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Comment by fwn | Hacker News Reader

For this "we are being attacked" reason, they want to get the parlamentarians to let secret services manipulate their laptops / phones. It's a classic.

As if the local agencies are somehow less dangerous for the individual politician than the foreign agencies.

The actual costs, "millions", are rather irrelevant.

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"As if the local agencies are somehow less dangerous for the individual politician than the foreign agencies."

So your point is the German IT sec agency BSI is as dangerous to German politicians as the Russian GRU and SWR?

Without denying the currently very present principal–agent problem between parliamentarians and the statefunded intelligence community all other claims seem sappy to me.

I bet they earned your trust for a reason. Nevertheless it should be the decision of the specific MP to assign IT responsibilities for the own hardware/software.

The German BSI is not part of the "intelligence community" and is not an intelligence agency, no matter how often you repeat your conspiracy theory. To spare everyone the trip to Wikipedia:

"The Federal Office for Information Security (German: Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, abbreviated as BSI) is the German Upper-level Federal agency in charge of managing computer and communication security for the German government. Its areas of expertise and responsibility include the security of computer applications, critical infrastructure protection, Internet security, cryptography, counter eavesdropping, certification of security products and the accreditation of security test laboratories."

I belive you are the only one talking about the BSI, it's about a German secret service.

Ironically you repeated it under every post I made. ..while claiming I repeat mistakes you assume.

We Germans love the "conspiracy"-hammer even for minor contextual differences in our debate.

Pretending the BSI has no connection to the intelligence community is just as disingenuous as pretending they are an intelligence agency themselves. Just going by your quote, many of their tasks are in the domain of counter-intelligence.

Beyond that, they are also responsible for the (quite unenviable) tasks of certifying/auditing the intelligence services IT infrastructure, not just in terms of security but also in terms of whether it stays within the bounds of the laws limiting what can be recorded and shared. From what was revealed in the parliamentary hearings prompted by Edward Snowden's leaks, they didn't do a very thorough job.

The German BSI is not a "secret service".

I had the same confusion in the beginning. The BSI is responsible to fix the infrastructure, to report on the problem, etc. You might not be aware of the discussion regarding the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitutions involvement.

Remeber that this is not about the BSI.

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/cyberattacke-auf-bundesta...

Not sure about your agenda and why you spill inaccuracies and distort what articles say with a tendency to promote Russian SWR goals.

1. The problem arose because the parliamentarians did not use experts from the BSI but have no clue but do it on their own with their own people. The BSI protected government network is not affected.

2. The German interior intelligence agency is not "involved" as you put it - what agenda do you have? - the article says parliamentarians need to decide if they want to ask the counterespionage department of the German interior intelligence agency, what some don't want.

> Not sure about your agenda and why you spill inaccuracies with a tendency to promote Russian goals.

Oh lol. Whatever you say I guess.

>as if the local agencies are somehow less dangerous

And in what way are they dangerous? And if not these experts, who should do this (expert) work?

In what way are foreign agencies dangerous? Now remember that they do the same thing.

The other question is pretty easy: Every involved party should use own trusted experts for the hardware/software part it manages.

If you are a parlamentarian and it feels suspicious to you that a secret service wants to get your phone: Don't hand it.

Again, the German BSI does not the same thing as the Russian GRU/SWR.

Again, it's not about the BSI.

People can read on their own that it is about the BSI, contrary to your propaganda. Go back to the Spiegel or Zeit forums, where Russian trolls usually spend their time.

Who do these experts report to? The individual parlamentarian (who is supposed to be independent), or the individual parties, or the governing coalition, or unknown third parties?

At the moment, this is not even well disclosed.

Then why does the parliament not have some one looking after it's cyber security and answerable directly to it.

They should totally have someone looking after the parliaments part of the it infrastructure. I don't see why they shouldn't have someone in charge of it.

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