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The German Problem with Tor
111–120 of 131 posts
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#112Keep in mind that government IT jobs in Germany are almost comically underpaid. People competent enough to perform timing correlation attacks usually choose the >2x salary industry jobs. The running gag was that this is the greatest protection for citizens privacy. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence is that the government looks to shady companies like Gamma to do its job. This leads to FinFisher, which is norma…
> to be used against German law enforcement. Against, or by? I'm not trying to nitpick, just make sense of this. You imply that the German government hired Gamma to gain access to FinFisher, and then talk about it being used against German law enforcement. This seems internally inconsistent.
I meant “by”, sorry for the confusion.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> To point a finger at Germany while recommending Switzerland or Russia of all places as alternatives is just beyond retarded. Reminds me of the old joke: Use Signal, over Tor, over Switzerland
Well, most people these days cannot grasp what anonymity means. Anonymity doesn't exist, therefore you have to wear a mask to blend in.
I mean, TOR browser is great and all... But the traffic will be suspiciously obvious for outside actors that look for statistical behaviours before they take a deeper look.
I hear a lot of (even CS people) that say things like "oh it's encrypted via TOR so nobody can listen" ...which is just such a wrong statement and makes people careless about everything else, including starttls email and http requests by default with their web browser.
People assume they are safe, but nobody mentions how they should use their own biggest piece of spyware correctly: the web browser.
If ungoogled-chromium dies, there'll be pretty much no safe alternative available.
PS to avoid potential errands: And no, recommending Firefox is just as uninformed as recommending Switzerland. Use mitmproxy to verify.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#114Earlier 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…
I can't really bring myself to agree with this view of the world. To me it sounds like saying that parents are dangerous because they can mistreat children or that employers are dangerous because they can oppress employees. Obviously those are true statements, but they are also horrible first approximations. Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments a…
>Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments are supposed to protect and safeguard the state and its people.
This is a bizarrely naive worldview. In democratic countries the government's role is to implement a system of governance decided on by the people. The whole idea behind having a system of "checks and balances" is to prevent the government from unilaterally deciding what constitutes "safety and protection" and what measures it deems necessary to do so. Every despotic regime in history has claimed to be "protecting and safeguarding the state and its people" while stifling the freedom of its people. Ceding rights and freedoms to the government because you perceive them as benevolent overseers with pure motives is incredibly dangerous and absurd to anyone with any knowledge of history.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't really bring myself to agree with this view of the world. To me it sounds like saying that parents are dangerous because they can mistreat children or that employers are dangerous because they can oppress employees. Obviously those are true statements, but they are also horrible first approximations. Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments a…
>Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments are supposed to protect and safeguard the state and its people. This is a bizarrely naive worldview. In democratic countries the government's role is to implement a system of governance decided on by the people. The whole idea behind having a system of "checks and balances" is to prevent the government from u…
I never said this, what I said is that is that societal figures of power exist with a benevolent purpose and should not be perceived as evil.
The system of checks and balances on the power of the state can be seen in two lights: 1) as a way to prevent tyrannies from arising or 2) as a way to let the good actors freely act within well defined boundaries.
I simply believe the second point of view to be much more fruitful and stable.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#116When you use tor you are just another coward and a thief. Or a kiddo ashamed
that he is jerking off to porn. so relax no one cares what you say in politics until you overcome your limitations. this is the right label for tor users.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 think we had enough evidence lately that the German government is corrupt and they all have their snouts in the trough, almost regardless of party. Talking about fleecing.
Corruption is relative. Something can be more corrupt than something else.
Saying whether something is corrupt isn't helpful because most things are corrupt to a certain extent.=
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#118[deleted]
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they meant how somewhat organising instead of anarchy saves lives.
This bold claim requires proofs. We have no counterfactual than anarchy in a developed country would cost lives. We can see that the government "organization" of covid tests, messing up their official tests while forbidding private alternatives, costed lives.
Humans congregate and organise, it's basically what makes us human.
Re: The German Problem with Tor
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Maybe this is because of the visibility. 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...
Is your argument that strict controls makes corruption appear more prevalent than it is in reality?
Here is a different way to think about it. You are a police officer and interrogate 100 honest people who never lie and 25 people confess their crimes and the rest are innocent. Then you interrogate 100 people who always lie (75 are innocent) and you can only prove 15 of them guilty. From the outside it looks like honest people have a higher chance to be criminals. Doing the right thing can destroy your reputation.