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Germany Scores First: Ends Verizon Contract Over NSA Concerns

Posted by Unknown on from the localize-spying dept.

schwit1 (797399) writes with word that, after revelations that Verizon assisted the NSA in its massive surveillance program, Germany is cutting ties with Verizon as their infrastructure provider. From the article: The Interior Ministry says it will let its current contract for Internet services with the New York-based company expire in 2015. The announcement comes after reports this week that Verizon and British company Colt provide Internet services to the German parliament and other official entities. ... Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said Thursday that Germany wants to ensure it has full control over highly sensitive government communications networks.

40 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Now it's time for New York to nut up! by killfixx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    New York and New Jersey.

    Verizon has been fucking them for years...hard!

    Never thought I'd feel bad for people from Jersey...

    --
    "Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
  2. Are you getting it yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nobody wants anything communications-related from the U.S.A. anymore.

    1. Re:Are you getting it yet? by gatkinso · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What kind of fools would trust their internal government communications to a foreign company in the first place?

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    2. Re:Are you getting it yet? by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Dude, do a traceroute to slashdot or GTFO.

      Well I live in Canada, the only time my ISP(teksavvy) routes to the US now is if I'm requesting a US based address. Not even traffic going to europe or asia is routed through the US.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:Are you getting it yet? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Nazis didn't outsource the creation of enigma to the Americans for a good reason.

      Because Americans are bad at math?

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    4. Re:Are you getting it yet? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Germany probably thought that the US were their allies . . .

      . . . fools, indeed! The US doesn't have any allies any more; just enemies. Or, at least they treat everyone as enemies.

      Hell, even the citizens of the US are treated as enemies by their own government . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    5. Re:Are you getting it yet? by Sique · · Score: 2

      The government network contract was up for bidding, and Verizon won. It's as easy as that. And now, the German government found out that Verizon didn't disclose some very important information in the contract negotiations.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    6. Re:Are you getting it yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yea, you should probably traceroute a few more things before making that claim. Teksavvy buys a lot of bandwidth from the US: http://fixedorbit.com/AS/5/AS5645.htm
      Many routes to europe or asia will take US carriers unfortunately.

    7. Re:Are you getting it yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just because none of the routers on the traceroute is in the US, doesn't mean the routing doesn't go THROUGH the US.
      http://cablemap.info/

    8. Re:Are you getting it yet? by HiThere · · Score: 3, Insightful

      FWIW I'm *still* a paranoid freak. I don't believe that ANY centralization of power under the control of humans can be trusted. People are corruptible, and worse, some among them are psychotically driven to seek positions of power. At some point any position of power will fall under the control of one of them, and his (these characters are extremely predominately male) first act will be to extend his current power, and his second will be to increase his immunity to repercussions for his illegal, or at least immoral, actions.

      Please note that this doesn't mean I think there is any reasonable way to eliminate such concentrations of power. What it means is that I think it should be made as difficult as possible to reach such a position by political maneuvering and scheming. To this end sometimes I suggest that the holder of such a position should be selected by lottery among those technically qualified. This will produce an inefficient government, as those selected would be less adept at diplomatic negotiations and compromise. OTOH, look at the current congress, and contemplate whether it could do worse. I am bothered by isolated positions of power such as the POTUS, but my real feeling is that they should be devolved into purely symbolic offices, and the real power should vest in some small committee, selected, as suggested above, by lottery....and not from any small pool of candidates.

      OTOH, I can see the value of voting, if not of plurality wins voting. So I am also moderately supportive of Instant Runoff Voting or Condorcet Voting. They would clearly be an improvement over the current system, though they would increase the problem of information overload at election time.

      As for Germany...I suspect that their motives are basically economic, but this time it's causing them to make the correct decision. They should not trust a foreign country with their governmental communications.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    9. Re:Are you getting it yet? by Bartles · · Score: 2

      No, actually some American schools are bad at teaching math. We still have plenty of math geniuses who were home schooled or managed to escape the public system.

  3. How many of these will it take? by kolbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For their corporate lobbyists to actually get some movement on Capital Hill and attempt to undo this.

  4. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The way to evade beta, for now, is to use the URL http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1 before you open any other Slashdot page. It's a cookies thing.

    This public service announcement was brought to you by Beta Sucks (tm).

  5. Zimmerman telegram? by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    The announcement comes after reports this week that Verizon and British company Colt provide Internet services to the German parliament and other official entities.

    Germany should've learned their lesson, when a telegram sent to their Ambassador in Mexico was intercepted by the British — and shared with the US-government.

    Had we not obtained that piece of intelligence, the history of the world could've been quite different...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Zimmerman telegram? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 2

      The announcement comes after reports this week that Verizon and British company Colt provide Internet services to the German parliament and other official entities.

      Germany should've learned their lesson, when a telegram sent to their Ambassador in Mexico was intercepted by the British — and shared with the US-government.

      Had we not obtained that piece of intelligence, the history of the world could've been quite different...

      Yeah and if MI6 had grown a spine and called bullshit on the CIA case for WMD's in Iraq maybe that country would not now be on the cusp of becoming an Islamist Caliphate and 179 British soldiers would not have died what is increasingly looking like pointless deaths. At least the Germans had the good sense to see that the CIA 'evidence' for Iraqi WMDs was a steaming pile of horse manure and the strategic foresight to realize that intervention in Iraq would highly probably become the kind of FUBAR it currently is. Could it be that Germany (and France for that matter) learned some lessons from WWI, WWII and the cold war proxy conflicts that Britain might be well advised to take to heart?

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    2. Re:Zimmerman telegram? by Dasher42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah and if MI6 had grown a spine and called bullshit on the CIA case for WMD's in Iraq maybe that country would not now be on the cusp of becoming an Islamist Caliphate and 179 British soldiers would not have died what is increasingly looking like pointless deaths. At least the Germans had the good sense to see that the CIA 'evidence' for Iraqi WMDs was a steaming pile of horse manure and the strategic foresight to realize that intervention in Iraq would highly probably become the kind of FUBAR it currently is. Could it be that Germany (and France for that matter) learned some lessons from WWI, WWII and the cold war proxy conflicts that Britain might be well advised to take to heart?

      Ummm - they did. In the time between Colin Powell's UN address and the State of the Union address by President Bush, I was able to read links on foreign media where MI6 was warning the CIA and the CIA was passing the warning upward. That's "the facts fixed around the policy" for you: only a tiny minority of the USA's population knew as Bush spoke that he was deliberately using hoaxed information as a pretext for an unjustified war.

      Similarly, "full" transcripts of Hans Blix's testimony to the UN about the findings of weapons inspectors in Iraq were carried on CNN and the BBC - but the BBC's was the one actually full. The rest of the world got to see the entire thing; most of the US public had omitted from its media all the most convincing evidence that WMDs in Iraq were a fiction, and no cause for war.

      Don't let someone cover their ass at Langley or in DC. The falsification of evidence started from the top.

    3. Re:Zimmerman telegram? by blackest_k · · Score: 2

      The map on that page is quite interesting, the red line shows how far north Mexico used to reach.
      If those borders still stood The USA wouldn't have much of an illegal immigrant problem but Mexico sure would.

       

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  6. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You don't understand. It could be impossible for him to disable it. The footer link and the nobeta=1 QS parameter sometimes just don't work at all for me, I guess because Slashdot Beta is just that fucking broken. But other times they do work just fine. It's a crapshoot, really. Even legends like Bjarne Stroustrup or Sir Tim Berners-Lee could get stymied by the same bug, and they'd have no choice but to make similar complaints, too. The real fix is just to totally get rid of the dung heap that's called the Slashdot Beta. That'll fix the problem completely, and properly.

  7. Wall Street says not a big deal by ayesnymous · · Score: 2

    VZ stock hardly changed today.

  8. For the love of God, don't put most of your point by easyTree · · Score: 5, Funny

    in the title.

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream
  9. World Cup by JustinKSU · · Score: 5, Funny

    For a second I thought Slashdot was starting to get into sports reporting.

  10. Re:Yes. by easyTree · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, he's a traitor to his country's attempts to act dishonorably without widespread knowledge. Shame on him.

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream
  11. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by sumdumass · · Score: 2

    I wonder how many people are disabling the footer with no script or something? And I would guess that the do not track stuff built into browsers as a work around for websites ignoring the do not track marker might be the problem with the nobeta=1 QS parameter.

    Of course those are guesses but if you haven't looked into it, perhaps it might lead you somewhere productive. I disabled cookies altogether a while back and found most all of my web pages loaded differently and on some, I had to log in every time I clicked a link or it forgot I was already logged in. Now I just clear my browser cookies every so often and when opening new sites.

  12. Re:Is it any different with anybody else? by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The USA is unique in the resources it can devote, and therefore the scale at which it can operate. Which is to say, it is unique.

  13. Re:Is it any different with anybody else? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    So let them listen. That's what encryption is for.

  14. Re:How is Verizon involved? by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they shared nothing but the name, that would be one thing, but they actually share the same management as far as I know.

    A $2 whore is still a $2 whore even if she moves to another country.

  15. De-americanization has officially began by boorack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will be somewhat off-topic but still (somewhat) related.

    De-americanization has officially began when Russia signed gas deal with China bypassing dollar. This process started long ago but with this deal it's now official. Things seem to speed up since then. Germany Verizon thing is just another domino piece falling. Regardless of what Americans think of it, I see it as a good thing. Aside from taking (most of the) world of american hegemony, ending of US imperial project can benefit Americans themselves - granted that their (incompetent and incredibly corrupt) government manages to transition from imperial power to ordinary (but better managed) country in orderly way (that is, without inciting WW3).

    Message to fellow Americans: you're still one of the most progressive folks in the world (yet NOT the most ones), it's just your fucked up government that sucks, causes mayhem (Ukraine being the last manifestation of this) and blocks your potential. It's time to abandon your imperial/global hegemony policies - you can prosper pretty damn well in a multipolar world (much better than most of the rest). It all depends on you. BUT there are few things to do. You need to bring your fucked-up out-of-control government back in control, forget about american exceptionalism and learn to live in (competitive) multipolar world (ie. do not solve all problem using military or inciting civil wars).

    1. Re:De-americanization has officially began by thrich81 · · Score: 2

      As much as I would like for the US to withdraw to its borders and let the other democracies defend their own borders in a big, bad world -- the last time we had a multipolar world we got World Wars I and II out of it. A big reason we got WW II is that the US did withdraw to its own borders after WW I and the multipolar world outside proceeded to screw it up on three continents at once.

    2. Re:De-americanization has officially began by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The world has already had near constant regional conflicts via Covert United States foreign regime change actions
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      Most nations may not want to be at some "plate" allowed crumbs by a 'superpower' if they elect a good party or live under a tame dictator.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:De-americanization has officially began by dryeo · · Score: 2

      Regional conflicts are a whole lot less nasty than the world wars that were going on before nuclear weapons created MAD seems more accurate, the US seems to have created more conflicts since WWII then any other country with many of those conflicts being a long way away from the US borders and the only thing that America seems to respect is nukes.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    4. Re:De-americanization has officially began by HiThere · · Score: 2

      People have been out protesting, but the press is centrally owned by those who don't want to encourage such behavior. So they don't cover it. It's not like the 1970's, when each city had its own independent newspaper, and many had independent TV stations. Mind you, if you search for protests you can find them documented. They aren't really suppressed, and they are covered in various small areas. But nobody does, so the protests die away...or transform into posts on You-tube.

      Additionally, as the population ages the proportion of people who will protest injustice without counting the costs declines. That is an activity mainly engaged in by people in their early 20s. People who are just becoming aware of the political structure of the world, and haven't yet become hardened to it. And who will protest without counting the cost.

      Additionally (yet more) there needs to be an acceptable alternative. If all the alternatives seem worse, then it's hard to protest even a clear injustice.

      Additionally, the system is designed to channel protests into harmless channels. If you engage in the standard political process, you are marginalized unless you have LOTS of financial backing. If you go into a minor party, you are just about guaranteed to not be electable. This is a result of the plurality wins voting system. If there are 15 parties, then only the two largest have a reasonable chance of electing someone. If there are 3 parties, the same applies. With 4 parties you could theoretically get elected with 25.0001% of the vote, because that would be the plurality. So the rational choice is to always pick whichever of the two biggest parties is the least repulsive...and that what most people do. This may be why so many people just don't bother to vote. It's seen as a waste of effort.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  16. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by uniquename72 · · Score: 2

    You don't understand. It could be impossible for him to disable it.

    It's easily disabled. There was a time when only techies read /.; now techies are the exception rather than the rule.

    Sad times.

  17. Better yet ban the company from the whole country by mrspoonsi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it can be shown that the company is working against the countries interests (company treason?), such as in this case, ban them from all sales in that country. That really would get the attention deserved.

  18. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by buckfeta2014 · · Score: 2

    Damn straight.

    --
    Buck Feta. You know what to do.
  19. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by peragrin · · Score: 3, Informative

    the low tech solution? login. I only see slashdot classic. the conversation view is better, it is easier to follow long threads. The best part? Slashdot classic allows you to login once and keeps you logged in. Mobile and Beta slashdot log me out of the system after every post, If I can login at all.

    One would think Slashdot would have tested user logins without someone like 1password or apple keychain providing login every time.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  20. We the people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Please correct me if i'm wrong.

    This story has close to none coverage in Germany.

    It's been dug up by a blogger (1) and reblogged by netzpolitik.org (2), who then started to ask questions.

    There are some articles gathering up by now, but the big media seems to shush things.
    The leading tv-stations (ARD & ZDF) that are publicly funded have no real content regarding this story.
    This being said: ZDF does list a story in which the government looks as if it has addressed this problem entirely by itself. Some reuters-bot-written junk. (3)

    But this was not the case, the government clearly had no intention to reveal it's ties to Verizon. If it wasn't for the blogger, they wouldn't have had to.
    Now they're trying to downplay the story and to make the provided services look like a fallback routine or - even better - like an unused source.

    The Fed. Ministry of Interior posted yesterday that it had contacted Verizon in 2010,
    telling them they would slowly withdraw from the contract, since the Verizon services were being replaced gradually by a new infrastructure for the Government. (4) ...they forgot to tell us when this would happen, but now it seems like they are ready for the big transition m(

    After the internet died last summer, this is a bad joke.

    Anyhow:
    also yesterday the big coalition has managed to finalize their decision regarding a hearing of E. Snowden.
    They hold a majority within the exclusivly formed task force regarding the NSA affair.
    They have decided mutually that a hearing can not take place on German soil - given the 'fact' that an extradition treaty with the US is in effect. (5)

    1: Daniel Luecking http://medienkonsument.de/
    2: https://netzpolitik.org/2014/arbeitserleichterung-fuer-die-nsa-deutscher-bundestag-bezieht-internet-von-us-anbieter-verizon/
    3: http://www.heute.de/bund-baut-kommunikationsnetz-neu-ohne-us-partner-verizon-33792814.html
    4: https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/2014/06/bund-wechselt-netzbetreiber.html
    5: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nsa-affaere-grosse-koalition-verhindert-befragung-von-snowden-a-977742.html

  21. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by DocHoncho · · Score: 2

    It only ever happens to me on mobile, so no no-script there. What happens is you can see the link to use classic, and then it disappears behind some other div. To top it off, the stupid fucking website is "responsive," so it squishes itself down into a useless wad of mobile-site and fuck you if you'd rather it stayed a normal full page. So far as I know there's no way to disable CSS Media Queries without browser plugins so the design weenies have finally managed to get us good and stuck in their sweaty ass-crack of "modern web design."

    --
    Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
  22. Re: Is it any different with anybody else? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Are you 13? I think you are 13.

  23. Re:wtf forced on beta again? by Carewolf · · Score: 2

    It's easily disabled

    No it isn't. From mobile it is no longer possible to disable, it just redirects nobeta links to beta, and there is no login to beta, so no way of logging in and enforcing your settings. Yeah it is THAT broken.

  24. Re:Is it any different with anybody else? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    Then the obvious solution is to make sure everyone uses encryption for even the most trivial things. Enable it by default.