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.
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
We already have something like that in America. It's called Geek Squad.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Next they will be mandating the use of Windows because their trojan does not work on Macs and Linux. I can just imagine getting a letter: "Dear Suspect, in order to secretly monitor your computer use, we require..."
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
sign these papers!
what do the papers say?
they say that we have treated you well.
i cannot sign the papers
why not?
you have broken all my fingers
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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
How dare these Germans! Don't they know that wiretapping is against the Constitution!??!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I hope hacker organizations around the World all do the same, and if possible, do it for folks who live in countries where such activity will get them killed. *ahem*Chine*ahem*
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
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.
Imagine a back door, vulnerability or leaked/cracked private key in one of those.
Given governments' competence in such matters that's just a matter of time.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Is it going to be legal to protect yourself from these? Assuming they are found, dissected, and something is available to block or corrupt their program, would it not be classified as malware and thus, completely legal to protect against.
As for the reliability of the information gathered: Is information gathered in this way admissible? It would seem that there are to many potential snags with this that it would never be able to be relied upon by itself.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
than give up my rights.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
More like the East-German STASI. And a lot of people here see it like that.
I don't think Goodwin's law is applicable here. We have the German government acting like ... well... Nazis.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
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.
This whole idea is mainly pushed by the interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who probably has about as much clue about computers as your Ted "series-of-tubes" Stevens.
Linux? Never heard of it.
Don't expect that those proposals even remotely make sense. If somebody where to tell them it won't work, they would answer "then make it work".
Besides, that guy is really paranoid, perhaps because he was shot years ago. He's definitely on the "or the terrorists win" train.
They will come through you house door, not your firewall and install it manually. (At least that's what the police says, the politicians maunder about attachments and the like.) But, whether it will be platform independent and thus run on your FreeBSD Desktop is an unanswered question.
When you strip off all that crackhead talk of the politicians, the police wants a mean to bug your computer just like your phone. It is technically feasible and not crazy. But as far as I am concerned it's politically wrong.
(btw there was a talk about this topic at the CCC's hacker camp this summer.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
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.
Fred Palnicki. Famous slashdotter, died in the middle of an epic raid with his wow guild. His guildmates try to honor him here, whenever they get the chance.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You can't take the sky from me...
Europe is at least eight years behind the USA on this one. The FBI been installing spyware in people's machines since at least 1999 and a judge ruled it was Ok to do so in 2001.
See: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2002/01/49455
(Or google for something like "scarfo keylogger")
No sig today...
They are planning the same thing in Austria. What is happening to us?