Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#2The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real.
This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response.
Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their attacks via a monitored channel? Do governments really have any problem catching and convicting criminals?
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#3The headline is misleading. They are not planning to fingerprint all children. They are lowering the age at which refugee children are being fingerprinted (from 14 to 6). This is part of the EU process of making sure that refugees are handled properly.
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#4considering at least two islamist attacks in germany by a refugee have been carried by a minor[1][2], i don't think that fingerprinting refugee minors should be out of the question -- though obviously the details should be carefully deliberated.
there is absolutely no way that mandatory government spyware on phones will guarantee effectiveness, though -- the bataclan attackers for instance used ordinary sms to coordinate[3]. besides that, the potential for abuse is unfathomable.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/16/boy-12-attempted-...
[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/18/german-train-axe-...
[3] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/11/paris_terrori...
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#5this is happening by the backdoor - at the last school we used we got a letter saying a US defence manufacturer was providing a library system for the UK school that used biometrics "let us know if you have a problem with this" - I suspect it was provided at little or no cost
the new door entry system at the current school (I don't know the vendor yet) is using biometrics "let us know if you have a problem with this"
1.28M (2015) UK school children have given biometrics:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/p...
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#6The title is false. Has nothing to do with IT. Admins?
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#7The headline is misleading. They are not planning to fingerprint all children. They are lowering the age at which refugee children are being fingerprinted (from 14 to 6). This is part of the EU process of making sure that refugees are handled properly.
The problem is that the fingerprint data will not be used exclusively for immigration purposes but also for general crime fighting.
I oppose that - because it is the first step to extend the surveillance state. Next to no one cares if refugees are forced to give up their fingerprints (except maybe the radical left), most people will actually silently approve of this, but who guarantees that in four years this won't be extended to every German?
And yes, there's precedence for politicians doing this - the Maut data, as well as the Vorratsdatenspeicherung (internet provider data), were once thought to be only for serious crimes but there are already plans to use the data also to fight "common lowlevel crime"...
We may trust our current governments but we cannot trust what future governments will do.
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#8The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real. This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response. Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their att…
You can't really treat terrorist attacks (intentional) the same way you treat car crashes, hospital mistakes, and falling in the shower (accidental). It's not a pure numbers game.
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#9The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real. This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response. Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their att…
> Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their attacks via a monitored channel?
Actually yes! The Paris attack was coordinated via sms. I know other attacks have been coordinated via monitored channels.
The real problem is that even with all this monitoring, nothing is being done to stop terrorist attacks. Turns out, stopping terrorist attacks was never the point in the first place, who woulda though!?!
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/18/signs-point-to-unencrypt...
*edit: It's probably not fair to say "nothing" is being done. But we're definitely putting our efforts into the wrong direction, and I stand by the statement that the point is not to stop the attacks.
Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging
#10The headline is misleading. They are not planning to fingerprint all children. They are lowering the age at which refugee children are being fingerprinted (from 14 to 6). This is part of the EU process of making sure that refugees are handled properly.
Yeah, flag this title. It's not even clickbait, it's just a lie.