| 5.26.2007 15:06 PM |
| Germany: Federal Trojan for 'online searches' | |
| Posted by: Bernd Roellgen |
| Posted in: "English" |
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/27/german_state_hackers/
Feb. 27, 2007.
Germany's police and secret services are pushing for a legal basis for "online house searches" – carried out without the knowledge of suspects, using spyware similar to a Trojan.
The German public learned of the practice in November last year, when a magistrate of the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal High Court) ruled that there is no legal basis for such measures as part of police inquiries.
...
Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble intends to introduce a law to legalise the practice.
...
Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) president Jörg Ziercke believes the "Federal Trojan" (as the project has been dubbed by the public) is necessary because confiscating physical hard drives is almost useless. "They store their data on the internet and encrypt the hard drive. That is why we have to have access at the point of dissemination."
Wow! George Orwell predicted total control to happen in 1984. Ok, 23 years later only a few people seem to care about stuff like civil rights, privacy, etc.
In Germany nobody seems to have any secrets. This is good for criminals! Imagine a terrorist who works as a technician for an Internet Service Provider and who collects passwords of WLAN routers (the ones he installs). In all secrecy, he can misuse identities of his "customers". It's the IP address of the router that counts for the authorities. Consequently, innocent people will get under suspicion, the ones who own and use routers that have been configured by that terrorist. As he'll be somewhere outside, in a car or in a flat in the neighbourhood, he'll be safe.
He's even more safe if he uses a virtual PC. By doing this, he gets rid of any trojan horse by using a backup on a daily basis.
As it's very likely that terrorists know very well how to protect themselves from "Federal Trojans" and that the authorities know this perfectly well, it is more likely that the main target are political opponents.
Even if technologically impaired terrorists are the primary target right now, politicians who dislike elections misuse such technology once it's available.
It seems that it's high time to develop a security tool that protects innocent citizens. Governments obviously want to be able to spy on anybody at any time. Sooner or later they'll use this technology on a large scale.
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