Experts doubt plan to block bomb recipes on Web

EU security commissioner wants to block Web searches for bomb recipes, obligate ISPs to prevent access to sites containing them.

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[JJouni]

Funny and stupid

This is not EU proposal but silly idea from Italys commisioner, who had made these kind of "proposals" earlier too. Like banning some PC games.
This word killing now, is just being totally stupid, is also dangerous that somebody is even thinking it.
However, if really, italian person can make it happen, he will found few problems in finnish language.
Few examples. Bomb is in Finnish base word "pommi" and then some 13 forms, pommini, pommista, pommiin etc.
And can be part of longer word like hintapommi (means great price value, eg super sale)
So, what is that AI application to clear all pommit from Finnish text..
JJ

[Marcus Westrup]

This is sad

Join the military (any military), and one of the things they teach you is how to improvise explosives. Or don't we trust our soldiers anymore?
Just about anyone who is smart enough to use a computer in the first place can figure it out. It's just high school chemistry.

Fear mongering and censorship does Not promote security. You would be better off teaching people more about explosives so they can recognize one when they see one.

[The_Decider]

Not in the US

Not in basic training

[chuck_whealton]

Re: This is sad

Wait a minute, Marcus.

How is preventing people from getting instructions on how to make bombs "fear mongering"?

It maybe censorship, I'll give you that, but when you consider the fact that nobody has a legitimate need to acquire bomb making instructions online, it's censorship I'm glad to live with.

Why do you need instructions for making bombs to be available online?

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[umbrae]

EU is the new China

The only way to accomplish this is to make the Government the ISP and filter/censor content to everyone.

A free country should never censor information. Learning "how" to build a bomb has scientific merit, and does not mean someone will "build" a bomb.

As FYI, this article and all comments would also be filtered by the EU proposal: even though it has nothing to do with building bombs.

[NickH]

Huge problems

Assumption 1. Preventing web-based dissemination of bomb-making instructions would improve our security.

Reality 1a. Many terrorist organisations, for example, the IRA, we successfully training bomb-makers well before the advent of the web.

Reality 1b. Do terrorist organisation even use the web for this purpose. What about these famous training camps in places like Afganistan etc.

Assumption 2. A little bit of censorship is harmless.

Reality 2. No, its just the start of a slipper slope of erosion of civil liberties.

Assumption 3. This is technically possible.

Reality 3a. What about all the potential langauges to be used? what about bitmaps of the documents? what about spoken instructions in MP3. There would be a million and one ways to get around this.

Reality 3b. Who will bear the cost of this. Yes, the already over-taxed european citizen

Reality 3c. What about all the false positives. I justed googled "Bomb Kill Genocide" which returned 1,500,000 hits. Most of the hits were on news articles discussing this very issue. They would be blocked - how very democratic.

[mbenedict]

EU laws scarier than Patriot Act

We hear so much about the USA Patriot Act we forget laws in other jurisdictions are so much scarier.

In Europe, basic freedoms we take for granted (like Freedom of Speech) is not guaranteed. Political parties can be banned by governments (e.g in Germany.) Or look at the intrusive level of surveillance allowed in the UK.

Other G8 countries have draconian laws as well. In Canada they can hold you in prison forever if you're deemed a "security threat", even if you're acquited of guilt OR even *after* you've served your sentence if you get convicted. Until recently even Canadian citizens can be held indefinately without trial using "security certificates."

The USA, after all, is still land of the free.

[richto]

At least its not as bad as in the USA!

Things are far worse in the USA, for instance things that are taken for granted in the EU, like a right to privacy simply don't exist in the USA! Hence Bush is monitoring billions of phone calls and the internet access of all americians (and anything else that goes via the USA) with no judicial oversight whatsoever. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5193894.stm

Then we must remember that the USA persecutes the Iraqi population on one hand calling them terrorists (even though they are resisting the illegal occuaption of their country), whilst on the other hand the USA spends billions of dollars funding terrorist states like Israel. See http://gowans.blogspot.com/2006/08/israel-and-state-terrorism.html

Don't forget that it was the CIA that spent over $1 Billion training and arming Osama Bin Laden and his buddies in Afghanistan.

The CIA is the worlds largest and best funded terrorist organisation. See http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_terr.html

Lets not forget that the USA are holding hundreds of people including CHILDREN in Guantanamo bay, indefinately without any judicial process or even any evidence of guilt of anything in many case.

Then we can look at the USA 'rendition' flights where often completely innocent people were kidnapped and then tortured by the USA. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2000021,00.html

Would that be the land of the 'free' where over 11,000 people were murdered with firearms last year? I think life is much better elsewhere, thanks.

[Leria]

What is the best way to stop terrorism?

Simply to get rid of all religion, and make people realize (by force if necessary and imprisonment) that it is NEVER right or necessary to kill someone else, unless they are trying to kill you first and at that very moment.

Getting rid of knowledge is not going to do anything.... In all reality, I can walk into a library and walk out with a book that tells me the chemical formula for Semtex and other explosives, as well as how to make them.

They don't even have a list on that book of the people who take it out!