171–180 of 199 posts
When the state has a monopoly on force any speech against them is hate speech. Defending the censorship of people you dont like will simply come back to bite you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is drifting beside the original point, but my understanding is that the anti-nuclear movement in Germany has established a non-negligible violent culture. If you go to these protests, you know you're going to participate in or give vocal support for violent action. http://www.dw.com/en/clashes-between-police-and-anti-nuclear...
(I don't mind drifting for a bit) A considerable part of their actions is very disruptive, seeking to, in the view of the protesters, I imagine, annoy everybody involved in the transport of nuclear waste to such an extent that they'll give up, while in actuality just causing a financial burden for the taxpayer (17000(!) policemen were in service during the protest you linked to according to [1]). That includes the tr…
http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/atomausstieg/castor-...
Anyway, I think that based on this it is not entirely unreasonable that the police does keep an eye on the protesters.
However, I'm quite doubtful about the wisdom of the "Trojan" plan:
http://www.dw.com/en/german-government-to-use-trojan-spyware...
This is the correct path forward to move society into a digital era. It follows the well established principle that the state uses force in legally proscribed ways to maintain security. Known as the “monopoly of the legitimate use of force”, this is a core concept of modern law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence ). This concept carries over cleanly from the past into the digital era. In this case go…
The problem with both approaches is that it requires organisation among citizens, which in turn requires a way to communicate with minimal danger of the secret police showing up immedietly afterwards. In the past this was ensured because surveilance was extremely hard to scale to an entire country. In recent years mass surveilance has become a reality, is increasingly hard to escape, and requires fewer and fewer human beings.
Of course right now the system is limited by judical oversight, and that's great. But over the course of decades the seperation of powers is bound to fail occasionally. We need more protection from the government than that.
>If you oppose the German government employing spyware, you should consider whether you also oppose it arresting people in general
Obviously we still need law enforcement, but police existed before the wiretap and can exist in a post-wiretap world.
I doubt they have capable programmers working for them. A few years ago the Chaos Computer Club discovered the 'predecessor' version of this State-Trojan ("Bundestrojaner"). This version was a perfect example what happens when you _want_ to have such a software but your programmers _suck_ at even most basic things (like establishing a working traffic-encryption). Here's the video (in German): https://youtu.be/zAV-hTp…
> We shouldn't fear their 'capabilities' but rather their lack of knowledge that'll ultimately lead to 'open systems' which can later be exploited by other criminals. We should fear their intent. Their capabilities are beside the point -- they could hire the very best tomorrow if they found they need to.
Capabilities will evolve on all sides. The mindset that cedes the right of the state to engage in this activity and instead falls back to a position of mounting a technological defense against them is a losing one. It essentially says to the state, "it's fair game to come get whatever you can".
Given enough time and intent, the unlimited resources of the state will ultimately prevail. More importantly, this is not the posture that private citizens should tolerate with their governments. This is first and foremost a legal matter. Technological capabilities are secondary.
This is the correct path forward to move society into a digital era. It follows the well established principle that the state uses force in legally proscribed ways to maintain security. Known as the “monopoly of the legitimate use of force”, this is a core concept of modern law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence ). This concept carries over cleanly from the past into the digital era. In this case go…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And not just a few years ago, this is an ongoing issue. For instance, a government minister in Hessen tries to ensure that this politician from AfD (in opposition to the ruling CDU/SDP coalition) should not be able to work as a teacher. http://www.focus.de/politik/videos/er-hatte-sport-und-geschi...
You're conveniently letting out the part about the racist remarks which are the actual cause. I'm all in favor of not letting racists teach children.
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/10/10/german-governmen...
I doubt they have capable programmers working for them. A few years ago the Chaos Computer Club discovered the 'predecessor' version of this State-Trojan ("Bundestrojaner"). This version was a perfect example what happens when you _want_ to have such a software but your programmers _suck_ at even most basic things (like establishing a working traffic-encryption). Here's the video (in German): https://youtu.be/zAV-hTp…
I doubt they have capable programmers working for them. A few years ago the Chaos Computer Club discovered the 'predecessor' version of this State-Trojan ("Bundestrojaner"). This version was a perfect example what happens when you _want_ to have such a software but your programmers _suck_ at even most basic things (like establishing a working traffic-encryption). Here's the video (in German): https://youtu.be/zAV-hTp…
That's a nice sentiment and while I hope you're correct it's not really good enough in any country. This state is Germany and it has two of the poster children for state terror in the last 100 years. The Stasi and well, there are times when Godwin's really doesn't apply. National Socialists happened and we can't pretend they didn't.
Neither of these two examples did the state start out the way it became.