Plans by the German government to allow the police to deploy malware on any target’s devices, and force the tech world to help them, has run into some opposition, funnily enough.
In an open letter this month, the Chaos Computer Club – along with Google, Facebook, and others – said they are against proposals to dramatically expand the use of so-called state trojans, aka government-made spyware, in Germany. Under planned legislation, even people not suspected of committing a crime can be infected, and service providers will be forced to help. Plus all German spy agencies will be allowed to infiltrate people’s electronics and communications.
The proposals bypass the whole issue of backdooring or weakening encryption that American politicians seem fixated on. Once you have root access on a person’s computer or handheld, the the device can be an open book, encryption or not.
“The proposals are so absurd that all of the experts invited to the committee hearing in the Bundestag sharply criticized the ideas,” the CCC said.
“Even Facebook and Google – so far not positively recognized as pioneers of privacy – speak out vehemently against the project. Protect security and trust online – against an unlimited expansion of surveillance and for the protection of encryption.”
Source: Google, Facebook, Chaos Computer Club join forces to oppose German state spyware • The Register
Robin Edgar
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