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More Details On the German Government's Use of Malware
Reader HnT writes with an update on the German government's malware, recently dissected by the CCC: "The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reports details on cases where the government malware was used so far — all of them actually unlawful and in violation of its initial intention to only be used against serious crime and threats of terrorism."
So tempting to take the lid off, play around with it, see what else it can do.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
To me, it looks like the Eastern Germany's Stasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi) is still in place. :(
- meringuoid, Nov 24, 2005.
I thought Germans were very careful about not being all Stasi and nazi nowadays. I thought they had very good privacy protections and respect for the people, even from the government?
it was always assumed that it was West Germany assimilated East. Instead, it appears that the Stasi lives on, in spirit if not name.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
What, you have to have like a murder or stabbing or bombing before you take a crime seriously? 120,000 people each defrauded out of 99 Euros isn't serious crime, because no one person was defrauded out of more than 100 Euros?
I'd like to see the definition of the law, rather than this mentioned-in-passing "violation of its initial intention" If there's going to be technical analysis of the spyware, why isn't there similar analysis of the laws it's claimed to violate?
John
Americans should not worry. The Patriot Act will never be used for anything other than terrorism.
Of course, the definition of terrorism can always change...
Ve haf vays of making your computer talk!
Nah, "Gebupo" sounds to ridiculous for anyone to take seriously.
when the entire govt cane be him right?
They probably just want amateur pornographic images/movies but are just too afraid to find them through other means that might endanger their marriages. So, this could be interpreted as a request of the German police to send them porn. Doing so might help them avoid the need to install malware.
No, they're not.
"If there's going to be technical analysis of the spyware, why isn't there similar analysis of the laws it's claimed to violate?"
Reminds me of auto insurance companies. They want you to buy the insurance without looking at the car. So you may have a sports car that blue books for $20,000 but in reality you gutted the interior for weight savings and it's all pristine in your garage. Like removing the rear seats, door panels, etc.
You could put it back in before selling the car and easily surpass blue book value. Let's say you could sell it for $21K. But if you get in a wreck with the interior still in your garage, they refuse to acknowledge that and force you to keep it. Then they say your value is really $10K because the interior is gutted. But you just paid for $20,000 worth of coverage for the last 4 years. Not only that, you TOLD them that it was gutted and you still were forced to pay normal price.
THAT is some total bullshit. Same thing here. Pretend it's 1 thing (worth more), then when it's time to pay up, come up with excuses. Also any notification up front is intentionally ignored and you can only check the value when it's time to pay up... not when up front when deciding how much you will be paying each month.
German people tend to be very lawful, and they also trust their police much. But they also have, or at least had, a police that could be trusted. However, the recent problems with wiretapping, and the Pirate Party's subsequent success shows that even German patience has an end. Comparing this to nazis and stasi is just rude.
Most of the crimes mentioned looked like petty crime, but I wonder what definition the author was using when he insisted that a €10M fraud was still petty crime -- and I wonder where those €10M went.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Since the actions of the police are not exempt by the BKA law the usual anti-hacking laws should apply. Is someone going to jail?
I'm so surprised.
I think
I might have a heart attack
and die
from that surprise.
... [car analogy] ...
... you lost me...
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I wonder what definition the author was using when he insisted that a €10M fraud was still petty crime
The author probably works for one of those European banks were defrauding a mere €10M is a petty crime.
But yeah seriously, Kleinkriminelle does rather seem a poor description for people moving that amount of lucre ... in any language.
It's not such much that these crimes aren't considered serious it's more that the German constitution is very strict at protecting citizen's privacy, including from the state. The reason for this is of course the Stasi and the Nazi eras, both times when people were rounded up for collective punishment by the state's law enforcement.
The 'law' being referred to is a ruling by the German constitutional court that interpreted the constitution to explicitly forbid this kind of surveillence in all but the most serious cases - when there was a direct threat to life or limb or a direct threat to democracy or the state (meaning the rise of another Nazi-like group or similar).
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Narcotics is a serious crime, overdosage kills young people all around the world! In the city state of Singapore, which has the world's lowest crime rate, drug dealers are automatically hanged from the gallows, no excuses! They prosper like there is no world economic crisis, guess why?
Organized crime is also a serious crime by definition. The only reason Switzerland and Germany are much better off than their southern neighbour Italy is their lack of socially pervasive and permeating mafia. When Mussolini fully disrupted the mafia, Italy advanced very rapidly in just a few years and became the world's envy with its progress in aviation and high-speed electrified railway system. Then came the stupid US Army occupiers and reinstalled the godfathers. Today, large scale infrastructure projects are impossible in Italy due to the extra cost resulting from mafia profiting from them. The country is sliding rapidly, do you want Germany to become like that or accept the Bundestrojan?
The use of Bundestrojan versus any organized crime and narcotics dealers is well justified and laudable! Any attempt to impose anglo-saxon tribal origin "thiefs' honour" legal code on roman-napoleonic law based continental european countires must be starkly rebuffled by the EU leadership!
"We'd never do anything bad with this, we promise. Though you may want to put a piece of tape over your webcam when visiting 'NaughtyBabysitters.com'. It just makes us feel... icky watching you Make popcorn! Yeah, that's it! Popcorn."
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Let's revisit that statement when one of your kids or family members get hooked on hard-drugs or when you or someone close to you comes home to a ransacked house...
That has a habit of changing one's mind toward crime. It's never really bad AS LONG AS IT HAPPENS TO OTHERS!
I guess I'm a right-wing bastard because I can only applaud the use cases quoted in the article.
Now, if they install this on journalist's PC or on the PCs of opposition groups (anti-nuclear, greens, etc) THEN you might have a serious beef with the nazis who put it on there.
I have had my house broken into (and a second failed attempt) and had two close friends develop an addiction, one was hooked on crack/cocaine the other heroin. And I agree with the grandparent poster, they are not serious crimes. Someone directly harming someone through physical violence is serious. You PlayStation getting nicked at first is unsettling but you can replace it and get on with your life as if nothing happened. A dead person cant be replaced and neither can you replace your health.
And a right winger would more likely say that the addicts themselves are responsible for their addictions in the first place, not the dealers. And I agree. Dealers don't go around threatening people to do drugs. Yes they might engage in other criminal activity, mostly violence toward other dealers in turf disputes. But that is a separate crime. The best weapon against addiction is education and making sure that people get help for problems they are looking to escape by using drugs. That cant apply to everyone but then again you know that we do not live in a perfect society.
Considering those large scale fraudsters rarely get a really major punishment I guess we could count that as petty crime. White collar crime pays well.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It would be really cool, if slashdotters would actually link their sources.