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German Police May Not Break Into a Suspect's PC
hweimer writes to tell us that a ruling in Germany's Supreme Court has made it illegal for the police to secretly hack into a suspect's computer. While some hailed this as a victory for civil rights, Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble is expected to push for changes in the legal framework to allow police hacking.
...country of freedom and civil rights ;-)
...sadly still doesn't keep certain lawyer's offices from logging hundreds of IPs using hacked P2P programs. Just to ensure a steady flow of money towards them and their "clients"...
But can they still ask another country to do it for them?
(secret police) hacking
or
secret (police hacking)
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Germany's Supreme Court has made it illegal for the police to secretly hack into a suspect's computer ... Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble is expected to push for changes in the legal framework to allow police hacking.
Why change the legal framework? Just change the terminology. For example, while it may now be illegal to hack into a "suspect's" computer, they clearly never said anything about someone deemed to be an "enemy combatant". Problem solved. (/sarcasm)
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This sounds right; it should be illegal unless/untill the police get a warrant.
Mod point free since 2001
I have no understanding of German Law but (in most countries) wouldn't hacking into secretly someone's computer be the same as an illegal search?
I could be wrong, but as I see it tracking someone's activity online is similar to watching someone in a public space which is (somewhat) reasonable; and it could (hypothetically) be argued that any data being sent via the internet was like yelling across the field. Someone's computer (on the other hand) is private property and they have the right to believe that it is a private space (much like your house).
The court looked at various precedents and noticed that what the police were doing was *not* really like any of them, and so needed separate legal authorization and separate thinking-through.
Germany has stricter privacy laws, more passionately enforced, than the UK/US, but this decision is completely compatible with UK/US law that says the scope of a search has to be explicitly defined and minimal. Spyware on a computer fits neither criterion.
The CB App. What's your 20?
If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. When will you privacy lunatics grasp that simple point? For once, could we stop and think of all the children this would save? You don't hate children, do you???
Putting aside the privacy concerns that I'm sure will be expressed by fellow Slashdotters, I truly don't see the point of the police hacking into a suspects' PC, at least from a forensic perspective. Sure, they might be able to find 'interesting' evidence by doing so, but at the same time, they risk compromising their whole investigation. If they successfully exploited a vulnerability to gain access to the suspects' PC, then what guarantees them (and eventually the judge) that someone else didn't do the same before them and that whatever illegal content/activity was found on the computer was not put their/committed by another hacker?
It seems that they are providing the suspect with plausible deniability for any illegal activity that took place. If I were the police trying to prosecute someone for some digital crime, I would be praying from the bottom of my heart that the computer used to commit the crime was secured according to best practices and free of any malware.
(Don't worry, by 2050ish it'll be genetically tailored kids, or people with prosthetic something or others. The wheel, it keeps on turning.)
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Vincent: It breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it, and, if you're the proprietor of a software store, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, but that doesn't really matter 'cause - get a load of this - if you get stopped by the cops in Germany, it's illegal for them to hack your computer. I mean, that's a right the cops in Germany don't have.
Jules: I'm going, that's all there is too it, I'm farking going.
Vincent: Yeah baby, you'd digg it the most.
how come? as soon as the word "german" appears... ...some folks can't help themselves but mentioning "hitler". reminds me of some dogs, a bell and an old russian man.
Police hacking is bad, mmkay? Unless they're nailing spammers! Anyone should be able to do anything to track-down and disable spammers. (no, not mailing list operators, but real, serious spammers!) Spam is making people crazy as it is and I fear it won't be long until people start taking things into their own hands on large enough scales to do some damage.
Spam Thwart: Anti-Spam Collective
Ah, that must be Vladimir I. Lenin and his troupe of musical capitalist running dogs?
Seriously, I'm from an English speaking country but have lived in Germany for yonks, and you quickly learn what you can get away with in terms of frivolous reference to Mr. H and his All-Singing, All-Dancing Nazi Party. Mind you, things are lightening up a little, the first Hitler comedy was recently released in cinemas.
I'll mostly aggree about the other points, but I'm not sure what the point about children dying and the highways is. We're not talking in the cities, we're not even talking fast roads as such, we're talking major highways surrounded by at least fences and usually walls (against noise) too in the urban areas. To actually get onto a highway, a kid would have to walk quite a bit from wherever their home is, and climb over / crawl under a fence. I'm not even aware of that ever happening. Even if I might have missed a case somewhere along the road, it's hardly reason to plan traffic around such an unlikely scenario.
Also, if we're talking car-crazy, I'd like to say that at least Germany is designed to at least _allow_ one to not have a car, pretty much anywhere they may live. Compare it to USA suburban areas where in most cases you can't even walk even if you wanted to. Not only there are sidewalks everywhere, there's also good public transportation everywhere, and most places have supermarkets every 1 km or less. (As opposed to concentrating everything in some mall outside the town that's not even practical or in some cases possible to reach without a car.) So if you want to walk or take a bus instead, at least you _can_. I actually have (well paid) co-workers who come by bus, and at least one refuses to have a car and supposedly burned his driver's license as a protest against something or another.
Also the suburbia craze hasn't hit here half as hard as in the USA, where the American dream seems to be that if you're white and even vaguely countable as middle class, you have to move somewhere away from other people in some place reachable only by car. I suppose that not having much of an inner-city crime problem also helps with that. Most of my co-workers (again, well-paid and including some managers) actually like living in a populated place, on account of being more a more social thing. Which again tends to create somewhat less reason for a car exodus daily. Not that there isn't one, but it could be worse, you know?
Traffic congestions are a problem in some places, but then that's a problem in most of the western world. Cars in the 40's were still a luxury, so noone assumed we'd end up having _this_ many when they planned the cities. Short of demolishing half the city again and rebuilding it with wider roads, there's not that horribly much one can do. People aren't going to just give up their cars in Germany, but then again they aren't going to give up their cars in the USA either. And I was just reading a few days ago about Turkey having a traffic problem too, and a proposal to forbid more than one car per family in Istanbul. The Turks weren't happy about that idea, either. So that problem pretty much isn't a Germany-only problem by any kind of reckoning.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Seriously the politicos were, and still are, advocating what is being called a "federal trojan", i.e. secret, police-controlled spyware. Just how they plan to create such a mythical multi-platform wunder-creature is a mystery to everyone here, or they are assuming all criminals and other potential searchees are using easily-targetted Windows versions attached directly to the net and store all their data in easily-searched formats and locations.
- I'm supposed to help cutting administrative costs, so I should use "E-Government" possibilities (websites, software, forms etc). Tax declarations can in large parts only be made online using some (Windows only) govt software. How could I possibly trust any software / website / form provided by the government if "online searches" were to be legal? How can I visit a public government website without fear of being 0wn3d?
- as German ministers announce - Schäuble, in this case - that whatever is ruled illegal by the courts will "promptly" be put into appropriate new legislation, how am I supposed to trust this government any longer? In their oath of office, German ministers vow "to avert damage from the German people" - I don't see that. I dont't fear terrorists at all, I fear our representatives! List goes on and on, but I'm tired and kinda drunk...
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
That's why all my FreeBSD machines have a password-less police user account with a UID of 0. I just keep forgetting to allow root logins per ssh, but that's not my fault, officer.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I would move to Germany. Please fallow this example Japan. Say no to police brutality against computer privacy.
I'm an American, but I've been living here in Germany ever since I left the US Army in 1990. Some points I agree with, some seem to be more of a myth, however.
Bureaucracy in Germany is like much of the EU: there are regulations for almost anything. This does, however, have a silver lining as that means less legal battles. The courts aren't as bogged down since there are less "grey areas", so legal insurance is a lot cheaper. Some companies are returning to Germany because of the high cost of legal battles elsewhere.
Architecture is improving in Germany, as the butt-ugly buildings get torn down to make way for more modern structures. I would say that most larger cities now have spent a great deal to make their centres attractive pedestrian zones.
Car craziness in Germany is different than in the USA, but not any worse. The SUV remains an exotic animal, and fuel efficiency is playing a larger role. Move into the cities like Munich, and a car becomes a liability due to the lack of parking and the net of public transportation. That said, the sons of my neighbour spend incredible amounts of time washing and cleaning their cars, caring for them more than for their girlfriends. The elder one actually presses his GF into vacuuming the upholstery with him!
Social Welfare in Germany is still better than elsewhere, but it's also seen as a burden. Germans are born worrywarts, and the low birth rate means that the ratio of retirees to wage-earners is like a Sword of Damocles. The reforms currently being enacted are painful, mainly because for the first time social benefits are being cut, not expanded.
Education in Germany has one huge, huge problem, and that is the way it divides pupils at age 10-12. Starting then, children are stuck into one of the three secondary schools: the Gymnasium for future academics, the Realschule for vocational careers, and the Hauptschule for the rest. As a result, those kids that have the misfortune to only attend a Hauptschule will later have an uphill battle to get a decent job, and it's incredibly difficult to switch paths. The Hauptschule has become the school for "losers".
Human Rights, though, is one area where modern Germans are especially proud. Despite what the occasional beer hall pundit might say, only a tiny minority is really for the death penalty. Germans instead see themselves as better than the "barbarian" American justice system mainly because they don't have a death penalty. Human rights activists have more clout and respect in Germany than in any other country I have lived in.
Privacy was after the Nazi regime a sore point with Germans. That's why this case was so important, as it represented the digital equivalent of a secret search warrant. Germans are also leery of video surveillance, and those measure already installed in train stations and other public places have to follow strict rules. Herr Schäuble's populist clamour for new laws is not even supported by the police, as the current laws still allow for snooping in the internet, just not on the suspect's hard drive without his knowledge.
there _currently_ is no law that allows for the hacking of a suspects computer. prosecutors thought they were allowed to order a covered remote inspection of a suspects computer based on 100a and 100b StPO (Germany). both deal with telecommunication - and the german supreme court just ruled, that data saved on a computer is not part of a telecommunication, so these do not apply.
but just like it is possible to tap phone-lines or to search a house with the appropriate warrant the "hacking" will be most likely made legal in the near future. it might require a judge to issue the warrant, but they usually just sign the appropriate form without even checking for plausibility.
but it proves again, that the german supreme court is not the administrations puppet.
damn - it is really difficult to translate "juristen-deutsch"...
The police just has to find a terrorist who is stupid enough. See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/02 /antiterrortroja.html
Bye,
Oliver