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BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

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Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#151

Post by sofixa »

twblalock wrote: post #128
Fargren wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strawman, and plainly untrue. Many countries have mandatory id. I have personally lived in Argentina and Spain, both of them have it, for close to a century (89 years in Spain, 54 years in Argentina, but it replaced a pre-exisitng system). The Spanish DNI has RFID. In neither place, nor any country with mandatory ID as far as I know, you get "no access to anything". The worst thing that can happen is that i…

Western Europe is one example where IDs have not been abused. But China is another example where they have been. If you give your governments tools that can be used for oppression, even if they aren’t abused today, it would make it easier for a new authoritarian government to abuse them later on. Spain was a dictatorship for much of the 20th century and Argentina had had multiple military dictatorships too — it could…

> A bit more American-style distrust of government would be a good thing.

Nope. The American distrust is resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy of a failing government. Your bureacracy is years behind basic things we've had in many European countries, and because there's massive distrusts there's no investment making it impossible to improve.

E.g. your tax process is a massive joke, but will it ever be fixed? Probably not soon because if nothing else, one of the only two parties claims government is by default incompetent so any money spent on it are by definition a waste.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#152

Post by thuringia »

jll29 wrote: post #143
arrrg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany at least there are several measures in place to make this slippery slope a fallacy (as it usually is) and not realistic. You can pick whether you want to have an ID card or a passport or both. You are not required to carry your ID card with you. In general the actually existing surveillance of mobile phones that were in a certain area at a certain time is much more worrisome to me.

> You are not required to carry your ID card with you. "I am not a lawyer" but: "Deutsche im Sinne des Art. 116 Abs. 1 GG sind nach § 1 Personalausweisgesetz (PAuswG) verpflichtet, sobald sie 16 Jahre alt sind und der allgemeinen Meldepflicht unterliegen oder sich überwiegend in Deutschland aufhalten, einen gültigen Ausweis zu besitzen und ihn auf Verlangen einer zur Feststellung der Identität berechtigten Behörde vo…

The law never states that you are required to carry your ID. It states that you are required to own one.

If you do not carry it with you, and have no why for them to identify you in a way that you can be looked up, e.g. because you have your ID number in your password manager, the police can summon you to the station, or escort you home or a variety of other protocols. The police like to convince you otherwise, because it makes their job easier. When children are taught about their ID in school, this is often accompanied by a police official. As you can see in the law itself, this is not true.

However, this only applies to German citizens, and EU citizens, if you are in Germany on a visa or any other type of scheme, you are in fact required to carry you ID and documents with you at all times. In that case not carrying an ID is actually an offense with harsh punishments. In reality most of these situations are handled like with normal citizens though.

Edit: improve formatting

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#153

Post by twblalock »

8note wrote: post #148
twblalock wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Europe is one example where IDs have not been abused. But China is another example where they have been. If you give your governments tools that can be used for oppression, even if they aren’t abused today, it would make it easier for a new authoritarian government to abuse them later on. Spain was a dictatorship for much of the 20th century and Argentina had had multiple military dictatorships too — it could…

What's stopping a dictatorship from adding these things? It's very strange to assume a dictatorship would be so noble as to not add a tool for abuse, and you include the Chinese government as an example already. Not adding it today does nothing to ensure a dictatorship cant use it in the future

> Not adding it today does nothing to ensure a dictatorship cant use it in the future

Yes it does, if the people have the will to fight. Insurgencies have been surprisingly successful against the most powerful militaries in the world in the past few decades. Even in China, the threat of mass protest forced the government to soften Covid restrictions -- and the protesters didn't even have guns, or any leverage at all except their willingness to put themselves in harm's way.

Every dictatorship that has ever existed started off with the consent of the people, at least at first. All of the dictators in history were swept into office on a wave of popularity, and the people only regretted it later on. It's just not possible to impose a dictatorship on a population that doesn't want it.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#154

Post by twblalock »

sofixa wrote: post #151
twblalock wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western Europe is one example where IDs have not been abused. But China is another example where they have been. If you give your governments tools that can be used for oppression, even if they aren’t abused today, it would make it easier for a new authoritarian government to abuse them later on. Spain was a dictatorship for much of the 20th century and Argentina had had multiple military dictatorships too — it could…

> A bit more American-style distrust of government would be a good thing. Nope. The American distrust is resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy of a failing government. Your bureacracy is years behind basic things we've had in many European countries, and because there's massive distrusts there's no investment making it impossible to improve. E.g. your tax process is a massive joke, but will it ever be fixed? Probab…

You seem to think that Americans want a European-style society and have failed to achieve it.

We don't want it. We don't want to "fix" our tax system -- we want low taxes and lots of deductions, and that is why we have them! We want cars. We want suburbs. We don't want the government to be our mommy. This is not a failure, it is an intentional feature of the American system.

Also just remember that if we built a competent bureaucracy that enforced a nationwide ID system, it might be handed over to Donald Trump if he wins the next election, and he really could win. Every power we give the government, assuming that the government will be good, will also be given to a bad government. Sometimes it's better to refuse to give that power at all.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#155

Post by f1shy »

jansan wrote: post #9

This is interesting. Being German, when I read the headline I had a "not another public IT project destined to fail" moment. But this actually makes sense. The government and military need a secure communication tool, it is not a pie in the sky, but built on existing software, and they start with a well defined user base. My guts feeling is that this will be a successful project.

It is based in French software... so... maybe?!

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#156

Post by mynameisvlad »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #132
strbean wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is quite a lot of slipper slope going on here. > centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID. Does not necessitate: > universally mandated > No access to anything > felony to do so intentionally > Your 2FA and disk encryption is mandatorily tied to your ID card All the latter things are awful, but we can have the first thing without any of the latter things.

Yet. It's not slippery slope, it's looking ahead. Is the ice on the lake cracked? No. Therefore there is no chance of it cracking? Setup, then execute, not necessarily immediately.

It's literally the definition of a slippery slope argument.

> A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect.

Small first step => significant negative effect

"centrally managed, and cryptographically-backed state identification cards, complete with RFID" => everything the parent commenter said, basically

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#157

Post by Dagonfly »

bradhe wrote: post #43
foepys wrote: post #38

Germany was quite advanced when it came to technology but then the drive to make more of it somehow stopped. It has always been incredibly sad to me that the German ID card (Personalausweis) has an RFID chip inside with trust zones, certificates, authorization features, and much more and just never had been used. Like at all except for getting cigarettes at vending machines. 12 years after the first RFID Personalausw…

I heard something yesterday about how you can authenticate digitally for tax documents using the NFC chip in your Personalausweis! You just have to download some app. But yes, in general, we’re SO CLOSE…then you have to go do Anmeldung with a paper form in person

I do all my tax return stuff online with my Personalausweis. Once you got all your PINs and access codes it's quite seamless actually. You can even pair your phone with your PC and use the phone's NFC reader to read the ID-card.

That stuff honestly improved quite a bit in the recent years. Most of these services are just not advertised or integrated enough so far.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#158

Post by beardedman »

Xylakant wrote: post #140
beardedman wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a young person anymore & card payments have almost never failed for me (unless it was for a specific/resolvable reason). > A few month ago, card terminals of a widely used type failed hard in Germany, only cash payment was possible. This exactly is part of my point. > or my medical provider is entirely orthogonal to that. I prefer a medical provider that does a good job & shares my data, rather than incompet…

I have had cards expire and the new cards sent to an outdated address, and when that was discovered, the bank blocked all cards since they could have fallen into the wrong hands. I happened to be traveling at that time. I’ve had cards be blocked due to random fluctuations in the usage pattern. Calling usually helps a to resolve this, though it usually takes time. I’ve had an ATM eat my card and not return it. I have…

You're completely missing the point I'm making.

Other countries aren't exempt, but other countries also don't write case studies on how everyone else should operate.

It's absolutely baffling to me that Germany touts a more secure messenger, but can't get card payments working seamlessly / consistently. To your point, I was visiting there earlier this year & card payments were completely offline for 2 - 3 days.

But sure, roll out a more secure messenger.

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#159

Post by hobofan »

MoSattler wrote: post #7

I really like the idea. But I am skeptic - digitalisation of Germany's public services and offices in the past hasn't exactly been a success story.

The large degree of federation in the German government is something that has traditionally shown some of its ugliest sides when in comes to digitalization (e.g. every state comissioning their own underpowered solutions which are 95% identical in spec instead of pooling resources).

I think that's exactly why Matrix might be a good fit, as the technical federation aligns well with the pre-existing social federation. I'm really optimistic for that project!

Re: BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration

#160

Post by f1shy »

beardedman wrote: post #69

Another virtue signal from good 'ol Deutschland. Where 75% of the population prefer cash. "Do what we say, just don't do what we do", as the old adage goes. How painful.

And for some things you still need to send a Fax... oh my!!! a FAX in 2022! Amuse yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz_amU-6EQI
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