Illegal Websites In Germany
News
- What Sites Are Illegal In Germany
- List Of Illegal Websites In Germany
- Illegal Websites In Germany
- Illegal Websites In Germany Today
- Illegal Websites In Germany 2020
Authorities say the darknet platform had half a million users, where drugs, counterfeit money, stolen credit card data, anonymous SIM cards and malware were traded. The suspected operator was arrested in Germany.
Authorities say it could be the biggest darknet marketplace bust
German prosecutors in the cities of Koblenz and Oldenburg said on Tuesday that they had shut down what was 'probably the largest illegal marketplace on the Darknet' called DarkMarket and arrested the man believed to operate it near Germany's border with Denmark.
The detained man, believed to be DarkMarket's operator, is a 34-year-old Australian national.
Germany Germany discusses Internet porn ban. Great Britain wants Internet providers to block pornographic websites in the future. Germany now has picked up. Is downloading legal in Germany? Let´s start from the very beginning. German law consider that sharing content protected by copyright is illegal. That means, that you should be careful when using P2P programs such as Emule or Torrent because when we download any content from those online tools we are, at the same time, sharing it with other. There’s an excellent chance a website is illegal if you’re asked for money for a better-quality transmission or 90% of the links don't work and you get a million pop-ups per click. On the other hand, streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sky or YouTube are perfectly legit. While running out of gas itself is hardly a crime in Germany, stopping on the country’s famous Autobahn for any reason that’s not an emergency is illegal. If you forget to fill up your tank and end up sputtering to a stop on the federally controlled high-speed motorway, be prepared to receive a fine. There isn't such thing as a mainstreaming internet censorship in Germany. The use Tor is of course allowed, I myself use it sometimes. If you can't reach a site it's mostly due to connection or other technical problems.
Authorities say drugs, counterfeit money, stolen credit card data, anonymous SIM cards and malware were all traded on the site, which had a half a million users and transacted business in cryptocurrencies equivalent to a value of €140 million ($170 million).
Oldenburg police said the raid took place over the weekend. 'Investigators were able to shut down the marketplace and turn off the server on Monday,' prosecutors said.
International probe
DarkMarket's bust was not the first for German authorities, which have found illegal platform operators on German soil in recent years. In 2019, Koblenz prosecurots announced the discovery of darknet servers hosted from a former NATO bunker in a sleepy German town.
Authorities say the probe that uncovered DarkMarket involved a months-long international law enforcement operation.
US agencies like the FBI, DEA narcotics law enforcement division and IRS tax authority all contributed to the investigation, along with police from Australia, Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Ukraine and Moldova, with Europol playing a 'coordinating role.'
'A total of at least 320,000 transactions were carried out via the marketplace, with more than 4,650 Bitcoin and 12,800 Monero - two of the most common cryptocurrencies - changing hands,' Oldenburg authorities added.
At the time of its closure, DarkMarket had more than 2,400 vendors.
jcg/msh (AFP, dpa)
Drug trafficking dominates the darknet
What Sites Are Illegal In Germany
DW recommends
Germany
Great Britain wants Internet providers to block pornographic websites in the future. Germany now has picked up on the idea but experts remain doubtful over how to best protect children and teenagers.
British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to make access to porn websites for children and teenagers more difficult in order to protect them. His plan is for all Internet providers in the country to be required to install a porn filter. In Germany, politician Norbert Geis has picked up on the issue.
'I think that an Internet provider could - if demanded by the user - block a certain computer or Internet device for such content,' Geis told DW. Such an agreement between provider and user would be a first step. Even better, he said, the provider would - as demanded by Cameron - block pornographic websites in general.
Age filters are not mandatory for websites in Germany
A dangerous influence on teenagers?
Geis said it was proven that children and teenagers are negatively affected if they watch porn on the Internet. 'There are many studies that show that the relationship that children and teenagers have to their own sexuality can be unsettled by such images,' the 74-year old Bavarian politician warned. 'It can affect their sexual development or lead to brutality.'
List Of Illegal Websites In Germany
Kristin Langer of the pedagogical initiative 'Schau hin!' took a more cautious stance. 'Children and teenagers get a questionable idea of sexuality,' she said. 'You have to assume that pornographic pictures or film are having quite an impact.' Young children could be intimidated and become insecure, while with teenagers there was the danger that they would try to follow false ideas.
No substitute for education
Langer said not enough details about Cameron's proposal in the UK have been made clear. She said laws would have their limits and could not replace education. Parents would have to deal with the issue and make use of existing tools such as search engines created especially for children. There also are filters available that block pages unsuitable for children. They only work though if the website in question has an age tag similar to those for movies and computer games. Such age tags, however, are obligatory in Germany.
It's unlikely that Internet providers could completely turn off porn
Sites considered dangerous for children and teenagers can be put in an index by authorities. 'We basically do have a broad system which is backed up by laws. In addition, parents still need to help their children with the way they use the Internet,' Langer explains.
Illegal Websites In Germany
Filter vs freedom of information
IT expert Alvar Freude, member of the German parliament's commission on Internet and digital society, took a similar stance. He said it's mainly the job of the parents to protect their children from access to such pages and to later - when they're old enough - educate them about the issue.
Illegal Websites In Germany Today
Filters are not a satisfactory solution, he said since they can hardly be used in a very targeted way. 'Filter systems try to automatically detect what kind of content a website has,' he explained, adding that in reality they would often also block pages that are not dangerous to young people at all.
This touches upon another question that's often raised in relation to blocking web content: to which extent would this censor content? The filter suggested by Cameron would be in contradiction to the freedom of information as granted by the Basic Law, Freude said. And freedom of information means 'that the state may not prevent its citizens' access to content.'
Blocking porn is useless, he said, as users would find the material anyway. 'Teenagers who want to access that kind of content, will find ways to do so,' he said, adding that as long as the web in Germany is not cut off from that of the rest of the world, there always would be ways to circumnavigate a ban.