Hi! Trying to kill the keyboard, hattons@CPKWEBSER5.ncr.disa.mil produced:
Paranoia on the net regarding censorship is a good thing. I have been spiked several times by CompuServe. I believe that part of the reason CompuServe does this is because the nature of German communication laws.
Actually, no, the laws are now a bit saner so that (basically) content providers have to answer for their content, but you don't have to answer for stuff that you just relay (i.e. usenet) --- unless you have been specifically told of unlawful messages. However, we have a country Bavaria whose inhabitants seem very rabit on only allowing whatever they think is OK on the net (and everywhere else). And some of their judges are ... ahem!
A CompuServe executive was convicted of a serious crime because ot the content of information available though the service.
Actually both sides, the defendant's attorney and the (hmm, judical english, the drift is right, the words may be choosen better) district attorney both pledged to release the executive as being not guilty. The judge however seems not to have understood the difference between usenet (remember when CS closed 200 Newsgroups --- well, the judge thinks that was too little, too late and insuficient or something) and the WWW or something. Yes, some judges are utterly ravingly mad. Luckily, there are higher courts. (No jury system here.)
Is it possible that my ISP is blocking everything with this address? For example: If my ISP wanted to stop all email to and from "@commie.com" (this is not my group) could they do it?
As long as this appears in the headers, yes. If it has an IP-Number (or range), yes, even more. Maybe (in the latter case) commie.com is in the RBL (Realtime Black Hole, where Spammers IP's are going, see URL:<A HREF="http://maps.vix.com/rbl/"><A HREF="http://maps.vix.com/rbl/</A">http://maps.vix.com/rbl/</A</A>>).
Or is there someplace in Germany that could do this?
No. We have no centralized servers. One could block connections from/to IP-numbers, but only if the blocker and the blocked IP communicate. You could however try to get an order from the court that forces blockage, but non-PC talk would not do it. Did you try telnet to that place? Did you talk to the list owner (there's a phone, too, if email won't work)? -Wolfgang PS: IANAL -- PGP 2 welcome: Mail me, subject "send PGP-key". If you've nothing at all to hide, you must be boring. Unsolicited Bulk E-Mails: *You* pay for ads you never wanted. Is our economy _so_ weak we have to tolerate SPAMMERS? I guess not. - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e