The cesspool of the internet is to be found in a village in North Holland
nrc.nl
nrc.nl
The Dutch hosting company doesn't obey US law. My god! Can you believe these assholes? Running a hosting company that just hosts, and doesn't snoop into what their customers are doing? And how dare they make enforcement agencies actually go through the required legal processes to enforce the law!
Of course some will claim that provisions exist for damages to be claimed in the event of false takedowns, but it is hard if not impossible to collect. Typically you need to provide all of your personal data to respond.
I know of some people who basically finance their niche bulletin boards via police requests - they get something in the range of 2-3 digits (€) for a information request. Get a few of these a year and your hosting costs are paid.
There's not a lot of money to be made but if it's your hobby anyways..
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2706
"...this title shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information."
Not your lawyer. Just providing a link to an example law describing how some ISPs can profit from data requests.
I remember uploading a BF3 montage on YouTube some eons ago when it was all the rage, no copyrighted music or anything. I received a DMCA claim by some spanish tv/broadcasting company or something along those lines, totally unrelated to my content.
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The fact that DMCA claims can be issued with no human interaction and no repurcussions is beyond me. If anything, the hosting company should at least issue penalties on false claims.
If penalties are issued by the hosting company, then they just won't be paid. Then you lose: there's no way to take all the non-paying offenders to court, and you can't ignore subsequent requests, so you wind up in the same situation as you're in now.
Instead, move the onus off the hosting company: if they receive from some entity a DMCA takedown that is believed to be false (according to whatever standards are applied to counterclaims), then no further takedown notices from that entity are required to be obeyed until the entity takes appropriate remedial action.
There are no standards for counterclaims except format standards. All a counterclaim does is permit undoing a takedown without the provider being liable, transferring determination of who is right to litigation between the purported copyright owner and the content uploader with the host fully immunized.
> A DMCA claim (or takedown) is when a copyright holder notifies a service provider that they have infringing material on their site/service. It is also known as a “Notification of Infringement”. For example, Twitch has these guidelines for submitting DMCA claims. Essentially it boils down to send in writing who you are, who is infringing your rights, how they’re doing it, and swear under penalty of perjury that you are telling the truth.
https://blog.pretzel.rocks/lets-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-...
I mean, there is no getting around it if you want the countersuit to work and reflect poorly on the claimant, but you are agreeing to letting the U.S. have extra-territorial jurisdiction.
If the falsity is only in regard to the not-under-perjury parts of a takedown notice (like, say, that there is infringing content!), then you maybe, in some circumstances, have a tortious interference claim, but, generally, you are screwed. If you are lucky, your host has and follows a counternotice process and you can get the material back up, but recovering any damages is unlikely.
> For reasons that are unclear, the web form that the two men drew up for reporting gruesome images is designed in such a way that the system can only handle five reports an hour. That is unworkable, according to the hotline.
> I might care more once laws start protecting children from those in power more than used by those in power as a ploy to dismantle privacy from ordinary people.
In response to a thread comment regarding to the said hosting provider making it purposely difficult to report such matters...
The link between hosting child porn and child protection is much more subject to argument. I'd suggest it is banned because enough people suspect the link to be there, not because of any certainty.
It is unfortunately common for terrible ideas to be shepherded in under the pretence of thinking about the children. There needs to be debate about costs and benefits of this stuff beyond the crystal clear parts. It isn't reasonable to just assume someone doesn't care about protecting children just because they're willing to host anything. Although in this case they are being rather disrespectful to the people who use the form and that doesn't sit well with me.
Is there anything in the article indicating that child porn policies are being used to reduce ordinary people's privacy? From the article it sounds like they just want the child porn taken down, not any details about anyone.
Chucking a DMCA in the trash sounds like it's against Dutch law
On that matter though, here's what copyright.gov has to say:
"There is no such thing as an “international copyright” that will automatically protect an author’s writings throughout the world. Protection against unauthorized use in a particular country depends on the national laws of that country."
To use a claim for any purpose other than enforcing your own copyrights (since 'illegal images' is such a broad term) is illegal in of itself.
The DMCA itself has no jurisdiction outside of the US regardless of the person accessing the data is within the US.
In order to submit a DMCA claim, one has to do so under the penalty of perjury.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
>(vi)A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
A DMCA claim isn't a "notification of illegal images." It is a statement of "I own the (copy)rights to this work and you do not have permission to host/use it."
Like can a child pornographer sue someone for pirating their content? Sounds absurd to me.
That reminds me a lot of the saga of Kim Dotcom
I blame the regulators for not having the foresight to codify into some law that would prevent this situation.
In my opinion this is quite a good thing, considering this would ditribute the datacenters more across the netherlands.
"We think people should use renewable energy!"
"Oh no, we didn't mean them!"
It's hard to pin it on them legally but they are still dicks doing dicky things, they know it and they do it on purpose, and there is no clear way to fight it.
I doubt many here would defend the way the business is being run. But misguided attempts at regulating the internet at the legislative level gives rise to these kinds of problems in the market. I am sure many here are simply sick of seeing this play out again and again. Just like how drug prohibition gave rise to international drug cartels, internet content regulation gives rise to data centers that flaunt those rules.
The laws in the Netherlands need to be updated to ensure that data hosting centres and their owners can't get away with criminal negligence.
And to everyone complaining about this with a "but my free speech" excuse - there are extensive legal procedures which ensure that allegations of criminal negligence are conducted openly and fairly.
How the Netherlands managed to avoid creating criminal negligence laws for these scenarios is beyond me.
If the laws did exist, they would require data centres to be aware of the content which is hosted and promptly remove clients if the law is violated. No, this isn't "snooping" or an infringement on your "free speech" - in fact, these measures ensure that free speech flourishes while removing the illegal garbage.
Now, once again, is the rebuttal of "but the government uses laws to unfairly censor people" - so then are you all for not having any laws? We have laws, they work - even though governments have abused them. But the answer is not to stop having laws.
As an example, Russia is threatening to ban Twitter completely citing child pornography laws[1]. It's pretty straightforward how a law like this gets abused. I think the question is, do you trust governments enough to give them the power to censor the internet?
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/russia-threaten-block-twitter-726...
And we need police and courts to apply those laws, not power hungry politicians and media giants.
There certainly exist content so bad that I want it off the Internet, but I do not want that to be used as an excuse to let those who are already powerful act as judge, jury and executioner.
Why?
Serious question. When are laws too many? (According to some history, 10 laws were too many and most people were ignoring them.)
Are a trillion laws too many? A billion? A million? A thousand? What if we had a thousand laws, but each law had a million pages?
(I'm pretty sure we're at over a billion pages of laws if we take into account all the laws in the world - as multinational companies are supposed to do.)
When, exactly, should we say "this is excessive"?
Technologically the state can't enforce it. So if you get your wish you made a law that only spies on law-abiding citizens.
In your plea we can simply start here:
"data centres to be aware of the content which is hosted"
Is the datacenter responsible for the content MyImages.rar? What if its password protected? What if everybody knows the password?
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Any 'techinical' solution will require extremely complex infrastructure, laws, and safeguards. A never ending bureaucratic nightmare of "does this cross the line"? and it only force the bad guys to throw the needle in a different hay stack. ( And make it more difficult for the government hackers to watch the bad guys )
This pushes all of the mainstream providers into compliance. At that point you get specialist criminal providers, which you can target with much more prejudice.
It would have been airport security that made him throw it away, not customs. At that time, the UK was part of the customs union, so there were no customs on a flight between the Netherlands and UK.
Edit: as hand-luggage
Odd, as in the US, there is no limit if in your checked baggage if below 24% ABV, and 5 liters if 24% - 70% (carry on has much stricter limits [3.4oz or less that can fit comfortably in one quart-sized, clear, zip-top bag], but is still permitted).
https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2019/06/21/tsa-travel-tip-traveling...
You're not allowed to open the bag on the flight, obviously.
The duty free is inside the secure area, you've already passed security.
they were correct, the international arrivals required another bag check to enter the domestic part of the airport, that had the stringent TSA rules (after you went through customs and collected your luggage, before you could drop your luggage off again for your next flight).
so, it appears to be airport by airport when traveling to the US.
Not doubting your experience because policies change, but every US airport I've flown into has customs and immigration after an international flight, and after re-checking in your hold baggage if you have any, virtually all then route you to the normal TSA check before a domestic flight unless there's an airside transfer option directly to the gates.
at this point, you could no longer have anything in your checked baggage that could not go through standard TSA security, as you were already inside the secured area. some airlines (Alaska, for instance) allowed you to check your baggage PAST that security area, but you still had to make it past.
since you had already picked up your checked baggage, and no longer could get to any connecting flights without either exiting the airport completely (far away from other flights), or going through security again with your luggage to continue to the monorail, you were pretty much screwed.
editing to add: there were a lot of very unhappy people who had their airline provided or purchased past security water bottles being taken away before they could continue to their domestic flights. I have no clue exactly how far I would have had to walk outside of security to get to the domestic terminal, but my flight was so soon that I would never have chanced it.
double editing to add that I've flown international through other airports and never had that type of experience other than through Seattle.
triple editing to note that even SEATAC seemed to think this was a mess and the new international arrivals terminal is due to open "soon".
B.S.
Before a flight, a highly paid (given what they do) security theather monkey tried to demand that I forfeit an expensive bottle.
Knowing full well how it works in most countries, where the loots are split at the end of the day, I said "watch this", chugged it down, and voluntarily surrendered the now empty bottle.
At least I enjoyed it partly!
Even if later I did throw up during the flight, I prefer being sick than my luxury bottle being stolen by a security theater monkey.
It was a smelly flight however. Sorry, plane ground! Sorry, seat neighbours!
But it was funny when the stewardess asked my why I was sick: I just told the truth, I was drunk! What was she going to do anyway? Throw me out of the first class and into the main cabin?
Or this woman who similarly risked death? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/25/woman-downs-wh...
> “She was rolling on the ground, shouting"
She needs to learn to hold her liquor better.
They’re....close but it isn’t the same.
In case you were asking literally: security are the people that make you throw out liquids due to bomb threats and check for weapons. Customs see you after the plane across a border and check that you didn’t bring anything that requires payment of border tax. If you do, they will make you pay the tax at the border before entry.
This is hilarious, I wish less sketchy companies would do this to DMCA requests.
If you are, then there is something seriously wrong with you.
> Grapperhaus instituted a number of measures. A technical system for detecting child pornography – a hashcheckserver – would be set up that hosting companies could join.
Does that mean “CP is hosted disproportionately in the Netherlands” or “CP hosted in the Netherlands is disproportionately likely to be discovered”?
Uncovering sources of CP is done pretty much equally for all countries considering the nature of the distribution of content and how it is uncovered and traced back.
Here's an article describing the procedure and how the statistic was calculated: https://www.tellerreport.com/life/--why-is-there-so-much-chi...
> "In 2018, slightly more than 200,000 links with possible child pornography were investigated," explains Wido Potters of industry organization ISPConnect Netherlands. "Of the reports that ultimately concerned child pornography, 80 percent were on an image board."
These have been listened to, and a campaign to undermine criminality by law enforcement has been setup with moderate success. The issue is known in government and action is being taken. At the same time, our value and expertise is largely in logistics. Government tries to balance economic interests against crime fighting.
Meanwhile we are a huge logistics hub with a relatively small police force (cause we are a small country). So it makes sense that we are attractive for criminals.
What worries me most is the port of Rotterdam. It is big, vital, and known to have quite a large criminal element embedded in the workforce. Fixing that whilst keeping the port operational is probably quite difficult.
A pristine record with whom?
I've worked for several years, on and off, in the Netherlands (and enjoyed doing so, mostly), and it has always seemed to me that they simply ignore any crimes and corruption they can't be bothered with.
There are drug labs basically everywhere in the countryside.
All global organized crime syndicates have a local presence.
With regards to prostitution, human trafficking has actually increased and prostitutes get imported and pimped out. Half the business is legal so the police have even less incentive to care, especially if the victim and the pimp are both foreign. Basically free tax money and no harm (to ethnic Dutch people).
There's also lots of arms trafficking.
Note: Since 2020 there have been some minor experiments with letting municipalities grow cannabis.
"Grapperhaus instituted a number of measures. [...] Companies would have to respond to a notification from the child pornography hotline without discussion within 24 hours"
"In 2015, Ecatel became embroiled in a lengthy conflict with the Premier League in the UK over claims of illegal streaming of football matches over Ecatel’s network. Streams must be removed by court order within 20 minutes of a notification."
By that logic we should leave it up indefinitely?
I find it hard to say that even a full illegal football stream hurts more people than even a second of leaving child pornography up.
You probably don't want to continue hosting it as some visitors to your website might leave your site or it may cause PR issues if you keep it up.
>than even a second of leaving child pornography up
There is no harm do doing that. Child porn is a single internet search away and people into that kind of stuff probably already have those kind of sites bookmarked. A few random visitors seeing those kind of images is not going to hurt anyone. A full illegal stream is a potential lost sale where a second of child porn doesn't really do much since there already exist many free alternatives on the internet.
I also gave reasons why it would be in your best interest to remove the images even if you had immunity from the legal problems from doing so. It's similar how you might not want to host gore.
If you go off the number of agents prosecuted for it, the FBI crime labs wholesale invention and fraudulent presentation of fiber “science” in both its own and, as a service provided to states, state prosecutions leading to numerous convictions and at least three executions grounded in state-agent perjury victimized zero people, too.
Law enforcement tends not to hold its own agents accountable for victimizing people, an issue which some particularly-victimized communities have made some high-profile complaints about over the last few years.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2011/05/23/199...
Both of these statements are not correct for a large sum of both types of content. The proof is incredibly easy to show.
> In the UK, ISPs are legally forced to block certain types of websites, such as those hosting copyright-infringing or trademarked content. Some ISPs also block other sites at their discretion, such as those that show extremist content, adult images, and child pornography. These latter blocks are voluntary and are not the same across the UK, but most ISPs usually tend to block child abuse content.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/uk-isp-group-names-mozilla-int...
Really law enforcement is to blame for not arresting these CP distributors causing trouble for Ecatel.
Ecatel doesn't protect criminals, I've been the subject of an investigation which involved servers there and they did everything the police asked of them.
> If the companies that give IP Volume access to the rest of the internet were all to decide to stop doing so, the company could no longer operate on the internet. This is called de-peering, and it does occur very sporadically.
> But it is highly controversial, says Guilmette. It flies in the face of the voluntary, decentralised structure of the internet. That is why the largest hub, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, say they won’t do it. A spokesman for the exchange: „We are only a highway, we have nothing to do with the content. You surely can’t expect us to paternalistically review what such a party is hosting?”
It's like youtube saying that they're simply "a highway" for video hosting. If it's moving through your platform, you have to be aware of what it is. There are police monitoring highways, there is extensive monitoring on youtube, so why is AIM pretending that the same rules don't apply?
Its like saying the postman most open, read and understand every piece of mail before delivering it, and the police must search inside every car before it may drive on the road.
Be polite.
I don't know about death threats though. But I for sure would feel intimidated as hell.
OP did not claim that, OP claimed letter bombs and death threats. I ask for a source on that, and you provide a link which does not deliver at all.
https://www.gelderlander.nl/nijmegen/huub-bellemakers-gl-wor...
Rumoured letter bombs were around new years (Cobras). They were rumours, mind - it's not like they've made specific claims.
So are you backtracking on the letter bombs? They were merely rumors?
That's the whole point of being an anarchist.