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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 ..."
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.