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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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