Slashdot Mirror

It ain't hard to find ridiculous applications for that law, is it? :)

Given the wording of the law, almost everything remotely dealing with networking could be twisted into being a hacking tool. Here is the original law, unfortunately I'm not good in legalese to try my hand at a sensible translation. Essentially, what it says is that somehow "dealing with" (i.e. creating, storing, acquiring, selling, forwarding...) passwords or codes to access data or programs created for the purpose of committing the crime of intercepting or illegally accessing data is illegal.

The interesting part is that "for the purpose". And depending on how you want to read that, either the law is completely useless or insane. Either you assume that no program that can be used for such a purpose has been written with this purpose in mind, because pretty much all of them can also be used to audit and test security with the purpose of improving this security, which renders the law quite use- and toothless.

Or you assume that every program that can be used that way was created with this purpose in mind, outlawing not only all network security tools but also technologies like rainbow tables and accessing (let alone operating) webpages listing default passwords. Given the wording, one could even construct something like outlawing the information (and of course teaching) how to test your network for security leaks, since this information could be considered a tool for "hacking" by itself.

The danger here is that most of security is in information, teaching and learning. nmap is useless if you don't know how to read its output. hping is useless if you don't know what flags to set to get a sensible result that tells you something (again, information needed to understand that output after you know what to input). The magical "press here to find security hole" tool does not exist, even though Nessus is often abused to this end.

My guess is they watched this video and took the crap serious. It's in German. But I think the inanity is understandable even if you have no idea of the language.

it is enforcable - the German copyright law has even a "Linux-Klausel" (Linux clause). One of the reforms of the law included a passage that explicitly allows copyright owners to permit free usage rights to evereyone (UrhG $32 (3); last sentence)); before this it was disputed that free of cost licences are possible under German law.

afaik the first real test for the GPL in Germany was in 2004 - a court in Munich recognized the license as compatible with the copyright law.

You are interpreting the laws you are citing wrong. In fact, the most relevant parts are Ãf2 and Ãf3. Ãf2 says that executive branches can order telecom providers to give them information; Personal information!!! not EMAILS. Under certain situations, if you can make a strong claim, you can get e.g. connection data, web pages that got accessed etc. But not the actual data you transfered via the wire, that means: no, not a copy of the photos / movies you downloaded, not a copy of he emails you downloaded. Only the mere fact that you connected from this IP to that IP and accessed a given URL or file.

I am neither interpreting it wrong nor citing it wrong. RTFL! It defines exceptions to the privacy of letter and phone conversations:

http://bundesrecht.juris.de/g10_2001/BJNR125410001.html

Yes, you can be put in prison if you attack the dignity of any group of people. And we believe this is rightful so. You fail to understand that you only can get put into prison after a court trial. Its not like that a cop just throws you into jail ...

No, I understand perfectly that it requires a trial: a bunch of German judges sit there arguing about whether someone's "dignity" was attacked. It is creepy and totalitarian. "Dignity" should not be protected by law because it is far too easy to abuse such a vague concept.

While we have an explizit paragraph/law about "Volksverhetzung" most other countries apply their less explizit laws e.g. regarding libel in the exact same way.

Libel laws are civil laws, and truth is generally an absolute defense. "Volksverhetzung" is a criminal law, and truth is not a defense.

Germany has some of the strongest restrictions on free speech among any western nation.

Your examples of "making fun" and "Piss Christ(ians)" both would not hold btw.

Printing the Koran on toilet paper has gotten people convicted.

You forget that this law is made by a democratic established parliament. They could as well remove the law or change it ... there is nothing "undemocratic" with this law.

The ErmÃchtigungsgesetz was made by a "democratic established parliament"; does that make it or Hitler's reign of terror "democratic"? Democracy does not mean tyranny of the majority, and not everything the majority decides is democratic.

P.S. if you are interested how law works you need to get some skilled teaching, just reading paragraphs won't help much.

What makes you think I haven't? But if my interpretation is wrong, then stop bullshitting and point out specifically where it is wrong, with sources and references. It's the law, it's not rocket science.

Furthermore, if you want to claim that E-mail is protected no matter what, show the laws that guarantee this, show that these laws are enforceable, and that there are no exceptions to these laws.

In actual fact, you have not the slightest idea what's going on. You assume that things are safe, sane, and democratic because that's what you think your country ought to be like. You concoct stories to try and justify that view. And you think that law and government best be left to the experts.

It's scary that someone living in Germany has such attitudes towards government and the law. Have you learned nothing from your history?

No, I didn't "paste the wrong law". That is one of the relevant laws. Similar exceptions exist in other laws:

http://dejure.org/gesetze/GG/10.html

http://bundesrecht.juris.de/g10_2001/BJNR125410001.html#BJNR125410001BJNG000300000

Note that exceptions can be justified under "Volksverhetzung", which is such a vague concept that a lot of politically unpopular speech might fall under these exceptions.

If you want to claim that "in germany EMails can not be read without a judge giving a warrant first", you have to justify that statement based on law, and ... good luck trying.

The loopholes where governments can access and share your data if it is "in the public interest". No, they don't need a warrant for that, and they can do just about anything based on that. Here is one of the places where that exception is listed http://bundesrecht.juris.de/bdsg_1990/__4c.html There are other holes in the law.

Yeah I guess you are right:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ausweispflicht

Only if they ask for it , interesting , but still..

Shit I meant this one (damn copy buffer) : http://bundesrecht.juris.de/persauswg/__1.html

IIRC the law here in Germany just changed such that the onus fell on the employer to show a reason why *not* to let you work part-time.

Your're talking about an act issued in 2000, the
Gesetz über Teilzeitarbeit und befristete Arbeitsverträge (Teilzeit- und Befristungsgesetz - TzBfG) (roughly translates to "act on part-time work and time-limited job contracts").

As forcing legalese through babelfish usually gives quite "strange" results, here's my abstract in short and layman's terms:

After 6 months of being employed in a company, you may ask your company 3 months in advance to a date set by your own that you'd like to cut down your worktime to some fixed amount (less than current). If company can't show any clear, legitimate reasons (e.g. extra-ordinary costs or security) why your job can't be done part-time one months in advance to your set date, you'll be working part-time.

An extra-bonus point applies for the employee, if the company has more than 15 "regular" workers: the act expects that such "large" companies are able to compensate part-time work.

Various non-discrimination rules do apply: your net income for e.g. a 20h/week job may not be less than 50% of the net income for the same week running at 40h/week. And once there are new fulltime job offers, those offers do have to be made available to current employes, where giving those jobs to part-time employees has to be preferred. Once you're working part-time, you may also apply for more work hours.

And that is defined in Germany as sexually explicit pictures of underage (16 years or lower) children.

It's 14 years or younger: Sections 184b and 176 StGB (German Criminal Law)

And that is defined in Germany as sexually explicit pictures of underage (16 years or lower) children.

It's 14 years or younger: Sections 184b and 176 StGB (German Criminal Law)

While I don't have the faintest idea what the maximum penalty for owning child porn is in Germany, they certainly won't get any more than that. Some of them will - as I heard in the news today - get away with fines.

Section 184b StGB (German Criminal Law):

Up to 2 years of prison sentence or a fine (paragraph 4 sentence 2). In practice that means in most cases they will indeed get away with a fine especially if they don't have a criminal record. Culprits can also be banned from their profession if their jobs involve work with children (e.g. teachers).

But with this kind of crime social stigmatization (think: public trial) can be much harder than the criminal sentence itself.

Frankly, I don't believe any EU country could have laws like this. Could you provide a reference or quotation?

I'm german, and I follow the subject closely: It is true.
http://www.heise.de/ct/06/05/110/ sums it up - in german, sorry.

The third section is the interesting one:

"Generally, everybody is allowed to copy a legally purchased CD, Cassette or (vinyl) record for his own use. According to a 1978 ruling by the Bundesgerichtshof (the german supreme court) the interpretation is that 5-7 copies are OK. The copyright law itself doesn't contain an upper limit. These copies can also be given away to close friends or family, because this is not considered distribution. Who makes more copies, sells copies or gives away copies to strangers leaves legality. Even selling at cost price is considered sale."

Oh, and even breaking a copy protection to copy a medium is not illegal, as long it is done for personal use only ( 108b UrhG).
http://bundesrecht.juris.de/urhg/__108b.html

Partial credit. You seem to forget (rather willingly) that you are allowed to create one backup for music, movies etcetera that you already OWN. If you borrow a CD from your friend, make a copy of that one and return it, you are breaking the law.

Wrong. It's perfectly legal according to, for exaple, Articel 53 of German copyright law, which makes an explicit exception
for non-commercial copying for private use.

Lawyers or law firms are not allowed to sue independently. A client is required. There are strict rules about who can sue because of what. In cases of unethical business practices ("Unlauterer Wettbewerb"), the relevant law is 13 UWG (in German).

They're probably thinking of StGB 303a, Datenveränderung, which prohibits unlawful deletion, suppression, disabling and alteration of data. Mail can always be lost, but spam and worm filtering is a deliberate act, so this law probably applies.

All it takes to avoid this is to have every user sign an agreement that the admins are allowed to apply automatic filtering which deletes mail without notice and, despite diligent configuration, can result in false positives.

Die Staatsangehörigkeit geht verloren
1. durch Entlassung ( 18 bis 24),
2. durch den Erwerb einer ausländischen Staatsangehörigkeit ( 25),
3. durch Verzicht ( 26),
4. durch Annahme als Kind durch einen Ausländer ( 27),
5. durch Eintritt in die Streitkräfte oder einen vergleichbaren bewaffneten
Verband eines ausländischen Staates ( 28) oder
6. durch Erklärung ( 29).

Aren't you happy! :)