German Police Allowed To Use Its Own "Federal Trojan" (helpnetsecurity.com) 50
An anonymous reader writes: The German Interior Ministry has approved for investigative use a spying Trojan developed by the German Federal Criminal Police (a so-called "federal Trojan"). In fact, it could end up being used as early as this week. The police will have to get a court order to use the spyware, and prove that the suspect is involved in a crime threatening citizens' "life, limb or liberty". The malware has been developed in-house, and has been available since autumn 2015. It is supposed to be used only for so-called telecommunication surveillance at the source, i.e. to read emails, chats and wiretap phone calls made by the target via his or her computer or smartphone, and not to access files, steal passwords, or set up video or audio surveillance via the device.
Federal Trojan? (Score:1)
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THE Federal Trojan (Score:3)
A Scottish military officer strolls into an apothecary shop. From
the pouch hanging from his kilt he extracts a used condom and
places it upon the counter.
The apothecary says, "Hoot man, Wat be this yur'er thrustin'
befor me".
"T'is a used condom, sir, and I've come t' ask ye; hey much to
replace it and hey much to repair it?"
"Aye," replies the apothecary, as he examines the condom.
"T'would be six pence to replace it and thra' pence, heypenny to
repair it."
"Thank ye" says the Scottish military officer as he picks
Its always important to use protection (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It can help prevent infection and pregnancy.
I'd be ok with an infection now and again. But the pregnancy, I'll pass on that. What about the STD's though, if your offering the clap...where can I sign up?
Now what (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
lolicon
Icons that make you laugh out loud? That sounds awesome. I'll just Google me some.
*tappity tappity* ...crap.
Gott in Himmel!! (Score:2)
*updates antivirus*
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, sorry. I'm fairly sure that in all the English war comics I read in the 1970s, the about-to-be-shot German soldier always shouted 'Gott IN Himmel.' If he didn't shout that then it was usually one of the following:
Teufel!
Himmel!
Donner und blitzen!
Ach!
But never 'scheisse!'
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You are not exercising your personal liberties if you are taking away others liberties, therefore it is not really ironic.
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Maybe, but if the standard is really that they can already prove the suspect is involved in a crime isn't their job already done? If they can prove it, charge the person an let the courts get access to their computer / phone. Why use spyware AFTER you already have proof?
No, the European justice systems are not primarily punitive, but preventative. From that point of view, is much better to find out what else the alleged criminal and his companions are plotting, in order to avert crimes, than it is to just punish crimes after the fact.
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Really? You're saying that European governments have a right to invade anybody's privacy to prevent them from committing a crime?
They have a duty to prevent crimes they have a suspicion of. Prevent. Not collect evidence to convict. I know, this is a completely different and alien mindset to how US justice system operates.
US: Police appeals to court. The court then issues a warrant giving the police search rights, mostly a rubber stamping process. Any and all evidence discovered after a warrant is permissible evidene. The police is at liberty to use the data as they see fit.
Europe: Police appeals to court. The court instru
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fitting (Score:2)
B^)
Watching Us.
"life, limb or liberty" (Score:2)
Re:"life, limb or liberty" (Score:5, Insightful)
And given the fact that lots of governments are spying on you already, your liberty is threatened anyway.
Can most people really complain about liberties? I just recently turned 30, I can see the liberties and right my parents had. I can see things were much better for them at my age. Now I look at what we currently have, and fear that they are infringing just a little to close. However at the same time I feel that we as a culture are starting to accept some of these abuses of power due to fear of "terrorism". So my real fear is for the future generations, what little rights will they have in 30 years from now? Will they even have any, will they just be completely desensitized to the situation and not even care about civil liberties anymore?
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In the past different kinds of surveillance requiring different warrants had to be physically carried out in different ways, so the lines couldn't get blurred. If this software is able to carry out multiple kinds of survellance, it will be tempting to use them all, a
Tim Cook off the hook (Score:2)
"It is supposed to be used only for so-called telecommunication surveillance at the source, i.e. to read emails, chats and wiretap phone calls made by the target via his or her computer or smartphone, and not to access files, steal passwords, or set up video or audio surveillance via the device."
Phew, for a second there I thought we'd need to call on the powers of Tim Cook to save us.
This is fine, since they are just spying on mass communications at the flick of a switch instead of trying to access a specif
Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
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except that germans have fought that crap for about a decade and lost the fight only just now.
I was forced to pay for it; they didn't deliver. (Score:5, Funny)
As a German I feel discriminated against, for the new Federal Trojan will not run on my BSD machines. As if it wasn't bad enough that commercial software tends to be Windows-only, now also government-written stuff that I paid for with my tax euros.
Does somebody by any chance know a hack to still get it working?
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Because if it ran on BSD, they would have said it in the title, instead of "Federal Trojan"
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You people with your bsd machines are all alike, cheap socialist people with affordable healthcare and free education running bsd on their worn out 10 year old boxes feeling entitled to all the latest trojans and spyware. I pay for my operating system to be slowed down by spyware and viruses and I pay for antivirus to slow my system down some more. Why should you be entitled to this when you didnt even pay for it??? CLOSE THE BORDERS! Make Murica Great again!
(Before you flame me...this was meant humorously)
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Ah yes... (Score:2)
" It is supposed to be used only for..."
The cry of scumbag dictators everywhere...
It's GERMANY (Score:2)
They never had a problem with the government spying on its citizens.
I mean, the US, UK, Canada, etc. all did it. But there weren't any problems that arose from the government spying. In contrast to Russia, China, North Korea and Germany.
How long before... (Score:2)
... the trojan ends up in the hands of black hats, gets "improved", sold and ends up on the computers of the German government?
Anti-virus recognition (Score:2)