Slashdot Mirror
German Spy Agency Seeks Millions To Monitor Social Networks
itwbennett writes: Germany's foreign intelligence agency reportedly wants to spend €300 million (about $375 million) in the next five years on technology that would let it spy in real time on social networks outside of Germany, and decrypt and monitor encrypted Internet traffic. The agency, which already spent €6.22 million in preparation for this online surveillance push, also wants to use the money to set up an early warning system for cyber attacks, the report said (Google translation of German original). A prototype is expected to be launched next June with the aim of monitoring publicly available data on Twitter and blogs.
Just like the NSA did.
The NSA is doing that for them
By 2020 some of that money may be spent the black market to buy zero day exploits, unpublicized vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers.
Don't forget the ecstasy and coke!
Is this a way of propping up prices, like they do with dairy purchases for instance? Does this particular market need government subsidies at this time?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I just saw Citizenfour. It's interesting to know how the news about Snowden got started. The movie makes the point that those who take away privacy do that because they want control.
In my opinion, destructiveness toward healthy society is an outbreak of symptoms of mental conflict.
Assholes. I'm a contributor in Germany. I really take issue with that. Go do something useful for society instead (for example: the streets in Berlin are incredibly filthy. Start there).
That's like what? Two consulting firms for a year? This is peanuts and gives you an indication of the scope they are aiming for. Let alone that the sheer fact that this is news ought to tell you something about the BND in Germany. Somewhen last year, the SCHUFA and the Hasso-Plattner institute tried to get funding to derive your credit score from your social network activity, the public outcry was deafening. Similarly, this will go nowhere or be so limited in scope as to be useless. We'll just rely on the five-eyes consortium to clue us in in the case of an emergency.
something clever to make me stand out!
Yeah, Angela Merkel was upset the NSA was spying on her (and she's actually a legitimate target as a head of state and has her own security forces who are supposed to be securing her communications) but wants to return the favor to the rest of the world. They're all the same.
So much for what? This is just counter-information, they are doing it as we speak.
Only dumb criminals/terrorists would use social networks to plan crimes. Remember how Osama Bin Laden dropped out of sight after 9/11? No cellphones, no landlines, no email, etc. Just communicating via messangers. It took the best intelligence services on the planet years to find him. After the first few splashy cases hit the news, criminals/terrorists will go back to "sneakernet", and the social-network monitoring infrastructure will go to waste.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Terrorists and high-profile criminals don't keep their needles in the haystack.
This is nothing else than part of a global management buyout: government branches are supposed to report to the people, and they never liked that - so they try to control the "investor" instead. Mass surveillance would suffer a sudden backlash and be replaced by more targeted measures if it had to be done on an equal footing. Why keep documents "secret" for such a long time when life revolves increasingly faster ? There must be a threat to those who misbehave not just among the ordinary people or we may see growing integration of real powers instead of their separation as conceived in constitutions (you remember ?) long ago. BTW: apart from outspoken computer crime, how did we find out about crime some decades ago ? And why is it so hard to find out about and squash the really big ones ?
Cracking ciphers requires lots of energy when brute forcing. It makes no economic sense. And this will require a nuclear power plant to stay longer on-grid, just so these boys can have their toys. Get real!
That surely will catch some terrorists!
Well, at least that part will work, given that they perform the attack themselves.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
> Angela Merkel was upset the NSA was spying on her [...]
I don't believe that she was upset about that. Actually, I believe that she doesn't give half a fuck about the NSA spying on her.
I'm rather convinced that she was upset about that information leaking to the public: this forced her to make some disapproving noises for political reasons (hey, I can even picture her apologising in secret to Obbie/the NSA about that).
To prove the contrary to me, she'd have to rally openly for offering political asylum to Edward Snowden.
You idiots, why bother.
Paranoid nut cases that need to be medicated.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The US is supposed to be allied with Germany. When Germany accidentally tapped the line of the US Vice President they immediately destroyed the recordings. It's call honour and treating your friends as you would hope to be treated. The US doesn't have any friends though, just be allied with it out of convenience.
It's up to you guys in the US. If you want everyone to treat you like the bunch of cunts you act like, fine, carry on. The world hates you anyway, right? If not, not being dicks to your allies might be a good start on the road to rehabilitation.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
All those protests by Angela Merkel, weren't out of a desire to protect the privacy of Germans but rather jealousy at the capabilities of other spy agencies. Who'd of guessed it.
I think you mixed something up here.
The Stasi was the secret service of the GDR and was founded in 1950 - after WWII.
And yes, we do remember the Stasi. Our current president was the head of an agency responsible for taking care of the records left behind by the Stasi.
A nation that's focusing its cyber-spying efforts outside its own country! We'll finally have a country that honours the privacy of its own citizens!
Yeah, right. From the country whose formerly Communist half gave us the Stasi. Still, it's kinda hard to blame them for ramping up their spying efforts - sometimes "do unto others as they insist on doing unto you" is necessary for survival.
Any chance we humans will ever come to terms with our animal origins in a way that doesn't involve dominating each other and pissing on each other's territory?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
...spy in real time on social networks outside of Germany, and decrypt and monitor encrypted Internet traffic.
There's more to the world "outside of Germany" than just the US. Your response falls squarely into the "...but the US is doing it, too!" line of reasoning. If citizens of other countries are pissed at being spied on by the NSA, why wouldn't they also be pissed at being spied on by the BND?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
lol honor. what are you, 5?
also, germany was complicit with the nsa stuff. they cooperated in exchange for access to the pie.
So you've deflected a conversation about Germany spying on the world to a whiny rant about the US and got upmodded to +5?
People like you are why we can't have nice things. Bad actions taken by your opponents are horrible and need to be criticized. Bad actions taken by your team are excusable and need to be defended or at least blamed somehow on your opponents.
You can take your rah-rah-my-team bullshit and shove it up your ass. I'm going to go start my own planet without hypocrites, and with blackjack and hookers...
Bad news: The US would be nuts not to spy everyone. I bet even Obama gets spied on. I mean, if you were running something like Treadstone (The Bourne Ultimatum), and you had the technology to spy everyone, wouldn't you? Of course you would.
And let us now suppose the US decided not to spy on Europe, since we are such good friends now, you know this would be a problem, because some crazy dickhead would decide to bomb everyone. What gives? If everyone spy on each other, they make sure they don't have crazy plans. OTOH, if one of them has crazy plans, the others will follow the same idea... or they may use the red phone and call each other "we know what you are doing".
Have you seen this program called Cheaters? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrj5o2dsu88
I think you have an idea of why this is true. If you want an example from history: England knew the Great Armada from Spain was going to invade England. The reason were the many pirates than attacked the Spanish ships full of gold were English, and once they arrived with all the gold to England, the King or Queen of England would congratulate them.
The Spanish ships had up to 5,000 men each. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/spanish_armada.htm
Then the english had spies on Spain to inform them when they were going to attack and where. They even destroyed the armada twice before sailing. The english knew before hand where they would attack and fought them in the ocean. It was an easy win for England just because of the spies.
Now what is your idea about not spying? I wouldn't follow that recommendation. Otherwise Cheaters would be called Non-cheaters and it would be awsome...
Lol honor, what are you a scumbag?
Hey, she already caved like the wet sponge she is when she was informed that from now on SHE will not be targeted anymore. Oh, and the president too.
So everything's a-ok as far as she's concerned. Who gives a shit about the rest of the nation?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The US is the international equivalent of the schoolyard bully. They don't have no friends. They have suck-ups. Those that pretend to be their friend because hey, it's convenient. He doesn't bully us and keeps on beating the other kids for their lunch money instead of us, and if we pretend to like him he might let us have some of that dough, too.
Maybe that's why the US loathe the UN so much. No school bully really likes the principal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
what are the job requirements... heck i would waste my life on social networks too if it meant a real job and not moving back into mom's basement.
Maybe this is actually a very insightful social service/jobs program. Knowing that so many kids( can't really call them adults) live in basements still... let them get paid for what they are already doing. winning