Cyber-intimidation/terrorism

Bard

The following is from the Volta Net Gains newsletter (you can subscribe at www.volta.net if interested).

It's certainly disturbing to see this happen.

Jewish Students Flooded With Hate Mail

KNPQwest German ISP Strato said the flood of emails threatening to repeat the Holocaust paralysed its server for two hours. A group of Jewish students who run an Internet site with news about the Jewish community, received 17,000 emails from someone using the address adolf@hitler.com, saying the murder of "6 million more" Jews would start this week. According to the server operator, KNPQwest, the emails were sent via a server in the United States, but who actually sent them was not immediately known. Police in Germany are powerless to investigate as US-originating material falls outside German Internet laws. Germany has repeatedly complained that US free speech laws hamper its efforts to stop the spread of neo-Nazi propaganda, which is a crime in Germany, via
the Internet.

What an easy medium we have here for spreading hate and mistrust, intimidation and threats. It seems likely that this isn't an isolated incident or one that won't reoccur.

Thoughts, anyone?

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[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 14-11-2000).]

Hobbes

They could however contact the FBI and get them on a DoS attack which the FBI take very seriously. Along with the racial hate mail I'm sure it would go down well when they catch them.

C B

I think I might have posted this link here before but its still relevant. http://www.economist.com/library/focus/displayStory.cfm?story_id=317881&CFID=68477&CFTOKEN=53085427

Its an editorial from the Economist entitled "What the Internet Can't Do", and it questions the notion that increased knowledge of and contact with other cultures will lead to peace.

Essentially however the case you cite Bard is just hate mail and I think that is an offence in most countries so if the person can be tracked down they can be prosecuted.