41–50 of 131 posts
> Now you know how the Germans hate privacy, you will almost certainly be asking about alternative locations. I don't know where this guy comes from but this has to be the most sensationalist sentence in that blog post. It's on par with "non Americans hate freedom". If Germans hated privacy, why would they be the biggest bandwidth contributors to the TOR network? Not sure the author was using all of his brain when he…
Devils advocate: if you hate tor you should try to contribute to the network as much as possible. The more you control it, the more you can exploit it when vulnerabilities are found.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many places in the world, the government is corrupt and there is no transparency. 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…
Rulings of the constitutional court have almost no real life consequences. If there is a negative ruling the parliament is given ample time before the unconstitutional law must be replaced. If there is any replacement within that time, the same law, formulated differently, is passed.
> Now you know how the Germans hate privacy, you will almost certainly be asking about alternative locations. I don't know where this guy comes from but this has to be the most sensationalist sentence in that blog post. It's on par with "non Americans hate freedom". If Germans hated privacy, why would they be the biggest bandwidth contributors to the TOR network? Not sure the author was using all of his brain when he…
Devils advocate: if you hate tor you should try to contribute to the network as much as possible. The more you control it, the more you can exploit it when vulnerabilities are found.
Sure, more control helps, but you need quite a lot and it would be prohibitively expensive at the moment (and also noticeable).
"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.
Yeah, right.
To point a finger at Germany while recommending Switzerland or Russia of all places as alternatives is just beyond retarded.
So there have been a few (two, apparently) raids/seizing of documents in past 15 years, so what? Why no mention of other illegal raids or seizing of documents?
Ah, right - bias. You know THESE raids were different, because they affected the radical left instead of kiddie porn, drug dealers, neo nazis, or religiously motivated terrorists.
So we now know were the author draws the line, since apparently it's more important WHO does the spying than that there's spying at all. And of course a country where illegal raids can actually be brought before a judge and ruled illegal are much worse than regimes that don't even give you the option...
I'm not a fan of the German government, but I'm even less a fan of political extremists with a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-attitude.
"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…
Here's another way of looking at it: Germany is adopting an incredibly hypocritical position on privacy. It's so hypocritical it's nearly identical to the American government's position that many here on HN rightly decry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Yes I did read it > not too uncommon to get both a German guard and exit. The solution here is more non-German nodes not to shit on the Germans that are already hosting lots. Maybe there is a language barrier at play here but just seems bizarre how aggressively “the German” is being singled out: >the German will give itself as many powers as it can to spy on its own citizens and those abroad.
If your security legislation is often declared partly illegal by the Verfassungsgericht (latest [1]), you leave the impression of reaching too far by default.
If your courts do not declare (too far reaching) laws illegal, you leave the impression to have been right in your demands.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/world/europe/germany-priv...
"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.
Sure, relocate to Russia - you know, a country that doesn't even have free internet anymore and just like China pushes for totally state-controlled national network... Yeah, right. To point a finger at Germany while recommending Switzerland or Russia of all places as alternatives is just beyond retarded. So there have been a few (two, apparently) raids/seizing of documents in past 15 years, so what? Why no mention of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In many places in the world, the government is corrupt and there is no transparency. 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…
Rulings of the constitutional court have almost no real life consequences. If there is a negative ruling the parliament is given ample time before the unconstitutional law must be replaced. If there is any replacement within that time, the same law, formulated differently, is passed.
The fact that the Court tries not to do something like that is because it is also a political actor searching for stability.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would think the Germans of all people would know better than to view the state with this kind of naivety. 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 everyon…
No, we do not. Problem is we have a lot of people that are a bit too critical and think everyone is out there to get them. In a most reactionary manner to those, we now have large groups that want to strengthen the state. In some cases that is justified as states loose out against companies when it comes to influence. But certainly a bad idea if you want it to control information. A stereotype is that there is no gra…