Indeed. I had to join the demo despite the weather today. No need for OpenDNS yet though - my ISP still lets me see Nikki's site and buy musical instruments online, for example.
The Finnish government is a sad parody of what it once was. Once it dealt with both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and came up on top and turned the country from an economically abused agricultural colony (located at the arctic circle, as an icing on the cake) suffering from a civil war into a peaceful, democratic, industrial first-world country. The current version, on the other hand, falls all over itself trying to bow down to Russia, EU and the USA simultaneously while passing one bad, freedom-removing law after another. The new finnish copyright law, the so-called "Lex Karpela", is a perfect example: even the government which passed it itself admitted it doesn't know what it actually forbids or allows, but passed it anyway.
I'm curious if TKK closes my account if I put a working mirror inside an iframe on my personal webpage. I'll try after I've returned all exercises that require a working account to TKK's IT-services.
@bergie TKY's nameservers do not use the blocklist. So no need for OpenDNS yet.
Interesting thing is that now we know that TKK's administration can easily block your studying by revoking your account. Then all single-sign-on services cease to function. I still wonder why did not they just close the webpage only...
Welcome, I've changed already... There are just so many things wrong here, even if one believes internet censorship could work: Kasvi sums it up pretty well (in finnish). But hey, at least they're thinking of the children!
@topyli I hope that you guys in Finland only has a dns-based blacklist and not a filter that works alá "The Great Firewall" in China (that is more complex).
@topyli The good thing is that it's only DNS-based. But the aspect of censorship isn't very pretty.
@bergie Yes indeed, and I am not very happy to know that certain organizations in Sweden prides themselves to be "pioneers" in this area. However, from what I have read is that Finland's filter is even more "comprehensive" (if one can use that word) than the Swedish ditto.
@hypocrisy somewhere I saw that Finland filters 1700 domains, and Sweden 4700. But the numbers filtered are obviously not the big question here, but instead what is being filtered.
Heh, I'm pretty sure Lindén is simply trying to make a living surfing the government. She is now slowly realizing that something has gone terribly wrong. All she has said so far on interviews is "child porn is bad" and "I didn't do it, it was the previous government's idea".
@hypocrisy: I've read few years ago in Hesari int-l that local Nixu OY guys were doing "the great firewall" for Saudi Arabia, and they presumably succeed. In other words we have local skills and, granted, money doesn't smell...
@FyreFiend Yes, now it says so - thus I wondered :) @bergie Yes, from what I gathered reading the news is that sites criticizing this "cold firewall of Finland" (the great "beerwall"? ;)) is getting blocked, which is horrific if it's true. @topyli It makes me really angry if there is a conscensus that a dns-blacklist would help both against the distribution of childporn but in the long run; help the victims (which is the most important)! @silpol If I am not mistaken; Saudi Arabia has a content based filter rather than a dns-blacklist.
She should just stick to giving her golfing buddies public money, the useless stupid bint. Where do they dig up these idiots? Is there a pod farm somewhere in Kauniainen where these fuckers are grown like industrial torture chickens?
@FyreFiend: DNS, content, whatever. No kind of filtering helps the victims of course. What boggles me the most in fact is when lawmakers and/or the police suggest their blacklist and fighting the child porn industry are somehow related.
@topyli Another twisted logic is that when you are opposed dns-blacklists (or blacklists att all), you are a "supporter of child porn". It is just so absurd that I don't know where to start :(
In the UK and US, child porn and paedos have for decades been a handy way of stirring up arm-waving hysteria in the populace. They're a negligible threat at the worst of times (statistically), but a permanent hot-button issue that can be used to ramrod all kinds of bullshit through without anyone daring to really object. All discourse is patently impossible, on par with the Israeli question and its numerous detonations of the anti-Semitism a-bomb, which kills all conversation dead. As per usual, Finand is a couple of decades behind the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere, but apparently we are entering the age of yellow press idiocy and politicking, full bore.
On the other hand, as the copyright law so amply demonstrated, it's not like you can actually have a discussion about anything in this country anyway, because it's all been decided already and, generally, everyone's wrong.
Does the Parliament have any kind of Internet advisor/minister of Internet, etc, like science advisors? I get the feeling that the main problem is that hardly anyone in parliament "gets" the Internet, and when they're told "porn sites are blocked" they take that at face value and think "Porn goes magically away! Good. Next item."
36 comments so far
Information wants to be free? :)
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@topyli Hell yeah
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
Indeed. I had to join the demo despite the weather today. No need for OpenDNS yet though - my ISP still lets me see Nikki's site and buy musical instruments online, for example.
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
Welho happily showed me the police warning instead. I wonder if one should complain to consumer ombudsman for that?
Shame I missed the demo, I was too busy installing some software on-site in Otaniemi.
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
Beautiful comment on Slashdot:
The Finnish government is a sad parody of what it once was. Once it dealt with both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and came up on top and turned the country from an economically abused agricultural colony (located at the arctic circle, as an icing on the cake) suffering from a civil war into a peaceful, democratic, industrial first-world country. The current version, on the other hand, falls all over itself trying to bow down to Russia, EU and the USA simultaneously while passing one bad, freedom-removing law after another. The new finnish copyright law, the so-called "Lex Karpela", is a perfect example: even the government which passed it itself admitted it doesn't know what it actually forbids or allows, but passed it anyway.
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
I'm curious if TKK closes my account if I put a working mirror inside an iframe on my personal webpage. I'll try after I've returned all exercises that require a working account to TKK's IT-services.
@bergie TKY's nameservers do not use the blocklist. So no need for OpenDNS yet.
1 year, 9 months ago by tepheikk
@ tepheikk: A mirror of a page with links, inside an iframe eh? Sounds like the admins should prepare for an exercise on virtual ontology. =)
How did this guy who did get his account canceled host the material?
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@topyli : He made a complete mirror to TKK's webserver to his own homepage. Complete story is there http://users.tkk.fi/~jsuvileh/mirror/lapsiporno.info/
Interesting thing is that now we know that TKK's administration can easily block your studying by revoking your account. Then all single-sign-on services cease to function. I still wonder why did not they just close the webpage only...
1 year, 9 months ago by tepheikk
@bergie OpenDNS has it's flaws though. Giving answers to non-existing domains is one, who can see your surfing habits is another.
As you are a Finn, have you tried to use KTH's nameservers?
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
Welcome, I've changed already... There are just so many things wrong here, even if one believes internet censorship could work: Kasvi sums it up pretty well (in finnish). But hey, at least they're thinking of the children!
1 year, 9 months ago by jku0
@hypocrisy Some ISPs are starting to pull that giving you a landing page trick on non-existing domains.
1 year, 9 months ago by FyreFiend
Thanks @tepheikk, seems pretty well documented!
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@FyreFiend and that is just plain wrong! I'm seriously thining about setting up my own nameservers on a dedicated server somewhere. Who's with me?
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
@topyli I hope that you guys in Finland only has a dns-based blacklist and not a filter that works alá "The Great Firewall" in China (that is more complex).
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
@hypocrisy level3's name server (4.2.2.1) works pretty well, even if it's a little slow to update.
1 year, 9 months ago by FyreFiend
@hypocricy: The system is pretty simple and based on DNS, which is both good (easy to go around) and bad (lots of false positives).
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@hyporcrisy I think we just follow the Swedish model in this, like in everything else. Almost as we'd have outsourced government to Stockholm :-)
(on a second thought, given the current government we have, that might not be such a bad idea)
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
@topyli The good thing is that it's only DNS-based. But the aspect of censorship isn't very pretty.
@bergie Yes indeed, and I am not very happy to know that certain organizations in Sweden prides themselves to be "pioneers" in this area. However, from what I have read is that Finland's filter is even more "comprehensive" (if one can use that word) than the Swedish ditto.
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
@FyreFiend 4.2.2.1 used to be in Verizon's net, is Level3 operating Verizon's traffic now?
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
@bergie and the only thing that would be the perfect ending for this all is that our prime minister sends apologies to some direction, just in case.
1 year, 9 months ago by tepheikk
@hypocrisy somewhere I saw that Finland filters 1700 domains, and Sweden 4700. But the numbers filtered are obviously not the big question here, but instead what is being filtered.
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
@hypocrisy 'whois' says it's on level3's network so shrug
1 year, 9 months ago by FyreFiend
@tepheikk this would be a good start. But obviously more heads than just that one should roll...
1 year, 9 months ago by bergie
Heh, I'm pretty sure Lindén is simply trying to make a living surfing the government. She is now slowly realizing that something has gone terribly wrong. All she has said so far on interviews is "child porn is bad" and "I didn't do it, it was the previous government's idea".
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@hypocrisy: I've read few years ago in Hesari int-l that local Nixu OY guys were doing "the great firewall" for Saudi Arabia, and they presumably succeed. In other words we have local skills and, granted, money doesn't smell...
1 year, 9 months ago by silpol
@FyreFiend Yes, now it says so - thus I wondered :) @bergie Yes, from what I gathered reading the news is that sites criticizing this "cold firewall of Finland" (the great "beerwall"? ;)) is getting blocked, which is horrific if it's true. @topyli It makes me really angry if there is a conscensus that a dns-blacklist would help both against the distribution of childporn but in the long run; help the victims (which is the most important)! @silpol If I am not mistaken; Saudi Arabia has a content based filter rather than a dns-blacklist.
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
She should just stick to giving her golfing buddies public money, the useless stupid bint. Where do they dig up these idiots? Is there a pod farm somewhere in Kauniainen where these fuckers are grown like industrial torture chickens?
1 year, 9 months ago by tolonen
@FyreFiend: DNS, content, whatever. No kind of filtering helps the victims of course. What boggles me the most in fact is when lawmakers and/or the police suggest their blacklist and fighting the child porn industry are somehow related.
1 year, 9 months ago by topyli
@topyli Another twisted logic is that when you are opposed dns-blacklists (or blacklists att all), you are a "supporter of child porn". It is just so absurd that I don't know where to start :(
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
In the UK and US, child porn and paedos have for decades been a handy way of stirring up arm-waving hysteria in the populace. They're a negligible threat at the worst of times (statistically), but a permanent hot-button issue that can be used to ramrod all kinds of bullshit through without anyone daring to really object. All discourse is patently impossible, on par with the Israeli question and its numerous detonations of the anti-Semitism a-bomb, which kills all conversation dead. As per usual, Finand is a couple of decades behind the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere, but apparently we are entering the age of yellow press idiocy and politicking, full bore.
1 year, 9 months ago by tolonen
On the other hand, as the copyright law so amply demonstrated, it's not like you can actually have a discussion about anything in this country anyway, because it's all been decided already and, generally, everyone's wrong.
1 year, 9 months ago by tolonen
Today's copyright law is pretty okay actually, then there are people on "both sides" trying to abuse the meaning of it, of course.
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
(speaking from a swedish perspective)
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy
I have a larger problem with the way the debate was framed than the actual law, on the whole.
1 year, 9 months ago by tolonen
Does the Parliament have any kind of Internet advisor/minister of Internet, etc, like science advisors? I get the feeling that the main problem is that hardly anyone in parliament "gets" the Internet, and when they're told "porn sites are blocked" they take that at face value and think "Porn goes magically away! Good. Next item."
1 year, 9 months ago by spongefile
@spongefile Minister of communications?
1 year, 9 months ago by hypocrisy