Germany wants a German Internet as spying scandal rankles
reuters.com
reuters.com
Germanys government really did absolutely nothing to protect the privacy of German people in the past and deserves the same amount of trust as the US government.
The mentioned encrypted mail-service is actually legally backdoored. If they were interested in enhancing privacy, they would support the development of open standards like GPG. Instead they are trying to force people to install closed source software for their tax declaration, which is probably spyware.
Sorry, nothing good to expect in Germany.
Edit: The german government seems to have supported GPG in 1999.
(second reference in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg)
In a democracy, I'd rather that the actual snooping was done by my own government, as (theoretically) I could do something about it. I can file a lawsuit, or elect new representatives.
Not that this always works, but at least it's something.
I have little to fear from the US or China spying on me because they have (realistically, discounting e.g. Seal Team Six) much less control over me than the Irish government. But that only holds true because I'm not travelling to the US and I'm not doing anything they'd care^ about. If I was doing something that the US government cared about, then it doesn't really matter where I am.
^ i.e., illegal, dangerous, hostile etc. FYI: I'm a boring regular guy
There is also the scandal of Germanys police secret and normal missing a hard right terrorist group that killed several people - of course they where not ethnic Germans they killed which makes you wonder
In the biggest home-grown terrorist scandal since the days of the Baader Meinhof gang in the 1970s, her group is accused of carrying out ten murders, two bombings and 15 bank robberies during a 13-year campaign.
Worse still, Germany's police and spy agencies thought that the killings, dubbed the "kebab murders" because they targeted mainly Turkish immigrants, were part of a feud within the Turkish mafia.
On Thursday, a parliamentary report into how Miss Zschäpe's gang went undetected branded the affair a "a humiliating defeat" for the German security services, saying that they had "dramatically underestimated" the neo-Nazi threat. Her trial has also cast a shadow over next month's elections, with the chancellor, Angela Merkel, pondering the darker side of the German psyche during a visit last week to the Dachau concentration camp, just outside Munich.
"How could Germans go so far as to deny people human dignity and the right to live based on their race, religion, political persuasion or sexual orientation?" she asked, standing on a plaza where Dachau inmates once assembled daily for roll call.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/102...
The last secret police in Germany was the Ministry for State Security (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi) in East Germany. The last secret police for Germany in whole was the Gestapo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo) - we've wised up after that and decided to stop mixing intelligence agencies and police.
Even so I was very concerned that local government has its own Intelligence Agencys and i take a more relaxed relaxed view over the NSA and GCHQ than most HN commentators
But as a German I have to say overall lignuist is right: there is no reason to trust the German government (or the EU for that matter) any more than the US government.
This "German internet" idea seems familiar somehow, because here in Germany we're used to have a German or Germanized version of everything. You can forget about normal Germans ever using an English website, it has to be at least translated if not re-branded. German people by and large do not watch English TV or movies, they expect everything to be translated and somewhat culturally re-branded. Combine that with existing separatist and isolationist movements, which by the way have always played a part in the inofficial German mindset, I can see this exceedingly stupid idea seriously gaining ground.
On a meta level, I think you're overusing the word agenda here to create a polemic atmosphere where none was warranted. Agenda implies that someone wants to bring across a piece of propaganda, disregarding the facts if necessary. What lignuist is doing is called having an opinion. You may disagree with it, but that does not make it an agenda.
1. Governments spying other governments and foreign companies.
2. Government mass surveillance of their citizens, and citizens of other countries if possible.
3. Government using the Internet to target some small subset of their citizens.
For one thing, I think classical spying between governments is just good thing. Knowing what other sovereign actors do and think without filters removes suspicion. Government officials getting spied on just shows incompetence from those go spied and they should up their game. I think security agencies in many countries will now update their policies and get funding for doing so. It's also better understood outside intelligence communities that everyone outside Five Eye countries is considered outsider.
Also. Mass surveillance of citizens is very different from targeted surveillance of small number of suspects. Mass surveillance changes the power balance in democracy. Targeted surveillance of select number of people fits into normal intelligence work.
Also the whole proposal does not make sense, because it is known that our own intelligence is sniffing traffic too and Telekom and others complied with them. Not to mention that our intelligence service and the NSA working together, hence the NSA even has spy equipment here which is tolerated by the government. Also implying that "national routing" is any kind of defence against spying. And all that wouldn't even affect people using Google, Facebook etc. just lol
It is funny to see these proposals coming out of Germany, the biggest proponent, together with France, for a EU-wide data exchange and wiretapping program codified in Schengen as article 40 [1] and SIS (Schengen Information System, police access to all national DBs). The latest update to the Schengen treaty (2005) allows the exchange of sensitive and biometric data such as DNA and fingerprints. [1]
Germany and France are also the biggest pushers for data retention laws that force ISPs and other business to retain and make available all the communication metadata and some of the data of all the information exchanged through them.
The governments of Germany, France and UK have also been the main shields against the pressures from the EU parliament to avoid data-sharing initiatives with the USA.
It must also be noted that there seems to be a schism in Germany between the acts of the governments (pushing EU-wide anti-privacy measures) and the acts of the parliament (pushing strict pro-privacy regulations inside the German territory).
[1] http://www.hri.org/docs/Schengen90/body3.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%BCm_Convention
Germany does not want a German Internet, that's just plain silly. Deutsche Telekom just wants to rearrange its peering with other German ISPs so that requests that originate and end in Germany never leave Germany.
Seeing as DT's current peering costs are the reason that some packets take a round-about way in the first place, it's just a marketing move.
Having Merkel's phone monitored must have been a blow.
That said, having a nationally routed Internet makes sense. (edit: article says 90% is already routed nationally)
The article itself says it's not practical, and mostly posturing.
"The only way to change this would be for Germany to require local hosting of websites, a drastic move according to experts that has not yet been pushed by German leaders. Deutsche Telekom declined to say whether it would lobby for such an approach.
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, angered by reports that the U.S. spied on her and other Brazilians, is pushing legislation that would force Google, Facebook and other internet companies to store locally gathered or user-generated data inside the country."
In general, it probably does. But in the case of Germany, it's just plain ridiculous since they have US military and spy bases within their territory (and the politicians who run around like headless chicken currently have been defending those and limiting citizens' rights near them - the bases themselves are US territory, but just showing up nearby gets you in trouble).
Try filming, protesting or flying RC drones nearby ...
Also violates the spirit and legal requirements of the EU charter in several ways.
They have Siemens amongst other companies, so they feasibly could produce all their own routers if needed. They already produce mobile telecoms gear for many (most?) other countries. Doesn't make this proposal any more likely IMO.
This only going to result in a giant leap backwards in time to 30 years ago when there was a patchwork of networks (with universities providing the main internet backbone) but now the networks will be segmented by country - much, much more convenient for governments at the expense of everything and everyone else.
Politicians are borne of the people who let them come to power, stay in power and get away with mostly acting in their (politician's) best interest. Over time, power concentrates in the hands of those who have have it and can muster the resources to keep growing it. Eventually becoming the face of the people and the country. That's my cynic's view of democracy. Not that I know of a better system. Yet.
There's nothing else a country can consist of but the people that make it up.
The culture of a nation is the total compilation of all of its individuals, to the extent of their contribution and its net effect. Thus, a country does possess human values.
Some countries are more far more charitable across the board than others. The reason for that is the culture derived from the individuals that make up the country. As one simple and obvious example.
When a country turns back from the brink of making a terrible decision, that is due solely to human values held by the people. Why does Germany respect privacy to the extent that it does? Because of the values its people hold and enforce upon the government.
All decisions made by a country are human decisions made by someone. Countries consist of The People and their values, and ultimately a nation will reflect the values of its people.
Second reference in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnupg
Of course, I suppose there is the added benefit that many companies would now be legally required to have a physical presence in Germany, requiring the creation of many more local data centers. Presumably this would boost the already high performing German economy.
I wonder how this would effect IRC servers. Would you have to forbid connections from Germany if there already was a user connected from Germany?
In that same line of questioning, wow would a teleconference work? Two german companies and two american companies are communicating in a group call via skype or something. The server is located in the US. Does this mean that the two German companies are communicating with each other and therefore the server must be located in Germany? If the US had the same laws, does this mean it is impossible for the group call to be made at all?
How much more difficult would it make telecommuting if multiple telecommuters are located within Germany?
What if user A located in germany wants to send an email or instant message to user B in germany, but is VPNed to a server in another country. Maybe User A is on a business trip to germnay and is VPNed to their work, or something. How could such a message be routed completely within the German borders? Would the VPN have to detect the nature of the message and reject it?
Am I understanding everything correctly?
Then came US telecom deregulation, CLECS, the growth of the American-centric Internet, and a new way of making connections. On the Internet, one party opens a socket and superficially that seems to be similar to dialling a phone call. But the big difference is the the party opening a socket is not paying anyone a fee to do this. And they aren't paying a per-minute fee for using the socket. In fact, the party opening the socket is paying money for the use of the whole network, and the party whose socket is being opened is also paying a fee for the whole socket. Thust the concept was born that interconnects should be free because they are a cost of doing business as an ISP.
And then began much confusion and strange business dealings as telecom management wrestled with how to reconcile these two worlds. The result was that deregulated US providers charged a lot less for interconnects, and the international telephone calls of the world started to take a detour through the USA. And internet connections did the same thing.
So basically, there should be no extra cost if Germany implements this. Some companies might get into arm-twisting battles if significant traffic flows shift from one circuit to another because they will likely need to upgrade some interconnects, but that is just a one time hit. It should not increase fees at all.
Any sane person shouldn't trust the German government and Telcos more than foreign ones. I certainly don't.
Always suspect ulterior motives when giant organizations, asymmetrically wielding extensive power over you, tell you: "Just trust us. We are the good guys."
This is not actually free, but it means that no ISP can use peering as a profit centre. In fact, both parties to the bilateral peering have to pay for their own routers for the interconnect, and pay half the cost of the interconnect circuit if it is not done in the same building.
This would be an improvement in speed too because within the borders of Germany you should be able to get 10 ms round trip times to any other point. In fact, companies who want their VPN traffic to stay in Germany will often specify 10 ms RTT in their RFPs as a euphemism for "keep our traffic in Germany". I used to work for GTS, a competitor of DT and we had an extensive enough presence in Germany to meet that RTT which rather surprised DT because I think they invented the requirement hoping that it would mean "only DT can win this bid".
It would be better if all countries had laws/regulations about exchanging local traffic locally, because this would improve Internet performance for everyone.
One way to implement that would be something like RFC 3514, except that the E bit gets set whenever a packet crosses a border, and never cleared.