sale." He said, "I'll f*cking kill you. I'll stab you, and then I'll kill you." I'm like, Holy Jesus. And then they pulled out a gun. I was like, "Oh, f*ck." They picked up my kid. Daughter was a year. He said, "It would be terrible for this kid to grow up without a father." I was like... and I melted. Nothing you can do. Ever since that day, I've never been the same. I couldn't protect my own children. As a man, that just took me away. And I'm not over it yet. I won't be over, and maybe I'll never get over it, but I surely can't wait to get in front of that court, on that stand and testify against that. 30 years ago, he scared me to death, he don't scare me to death no more.

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Assassination Drones
by jim bell 18 Nov '19

18 Nov '19

https://www.cityam.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cityam-2019-11-12.pdf "One final warning, though, which isnot about ethics but practicalities.Cheap assassination drones alreadyexist on the battlefield, but as automated weapon technology develops,we may find them being used elsewhere. Are we really prepared forsmall drones with guns that can lookinto the windows of Downing Street,or Buckingham Palace?The history of military technologyshows that it cannot be kept out ofprivate hands, but we have to hopethat killer robots are an exception."

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Lee Camp on Bolivia Coup: "Don't we [USA] know how to launder money by now?!?" - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 18 Nov '19

18 Nov '19

Apparently USAID has been directly funding the salaries of Venezuelan Coup leaders, and Lee Camp asks the obvious question "don't we know how to launder money by now?!" Do we now topple governments to keep access to Instagram? Lee Camp digs into Bolivia coup https://www.rt.com/news/473663-bolivia-coup-lithium-resources/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmr4Ax9KY68 ~28mins

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Google's claim of 100% availability
by Georgi Guninski 18 Nov '19

18 Nov '19

=== https://cloud.google.com/dns/ 100% availability and low latency Our SLA promises 100% availability of our authoritative name servers === I believe the constant 100% is not correct.

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Survival of the Richest
by Ryan Carboni 17 Nov '19

17 Nov '19

In the great struggles of mankind, between men, nothing is greater than to protect one's own bloodline. Still, one could be at the bottom of Cheyenne and not be safe. To abdicate one's responsibility is to forfeit authority. https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. ... This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

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Re: Blast from the Past. Declan McCullagh, David Friedman,
by Punk-Stasi 2.0 17 Nov '19

17 Nov '19

On Sun, 17 Nov 2019 11:53:36 +1100 Zenaan Harkness <zen(a)freedbms.net> wrote: > Unfortunately it seems he's so unbelievably stubborn, yet blind, that > there's always the chance he could encourage one or two equally > stupid and stubborn individuals to join him in his quixotic windmill > fight, and just happen to throw civilization into a lorenzian > butterfly chaotic alternator. > > I know some would prefer a period of total chaos to what we have now, I vote for chaos. It's the only thing that can prevent "the ultimate revolution" Aldous Huxley - The Ultimate Revolution (Berkeley Speech 1962) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WaUkZXKA30 disclaimer : I got the idea from assange who said something like "only a global catastrophe can stop the surveillance state". Not any of those words prolly because I can't find the original quote =/ But you get point... > but the consequences of living in that post-AP world look quite > possibly very unpleasant from where I stand.. I think Jim is either partially confused, or baiting and switching. An hypothetical tool to eliminate tyrants (or anybody else), and the production of security in a libertarian enviroment, are two different things. Yet Jim confuses them.

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Twice Russia helped the United States against the British/Rothschild Empire - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 17 Nov '19

17 Nov '19

Speaking of true allies, Russia, on a nation-state basis, is about as good as it gets for a true ally of the USA (Australia notwithstanding). "Twice Russia helped the United States against the British/Rothschild Empire; first by openly supporting them in the Independence War, and again in the Civil War, when Rothschild’s were funding the Confederates to politically break down the nation to bring it back in the British colonial Empire’s coop. Russia also destroyed Napoleon and the Nazis, whom were both funded by international banks as tools to crush economically independent nations. Independence is in their DNA." ... "Central bankers and the US shadow government are still hanging on to their dying plan, because without a victory in Syria, there’s no enlarging Israel, thus ending the century-old fantasy of uniting the Middle East oil production in the hands of the New World Order. Ask Lord Balfour if you have any doubt. That’s the real stake of the Syrian war, it’s nothing short of do or die." Before you LOL at "Trump is an anti-narcissist", think: could that be true? And if so, how? Here to suggest an alternative view (or rather, whole bunch of interesting views, one of which I disagree with) is Sylvain LaForest via Oriental Review: Everything You Need To Know About Trump (But Were Afraid To Admit You Wondered) https://orientalreview.org/2019/11/15/about-trump/ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/everything-you-need-know-about-trump-we… ... "If you still believe that the «Commander in chief» is in charge, explain why every time Trump ordered to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan, more troops came in? As I’m writing this text, US and NATO troops pulled out of the Kurdish zones, went to Iraq, and came back with heavier equipment around the oil reserves of Syria. Donald has a lot more of swamp draining to do before the Pentagon actually listens to anything he says." ... "One has to realize how much trouble the US army and spying agencies have been going through in creating false-flag operations for more than a century, so that their interventions always looked righteous, in the name of democracy promotion, human rights and justice around the planet. They blew up the Maine ship in 1898 to enter the Hispanic-American war, then the Lusitania in 1915 to enter WW1. They pushed Japan to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, knew about the attack 10 days in advance and said nothing to the Hawaiian base. They made up a North Vietnamese torpedo aggression on their ships in the Tonkin Bay to justify sending boots on the Vietnamese ground. They made up a story of Iraqi soldiers destroying nurseries to invade Kuwait in 1991. They invented mass destruction weapons to attack Iraq again in 2003, and organized 911 to shred the 1789 Constitution, attack Afghanistan and launch a War on terror. This totally fake mask of virtue has to be preserved for controlling the opinion of the American citizens and their domestic arsenal, who have to believe that they wear the white cowboy hats of democracy. "So how did Trump react when he learned that American troops were re-entering Syria? He repeated again and again in every interview and declaration that «we have secured the oil fields of Syria», and even added «I’m thinking about sending Exxon in the region to take care of the Syrian oil». Neocons, Zionists and banks were thrilled, but everyone else is outraged, because the vast majority doesn’t understand that Trump is swallowing this pill solely for its after-effects. On this single bottle is written in fine print that «the use of this drug might force American-NATO troops out of Syria under the pressure of the united world community and flabbergasted American population.» Trump made the situation unsustainable for NATO to stay in Syria, and how he’s been repeating this deeply shocking, politically incorrect position clearly shows his real intention. He destroyed over a century of fake virtue in a single sentence. "Trump is a historical anomaly Trump is only the fourth president in US history to actually fight for the people, unlike all 41 others, who mainly channeled the people’s money in a pipeline of dollars that ends up in private banks. First there was Andrew Jackson who was shot after he destroyed the Second National Bank that he openly accused of being controlled by the Rothschild and The City in London. Then there was Abraham Lincoln, who was murdered after printing his «greenbacks», national money that the state issued to pay the soldiers because Lincoln had refused to borrow money from Rothschild at 24% interest. Then there was JFK, who was killed for a dozen reasons that mostly went against the banks and military industries profits, and now is Donald Trump, who shouted that he would «Give America back to the people». ... [If you have the time to continue, and love a litany of twists and turns, this one's got a couple more at least ...]

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Cointelegraph: Bitcoin Revolution Meets Protestant Reformation, Crypto Drives Change?
by jim bell 17 Nov '19

17 Nov '19

Cointelegraph: Bitcoin Revolution Meets Protestant Reformation, Crypto Drives Change?. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-revolution-meets-protestant-reformat…

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Re: cypherpunks Digest, Vol 77, Issue 88
by Rob Avina 17 Nov '19

17 Nov '19

How in the holy Universe would one ever distinguish that this "system" over time was working anymore than random chance? Also, what is the difference between your system that Assassinates Politicians and a duplicate system in which one donates small amounts of cash to sway peoples opinions away from said politicians views, call it Political(instead of Character) Assassination. One says the correct phrase out loud/online/wherever, enough times, it will take away power from their political rivals. Make people listen, because you have effectively muted your rival. What would be the difference, minus the permanency of death? I would say MY ideas is far superior, as yours does not take into account in any way shape or form the fact that even without computers, for centuries, good bad and even many indifferent ideas had been remembered, from people who were in fact, long dead? Oh my gosh though, I believe I have just invented the internet! People talking about shit they prefer instead of shit they don't! GENIUS! Sorry there's not enough murder for ya. Plus, encryption breaks and your "anonymity" just went out the window. > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2019 18:59:35 +0000 (UTC) > From: jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> > To: coderman <coderman(a)protonmail.com> > Cc: "cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org" <cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org>, > "Punk-Stasi 2.0" <punks(a)tfwno.gf> > Subject: Re: Cryptocurrency: Anonymous to Invest $75M of Crypto to > Develop Privacy Coins and Anon Tech > Message-ID: <867038435.799941.1573930775711(a)mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > On Saturday, November 16, 2019, 10:38:14 AM PST, coderman < > coderman(a)protonmail.com> wrote: > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ > On Saturday, November 16, 2019 6:16 PM, jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> > wrote: > ... > > >>Not clear who says this, but let's remember that "murder" is simply a > killing that the government declares is illegal. If the attackers at Waco > (the Feds) had fired first, which we know happened, the Branch Davidians > who shot back in self-defense...would have been labelled as guilty of > murder! Merely for self-defense. > > > >a false dichotomy; it would be better if no one was killed at all! > > > I didn't say it wouldn't be, but you are implying that you can somehow > 'choose' this outcome, to effectively force it on all participants. My > response? I'd say the worst outcome is one that actually happened: These > Feds got away with murder, with no real punishment in the end for them. > Because that sets up future Ruby Ridges, future Wacos, with the precedent > that none of them had gotten punished. > And, I'd also respond that the end you claim "would be better" could > actually be achived, if an AP system were functioning. How do you think > the Feds at Ruby Ridge and Waco would have acted, differently, if they had > known they were going to be targeted by donations from the public if they > ended up killing some of the Weavers, and the Branch Davidians? I'd > suggest that they obviously wouldn't have done what they did!!! They > would not possibly have risked it. So nobody would have died. PRECISELY > the end you claim would be "better". > > > >Except you don't even attempt to quantify the amount of killing that > would be involved in these two hypothetical situations. I wrote my AP > essay about two months prior to the OKC bombing on March 19, 1995. Later, > I frequently pointed out that if the choice is between killing 168 > 'innocent' people who just happened to be in a building two years later, > hundreds of miles away from Waco, and killing (for example) the top 30-40 > Feds responsible for Ruby Ridge and Waco, what should an intelligent, > well-meaning person choose? The fact that the latter choice was then not > possible doesn't mean that it cannot be compared as a moral choice. > > > >again, false dichotomy; these are not the only two possibilities - better > to not kill anyone! > > > I've already explained how that could be achieved. Maybe you just don't > like the idea that Feds could be deterred from engaging in what most of the > people would call murder. Ensure that if the Feds knew that if they > killed somebody unjustifiably (in the public's opinion; not theirs!) they > themselves will be killed, and nobody will kill anyone. > > > > >Also, you can claim you are merely saying "better to err towards never > killing", but that doesn't mean that nobody is dying! > > > >if this is about universal healthcare, then i agree: people are > needlessly dying without being explicitly murdered, and we should fix this > too! ;) > > > > > > Sure they are, the people you have chosen to say should not have the > ability to defend themselves. You can morally choose to be a pacifist for > yourself; I suggest that you cannot force other people to make that choice > for themselves. > > > >i agree. i cannot force anyone. i can only highlight the fallacy of using > murder to right wrongs. expedient? sure. but call it vengeance, not justice > nor moral. > The issue is PREVENTION. If a system is set up to ensure that the public > can retaliate for outrageous actions, don't you think the frequency of > those outrageous actions will be greatly reduced? > > > best regards, > > >

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