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Germany Preparing Law for Backdoors in Any Type of Modern Device (bleepingcomputer.com)
Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: German authorities are preparing a law that will force device manufacturers to include backdoors within their products that law enforcement agencies could use at their discretion for legal investigations. The law would target all modern devices, such as cars, phones, computers, IoT products, and more. Officials are expected to submit their proposed law for debate this week, according to local news outlet RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND). The man supporting this proposal is Thomas de Maiziere, Germany's Interior Minister, who cites the difficulty law enforcement agents have had in past months investigating the recent surge of terrorist attacks and other crimes.
"Legal"
Good luck on that, it's a slippery idea that is resistant to being pigeonholed.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Why not ban all security on devices while you're at it?
End of line..
deliver notice to the regulators proposing this that GeegawCo would cease operating in Germany, including any network/remote/cloud operations, if this were enacted. ship the money back home and dump 'em.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Nice to see Germany returning to its totalitarian roots.
And I had thought east germany had joined west germany, not the other way around...
The first people to get the backdoors will be cops.
The second people will the in organized crime. It'll only take one bad law enforcement employee on their payroll to leak it... and THAT is just if there's some kind of key involved. The system itself will be public before the first device is even sold, since the standards will have to be given to the manufactures and they're going to leak like sieves.
Then you'll have a nation of devices that are completely untrustworthy. In theory... because in practice this is so obviously too stupid to work that they can't possibly go forward with it.
From TFS/TFA
German authorities are preparing a law that will force device manufacturers to include backdoors within their products that law enforcement agencies could use at their discretion for legal investigations.
This is the ultimate purpose behind placing ISPs under Title II in order to place them under CALEA requirements which could easily be interpreted to require exactly the same kind of 'back doors' on devices.
The propaganda has worked so well we have people violently protesting to have their own privacy taken away.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
and all their problems disappear.
Kicked in? More like built for a skeleton key. Of course, the key and all copies will be labeled "Law Enforcement Use Only."
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
the Nazi's had laws like this!
SOMETHING has to slow down the German economy before they own us all. Chasing out all technology would do it.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I like the idea that VW and BMW should tell the government they can do it in their native language. But for future upgrades that will need to be free for anyone that owns their vehicles for the next 50 years, they'll need to be compensated annually 100mil Euros to hire proper security engineers and testers. So, if France wants it, that is another 100mil Euros so they can hire French staff and if the USA, another 100mil for English speaking security professionals and engineers. Put back the cost burden on the governments for future maintenance upgrades. Security and safety isn't free, while government contracts are very lucrative.
Unlike the USA, Germany has a strong pro-privacy movement -- this will probably get shot down hard at either the Federal or EU level (since it's likely at odds with EU rules).
What's to stop these criminals from throwing up their own encrypted Matrix server, with no backdoor? This only really makes them stop using big commercial services. Countries will spend millions trying to get back doors into public chat rooms, only to have millions of private ones pop up. -T
I like how people don't understand that "meddling" is part and parcel of great power politics. The people screeching "Russia! Russia! Russia!" are also the ones who were silent when O did exactly this to Netanyahu.
or cars...
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Intel Management Engine (ME), also known as the Manageability Engine. Intel have been putting a back door on their chips for the last 10 years at least. So what are law enforement worrying about?
After all, Munich is switching back to Windows.
We live in a global economy today. Does this mean all digital devices imported into the country need to have these same backdoors? Probably so. Are manufacturers lazy, and want to build one-size-fits-all devices? You damn right they are. Meaning if this passes, device models sold to Germany will ALSO have these same backdoors sold elsewhere in the world.
I doubt it. They don't even have a government yet.
Nobody knows what and if a coalition will be formed.
There might be new elections.
This is nothing else but bullshit.
The concept you're looking for is "master key."
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Why don't you just deport all of the Muslim immigrants back to their homelands instead of taking away more freedom in the name of tolerance?
Because that is what this is all about?
Sorry buddy, Abdul just cannot bring himself to become a good German. He insists on acting like he's still back in the Middle East and resents that the kafir has a higher standard of living than he does, so you understand that in the name of Tolerance and Inclusion, we must impose highly onerous surveillance policies on you. I mean you're not a bigot right? You wouldn't want us to just say "wouldn't the path of least resistance and harm to German society and culture be to send Abdul back" now would you?
Abdul? I though Jacob was the evil one in Germany
It smells like Bubba's Clipper chip.
You know, I know and even they know it will be compromised, not if but when.
Who does one sue when the damn thing is used by other than appropriate authorities?
"What will you do, where will you hide, when the man ib black is on the inside" - Drs. 4 Bob
How would you like that extra door for your BMW or Mercedes?
And what if I install a so-called "after market firmware" that hinders that backdoor?
And what if I install a home-made (read "linux based") device instead of a "commercial" one?
Will I be considered "out of law"?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Let’s assume the iPhone is the target of this law because, frankly, it probably is. And let’s assume Timmy & Co. cave in because they like money.
Any good criminal network will have at least a few people bright enough to write code. Those people can implement existing strong encryption algorithms themselves. They can also teach people how to get their own free developer key and to install their own secure apps onto their own phones using Xcode. Sure, they’ll have to reinstall once a week... many jailbreakers already do this, it’s not super difficult.
The end result is criminal networks having more secure communications, while the rest of us are told to bend over a bit further.
#DeleteChrome
The flipside, is that they don't need to access the criminals communications, they can simply prosecute them for having communications they can't access. Because THAT will be illegal now.
Being government mandated, it'll have to be usable by the dumbest of bureaucrats, so a hairpin would probably work.
Will be childs play for Russian and Chinese hackers.
So Germany is mandating insecure networks.
Corporatism != Free Market
This from a country that in recent history, twice!, persecuted minorities. Can you imagine what would have happened if Hitler had access to the government spyware infrastructure we have today ?! And all over the world nationalism is on the rise again, how could anyone think this is a good idea ..
We spy on you because of them.
--
If it were easy, it wouldn't be called life.
... or even toasters, especially talking ones ...
They are being up front about what has already been done clandestinely.
Expect many legal overtures like this in the future.
The establishment will bargain for your consent for the violations they have already perpetrated.
I pray that they will be stopped before they have absolute power.
We will all have to sacrifice profoundly in order to restore liberty to western civilization. Stand up now or be enslaved for eternity.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
I was thinking they were going to lay down laws to ensure security in devices... not blast them full of holes to help out hackers... So - who wants to place bets on how long it will take for the first politician to get hacked by their own backdoor?
Well, the problem here is that the meddling was done TO US. Trump won, at least in part, due to foreign meddling. That should not be allowed nor tolerated. And no other country would be okay with a foreign government meddling in their elections or politics.
Why should America bow to Russia? Why are the Republicans happy to be subservient to Russian interests? Why are they supporting the wholesale rape of our country? These are treasonous acts that, in earlier times, be met with mass investigations, trials, and very possibly executions.
> Trump won, at least in part, due to foreign meddling.
Keep telling yourself that nonsense and you will continue losing elections. Sooner or later you have to assume some personal responsibility for your failures.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If only Erich Mielke could still be with us to see his dream come true...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The fact that they are "victims" is entirely irrelevant. These people won't even use a public toilet properly. They have zero interest in assimilating, fitting in, or just being nice guests.
Even the Turks don't want them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Everyone gets hacked!
because my job. This one's free. First of all, I might eventually be affected by that bullshit if it spreads and second, it's always a pleasure belittling you and showing you just how big an idiot you really are.
First and foremost, there is no such thing as a "government only" backdoor. A backdoor is or is not. A backdoor that MUST be in EVERY device, independent of maker and the kind of device is by definition a high profile target for every hacker on this planet. Everyone wants to have that. That includes every state actor. I.e. other nations WILL want to have that backdoor. Now, of course you might share it with friends. It's unlikely that you want to share it with states like, say, North Korea or that Daesh idiots (that's ISIS for you, in case you didn't keep up with the news). Yes, Thomas, you're about to give terrorists a tool to invade German devices.
Way to go, aren't you supposedly at least kinda-sorta responsible for the internal security of the state?
How they get it you ask? Are you kidding? We're talking about the universal key to EVERY computer in your country. Every private, every corporate, every government system. You think a state actor (especially a rogue state actor) would shy away from kidnapping someone's family if he as much as MIGHT have access to the relevant keys? Here's your wife, Thomas, here is your kids. Hand over the keys and don't talk about it or, well, I spare you the details.
And even worse, you won't get what you want to get, Thomas. Because you don't think that anyone outside of Germany would as much as touch a device with a "German backdoor" installed, do you? Twice so if a state actor. No. Outside of Germany, you'll get secure devices (well, more or less... but at least not deliberately insecured ones). It is trivial, not only to me because that's what I do for a living, but to everyone with at least a minimum knowledge of IT to diff a "good" and one of your "bad" devices to see what's different between them. And what's different between them is your backdoor. It is now also trivial to patch such a security hole in a way that you'll be locked out again. And you can rest assured that every terrorist on the planet will make sure to plug that and lock you out.
Thomas. Again. Usually, I sell good advice. This one is actually free. Stop that idiocy before it costs you your job. I kinda like your party. Even though you're a grade A moron.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But good sir, are you honestly implying that diversity isn't the panacea we've been led to believe? Diversity!
I need to get control of my refrigerator
"O Sweet Saint Andreas, hear our prayer"
Legislating math.....
Try repealing the law of gravity next....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Re "the end result is criminal networks having more secure communications"
Criminal networks just talk at the trusted family, tribe and community level.
The place of worship and at community events becomes their cover for meeting and talking. Police can't enter such events undercover as they have no reason to be part of that faith, community or tribe.
The criminal networks know all the tech is fully open to German police and the security services and use it for decades of misinformation.
Long term criminal network are doing their very best to get ready for generations and decades of productive counter surveillance on the German police and security services.
Criminal network have a plan to win as all Germany has is a plan to hire more police, mil, investigators for the wider "community".
Criminal networks are flooding the German security service and police with their own "clean" trusted people looking for "work".
People who have passed German exams and have the grades to enter the German police, gov and "help" with investigations.
Lots of second and third generation criminals who can get past any gov, police interview.
Over decades people 100% loyal to criminal groups will rise up the ranks of the German mil, police, gov and security services reporting every policy, new investigation, undercover attempt and mission back to their criminal networks.
Just like the Stasi attempted to get staff into West German gov, companies to rise up the ranks in West Germany over decades.
The difference been West Germany, the CIA had actually detected most attempts by the Stasi to place its spies in West Germany.
Such internal security has now been replaced by political correctness.
Germany has now totally lost control of its ability to look into the backgrounds of people wanting to join the German police, gov, mil and security services.
Its a virtue signaling free for all to get into the German police, mil and gov. No ability to find out a persons links back to a generational criminal networks.
Criminal networks in Germany are 100% safe from been investigated in their closed communities deep in Germany.
Criminal networks are also using very advanced long term methods to get their people into the German police to see what intelligence is been collected in real time.
Not much the German police can do to secure its own ranks. Any attempt to remove criminals within the ranks of the police, mil, gov is blocked by a political policy to hire anyone without looking into their criminal background.
The suggestion from the GCHQ, NSA is for the very few Germans who can still be trusted to try and use advanced electronic collection to keep investigations from all German investigators with links to criminals. To try and use top clearances that the USA has to approve to try and protect the most advance collection methods.
The translators in the German gov or who are contracted cant be trusted. So all that collection the NSA still thinks is been kept at the most secure levels in Germany is been seen by a new generation of translators.
German staff working for NATO, police who help with international criminal police investigations share the security product with new German staff connected to criminal groups.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Setting aside organized crime for a moment, every other national intelligence service will thank you for this back door, whether you meant for them to access those devices or not. At very least, you've made it much easier for them to target their collection efforts since all they have to do is compromise a single German agency versus each and every individual device. So pick the boogeyman of choice, the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans, the French, and think of their intelligence agencies crawling through every "secure" network and device inside Germany.
A source claims Thomas de Maizière would like to have backdoors in popular apps. That doesn't mean he'll get them or, as a matter of fact, that the Bundestag will pass a law to make those mandatory. Since the Third Reich Germany has been, shall I say, a tad sensitive on the invulnerability of privacy in mail and telecommunications. I doubt he'd get it through the Bundestag let alone past supreme court.
It's just a German gouvernment official probing the waters machiavelli style. Just like in the US. No news here. Move along.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The STASI and the Gestapo were BAD, m'kay?
Germany already had to overthrow two totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. They sure as hell don't need another one.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oh, of course these people may be breaking the law, but that's not going to help the people that will get harmed in the interim.
I expect they will realize their folly within about 6 months to a year,
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sounds like a law custom made to kill the German consumer electronics industry, as everyone buys products from other countries that don't have built in insecurity.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Germany does this, it will destroy their economy. No one will want German backdoored garbage. I wouldn't. This would be a huge mistake.
Just about everybody in the Free World is either keeping their mouth shut about how much they're willing to give up to be safe, or else beating their chest and proclaiming what manly men they are because "anything to fight terrorism".
We need to start calling out both varieties of coward, ridiculing them, shaming them and generally treating them like the threats to democracy they are.
We need to stand up and say we're willing to accept casualties to stay free. That means the government needs to be told to fuck off out of our private lives, and if that means terrorists manage to kill some of us, it's a price we'll pay. We need to let people like this know we will unelect them and their party so fast their cynical, crypto-fascist heads will spin.
In short, we need to grow up and stop pretending we can have both freedom and perfect security. We have to choose. And as far as I'm concerned, if you choose security, you should move to China and quit wrecking things for decent people.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Just smuggle it in, then. Problem solved.
Ezekiel 23:20
Just wondering how they will insist on a backdoor in any open source project that uses encryption. Especially if it is hosted in another country. I can see a great opportunity for open source alternative firmware downloads.
When (and it will be a when not if) hackers figure out this back door. I can see a huge security nightmare ahead for German citizens.
I think it's time to start preparing a class action lawsuit against the German government.
Actually he does understand English. But even if not, he should have the personnel to translate it for him. He outsourced so many parts of his brain that it's actually a feat that he still can stumble from blunder to blunder, one should assume that they already somehow manage to keep him from moving at all.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That can't end well.
L'Idiot
Did you ask how many brain cells he has, because you have none left, and ... "spare some brain cells"? Or just because you are so dumb that you cannot even tell how dumb you are?
Multiple fundamental laws directly forbid it. Laws that were created as a direct result of the industrialization of murder by the Nazis.
But the fascist Mont Perelin Society, of which ALL political leaders of Germany are members, does not give a fuck.
Hell, they also supported TTIP, which, by German law, makes them literal traitors. A crime that gets you the maximum sentence: 20 years in prison.
But of couurse, they made themselves a law that makes politicians exempt from prosecution.
But make no mistake, they *will* face prison at the first instance where the power ever slips from their hands.
Germany's active society (as opposed to the passive-thinking livestock) does not take that shit lightly.
All hails to our Dear Leaderess Frau Merkel! Sieg Heil! (Now I can go puke.)
You seem to think that the German government can ban iPhones with impunity, and that the German public will meekly go along with it. Another possibility is that Apple stands firmly behind privacy, and the German authorities can either give in or ban the iPhone, which will (a) prove highly unpopular, and (b) ensure that Apple Stores in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland get a lot more business. (Did I miss any bordering countries?) It's not like Apple is going to be losing all those German sales.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Criminals tend to be pretty average people. If anything, they tend to be below average. Most criminals wouldn't be able to tell you what steganography even is.
don't panic !
Every now and then politician make suggestions. In this case it was the (acting) interior minister.
For it to become law it has to go thru parliament and it it would, the courts will be called.
There is already enough resistance to this from other political parties.
That is the great thing about democracy and independant jurisdiction: anyone can thow up ideas for debate and debate is good. In the end majority and courts decide