General

You thought censorship and repression would be something from futuristic science fiction stories? No, you can find it, somewhere, in your environment. Or actually: I could find it. And I feel it. Hard. At the vocational school that I currently attend I was "asked" to sign a sheet of paper saying that I'm not allowed to use any computer or internet access in any but the intended way (a list of what is intended was also on this paper). It also states that compliance with these rules can and will be audited by checking my hard disk and by checking the proxy logfiles (we are forced to use a proxy with a fascist logging policy). Before signing the paper I was also told that, unless I sign, I wouldn't be able to do any work assignments, and thus, fail the class with negative marks. Yes, I do feel extorted. And yes, we were told to create an "admin" useron our Windows installations with a password that we have to deposit at one of our teachers. And this user must have Windows "Administrator" rights. Should somebody audit my hard disk, I was told, and be unable to log in, my hard disk would be completely erased, including all data that I created during exercises and working assignments.



The proxy itself is also an interesting thing for itself, since it blocks websites based on a blacklist of "forbidden" strings in the URL and in the website itself. As the blocking decision takes place via an evaluation of the website's content, this is clearly censorship. Now, JAP would come in handy, but since yesterday or today, the Dresden-Dresden mix cascade isn't available anymore, which I would need urgently right now, since it is (or was) the only mix cascade that actually supports using JAP via a "Zwangsproxy" (there is exactly one proxy that we have to use in order to get web access, and it's the fascist proxy mentioned above). Anonymous surfing is extremely important, since the paper I was basically forced to sign also said that surfing to and downloading illegal or unethical (who the fucks decides what is ethical or not?) could get me into big troubles. And I absolutely don't want to be thrown from school for reading Indymedia, nor do I want to give up reading Indymedia, not even at school.



So, as you can see, censorship and repression can be found in my daily life. Maybe, now you will also take a look around, and find similar examples in your environment.