textfiles/news/cybrnazi.txt

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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
From: uc006@freenet.victoria.bc.ca (Michael Bakunin)
Calgary Herald Feb 2/94
Cyber-Nazis baffle German police
BERLIN(AP)- A year-old computer network has become
the communications backbone of Germany's Nazi scene, with users
sharing ideas on how to rid the country of foreigners, co-ordinate
illegal rallies and swap bomb-making recipes.
The Thule Network, guarded by passwords and loyalty tests,
consists of at least a dozen bulletin boards in three western German
states, law-enforcement officials and computer experts said. It is
used by Nazis to avoid detection by police.
The network's name derives from a German secret society
that included many leading Nazis among its membership.
With the network's aid, some 500 neo-Nazis formed a convoy
that drove into the city of Fulda and rallied unhindered last year.
But the Thule Network is much more than a place to look for
rides to rallies.
Suppose some young Nazis want to put out a newspaper, for example,
but lack the know-how. Just plug into Resistance, one of the
network's bulletin boards. "A network-connected attorney can
check the text, a graphics office can put together the newspaper,"
the Resistance host says in a digital preamble.
The network is also a refuge- where a crowd closely watched by
police can disappear into cyberspace. Technologically ahead of most
police, network gatekeepers are having considerable success keeping
out the law.
Not a single one has been prosecuted.
"German police don't know much about computers and bulletin
boards. It's very new for them," said Uwe Kauss, editor of the
Munich-based computer magazine Chip, which has penetrated the network
through informants.
Chip estimates 1,500 of Germany's more than 40,000 Nazis are
active on the network. Along with mobile phones and answering machines,
the Thule Network is helping a diverse Nazi scene establish a united
front - a phenomenon acknowledged by Germany's government.
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