Slashdot Mirror
Germany Seeks Expansion of Computer Spying
gooman writes "The LA Times reports on a proposal to secretly scan suspects' hard drives which is causing unease in a nation with a history of official surveillance. Along with several other European countries, Germany is seeking authority to plant secret Trojan viruses into the computers of suspects that could scan files, photos, diagrams and voice recordings, record every keystroke typed and possibly even turn on webcams and microphones in an attempt to gain knowledge of attacks before they happen."
You hear a lot of stories on sites these days about the USA turning into a police state, but I think the UK (all those CCTVs) and I guess now Germany are really kicking our butts in that department lately.
If this doesn't convince anyone who'd be considered 'suspicious' online in Germany to load up on spyware prevention-and-detection tools (assuming they're using Windows), I don't know what will.
It'll be interesting to see if some future mandatory German tax software might have a list of 'incompatible software' that it will kindly uninstall for you in future tax seasons.
Ryan Fenton
In America, the government just does things like this, hoping it stays a secret. If it is found out, you smear anyone who is upset as anti-American. If there are hearings on it, you get amnesia and claim executive priveledge. Eventaully, a congressman will have sex with something, or somewhere, he isn't supposed to, and everyone forgets.
Really, it's a wonderful system we have here.
Wow, sounds like the Geheime Staatspolizei are making their comeback.
than give up my rights.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
Running Linux will simply make you a greater suspect - in the current environment, you obviously must have something to hide.
It failed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Whenever governments want some new power, the major threat is nearly always "Mission Creep". They start off by saying that the new measures will only apply to terror suspects (or whatever) and things will have to be approved etc. A year or so down the line though, once people are used to it, they extend things a little. Then a while later, they do it again. Before you know it, you can end up with a real big brother situation.
An example of this is the criminal genetic database in the UK. Initially it was only for convicted criminals, but there has been mission creep for years and they now keep huge amounts of genetic data, even from people who are completely innocent.
A terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is certain. The question is no longer whether such an attack could be carried out by terrorists, but when," Schaeuble told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper in September.[emphasis added]
If the attack is so certain, why haven't we arrested the terrorist(s)? Which is more likely:
Fearmongering for personal political gain only detracts from the real issues surrounding terrorism. You know, things like:
Instead of responding to goons like this, we should instead focus on the fact that other law enforcement officials have been able to conduct successful terrorism investigations without resorting to devices such as these.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The point behind even publicly announcing such a plan is that it makes those who the German government plans on targeting fearful. Even if the ability of the German police or whoever is going to be responsible for this program can only hope to directly monitor a fraction of those that they would like, the strategy is to make Big Brother front and center in the eyes of the German people.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You can't take the sky from me...
They were using shoes, they were wearing hats, it would have been very, very helpful to track them down by legally bugging every shoe and hat in the country.