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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 ..."
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 same question can be asked as as to why our founding fathers gave us the bill of rights. I guess that sometimes people are just nice. Sometimes, very rarely, the governmrnt does the right thing.
Yet more evidence, if any was needed, that /. really needs a '-1 Needlessly paranoid' moderation item.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Their primary motive is to let German individuals and corporations protect themselves from Echelon and similar projects.
...
Which makes me think - no wonder France and Germany have their own Linux distributions and the U.K. doesn't! A grain of security concerns, a grain of national pride, and perhaps a grain of software nationalism, etc...
Get the funny part of the press release (I think they kind of screwed up the translation):
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...is safe and corresponds to international standards. It would not be recommended (sic!) to use standard software in security sensitive areas and the Ministry explicitly warns to do so in its press release.
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And of course they can't push MS products at CeBIT, it wouldn't help them in any way. But they had to do something and Linux has always made a good means for low-cost self promotion
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.
It does make sense: The German government is more concerned about the US government snooping on German citizens than it is about being able to do such snooping itself. It's a case of finding the lesser of two evils; they evidently decided that not being able to snoop on their citizens was less of a problem than having the US government snoop on their citizens.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Thank you, Mr. Geek, for stating the obvious.
Why is it certain people lack a sense of humor to such a degree that they feel they must analyze the joke in order to make some idiotic political point, just to make sure people get it?
Or maybe they just feel such an extreme need to beat people over the head with their political views that no joke can be made without sneaking in some political point. "Yes, what your baby did was amusing. But did you know that if you had exercised your abortion rights it wouldn't have happened at all?"
I hate lamers.
i think germania realized that in order to prevent anything resembling what happened with Hitler and the Nazis, the citizens must be free to think as they want, must be able to go on with their lives with the privacy and freedom that all humans deserve.
It seems the bigger a mistake is, the greater an opportunity there is to grow and learn from that mistake.
It might seem incredible, but in this case the government is acting on behalf of the people. Almost as if it felt that it might be accountable in some way, or as if there was some connection between the people and the government...
I think most of the germans (government officials included) understood that to prevent anything similar to the 3rd reich, they have to secure the peoples ability to communicate their ideas no matter if somebody likes them or not.
For the german government it is far more important to protect the german people and companies from being spied at by competitors or foreign governments than to keep the hypothetical ability to spy on their own people. something that would never get through anyways. privacy is a very important point for german courts and media.
Although most younger Germans are very friendly to Americans, many of the older folks are downright hostile. If you start speaking to them in English, they walk away.
Maybe those folks didn't speak English? It is Germany, you know. :)
To tell you the truth, I didn't encounter any of that when I was there. The people seemed really friendly. Of course, I have blond-haired blue-eyed German genes in me, but my attitude still screams "American!" from a mile away. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I dont think that the main reason for this state-sponsored encryption project here in Germany is that our politicians are "nicer" or more concerned about our rights (although one must admit that "big brother" is far less powerful compared to, lets say the UK...). What the German Government fears is espionage like Echelon etc. A lot of people in the US seem to forget or dont know, that a lot of german companies are leaders in their field. Daimler (-Chrysler) is by no means the most important one. Take the pharmaceutical / chemical industry for example, the fact that world leaders like Bayer, Boehringer, Hoechst etc with hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide have an ".Inc" at the end of their name (in the US), shouldnt disguise the fact that these are german companies. Same thing with the optical industry: the optical systems in the really large terrestrial observatories and even in the HUBBLE are german. Or Siemens, which is very big in (micro-) electronics and has the biggest market share in the mobile telephone market in important markets like Asia and there especially China. German companies lose tens of billions of dollars worth of contracts every year to foreign companies because of espionage. Thats the main reason for pushing (open source!, so theoretically no back door, I think they are really sincere) cryptography and banning M$ Products from goverment use (up to now, only the servers are switched to Linux. But Im sure that the desktops will follow in a few years).
I spent over a month in Germany last year, working at a customer site.
The Germans generally (at least the young to middle aged ones) are mostly tech savvy, have a clue about politics, and actually care.
Perhaps their government reflects the population?
Or maybe it's the beer. Yeah. Beer...Munchen ROCKS.
Funny. I live in Europe and that's the exact same feeling I have about the US.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
As for having to obtain permission from the government to start a business... For most types of businesses, you only need to go to the local mayor's office, pay $15 and off you go. I've done it myself in order to start a consulting business. As other posters have pointed out, the only restriction is the location for certain types of business that impact the neighborhood. Like brothels, car shops, chemical plants, etc. In this respect, Germany uses zoning much like most of the US.
Having lived in both countries, the amount of freedom you have in either place depends on the subject matter. A few examples:
a) Certain unions in the US have much more power to restrict and constrict businesses than German unions do.
b) On the other hand, the German crafts laws are incredibly restrictive and certainly stifle competition. Fortunately, it looks like the EU will put an end to this hundreds of years old nonsense.
c) As for encryption and copy protection circumvention, Germany's laws have traditionally been far more liberal than the US's. Due to pressure from the US this is changing, sadly.
d) Prostitution is legal in Germany. Illegal in most of the US.
e) Any moron can carry a gun in the US. German gun laws are very restrictive.
f) There is no issue with nakedness on public beaches in Germany.
g) There is no issue with nakedness on TV in Germany.
h) There is no issue with nakedness in printed form in public places. (It is usually too cold for actual nakedness in public places. But there is no law against that either - unless a public disturbance is caused, by a flasher, for example)
The list goes on. On the whole, I prefer the US which is why I moved here a while back. But the statement that the US is more free than other countries requires some qualifiers.
> There is no "right to kill your children", as much as certain people want you to believe.
Children BREATHE. You argue about a cluster of stem cells occasionally which is basically a plant of clones (call them twins if you like). If you post your address here I will send you a copy of each I aborted.
>> plus in case you haven't noticed we have a fucking population problem,
> Uh, no we don't. And if you haven't noticed, birth rates are going down. It's estimated the world population will stabilize around 2050 or 2100.
What does one have to do with the other? Or are you one of those, who live in the land of freedom (e.g. California) in the world of the US President?
There are other countries, would you mind every Chinese eat an egg for breakfast every morning?
(If You dont know, the chickens for that will eat up the world's resources).
> Who are you to tell parents that they can't kill their two year old because it costs too much money?
Who talks about two year olds?
> If they don't want the kid, put it up for adoption.
You are not a woman and You never were pregnant.
> It's irrelevent whether they listen or not.
It is basically irrelevant for WOMEN if you listen, think or care. They do with their body as they see fit. Or is Your tapeworm under the protection of animals laws?
> THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST SUICIDE.
You clearly missed the point called REALITY. Some people need assistance in commiting suicide. They need help, not necessarily on doctors. Let alone them having conflicts. I work in a hospital and Your point is moot here.
All those American Gunlovers preaching about suicide of others and abortion, just as if they didnt have enough people in the schools to shoot at while teen aged.