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Expenditure Report Reveals Germany Monitors Skype, Google Mail, Facebook Chat
hypnosec writes "The German Government has gone a bit too far trying to be transparent, inadvertently revealing that German police monitor Skype, Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Facebook chat when necessary. The revelations, spotted by the annalist blog, come from a report of expenses incurred by the Federal Ministry of the Interior following a parliamentary inquiry. The report contains lots of tables and as many would find those boring, some highlights: On page 34 and page 37 of the report line item 486 and 265 respectively, represent decoding software for Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail for prevention and investigation."
Isn't it good that the government is transparent?
Isn't most Google Mail traffic SSL encrypted?
how is this news? (tinfoil fully charged)
lack of transparency: complain about lack of transparency
transparency: complain about what you see
I'd much rather be able to see that my government is doing something I'd like to know more about, than to know that they're hiding something from me that's potentially of interest to me.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I personally would like to know and hold my government responsible for things like this. In theory one might argue that given a sutable warrant it might be perfectly reasonable to monitor someone. The German people have a right to know what their government is doing IMHO.
I guess the culture in Europe vs. the U.S. is probably quite different... But no matter what the reasons transparency is almost always better than the opposite.
.: Max Romantschuk
which seems to have had the details back in 2008. I wasn't aware of something that intercepts skype, but based on the wikileaks article it appears that it works by installing malware on the target's computer.
" Further, money is also spent by the ministry on Trojan viruses known as IMSI catchers which are used for "man-in-the-middle" attacks on mobile phones used by German police." So they have implemented a software mobile tower? Don't think so. They are using them on phones used by the German police? Don't think so. Last time I checked, an IMSI catcher was hardware.
A government that tells me when/where they monitor, than being monitor without knowing.
This is not a direct proof of snooping, just that the German government has the ability to do so. That doesn't necessarily mean that it abuses that power in warrantless monitoring.
you know who else was... wait. You said "Germany" right?
I'm not. Any modern government (law enforcement or intelligence agencies) would or at least should have this capability. The real question is, do they use it without warrants, use it in an indiscriminant fashion, etc. If they were going after a legitimate suspect, they should have the capability to do so.
Way to set back your government back a generation.
I'm sure references are bound to be made towards Facsism, etc etc... but frankly... it just reinforces a bad stigma against Germany after all the bad thoughts already in place over the past 100 years.
Really though, I'm sure the US does this, but just isn't quite 'that' transparent yet.
You don't actually think that the western nations are able thwart would be terrorists if they followed privacy laws, do you? It's a give and take, I know, but I have to wonder if we are going to arrive at an Orwellian dystopia in a few generations.
Which begs the question: how less tragic would it be if we gradually became Orwellian in 60 years verses waking up tomorrow to a tyrannical, oppressive Orwellian society???? Funking scary.
If there is a warrant for every capture of chat/call , where is the problem ? Anybody thinking there is not such a tool available from law enforcement , is fooling themselves.
E-mail standards and specs don't have anything in the initial design for security or privacy of messages. Almost none of the e-mail servers encrypt the communication channel during the relay of a message from server to server. It's like sending a post card is how I explain it to people.
E-mail also is a best effort delivery mechanism with no promise it is ever received.
Just because they have the software, some of which is used to send secure encrypted Skype and decode it on the other end, does not mean they're using it on you.
Now put some underwear on.
I mean, seriously, that's just gross.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Im hardened by Chinese Surviliance. Good thing is that old habits die hard and that i assume that germany is by far less technical capable then China.
So i guess QQ (chinese IM) is now the safest IM around....funny how things change.
Meanwhile, the German federal consumer protection minister is widely known for criticizing Facebook's poor record on privacy.
She's right, mind you, but it's still funny.
People seem to be systematically blind to threats from the public or private sector, depending on political affiliation. Right-wing Americans chiefly fear their own government, not caring what corporations might do with their data. In comparatively liberal Germany, the untechnical mainstream froths at the thought of Google showing a publically taken anonymous photograph of their house, while ignoring police monitoring or hailing internet censorship "for the children".
Hello and welcome to the Internet. You must be new here. We here do sometimes happen to speak in strange tongues, sometimes we might even portrait a thing desirable as being appalling. That is a rhetoric trick called irony, sometimes even sarcasm. HTH.
What the author mean to say was this: the government probably did reveal more than they meant to, as spying on their on citizens on a regular basis is so 1984, and no one from 2012 wants to live in a future like that and we'll have elections here in Germany soon, so please move along, we'll spy on nobody from now on, at least not if you're not one of the baddies, yes, we do decide who is bad, yes, all your data will be kept, oops, did we was this aloud?... get it?
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
Now how are those alternative VOIP/Video clients coming along?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"But we don't have enemies."
If this were true, Brazil would be truly unique in the entire history of human civilization...
Not too expensive, this decoding software of theirs.