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German Police May Not Break Into a Suspect's PC
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Feb 05, 2007 04:33 PM
from the no-peeking dept.
from the no-peeking dept.
hweimer writes to tell us that a ruling in Germany's Supreme Court has made it illegal for the police to secretly hack into a suspect's computer. While some hailed this as a victory for civil rights, Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble is expected to push for changes in the legal framework to allow police hacking.
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Oh, Germany... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh, Germany... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Japan?
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I would have guessed Switzerland myself.
Re:Oh, Germany... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the upsides we still have above standard social wellfare - allthough that has gotten considerably worse with 'Hartz 4' it would be considered luxurious in the US and other countries. Contrary to popular opinion the germans can actually be very nice and well behaved folks and the general education leven is still pretty high which maintains a basic level of intelligence throughout the country. The 'show your teeth - keep smiling' attitude people know from the US is near to non-existant here and people in germany generally mean what they say. For most of the time anyway. A trait I've come to like. In social structures as in schools there is the ususal back-stabbing and such, but on a much more broader base of tolerance towards other opinions and ways of life. Even though poverty is increasing as we speak the level of wealth is still considerably high and life in germany can be very secure and pleasant. Germany in general respects and defends basic human rights - something like Guantanamo or Death Sentence would be unthinkable in todays germany - and deals relatively fair with it's citizens.
Parent
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Those children usually don't die on the Autobahn, which is the only type of street without a general speed limit. However, these days there are so many exceptions on the Autobahn where speed is limited that it doesn't make much of a difference anymore. You could just as well make 130 km/h mandatory.
Autobahn != playground (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, if we're talking car-crazy, I'd like to say that at least Germany is designed to at least _allow_ one to not have a car, pretty much anywhere they may live. Compare it to USA suburban areas where in most cases you can't even walk even if you wanted to. Not only there are sidewalks everywhere, there's also good public transportation everywhere, and most places have supermarkets every 1 km or less. (As opposed to concentrating everything in some mall outside the town that's not even practical or in some cases possible to reach without a car.) So if you want to walk or take a bus instead, at least you _can_. I actually have (well paid) co-workers who come by bus, and at least one refuses to have a car and supposedly burned his driver's license as a protest against something or another.
Also the suburbia craze hasn't hit here half as hard as in the USA, where the American dream seems to be that if you're white and even vaguely countable as middle class, you have to move somewhere away from other people in some place reachable only by car. I suppose that not having much of an inner-city crime problem also helps with that. Most of my co-workers (again, well-paid and including some managers) actually like living in a populated place, on account of being more a more social thing. Which again tends to create somewhat less reason for a car exodus daily. Not that there isn't one, but it could be worse, you know?
Traffic congestions are a problem in some places, but then that's a problem in most of the western world. Cars in the 40's were still a luxury, so noone assumed we'd end up having _this_ many when they planned the cities. Short of demolishing half the city again and rebuilding it with wider roads, there's not that horribly much one can do. People aren't going to just give up their cars in Germany, but then again they aren't going to give up their cars in the USA either. And I was just reading a few days ago about Turkey having a traffic problem too, and a proposal to forbid more than one car per family in Istanbul. The Turks weren't happy about that idea, either. So that problem pretty much isn't a Germany-only problem by any kind of reckoning.
Parent
My take on Germany... (Score:5, Informative)
Bureaucracy in Germany is like much of the EU: there are regulations for almost anything. This does, however, have a silver lining as that means less legal battles. The courts aren't as bogged down since there are less "grey areas", so legal insurance is a lot cheaper. Some companies are returning to Germany because of the high cost of legal battles elsewhere.
Architecture is improving in Germany, as the butt-ugly buildings get torn down to make way for more modern structures. I would say that most larger cities now have spent a great deal to make their centres attractive pedestrian zones.
Car craziness in Germany is different than in the USA, but not any worse. The SUV remains an exotic animal, and fuel efficiency is playing a larger role. Move into the cities like Munich, and a car becomes a liability due to the lack of parking and the net of public transportation. That said, the sons of my neighbour spend incredible amounts of time washing and cleaning their cars, caring for them more than for their girlfriends. The elder one actually presses his GF into vacuuming the upholstery with him!
Social Welfare in Germany is still better than elsewhere, but it's also seen as a burden. Germans are born worrywarts, and the low birth rate means that the ratio of retirees to wage-earners is like a Sword of Damocles. The reforms currently being enacted are painful, mainly because for the first time social benefits are being cut, not expanded.
Education in Germany has one huge, huge problem, and that is the way it divides pupils at age 10-12. Starting then, children are stuck into one of the three secondary schools: the Gymnasium for future academics, the Realschule for vocational careers, and the Hauptschule for the rest. As a result, those kids that have the misfortune to only attend a Hauptschule will later have an uphill battle to get a decent job, and it's incredibly difficult to switch paths. The Hauptschule has become the school for "losers".
Human Rights, though, is one area where modern Germans are especially proud. Despite what the occasional beer hall pundit might say, only a tiny minority is really for the death penalty. Germans instead see themselves as better than the "barbarian" American justice system mainly because they don't have a death penalty. Human rights activists have more clout and respect in Germany than in any other country I have lived in.
Privacy was after the Nazi regime a sore point with Germans. That's why this case was so important, as it represented the digital equivalent of a secret search warrant. Germans are also leery of video surveillance, and those measure already installed in train stations and other public places have to follow strict rules. Herr Schäuble's populist clamour for new laws is not even supported by the police, as the current laws still allow for snooping in the internet, just not on the suspect's hard drive without his knowledge.
Parent
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It also keeps the authorities busy enough that they don't have too much time for making your life really miserable. They have to do all the paperwork
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http://www.il-ireland.com/il/qofl07/ [il-ireland.com]
the freedom index of U.S. is 92, while Germany is 100 (still U.S. is 5th in overall quality of life versus 11th of Germany). (if you sort on the freedom list
Parser error (Score:3, Interesting)
(secret police) hacking
or
secret (police hacking)
Re:Parser error (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Yeah, thank God for those "This call may be monitored for law enforcement purposes," recordings.
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It's secret (police hacking). Just like "real world" searches, computers may not be searched secretly. So far.
Oh, they can be secretly searched alright, but only by the M$+CIA, and possibly other organizations like the RIAA+MPAA that have done a backroom deal with M$. TC will help insure that not even governments can see them doing it.
If you're naive enough to think they're not doing it consider the CIA [wikipedia.org]'s annual budget, consider what they've been discovered doing behind closed doors already (conventio [wikipedia.org]
just change the name (Score:5, Funny)
Why change the legal framework? Just change the terminology. For example, while it may now be illegal to hack into a "suspect's" computer, they clearly never said anything about someone deemed to be an "enemy combatant". Problem solved. (/sarcasm)
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Speaking of changing the name... (Score:3, Insightful)
(Don't worry, by 2050ish it'll be genetically tailored kids, or people with prosthetic something or others. The wheel, it keeps on turning.)
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You take the person into custody and waterboard them until they confess to whatever crime you decide.
And the public agrees they must be guilty since you wouldn't have arrested them unless they were guilty.
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Don't get too cocky over there tho- as it gets easier to track things, we grow fearful of smaller and smaller problems and justify larger and larger efforts to prevent them. Your governments are just a hair behind the US. All it will take is a couple bombs and your righ
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Maybe he shouldn't have read 1984...
If THAT guy's actions aren't anti-constitutional, then I don't know WHOSE are!
Even those jerks from the NPD (the "nazis") are more freedom-and-democracy-loving!
Sounds fine to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds fine to me (Score:5, Informative)
So the court likened this to wiretapping the phone or using secret microphones to listen to conversations in the suspect's home ("Großer Lauschangriff"), which both need a warrant.
Parent
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Not quite correct. It is also illegal when the police gets a warrant (which they have currently done). The court judged, that hacking into a computer is not covered by the laws of wiretapping (which they are allowed to do secretly with a warrant), but that it is search and seizure. Contrary to wiretapping, search and seizure has to be done in the presence of witnesses of the community (e.g. neighbours). After the search, the suspect has to be
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German Law (Score:5, Informative)
I could be wrong, but as I see it tracking someone's activity online is similar to watching someone in a public space which is (somewhat) reasonable; and it could (hypothetically) be argued that any data being sent via the internet was like yelling across the field. Someone's computer (on the other hand) is private property and they have the right to believe that it is a private space (much like your house).
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An expectation of privacy does not protect against bugs and/or wiretaps if a warrant is obtained.
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I suppose people everywhere pretty much have a right to believe whatever they want
Amazing: no twisted analogies (Score:5, Informative)
Germany has stricter privacy laws, more passionately enforced, than the UK/US, but this decision is completely compatible with UK/US law that says the scope of a search has to be explicitly defined and minimal. Spyware on a computer fits neither criterion.
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For as much shit we give the Germans with the "Zee papers please!" skits they are really on the ball when it comes to personal freedoms over there. From my understanding they recently struck down a law that bans smoking in restaurants and clubs as unconsti
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http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/166.html [dejure.org]
But there are more. I say freedom of speech is better protected in the US than in Germany. But Germany has better privacy rights.
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In Germany ( and i think France), it's a crime.
Another issue with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Entrapment: that word doesn't mean what you think it means. I realize this is different from state-to-state and from country-to-country, but here it is from the Texas Penal Code:
A police account (Score:2)
That's why all my FreeBSD machines have a password-less police user account with a UID of 0. I just keep forgetting to allow root logins per ssh, but that's not my fault, officer.
Has nothing to do with Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
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No, no, no
AC, you have it all wrong. First of all, the problem is these activist judges supporting terrorism. It seems they have them in Germany too. Those darn activist judges don't trust the executive branch. It's just Un-German not to trust your president to have sweeping and uncheckable power to protect the children from terrorists. If you need more help with the concept of activist judges and their affinity for terrorists, tune into Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly and he'll explain all about them, their
Now why would someone want to do that? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that they are providing the suspect with plausible deniability for any illegal activity that took place. If I were the police trying to prosecute someone for some digital crime, I would be praying from the bottom of my heart that the computer used to commit the crime was secured according to best practices and free of any malware.
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I could easily load your car (or your computer) with enough kiddy porn in about 30 seconds to have you put away for the rest of your life. A trivial search would load your cache- a few right click/saves and you are toast.
Yet folks are being convicted regularly on this kind of evidence these days because of a fundamental ignorance of the way computers work that would be obvious for unlocked cars.
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I'm going (Score:4, Funny)
Jules: I'm going, that's all there is too it, I'm farking going.
Vincent: Yeah baby, you'd digg it the most.
When there's a knocking at your ports at 3am... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously the politicos were, and still are, advocating what is being called a "federal trojan", i.e. secret, police-controlled spyware. Just how they plan to create such a mythical multi-platform wunder-creature is a mystery to everyone here, or they are assuming all criminals and other potential searchees are using easily-targetted Windows versions attached directly to the net and store all their data in easily-searched formats and locations.
obvious points (Score:4, Interesting)
- I'm supposed to help cutting administrative costs, so I should use "E-Government" possibilities (websites, software, forms etc). Tax declarations can in large parts only be made online using some (Windows only) govt software. How could I possibly trust any software / website / form provided by the government if "online searches" were to be legal? How can I visit a public government website without fear of being 0wn3d?
- as German ministers announce - Schäuble, in this case - that whatever is ruled illegal by the courts will "promptly" be put into appropriate new legislation, how am I supposed to trust this government any longer? In their oath of office, German ministers vow "to avert damage from the German people" - I don't see that. I dont't fear terrorists at all, I fear our representatives! List goes on and on, but I'm tired and kinda drunk...
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Ah, that must be Vladimir I. Lenin and his troupe of musical capitalist running dogs?
Seriously, I'm from an English speaking country but have lived in Germany for yonks, and you quickly learn what you can get away with in terms of frivolous reference to Mr. H and his All-Singing, All-Dancing Nazi Party. Mind you, things are lightening up a little, the first Hitler comedy [time.com] was recently released in cinemas.