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The German Problem with Tor

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Re: The German Problem with Tor

#121

Post by [deleted] »

afiori wrote: post #32
dabbledash wrote: post #18

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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#122

Post by raxxorrax »

0ld wrote: post #7

> you could get a VPS from a country who hates the western spy powers like Russia or Moldova nice try, comrade. but no

It is actually a great and most important tip. The Moldovan government would probably not share data with anyone having jurisdiction where you live.

Maybe the Moldovan government will spy on you. It would be inconsequential if the info acquired is not interesting to an international market.

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#123

Post by bromuro »

raxxorrax wrote: post #34
dabbledash wrote: post #18

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…

That stereotype goes away after living there - no worries :)

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#124

Post by rhn_mk1 »

qayxc wrote: post #94
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "There are no shades of grey here" but then you contradict it by saying "You can make things harder by encrypting your traffic", so obviously you don't mean it. By dismissing the imperfect possiblities of making yourself safer, you seem to be saying "there only needs to be one gunner to shoot you when you look out the window, so either you never leave your bunker or may as well live in a war zone", while dism…

There is no place in the world that is both technologically capable of reliably hosting servers and at the same time inherently safer with regards to the privacy of your data than others. If it's not the domestic government that will raid the server or monitor traffic, it's foreign actors or (in case of monitoring) the country that packets are routed through. Yes, there are possibilities to make yourself safer, but t…

I'm not sure I'm convinced that location doesn't matter at all. The attack routes are different between countries: local culture determines attack surface inside the company, local law determines attack surface due to the local government. There are probably more factors at play due to technical reasons, like the closeness to internet exchanges and the difficulty to sniff packets in secret by foreign spies. Unless those are uniformly the same everywhere, I don't think your agrument holds.

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#125

Post by sadfklsjlkjwt »

chki wrote: post #97
sadfklsjlkjwt wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You originally posted a response to this. > 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. To say that the court does have power. But your example is an example of exactly what the O…

Yes you are correct, that is an example except for this part >If there is any replacement within that time, the same law, formulated differently, is passed Which is not accurate. Actually the new laws are substantially different, in the case of the ground tax this is also very obvious.

Did they replace a property tax with a tax paid on property?

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#126

Post by tjs8rj »

_Microft wrote: post #12
elchin wrote: post #4

"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 think most Americans agree with a more middle of the road approach: that both companies and govt can be evil and shouldn't be given too much power. Most disagree on where the lines should be drawn with both entities, but the root contention is that power can corrupt anyone, from a profit-seeking CEO to a power-seeking politician, and so the leash on power should be short and the barriers around it should be tall.

The idea that Facebook and other companies have so much data is often a bi-partisan point of concern, likewise the dramatic govt surveillance power of the Patriot Act is a pretty bi-partisan concern on the civilian level (as opposed to politicians, who are inclined to tow institutional lines even in disagreement with the current constituent sentiment.

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#127

Post by DataDaoDe »

nickff wrote: post #95
DataDaoDe wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments often abuse their power. They have absolutely no problem with that either. The way I think about it is this. Governments and companies are both organizations made up of people. Governments have additional powers (for instance, military force, police power, etc.) over companies. The checks and balances for gov't abuse of power depend on the type i.e. representative democracy, republic, etc. And the check…

The difference is often referred to as 'voice vs. exit'. You have a 'voice' (your say/vote) with the government, but no right to 'exit'. In contrast, with a private party, you only have a right not to transact with them (exit), but no right to tell them what to do (voice). Your desired scope of government usually reflects how much you believe in exit and voice. For practical purposes, this usually translates to how e…

Very interesting. Thanks for the link :)

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#128

Post by afthonos »

gruez wrote: post #74
afthonos wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where if a law is unconstitutional it's struck down immediately What? Cases take years or decades to make their way through the court system. You might be thinking of the fact that some laws get an injunction on their enforcement until they are ruled on, but that is not mandatory. More important, they are not struck down, only enjoined. And of course if the legislature changes the law, the case becomes moot by the…

>What? Cases take years or decades to make their way through the court system. You might be thinking of the fact that some laws get an injunction on their enforcement until they are ruled on, but that is not mandatory. It's implied that we're talking about what happens after it's decided. We obviously can't talk about the action of the court before it's been decided. What matters is what happens after a decision has…

I think I did not understand GGP the way you did, leading to me not making sense of your response. And of course it makes perfect sense not to rule on laws that have been repealed. :-)

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#129

Post by raxxorrax »

bromuro wrote: post #123
raxxorrax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That stereotype goes away after living there - no worries :)

I live there, so nice try with this unblushing deception :)

Re: The German Problem with Tor

#130

Post by totalZero »

gmueckl wrote: post #20
totalZero wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you certain that what you saw wasn't just the result of traffic being distributed between a higher number of exit nodes? Did the absolute number of available nodes in Germany change?

https://metrics.torproject.org/

The data are a bit richer and more granular than that, albeit imperfect. Take a look for yourself.

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