If my memory serves well: one of the guy writing the (rather harsh) pages agains the judge had... her (foreigner) wife (deported | casted out)* of switzerland.

So, "unjustifiable" sound uninformed: you can understand better the whole issue with this information in hand.

I remember having Mme Juge Françoise Dessaules or some close lastname, on the phone, on the begginning of this issue, it was in 1998 (!), there was no legal framework for her request, I was suprised of their (the judges) reaction when reading the rather lousy written, worded, pages, those few pages had a big impact in their head while not of significant relevance for anyone looking for good quality information.

(* had to look in the translation dictionnary for this, not sure the meaning is the best)

Regards.

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On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:33 AM, Norbert Bollow nb@bollow.ch wrote: roger@mgz.ch wrote:

Im wondering why this guy taking a big risk in creating those pages somebody must have triggered that sickness.

I looked into this a bit back in August last year, seeking to understand what got those guys so upset. IMO the actions of those guys in creating those pages, and protesting in other (at least in part also illegal) ways, are unjustifiable.

However that does not at all justify that judge's decision to push Switzerland onto the slippery slope of censorship.

there are open points, how to finance the equipment.

*If* that court order turns ends up being binding, my understanding is that the equipment will have to be financed just like all other equipment that is required for operating an ISP in accordance with the needs of the customers and the requirements of the law.

How to handle an finance an ISP get sued by an client for censorship ?

If the ISP blocks *only* websites for which a court order to block them has been served on the ISP, it should be possible to get any complaint dismissed very inexpensively by pointing to that court order.

This implies IMO that ISPs should avoid IP-based blocking. I would suggest to configure, in the nameservers which you make available to your customers, false authoritative DNS responses for any domains that you're required to block. Point them to a page which instructs visitors to direct any enquiries regarding the reasons for the block to the court which ordered the block, quoting the case number.

Of course this is easy to circumvent for any knowledgable person, but it fulfils the requirement, and it's cheap and relatively transparent.

Is the commanding Court legitimated to force all swiss ISP to follow this order ?

This is unclear to me as well.

Another question is this: What happens when one of those domain names expires and someone else registers it and uses it for some quite honorable purpose? That (now-suspended) court order does not appear to foresee any way in which the censorship order could be challenged at a later time on the grounds that the censorship demand no longer has any legal basis.

what does SIUG say to that topic ? there sems to be no activity at all.

I have a few hours ago put up copies of the two recent court orders (without the lists of ISP contact person names, which IMO raise some privacy concerns) together with a very minimal comment up on siug.ch

If you're interested in seeing SIUG take further action, such as publishing a position statement that explains why such censorship is a bad idea, or organizing public events (e.g. a podium discussion) on this topic, well, you're welcome to volunteer to do the necessary work, or pay someone to do it. :-)

Best regards Norbert Bollow, president of SIUG