11–20 of 131 posts
Recommending to host an exit node in Switzerland in the context of TOR feels like reading an article of someone who thinks they are anonymous by using TOR. Switzerland is even more privacy invasive than German laws, and that is the case since 2010 when automated connection tagging was introduced for VND and VÜPF.
"In reality, the German government has a double standard when it comes to the right to privacy. They will fully support that right if it's company's violating your privacy (especially, if they are American because protectionism) but in contrast, the German will give itself as many powers as it can to spy on its own citizens and those abroad." This.
A state and a company have vastly different goals. A state should care for its citizens, this includes protections against threats to public safety (terror, organized crime) and surveillance is a tool in the box for that. A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit if they only could. States are the entities actually powerful enough to keep companies in check and I'm pretty happy when they do that.
I admit that this is a, I guess, pretty european view of things (i.e. govs are good, since they keep greedy companies in check), while the american view might rather be that govs are bad because they get into the way of companies (which are considered good).
Why all the hate for Germany specifically? Pretty much no gov out there likes TOR nodes. The fact that there are ton in Germany any seems like something that should be applauded
> The high number of high-speed relays and exits in Germany mean that it is not too uncommon to get both a German guard and exit. This gives the state an easier time if they want to target someone using traffic correlation attacks. > That also does not take in account the planned German law that will allow authorities to redirect traffic to state-owned servers, to infect users with viruses/Trojans. This is especially…
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
Unfortunately, an unintended consequence is that the government looks to shady companies like Gamma to do its job. This leads to FinFisher, which is normally used by the most contemptible dictatorships against their dissidents, to be used against German law enforcement. It also creates incentives not to prosecute Gamma for helping to violate human rights all over the world by helping to throw bloggers into torture jails.
"In reality, the German government has a double standard when it comes to the right to privacy. They will fully support that right if it's company's violating your privacy (especially, if they are American because protectionism) but in contrast, the German will give itself as many powers as it can to spy on its own citizens and those abroad." This.
That's only double standards if one considers states and companies as being in the same position. A state and a company have vastly different goals. A state should care for its citizens, this includes protections against threats to public safety (terror, organized crime) and surveillance is a tool in the box for that. A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit…
I’d be surprised if people trust their governments in Poland, Bulgaria etc.
Government officials have more power to abuse people than companies. At least Germany has an established constitutional court that can still resist the politicians to some degree.
I think the american view is that governments are bad because they can be used to establish tyranny. Every citizen’s right to be judged by their own peers, their right to carry firearms and freedom of speech are the things that allow people to fight against corrupt governments.
This is my view being someone living in Turkey. I am even afraid of posting this comment.
Maybe this generation in Europe trusts their government and thinks that its good. But I bet people having experienced autocratic regimes can never trust their government.
"In reality, the German government has a double standard when it comes to the right to privacy. They will fully support that right if it's company's violating your privacy (especially, if they are American because protectionism) but in contrast, the German will give itself as many powers as it can to spy on its own citizens and those abroad." This.
That's only double standards if one considers states and companies as being in the same position. A state and a company have vastly different goals. A state should care for its citizens, this includes protections against threats to public safety (terror, organized crime) and surveillance is a tool in the box for that. A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit…
"In reality, the German government has a double standard when it comes to the right to privacy. They will fully support that right if it's company's violating your privacy (especially, if they are American because protectionism) but in contrast, the German will give itself as many powers as it can to spy on its own citizens and those abroad." This.
That's only double standards if one considers states and companies as being in the same position. A state and a company have vastly different goals. A state should care for its citizens, this includes protections against threats to public safety (terror, organized crime) and surveillance is a tool in the box for that. A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit…
I don’t think the state is dangerous because it gets in the way of profit (though it can do that) but because it can directly oppress its people in all kinds of violent ways. The mitigating factor is supposed to be that people can hold their government accountable, but allow the government to snoop on everyone’s private communications and they’ll take care of that.
While I don't want to defend the german state, i think it should be mentioned that germany does have a pretty active pro-privacy movement. The chaos-computer club is big, with local chapters in nearly every city, very well connected and closely follows any movement from our government (and industry). While the german state itself may want as much control as possible, its attempts are always attacked by those groups.
Suing against the legislation in the constitutional court is somewhat more effective, but it takes somewhere between 5 to 10 years to obtain a ruling againt a law that must be in effect before the process can even start.
Why all the hate for Germany specifically? Pretty much no gov out there likes TOR nodes. The fact that there are ton in Germany any seems like something that should be applauded
Germany is an interesting case for TOR. I did some statistical analysis on TOR data (they publish a lot of data) from around when Snowden made his revelations, and many countries saw increased TOR activity while German activity went down versus the trend. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head (have them in a PDF somewhere) but my theory is that Germany doubted the security of TOR at that time. Maybe the…