German Police May Not Break Into a Suspect's PC

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.

Re:Oh, Germany...

[mrjb]

And you live where, in the Land of the Free?

Sounds fine to me

[SlamMan]

This sounds right; it should be illegal unless/untill the police get a warrant.

Another issue with this...

[bennomatic]

...is that there could be a form of entrapment if hacking into a personal system became legal for police to do, especially as it becomes a slippery slope, where blocking such searches is tantamount to a crime in and of itself. A technicnally savvy (but innocent) person could note the attack, take steps to block it, and then appear--in the eyes of law enforcement officials who "know" of his guilt--to be trying to avoid justice. One could imagine how this might be used as justification for a warrant to search, seize and confiscate the physical property, and perhaps dig into other private areas of the innocent party's life.

Now why would someone want to do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting aside the privacy concerns that I'm sure will be expressed by fellow Slashdotters, I truly don't see the point of the police hacking into a suspects' PC, at least from a forensic perspective. Sure, they might be able to find 'interesting' evidence by doing so, but at the same time, they risk compromising their whole investigation. If they successfully exploited a vulnerability to gain access to the suspects' PC, then what guarantees them (and eventually the judge) that someone else didn't do the same before them and that whatever illegal content/activity was found on the computer was not put their/committed by another hacker?

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.

Speaking of changing the name...

[Chmcginn]

You misspelled "Muslims"... come on, it's the first half of the 21st century, not the first half of the 20th. Get your scapegoats straight!

(Don't worry, by 2050ish it'll be genetically tailored kids, or people with prosthetic something or others. The wheel, it keeps on turning.)

Re:Oh come on now!!!

[cosmocain]

how come? as soon as the word "german" appears... ...some folks can't help themselves but mentioning "hitler". reminds me of some dogs, a bell and an old russian man.

Re:Now why would someone want to do that?

[Maxo-Texas]

Exactly.

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.

Re:My take on Germany...

[KDR_11k]

I think the educational divison does make sense, not all children are equally fast learners so you either slow down the fast learners or leave the slow learners behind. Obviously it's a bad idea to leave them behind because they won't ever be able to catch up so you have to go with the speed the slowest ones can deal with. Sorting them by their learning speeds beforehand makes the span of speeds in a class smaller and leaves the fast learners less bored. While it's hard to change the branch of education you're in it's not like you get randomly sorted into these branches and most people in a lower branch aren't actually fit for being in a higher one. Often parents ignore the recommendations for a branch because they believe their kid is smarter than the examiners think but as a result the kid has to drop into a lower branch after he can't deal with the demands of a higher branch.

Changing branches only makes sense if you were misevaluated (happens sometimes with very fast learners because they get bored by the standardized speed in elementary school), someone who got properly evaluated shouldn't change branches because, well, he's just not fit for it.