Wikipedia Germany Shut Down

from the gesundheit dept

The local German site for Wikipedia has been shut down after the parents of a deceased hacker sued the site for using his real name. It's unclear on exactly what grounds the parents sued, whether it's because they trademarked his name, or simply don't want his full name used and interpret doing so as a violation of their privacy. In any case, ordering the entire site shut down seems like an awfully big overreaction, but does illustrate the potential repercussions of people who take exception to Wikipedia content. But, as James Enck points out, the shutdown is also pointless -- the original article is still available from Wikipedia's US servers, even the version in German. The German court order also says that the hacker's full name can't be mentioned on wikipedia.org sites, again raising the question of just where local jurisdiction stops on the internet. Update: It appears that the press (as they often do) got some of the facts on this story mixed up. Nothing was actually taken down. A page that had pointed people to the German Wikipedia page was forced to stop doing so briefly, and that was it.
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  1. identicon
    dorpus, 19 Jan 2006 @ 9:19am

    Germonesians

    Aren't they an Islamic country? At least, nobody there believe in Christianity, while there are fervent Muslims. They don't believe in freedom of expression.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 9:32am

    Re: Germonesians

    so dorpus, you are saying that in that country, church and state are the same - as in the same way that religion and money are the same in the country you live in?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    CUrob, 19 Jan 2006 @ 9:42am

    Trademarked

    They trademarked his name "tron". Give me a break, Disney owns the trademark on "tron" , especially given that he admits taking the name from the Disney 80s movie.

    Overreaction by a liberal govt. And parents that can't face reality.

    Mr. and Mrs. Floricic, please get over the fact that your son was a criminal, and as well a piece of technology history, therefore he belongs to the public at large (i.e. the internet), trademark or no trademark.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 9:42am

    Re: Germonesians

    Religion and money are the same in EVERY country. Just like Money and State and Money and Power... Did you have some sort of real point ?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 9:46am

    Re: Germonesians

    yup. that was my exact point... but it was intended for dorpus.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Auslaender, 19 Jan 2006 @ 10:18am

    Re: Trademarked

    Oops! The CDU is in power. It's a conservative Government now.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Wolfger, 19 Jan 2006 @ 10:36am

    Re: Germonesians

    Nobody in Germany believes in Christianity??? Dude, you need to share those drugs you are taking.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    Ron, 19 Jan 2006 @ 10:42am

    Re: Germonesians

    Was the question really "Is Germany an Islamic country"? From bizforum.org: "Religions: Protestants (26 million); Roman Catholics (26 million); approximately 3.2 million Muslims."
    From http://www.countryreports.org/country.aspx?countryid=91&countryName=Germany "Religion: Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 11:11am

    Cmon, its friggin Wikipedia for gods sake...

    the whole point of Wikipedia is that anybody is supposed to be able to add or edit any article. The reason his real name was probably added was because of his fellow hackers that knew him felt his death should be respected by letting the world know as much as they could about him. That and the fact that they were smart enough (dont have to be very smart to figure this one out) to know that there must be a few thousand people that use nearly any given screen name, especially for the 80's tech loving guys like him. How the heck is the world supposed to know just which "tron" it was? Was it the tron in question, or the TRON in the movie, or the 14 year old tRoN on Xbox Live that thinks he's all that n a bag o Lays, or the Tr0n (with a zero) on Counter Strike PC that thinks hes all that n a bag o Doritos???

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    doofus, 19 Jan 2006 @ 11:11am

    Re: Germonesians

    I lived in Germany for years. With few exceptions the only people that believe in christianity are people over the age of 70. The rest are just names on paper who could care less about christendom.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 11:26am

    No Subject Given

    Fair Use? Wouldn't that apply here?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Rikko, 19 Jan 2006 @ 11:27am

    Re: Germonesians

    I've likewise spent several years in Germany throughout the 80s and 90s and I couldn't disagree more. I had to practically beat the Christian idiots away with a stick in some places.

    Guess it depends where you go.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:00pm

    Re: Germonesians

    Maybe thats true. I was in west germany and there for the first time a public pole declared 51% of people did not believe in God. So thats what I meant by names on paper. If you look at the poles in east germany 80% don't believe in God.

    Maybe I should refine my statement--they could care less about God.

    But that doesn't have much to do with german wikipedia being shut down.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    thecaptain, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:02pm

    Re: Germonesians

    ...or who is posting.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    haggie, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:09pm

    No Subject Given

    Parents are pissed because his name and image appears in the very popular German wikipeida entry for "scheiße"...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:28pm

    Re: Germonesians

    >so dorpus, you are saying that in that country, church and state are the same< br>
    I did not say this. I did say that Germans do not believe in Christianity, while many Germans are devout Muslims.


    > as in the same way that religion and money are the same in the country you live in?

    Non sequitir. Your Muslims are poor, but are fervent believers anyway.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    A Person, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:46pm

    Re: Germonesians

    What has this got to do at all with the article? Why was religion brought into this at all? The whole first comment was irrelevant and poorly worded. Try to stick the subject please.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Jan 2006 @ 12:54pm

    No Subject Given

    How did the conversation change to Christianity? You guys are starting to sound like /. commentators.

    :*

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    giafly, 20 Jan 2006 @ 2:04am

    The Case

    Tron's family does not wish his full name, "Boris Floricic", to be used; many German newspapers merely refer to him as "Boris F." On 14 December 2005 the parents obtained a temporary restraining order in a Berlin court against Wikimedia Foundation Inc. because its freely editable online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, mentioned the full name in its German language version. The order prohibits the Foundation from mentioning the full name on any website under the domain "wikipedia.org". It furthermore requires the Foundation to name a representative in Germany within two weeks following the decision.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. icon
    MadJo (profile), 20 Jan 2006 @ 2:25am

    Re: Germonesians

    I did not say this. I did say that Germans do not believe in Christianity, while many Germans are devout Muslims.

    Dude, where do you think Germany is located? FYI, it is located in Europe, not the Middle-east (where there are more devout Muslims)

    The majority religion there is still Christianity.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    joshua lee breitbach, 9 Oct 2006 @ 7:23am

    anna will you mary me

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    joshua lee breitbach, 9 Oct 2006 @ 7:23am

    anna will you mary me

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Scumdog, 19 Feb 2008 @ 12:14am

    Okay... Some facts here:
    Tron's family sued wikipedia for not using his full name because they`re runnung a business in Berlin
    and since that article appeared at Wikipedia they lost many customers and of course for ethical reasons.
    The other Hackers (The Chaos Computer Club for example)
    support Tron's family.

    The trial is still on, and Wikipedia still displays Tron's full name (assholes!).

    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_%28Hacker%29



    PS.: I am a german and I'm shocked and amused to see how little you guys know about the world. Muslim country... Yeah, right!
    It's true though that most of the young people (including myself) don't believe in god the way the bible discribes him.
    Christians are more fanatic and dangerous than muslims ever could be.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. identicon
    Scumdog, 19 Feb 2008 @ 12:30am

    add:
    Here`s a link to a circuit diagram to one of Tron`s inventions, the Cryptron:

    ftp://ftp.ccc.de/cryptron/

    He also invented lots of stuff to crack Pay TV and phone booths that use Telephone Cards.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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