[ISN] The Netizen: Order Out of Chaos (german/hacker/ccc)

From: jerichot_private
Date: Tue Apr 21 1998 - 13:33:11 PDT

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    Forwarded From: Aleph One <aleph1t_private>
    
       http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/11732.html 
       
       The Netizen: Order Out of Chaos
       by David Hudson 
       
       7:25pm  17.Apr.98.PDT
       
       As the spokesperson for Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Andy
       Müller-Maguhn is changing Deutschlanders' attitudes toward the hacker
       community by advising the German government on information policy.
       Last year he warned his country's parliament, the Bundestag, about the
       dangers of holding ISPs liable for content carried on their networks.
       The resulting multimedia law exempted providers from outright
       liability, although they must still take steps to block Web sites
       known to serve up child pornography or neo-Nazi propaganda.
       
       Since its informal founding in 1981 the CCC has exposed security
       holes in systems people count on, such as the German post office
       network from which the CCC extracted, and promptly returned, DM135,000
       (about US$75,000). More recently, the organization has shown how
       easily the PIN code used in Eurocheque ATMs can be obtained, even as
       banks have insisted that the cards are secure.
       
       As Deutsche Telekom's monopoly grip on German telephony loosens, and
       as European Union telecommunications commissioner Martin Bangemann
       forges policies that will shape Europe's role in the information
       society, advocates of privacy and free access to information will
       continue to turn to the CCC for guidance and technical assistance. "In
       America hackers are perceived as a threat," Müller-Maguhn says. "But
       here in Germany, we have a more positive view."
       
       This article originally appeared in the April issue of Wired magazine.
       
    
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