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German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

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Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#81
post #60

considered how Germans are obsessed with privacy and state surveillance (see for example cash usage vs electronic payments), let's see a country going nut in 3 2 1 ...

You have a bit too positive image of us ;) Yes, it will spark discussions again, and certainly be tested in front of our highest courts, and probably fail in some aspects and send back to the drawing boards again after a few years, but I don't expect that much "outrage", at least as long as it remains a tool for few specialized cases.

I'm working in Germany (Berlin) and I was shocked by how often you see "cash-only" signs and how electronic payments are avoided on a privacy ground. Plus I saw the reaction from a German colleagues when it was a matter of communicating some personal data to a company that manages the salaries and I realised how Germans are obsessed (not necesserily in a bad way) about their privacy

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#82

Merkel has already told facebook and twitter to delete comments and ban accounts negative of her 'policies'.

Could you please not try to derail the discussion with unrelated discussions? While there is a lot to debate in that space, it doesn't really have anything to do with these surveillance tools.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#83
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conveniently letting out the part about the racist remarks which are the actual cause. I'm all in favor of not letting racists teach children.

And who gets to decide who is a racist? Due process is there for a reason.

In this case I don't doubt it will end up in the courts which will observe due process. The statement was "we will try by all means" and Höcke is certainly free to appeal. Though the statements quoted were obviously racist, not even thinly veiled.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#84
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can monitor your own property if you inform properly (post notices, renters have to agree, ...) > Can they apply for an exemption and is it normally granted? No. If your camera monitors public space (streets, sidewalk, ...) it either has to be so far in the distance that it can't identify people or cars, or you have to block these parts of the image (either physically, or by blanking those parts of the signal bef…

> You can monitor your own property if you inform properly Even that is restricted. For example it is not allowed to video monitor your employees in almost all cases. To use video surveillance you have to have a legitimate reason and even then the rights of you and the ones being filmed need to be carefully balanced.

true, i was maybe generalizing a bit to much.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#85
post #15

I doubt they have capable programmers working for them. A few years ago the Chaos Computer Club discovered the 'predecessor' version of this State-Trojan ("Bundestrojaner"). This version was a perfect example what happens when you _want_ to have such a software but your programmers _suck_ at even most basic things (like establishing a working traffic-encryption). Here's the video (in German): https://youtu.be/zAV-hTp…

Consider the debacle Stuxnet caused when there were presumably some very capable developers working on it.

Some potential outcomes of malware, poorly written or not: it spreads to other machines, it exposes information publicly which harms many third parties, it is co opted and repurposed by other criminals.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, very likely the same can be said about anti-nuclear protesters: they're not excluded for "political reasons", but for criminal actions which are "actual cause". Or so someone says. (Though in the case of this teacher, it looks like no crime could be cooked up). With AfD I've heard of trying to use just the political alignment as a reason (couldn't find the link just now).

If you're looking for samples you'll probably find sufficient if you're looking for NPD affiliates (they're not illegal either). If you look up cases where the affiliation is left-wing or anarchist you'll find even more. The standards for teachers are really very strict [1] - the must be "weltanschaulich neutral". There's certainly a debate to be had about whether they're too strict, but IMHO, Höcke is so far across…

When I started working in public sector I had to sign that I'm not a member of an unconstitutional group. As examples it included a list similar to this one: https://www.justiz.bayern.de/media/pdf/verzeichnis_extrorgan... It includes left-wing, right-wing, and islamist extremist groups.

Interestingly this list also contains the leftist party "Die Linke" which now has been a member of the federal parliament for a rather long time. That being said it's probably not a hindrance if you are a member there but you are expected to explain yourself.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#88

When the state has a monopoly on force any speech against them is hate speech. Defending the censorship of people you dont like will simply come back to bite you.

There is a clear and well defined border of hate speech and free speech in Germany. This is untouched.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#89
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's world we can assume that the number of programmers with deep knowledge of systems is only going to dwindle I shudder to think of code written by interns But why would they split 'Open' and 'File'?

Obfuscation.

It is also a usual trick to avoid detection by "heuristic" antivirus software (even in legit software).

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#90

When the state has a monopoly on force any speech against them is hate speech. Defending the censorship of people you dont like will simply come back to bite you.

Today it may be good fun to watch people with a differing opinion get arrested and harassed as a part of "justice" but tomorrow when they decide you dont need encryption and youre the one being targeted it wont be so funny.
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