Germany Government and spyware

[DarkButterfly]

I'm not sure if you're all aware of the fact that Germany has now full (?) power, after the subject has been discussed and voted, to spy on users connected to the Internet (of course :D ), under the pretext to be fighting terrorism.

But not only within Germany. Also outside Germany.

This law has been voted before, but since had not suffient votes, it was revoted.

The way they'll spy on users (under the pretext of fighting terrorism) is by placing spyware, trojan horses and who knows what else, on people's systems.

As far as I know, they will need a court warrant for that, but in some situations, law enforcement won't need it.

While I agree it is a good measure to fight help the fight against terrorism, I don't understand how will they know who's who. Will they know you're not a terrorist and hence not spy on you? Will they know I am not a terrorist and not spy on me? How will they know?

They will have to be spying on everyone?

And how will that leave security vendors? Will their software be able to stop it? I mean, won't they just ignore it?

More important, how will other countries respond to that? Will be fine for them? I sure would hate to see mine not to say a damn thing about it.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Meriadoc]

The words 'fighting terrorism' are often thrown about these days that enables a goverment to legitamise a course of action. - Hey, lets all give up our rights and freedom to stay safe. Pure BS and propaganda.

They will have a fight on their hands to put something on my computers.

[LoneWolf]

{QUOTE->
They will have a fight on their hands to put something on my computers. <-QUOTE}

Same here.

[Rmus]

{QUOTE-> The way they'll spy on users (under the pretext of fighting terrorism) is by placing spyware, trojan horses and who knows what else, on people's systems. <-QUOTE}How does the government plan to place this stuff on people's systems?

If it is like this, then you have only yourself to blame if it succeeds:

BERLIN'S TROJAN
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,502955,00.html
{QUOTE-> It's a problem that everyone is familiar with: E-mails with misleading subject lines and a tempting attachment that, if opened, immediately installs a virus, worm or Trojan onto your computer. And who knows who they're from or what the malware might want from your hard drive?

And the ministry is considering installing such Trojans -- carrying so-called "Remote Forensic Software" -- by means of the misleading e-mail. <-QUOTE}


----
rich

[DarkButterfly]

{QUOTE-> How does the government plan to place this stuff on people's systems?

If it is like this, then you have only yourself to blame if it succeeds:

BERLIN'S TROJAN
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,502955,00.html



----
rich <-QUOTE}


Of course that if that's the case, then one only has oneself to blame. :D

But, will German government act that way? An already known way?

Something that I'm still wondering is: Will other countries follow the lead? If so, will they make pressure on security vendors to avoid detecting their spyware?

[Max Zorin]

Im stunned by the fact govermnents around the world continue to justify spying on aid invading the privacy of the people they were elected to serve because of some bloke in a cave in Afghanistan. (Not in a cave in reality, hidden away somewhere and protected by the US)

I dont see the method proposed (spyware) being usesd for spying on mass, but targeted against specific individuals. The wider, large scale spying will be done by monitoring all our internet activity.

The bottom line is, its not the technology used thats important, but the ideology and agenda of governments that makes them want to do this and the apathy and lack of understanding in the public that allows its government to enslave and spy on it.

Im sure most Wilders members will have enough technical savvy to protect themselves from some of the technological mechanisms / apps used to enable the spying, but how many people really understand the change that has occured over the last 20 years in politics and society. I would imagine only a minority of people would think that it is a bad thing for goverments to monitor our activity in the way they do now. So many people have fallen for the terrorism lie (It was the nasty Russians / commies when I was a kid)

Using encrypted tunnels to proxies etc will only work so far - if at all. What will work is the citizens waking up, standing up and puting government and the media back in their place.

PS - I know this will never happen and that its too late - we are all doomed, doomed I tell you...............

;)

[dw426]

1. The "fellow in the cave" is not being protected by the U.S. We can kill all the conspiracy theories about the war in Iraq now, the truth of the matter is that the White House and NSA screwed up, and they screwed up so big that you can forget this "3 years until we leave" thing, we are stuck there and we are stuck in Afghanistan.

2. If Germany takes a lesson from the U.S, they'll spy warrant or not. Recall the "warrantless wiretapping" program?

3. Only if they are stupid would Germany resort to using trojans and the like. This will LIKELY be done at ISP-level, via filtering or another method that the ISP themselves can implement under the guidance of the German government.

4. I said long ago the words "War on Terror" would haunt the world and be used against the people of the world, and I keep being proven right.

5. People may not stand for all this, but all governments will do is back off slightly and temporarily "water down" their plans. Then, over time, they'll add a little piece here and there until a couple years down the road, the plan is back to its original look. Look at gas prices to see how people will react, that will show you what will happen 100 times better than I can explain it in writing.

[Smokey]

Statement JAP Anon Proxy, Dresden, Germany:

{QUOTE-> http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/dataretention_en.html

Implementation of data retention according to the German Telecommunications Act

The following concerns only Mixes which fall under the German Telecommunications Act.

According to the new German Telecommunications Act (see §113a TKG) some Internet based telecommunication services are required to retain some traffic data starting from January, 1st 2009. The German Federal Network Agency (regulation authority) told us that anonymity services are required to log some traffic data, too. Therefore the Mixes of the AN.ON project will log the following data:

- A first Mix logs the IP-address, the date and time of incoming connections as well as the outgoing channel numbers of the channels to the next Mix.
- A middle Mix logs incoming and outgoing channel numbers as well as date and time of the channel openings.
- A last Mix logs the incoming channel numbers, the date and time of channel openings and closings, the source port number of outgoing connections as well as the date and time of openings of outgoing connections. <-QUOTE}

Not common known is the fact that in 2003 JAP has been back-doored by German court order. The service was logging access attempts to a particular, and unnamed, Web site and reporting the IP addys of those who attempt to contact it to the German police. The JAP operators didn't warn users that their IP traffic might be going straight to Big Brother. Past year I blogged detailed about the dark past of JAP.

Regards,

Smokey

[Max Zorin]

{QUOTE-> Statement JAP Anon Proxy, Dresden, Germany:



Not common known is the fact that in 2003 JAP has been back-doored by German court order. The service was logging access attempts to a particular, and unnamed, Web site and reporting the IP addys of those who attempt to contact it to the German police. The JAP operators didn't warn users that their IP traffic might be going straight to Big Brother. Past year I blogged detailed about the dark past of JAP.

Regards,

Smokey <-QUOTE}
Yep, I wouldnt trust any of these services. None of them are any good so long as the govt has a right to demand info from them. Dont know if there is any service out there that does not know who you are when you hook in to it - or one that has no records? Dont think such a thing exists.

[dw426]

{QUOTE-> Yep, I wouldnt trust any of these services. None of them are any good so long as the govt has a right to demand info from them. Dont know if there is any service out there that does not know who you are when you hook in to it - or one that has no records? Dont think such a thing exists. <-QUOTE}

No, there is no truly anonymous service. I don't care what service/web site you hook into and use, they all have to know your IP address for you to even be able to use them. Your ISP may not know where you go using that VPN service, but the operator of that service sure does.

[BlueZannetti]

To all:

A number of off-topic posts removed.

This is not a political discussion board. I realize that governmental actions touching privacy issues do present the opportunity for security based privacy discussions to overlap with purely political discourse.

However, if you wish to dwell on the political, please use a venue focused on that topical area and try to keep the discussions in this forum focused on the more technical aspects of privacy. Thanks in advance.

Blue