Germany Plans Infowar Against Websites?

April 9, 2001 1:54 PM

Germany Plans Infowar Against Websites? So, Wired News reports that German Interior Minister Otto Schily has said publicly that Germany should stage denial-of-service attacks on right-wing websites housed in other countries. AOL versus Germany as WWWIII/InfoWar I?
posted by bclark (6 comments total)

If they ever were stupid enough to try this, every script kiddie in America would be DoSing the whole of *.de within hours. And, of course, every web site Germany attacked would be mirrored on dozens of sites worldwide, and the messages of those currently-ignored sites would be presented to untold millions of people.
posted by aaron at 3:11 PM on April 9, 2001

BERLIN - The Germans are planning an attack.

Now, that's one of the more irresponsible lead-ins to an article I've seen in a long time.
posted by hazyjane at 12:42 AM on April 10, 2001

There are times when I'd really gain satisfaction from DoSing the Freepers with the aid of a sledgehammer. (And not just their server.) But that's just me.

Should German ISPs, though, make themselves liable to prosecution for "publishing" sites that break German law by denying the Holocaust? The wider question being: why should the First Amerndment be deemed to have precendence over the German constitution within Germany, just because of the practicalities of enforcement?
posted by holgate at 1:20 AM on April 10, 2001

If the German government ever tried to do anything like this, so many sites would block access by Germans so fast it would make their Deutcsch heads spin.
posted by kindall at 2:49 AM on April 10, 2001

it would make their Deutcsch heads spin

For God's sake, kindall. Could you not just have said 'it would make their heads spin'?

According to the article:

Last December, Germany's Supreme Court ruled that German law could be applied to material placed on the Internet and available in Germany, raising the possibility of German legal action against Americans sponsoring such sites.

It is the right of the German Supreme Court to make that ruling, no matter how impractical it may appear to be.
posted by Caffa at 3:12 AM on April 10, 2001

Yeah, I could have. But something amused me about calling their heads Deutsch. Look at the time stamp... that may be a clue... ;)
posted by kindall at 4:34 AM on April 10, 2001