The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

State Trojans: The fear of a quick shot in the decades

2021-05-13T06:15:02.266Z


Shortly before the end of the legislative period, a surveillance law is still on the Bundestag's agenda. That makes the tech industry nervous.


The technology industry is afraid that the grand coalition will quickly declare a war over in the last few weeks of the legislative period: the crypto war.

What is known in English as "crypto wars" has been running since the 1990s.

The term describes the conflict between (western) governments and IT security experts over access to encrypted communication.

German intelligence services urgently want that.

The "law to adapt the constitutional protection law" planned by the federal government could fulfill their wish.

Now, after the agreement of the group leaders of the GroKo, the Bundestag has to decide.

The first meeting was on Friday, and MPs from the Union and the SPD voted, as expected, in favor of the government draft.

It is tough, as SPIEGEL has already described several times, for example in May 2019 when the plans became known, in summer 2020 when there was a first draft, and in March in an interview with WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart.

Technical company as deputy sheriff

One passage in the draft makes companies in the telecommunications industry particularly nervous, as I heard again last week: "Anyone who provides telecommunications services on a business basis or participates in the provision of such services" begins, must prosecutors and then in the future also the protection of the Constitution, BND and Help MAD monitor encrypted chats and conversations.

Providers and contributors include telephone and Internet providers, Facebook, WhatsApp and other big names in the industry, email providers and WLAN hotspot operators.

How far their deputy sheriff duties would go is yet to be clarified by ordinance.

One thing is clear: the companies that actually attach great importance to the security of their users should now also ensure that the German state can hack the profiles of these people.

"Anyone who provides telecommunications services on a business basis" should hack along in the future

Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa

WhatsApp is now said to be in its current form "potentially one of the most aggressive surveillance laws," meaning the international comparison.

Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is likely to misunderstand this as a compliment.

Achim Berg, President of the industry association Bitkom, speaks in the current issue of SPIEGEL of an impending »regulatory snap shot«.

In view of the conflict that has been unresolved for decades

about

how to make communication as safe as possible

from

criminals, but unsafe only

for

criminals, this seems understandable to me.

Last week, the cabaret artists Claus von Wagner and Max Uthoff showed very clearly in their program "Die Anstalt" that German companies have a certain influence on the Union.

I am very curious to see whether this will be confirmed in the case of this draft law.

External links: three tips from other media

  • "The Lawfare Podcast: The Facebook Oversight Board Rules on Trump" (Podcast, English, 44 minutes)


    The Facebook supervisory body has decided on Donald Trump's permanent ban.

    The result is not that straightforward.

    If you want to go deeper, the »Lawfare« podcast is in good hands.

  • "A Girls Do Porn Victim Is Still Fighting Harassment 6 Years Later" (English, eight reading minutes)


    What the victims of "Girls Do Porn" have to go through and how little help against years of exposure they get from YouTube and others: painful but important article by "Vice" journalist Samantha Cole.

  • "Android Stalkerware Test 2021" (English, nine minutes to read)


    The Austrian organization AV-Comparatives has set up ten antivirus solutions for Android stalkerware.

    Most do a good job: apps that secretly monitor people can no longer simply hide.

Get through the week well!

Patrick Beuth

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-05-13

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-18T05:26:52.871Z
News/Politics 2024-02-11T11:13:58.925Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.