German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens • Hacker News Board

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#191

Post by cuillevel3 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:25 AM UTC

The funny thing is they don't want to develop an all-purpose trojan. It's only meant to intercept communication before it is encrypted and sent over the wire. This came to happen because they were unable to listen in on Skype calls in the past. So they're basically deploying a trojan which is able to copy VOIP traffic.

From media reports it's unclear if communication includes chat and email, which would make the trojan a keylogger. There are lawyers that argue email, without PGP encryption, is within the 'Quellen-TKÜ' laws reach.

Furthermore the government is not allowed to turn the infected machine into a listening station, by law the flat of a person is under stronger protection than his communication.

Technically this will be really hard to enforce in software...

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#192

Post by cuillevel3 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 10:27 AM UTC

samstave wrote: post #122

mrottenkolber wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you are not involved in politics? There is a lot of evidence that we should be very afraid of the state if you look at Verfassungsschutz activities. They are monitoring a lot of people who oppose policy backed by the state and there is a precedent in which “opposition members” were banned from state official jobs (teachers, ...) just a few years ago. Opposition member can mean for example being involved in an…

What is the expected outcome of "being monitored"? If a new WWIII starts that means you'll be disappeared? In the mean time - what impact will this have on you? I am just wondering how governments make intelligence "actionable".

In the past they used it to infect the laptop of a potentially drug trafficking medical doctor.

Of course it's unclear what the secret police is up to. This is mainly for the federal police and customs police.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#193

Post by rndgermandude » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 11:16 AM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #172

anon4711 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

Actually I thought dozens of policemen were also injured, and police cars torched. Also a couple of paramedics were attacked if I got this right (I'm not native German). 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:…

It says nowhere how the police got injured (attacked by the protesters, tripped and fell, got a dose of their own pepper spray, accidentally struck by a college when they used force on protesters). It does not say if the paramedics were attacked or if the injuries were just accidents. It also says nowhere that any police vehicles were torched, just that some police vehicles were somehow damaged.

If I recall correctly (well, this is from 2011), the majority of injured police was not at the hands of protesters but accidents, exhaustion and "friendly fire" - but a very few police got attacked or were injured in brawls and suffered minor injuries - the paramedics were mistakenly pepper sprayed by the police, and the police vehicles mostly had accidents where they drove into ditches and such, but a one or two were e.g. scrapped or damaged by people throwing train track gravel at it. Both injuries and damage (to police property), were aggravated by heavy rain and storm and the events taking place in rural areas and/or on gravel train tracks.

According to the police itself, most protesters were strictly peaceful and caused property damage to the train tracks at most ("Schottern").

So you got it mostly wrong, I'm afraid.

I do think it is extremely unreasonable and actually harmful to democracy for the police to track lawful, non-violent peaceful protesters exercising their basic rights (Grundgesetz) of free speech and freedom of assembly, or sanction or discourage them otherwise. This does not include violent people or people breaking the laws by e.g. willfully causing property damage, of course.

I also think it's very wrong to sanction people who you claim to be racist. If they are found to be unlawfully racist by an actual court, or demonstratively found to spread racist garbage as a teacher at a school, then again, that's a different matter.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#194

Post by ptaipale » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 12:26 PM UTC

rndgermandude wrote: post #193

ptaipale wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I thought dozens of policemen were also injured, and police cars torched. Also a couple of paramedics were attacked if I got this right (I'm not native German). 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:…

It says nowhere how the police got injured (attacked by the protesters, tripped and fell, got a dose of their own pepper spray, accidentally struck by a college when they used force on protesters). It does not say if the paramedics were attacked or if the injuries were just accidents. It also says nowhere that any police vehicles were torched, just that some police vehicles were somehow damaged. If I recall correctly…

If dozens of policemen are injured and a couple of police cars burn in a demonstration, and the demonstrators had nothing to do with it, I must say that this a very remarkable coincidence. The police don't trip over like that and get careless with their matches anywhere else, to such a degree.

My understanding of the demonstrations is that they were not intended as lawful, non-violent peaceful protests. The organizers wanted to make criminal damage (the "Shottern"), and some of the group were also very intent on violence.

The problem here is that anyone who was participating surely must have known what they're about to participate, even if many have themselves only wanted to not damage or hit anyone themselves. Just create a crowd where this can be done. And it is indeed hard to decide what level of surveillance is necessary and appropriate to prevent violence and large-scale damage.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#195

Post by perlgeek » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

jacobrobbins wrote: post #147

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…

> Same thing as when the SWAT team breaks down a door, just a digital version.

Not quite the same thing, because the SWAT team is not stealthy when it breaks down a door.

The stealth aspect is what bothers me about this: it's much harder to make ensure a stealthy operation sticks to all the rules than a public one.

In fact, the recent years in Germany have shown that the Parliament doesn't have firm control over what the various secret services do.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#196

Post by Xylakant » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 1:42 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #194

rndgermandude wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says nowhere how the police got injured (attacked by the protesters, tripped and fell, got a dose of their own pepper spray, accidentally struck by a college when they used force on protesters). It does not say if the paramedics were attacked or if the injuries were just accidents. It also says nowhere that any police vehicles were torched, just that some police vehicles were somehow damaged. If I recall correctly…

If dozens of policemen are injured and a couple of police cars burn in a demonstration, and the demonstrators had nothing to do with it, I must say that this a very remarkable coincidence. The police don't trip over like that and get careless with their matches anywhere else, to such a degree. My understanding of the demonstrations is that they were not intended as lawful, non-violent peaceful protests. The organizer…

The focus is a tabloid paper that belongs to the right of the political spectrum, they're rather fond of taking the police report at face value. And it's like the parent says: The police counts scratches and paint bags as "damage" (note: it's not a dozen police cars burned) as well as ankle injuries as "injured" (1). There are some clashes between the police and the protesters at the castor demos, but the demonstrations are not violent. The overwhelming majority is peaceful.

(1) That's fair to do, but something to keep in mind when interpreting the numbers.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#197

Post by rudolf0 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

terminalcommand wrote: post #183

rudolf0 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. But no-knock search warrants are also legal. The police can break into your house and put cameras or microphones in it with a warrant. Even though the process of breaking-in does affect the evidence a little, or even opens the possibility of a cop planting drugs or something, it's generally still accepted in court. This is basically the same thing as using malware for surveillance. I'd argue the malware is e…

Digital evidence is IMO a different matter than physical evidence. The threshold for implanting fake digital evidence is very low. You need fewer people, you can cover your traces easily... To break-in and install cameras you need to find a suitable time where the suspect is away for a long time. And you can't always break-in to the house and change things, you won't be permitted. The monitoring of the use of these t…

It's true that it is probably easier to get away with planting fake digital evidence than fake physical evidence. But, I mean, there has to be some trust in law enforcement. If law enforcement does this on a regular basis - and the US police have much more in the past, especially against certain minority groups - the entire system collapses.

So until there's evidence of German law enforcement planting fake evidence, I still see no issue with this.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#198

Post by superuser2 » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #102

superuser2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So automated license plate scanning was illegal since it allows creation of movement profiles by the state, something that is very much frowned upon. Is this really true? My understanding is you guys do a lot of speed limit enforcement by camera.

We do, but the camera only captures a picture of the speeder at the place where the violation occurs which constitutes a valid cause. So it's no usable for tracking (unless the target you're tracking is speeding through every radar trap). On top of that, once the ticket is paid the data is supposed to be deleted. (whether that really happens is yet another discussion)

Normally you would compare the timestamps on photos of the license plate in two places; you don't know whether or not the driver was speeding until you have the second timestamp.

Or does it only take a picture in response to an instantaneous speed measurement? This seems much less useful, as you could just speed everywhere except the tiny range of the speed trap.

Re: German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens

#199

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 24, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #198

Xylakant wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do, but the camera only captures a picture of the speeder at the place where the violation occurs which constitutes a valid cause. So it's no usable for tracking (unless the target you're tracking is speeding through every radar trap). On top of that, once the ticket is paid the data is supposed to be deleted. (whether that really happens is yet another discussion)

Normally you would compare the timestamps on photos of the license plate in two places; you don't know whether or not the driver was speeding until you have the second timestamp. Or does it only take a picture in response to an instantaneous speed measurement? This seems much less useful, as you could just speed everywhere except the tiny range of the speed trap.

[deleted]