August, 31 2009 - Bundestagswahl - Elections in Germany

On September 27th a new government will be elected in Germany. Besides the usual campaigns and mutual accusations of politicians there is one person who is exceptionally pointing herself out. I'm speaking about Ursula von der Leyen, currently minister for family affairs of the CDU. Her topic: child pornography.

She has chosen a very sensitive topic and all parties agree that these crimes have to be fought. This is quite interesting since the only thing Ms. von der Leyen is advocating is this dressy red sign with a good readable "STOPP" and some cowing text stating that you (no, to translate it literally: your browser) was trying to access a web page which is associated with the propagation of child pornography. The plan is that an agency (BKA, Bundeskriminalamt) transmits blacklists to the internet providers which have to block access to those sites and instead show this sign. There is a lot of discussion if your IP address is logged or only anonymous statistics are collected and transmitted back to that agency. The more interesting question is if this can help to dam up child pornography on the web or if it turns out as an efficient infrastructure to block access to various contents. While Ms. von der Leyen stated that the blocking will never be extended to other contents some other politicians already propagate blocking of sites which "glorify violence". In this context I ask myself how long it will take until access to "violence glorifying games" like Counterstrike is blocked. By the way, Counterstrike is the violence glorifying game which is found on the computers of all gunmen (and could be found on the computers of most people playing online games).

Beneath the doubts if all this is effective there are open questions in regard to the technical implementation and the basic rights. According to an interview Ms. von der Leyen (as several other politicians) does not know what a browser is. Whoever developed the plan to realize the blocking by redirecting users when the address is resolved (DNS based redirection) knows only slightly more than her. Not only that DNS based blocking are easy to avoid (e.g. by using a non-german DNS server or your own one) it may also be possible to send spoofed DNS requests to a provider on behalf of someone else - who is promptly suspicious. Nevertheless, the center of competence in regard to the internet says:

"Persons who can actively circumvent blocking in the web are technical considerably more versed. These are the 20% which are partly heavily pedophiliac and criminal, these are versed internet users and of course well grounded over the years in their abominable business (...)" - it takes 15 seconds to change the DNS server...

On June 18th 2009 the government has passed the law for web blocking with 389 against 128 votes, currently limited to content which is identified as child pornography by the BKA (according to unknown guidelines). The law should have come into effect on August 1st 2009 but was delayed due to the missing acknowledgement of the EU. Currently it is planned to take effect in mid of September.

Personally I think that the blocking will be implemented as currently planned. Although I hope that the complaints at the Federal Constitutional Court will be successful I don't think so since one can not really talk of censorship if things like child pornography are blocked. However, if the blocking should be extended to other contents it will become really interesting. For know all people like me can do is to support the Piratenpartei Deutschland which is strictly against censorship and web blocking. I do not agree with their views in all points, especially the attitude towards copyright, but I like the idea of such a party in the cabinet.

PS: Don't miss the Zensursula Song!

August, 4 2009 - Brachypelma auratum: A bird spider called Tiffany

For now Tiffany is my new pet. I admit that I could not imagine to live with a bird spider in one apartment but with time and some fascination this changed. The genus Brachypelma is a family of medium sized bird spiders living in Mexico. The most familiar species is Brachypelma smithi which actually looks very similar to Brachypelma auratum. However, the latter one is darker and has red knees while smithies have yellow to orange colors. Both species are very peaceful. Nevertheless they have quite huge poison fangs just like and spider. A bite is comparable to the sting of a wasp but due to the large fangs I assume it is more painful. Biting is only the very last resort for these spiders. If they feel provoked they can strip hairs from her abdomen which feels like a nettle. Anyway, the most common reaction to trouble of any kind is escape.

My spider, called Tiffany, was born in April 2008 as offspring in Germany and I bought her on July 13, 2009. One week later I received her in a small tube. She is about 2.5cm in length (body only). Two weeks later, on July 28, she shed (good timing) and another week later she took her first grass hopper. Although I had some problems with the humidity of the terrarium and all the stress due to shipment and skinning she seems to be very fine. Some pictures will follow when my camera is working again.