Bavarian Police Seeking Skype Trojan Informant 252
Andreaskem writes "Bavarian police searched the home of the spokesman for the German Pirate Party (Piratenpartei Deutschland) looking for an informant who leaked information about a government Trojan used to eavesdrop on Skype conversations. (The link is a Google translation of the German original.) There is a high probability that the Trojan is used illegally. A criminal law specialist said, 'The Bavarian authorities worked on the Trojan without a legitimate basis and now try to silence critics.' The informant need not worry since 'every information that could be used to identify him' is protected against unauthorized access by strong encryption. The Trojan is supposedly capable of eavesdropping on Skype conversations and obtaining technical details of the Skype client being used. It is deployed by e-mail or in place by the police. A Pirate Party spokesman said, 'Some of our officials seem to want to install the Big Brother state without the knowledge of the public.'"
Re:Disconcerting convergence of technologies... (Score:3, Informative)
All of this has already come to pass.
It was possible to watch protesters live at the DNC and RNC at justin.tv.
The police in Minnesota arrested dozens of journalists during the RNC, many with legitamite press credentials (not that you need them to be protected by the 1st amendment). Of course they weren't arrested for engaging in a protected right, but the police arrested them all on bogus charges anyway.
English Press release (Score:2, Informative)
http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Press_release_2008-09-17 [piratenpartei.de]
Also check out this mail to the Pirate Party International list:
http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2008-September/001514.html [pirateweb.net]
Re: Bad german history (Score:3, Informative)
Most people at the time probably weren't too clear on who was fighting who. That war was a confused mess. As I understand it, a Bosnian shot an Austrian, so Austria declared war on Serbia, so Russia declared war on Austria, so Germany declared war on Russia, and knowing that would mean that France declared war on them they decided to declare war on France as well because doing them first fitted in better with their railway timetables, and Belgium too because they were in the way, so Britain declared war on Germany, and then everyone proceeded to kill each other for a few years.
And the leaders of that war weren't celebrities. Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin were all larger-than-life figures. Memorable. Charismatic. The leaders of WW1 were nowhere near so media-friendly.
Re:Bavarian police invading privacy!?! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually you must not have seen Bowling For Columbine. They didn't buy their bullets at Wal-Mart, it was K-Mart. That doesn't negate your point but rather shows your presumptions based on your "elevated" awareness (such as watching a Moore movie will give a sense of) are flawed.
If you insist on pointing out something as factual then, well, try to get the facts correct.
demonstration in munich / bavaria / germany (Score:1, Informative)
This is one of the reasons, why we are going to demonstrate on this Saturday, 20.Sept.2008 in Munich, Germany.
Informations (in german) : www.freiheit-weiss-blau.de.
We are going to have one english translated speech.