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Encryption For All Sponsored by German Govt.
fiffilinus writes: "The German Ministry of Economics uses the CeBIT computer fair as a forum to propagate its GnuPP (Gnu Privacy Project -- I know, it is *not* GPG, but GPG is part of the package) encryption package to the public, giving away CD-roms with the package. The CeBIT press release can be found here. The download for those who can't make it to CeBIT is here. The package is available in English too, but the page itself has to be put through the fish, as usual. Finally a government that moves in the right direction ..."
We all know that the prupose of personal cryptography is to hide sensitive information from a ccorrupt government. This has always been the case, and this is why the government keeps trying to prevent it from becming common.
So why would the government of Germany want their citizens to talk without knowing what they arte talking about? In itself it doesn't make sense.
The only possible anser is that they have developed a high speed decryption computer, and can read everything. They feel people will feel safer sending emails, and give away more.
Don;t let them get away with it. Change your encryption algorithm. PGP is broken!
Spoken like a true American!
+++ATH0
Yes, I think the problems is that he thinks just because the us government spies upon their people every government does.
What makes Germany less or more desireable for people who are concerned about their rights as they relate to technology, privacy, or otherwise?
For what it's worth, when I visited some relatives in Germany about 8 years ago (?), my uncle mentioned a couple of laws that I found absolutely astounding. First, it was illegal to leave your car (and house? Can't remember) unlocked for any period of time. If you are making multiple trips, you are required to lock the car between each trip. That's just the law (don't know if it was local or what).
I was also amazed to learn that you have to get permission from the government in order to start a business. You see, they feel that too much competition in a particular area is bad for those local businesses, so they restrict how many of a particular business type can be in an area. After all, they can't have a business go bankrupt! That might cause job loss (never mind the inefficiency that it breeds).
I've been to Europe a couple of times in a number of countries. There is no question that Europe is a great place to visit, but there's no way I would ever live there. They have absolutely no concept of freedom.
The US takes a lot of flack, but there's no doubt the US is the most free country in the world. Not to mention that it has by far the best highway system in the world. :) Europe SUCKS when it comes to having sufficient road signs to mark the highways. You really get spoiled in the US with 3 signs before every exit.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Legalized Abortion ...
Dont try to argue this with someone from the United States who has already taken an anti-abortion stance. Youll never convince them. Never. Weve had this debate raging, and these same arguments tossed about, since the Roe v. Wade court case back in the 1970s when abortion was made legal, and we still have a huge population that will not listen to you, no matter how realistic and obvious your claims are. All that matters to them is that when two cells come together suddenly you have a real, live, 100% human being, because they read it in some book somewhere and their god told them to.
I tend to just stay away from arguing shit like this (another topic you dont want to argue with us Americans is gun rights, youll get nowhere even faster), youll get nowhere and will probably all be modded down for flamebaiting anyway, like Im probably going to be for this comment.
Liberty in your lifetime