German State Confesses To, Downplays Government Spyware | Hacker News Reader

German State Confesses To, Downplays Government Spyware

yro.slashdot.org

117 pointsllambda18 comments

Note that this has been one of the top news stories for a couple of days in a row now. And not for a lack of other pressing issues... The whole thing is extremely embarrassing for the hard liners, who seem to have a hard time repositioning themselves in the face of ever new discoveries and new experts chiming in (e.g. http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002250.html).

It's a neat combination of illegal behavior and incompetence. In one case, the software continuously took screenshots of victim's desktops, which was ruled illegal in Germany. The encryption used in the software is terrible. The company which apparently developed the software -- though so far, the government won't confirm it, citing fears of internet revenge against the company (I'm not kidding) -- was convicted of bribery a few years ago.

A lot is still unknown, ie. how many other versions of the government trojan there were and are, a more exhaustive list of the ways it has been used, etc. Three cases in Bavaria are known so far: in two of them, the software was installed in fraudulent border/customs checks, in one case the police broke into someone's home to install it. None of these cases involved terrorism or child abuse. Hopefully, the next couple of days will see further reveals or leaks.

I never realized that files uploaded to Virustotal are shared with the AV vendors, but that makes a good deal of sense.

Slashdot link? You couldn't bother to link to the news article

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1...

or the original release?

http://www.innenministerium.bayern.de/presse/archiv/2011/385...

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

Just read the comments on Slashdot, insightful and gives a broader view on how people think about the subject. The story does include the link as well, so original article will get slashdotted...

Thanks for sharing these additional links!

Don't know why there is hatred about slashdot here? There is still some quality discussion with insightful comment happening in slashdot like this following link

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/10/07/1438230/ask-slashdot-...

When you graduate from /. you move to HN, see http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=CmdrTacoMalda

Not sure if you need 14 years to graduate to HN though..!!

I think slashdot is great. I also think submissions should be original articles with additional links to sites like slashdot in the comments.

The next time a venture of mine gets a nastygram from the Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht, I know exactly where I'm going to tell them to file it. What hypocrites.

If you love your country like a patriot should, you have nothing to hide.

Instead of accusing you of trolling, I’ll respond seriously.

You are conflating the right to privacy with the need to hide something. I draw the curtains when I am at home. Is this because I am trying to hide something from my neighbours or from strangers?

I use a password for my personal email even though I don’t use it for business transactions. Am I trying to hide discussions about my children’s nanny or when I am riding my bicycle?

I wear clothes and will not take them off for strangers even though my body is not-too-bad for a fellow of 49. Am I ashamed of it? Is there something illegal like a gun tucked into my waistband? No.

The desire for privacy is independent of the need to hide things. It’s actually related to the need for security from other people trying to control you. What I would honestly say is that if you do not fear your government’s actions from time to time, you have nothing to hide from your government.

When you put it that way, yes, some people who are doing wrong things have reason to fear their government. But others may be doing no wrong but nevertheless be afraid of their government and be perfectly rational in desiring privacy.

I have no idea whether the German government can be trusted with the contents of my computer. But given the fact that in my lifetime the Canadian government jailed thousands without trial during the FLQ crisis and again assaulted and arrested hundreds during the G20 summit, I can say that while I like my country overall and consider myself a patriot, I have a healthy distrust of its behaviour from time to time and therefore question anything that gives them power over citizens without constitutional or judicial oversight.

Exactly, very well written. It's sometimes terrifying how much people don't understand why privacy matters.

I wonder if SmokeyJ remembers what happened in history...

Guys, he's just being sarcastic.

We understood. However, the sarcasms and ironies we see are in a way, adults playing with ideas, or even RFCs.

You might have noticed, but for years the sarcastic/ironic proclamation of 'nothing to hide' wasn't met with any sort of intellectual response. It was only in the beginning of '11 that I started to see people blog coherent arguments against it.

In his post, Reagenwald brings up those reasons, introduces them to any readers who haven't seen them, and keeps the topic open for discussion. So hell yeah!

I got that, and I appreciate it. My comment was specifically a reaction to ragenwald's first line "Instead of accusing you of trolling, I’ll respond seriously": I don't think the OP was trolling at all, i.e., he didn't write his post simply to get people agitated (which is my understanding of trolling), but to contrast a stereotypical argument with reality.

So in that sense, the original post didn't call for a rebuttal, because it was already arguing on the same side as ragenwald - just using a different rhetorical device. I made my comment solely to point that out, and didn't expect any upvotes for it, but I'm somewhat surprised that I actually got downvoted.

Thanks for the reference to the FLQ crisis. I was a little tyke at the time, and I'm neither Canadian nor a student of Canadian history, so it was all new to me. Interesting case study in how a democratic, apparently well-meaning government can abuse powers and trample on civil liberties when confronted by a threat of apparently sufficient magnitude.

This is why I set up a video camera inside all my bathrooms and bedrooms and stream it directly to the government, Facebook/Zuckerberg, my employer and of course my family/friends.

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