26 ms·

Germany: New government plans 'right to encryption'

899 points by Audiophilip 5y ago

zoe4883 5y ago
Good! German opposition and political activists desperately need good encryption to organize! Large opposition party was placed under surveillance before election, its leaders wiretapped. Today activists are monitored on Internet by secret services.
- qwertox 5y ago
  Just today the German online IT magazine heise.de published an article [0] claiming that the interior ministers (home secretaries?) will expect from social platforms like WhatsApp to implement backdoors so that the government can access a copy of the data. This is a wish they've been having for ages. So, there's clearly an opposition. [0] https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-Verschluesselung-und-Anonymitaet-im-Netz-6284331.html https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-Verschlu...
  - estaseuropano 5y ago
    Outgoing government! This article is about the incoming one.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Who are you talking about?
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    The AFD, a right wing party with quite a few ties to known neo-nazis or nazi symphatizers/apologists and also quite a bit of ties to some of the uglier right wing extremism that pops up its ugly head in Germany every once in a while. For example, there were a few arrests near the Polish border recently of some people who took it upon themselves to do a little policing in that area. Also, it's easy to forget that this country had active right wing and left wing terrorists not so long ago. So, yes Germany may have slightly overstepped their authority putting AFD party members under surveillance considering it is now a major party in several of its states and of course the parliament. In that sense it's a big scandal actually. But it's not entirely without reason. There are some really shady and scary people associating themselves with that party.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure Nazis are outlawed in Germany. I don't think they overstepped their bounds. They'd be pretty stupid to let it happen again.
gumby 5y ago
Excellent. I hope they fix the deliberate botch they made of the use of ID cards as key carriers. As far as I know the hardware is fine but the Bundestag fucked up the infrastructure. Germany should look to Estonia who, IMHO, gets it right.
- Hendrikto 5y ago
  I, and a lot of people I know, microwave their German ID cards immediately upon receiving them. Bad enough that German citizens are required by law to have a valid ID card in the first place (see Ausweispflicht). Something pretty unique and a relic from the third Reich. We don‘t need more data on them. It will be leaked, it will be misused, it will have exploitable mistakes. ID cards should stay a dumb piece of plastic.
  - gumby 5y ago
    I wouldn’t bother to do that myself, though it’s harmless since there’s essentially no infrastructure support for the chip in DE, which is my complaint. The chip only contains the info readable on the card plus what you want to store there (public keys, basically) and can’t be read remotely. I agree with you that mandatory ID cards are an affront to human rights, but you are sadly wrong to consider it unique to Germany. Quite the contrary: apart from commonwealth countries and the USA they required by all other OECD countries and many others besides (e.g. India, China, Malaysia, Russia…) Their origin predates the nazi era too. For example passport system was introduced on a “temporary” basis during WWI but rather than revoking it several countries used it as the foundation of their ID system.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  What are the differences in infrastructure and what choices did Estonia make that are better? Is it possible that a 83x larger population has different infrastructure needs and it’s not that Estonia did an outstanding job but that Estonia’s problem space is much simpler?
  - solarkraft 5y ago
sennight 5y ago
huh, it wasn't that long ago that they outlawed the kind of "hacking tools" that would be used to verify the integrity of cipher systems... is that still on the books? My German is rustier than my Fourth, so I'm drawing a blank on a position reversal...
akavel 5y ago
Could someone help me understand the following sentence from the article? > Controversial hackbacks, i.e., the hacking back of attacks, are rejected as a "means of cyber defense in principle." Does this mean "hackbacks" are seen as cyber defense and therefore rejected, or that they are refused the name of cyber defense? Or something else? Does this mean there's intention to forbid cyber defense, esp. by govt/army?!? I'm confused by what's attempted to be communicated here. (Also, who's the presumed actor of those "hackbacks" here, govt? private entities? anyone?)
- iforgotpassword 5y ago
  They are seen as unethical or at least pointless, since 99% of attribution is reading coffee grounds anyways. Instead of hacking back, why not try to get your security up to it in the first place.
- dragonelite 5y ago
  How are you going to trace back the hacking to country of origin? Scan on Russian and Chinese characters or IP addresses in the code, that such a naïve take so yeah wouldn't be surprised if European leaders would totally go for it. Allies and other actors would totally not fake that as a distraction.
uniqueuid 5y ago
This is great, of course, but ~50 years of hesitant, schizophrenic legislation regarding digital security leaves me hesitant that Germany will actually be a forerunner on this one.
- freeflight 5y ago
  Not sure were you are seeing 50 years of this? It mostly started becoming relevant in the 90s, back then Germany didn't even have any legislation on that front at all, just a very general paragraph about "computer/information system sabotage" they had to throw at phreakers and other early hackers, for the lack of any other law. By the late 90s they tried to fix that situation, but as usual, only for the worse; The so called "Hackerparagraphs" were enacted, which literally banned the ownership of "hacking tools", that by legal definition technically even included stuff like a mundane Linux nmap or security tools distributed by the BSI [0]. [0] https://www.tecchannel.de/a/das-bsi-und-202c-der-hackerparagraf-und-das-bundesamt,1729025 https://www.tecchannel.de/a/das-bsi-und-202c-der-hackerparag...
formerly_proven 5y ago
It's neat how many genuinely good points regarding information security and privacy made it into the coalition agreement, but everyone knows that just because it says in the paper that a new gov't wants to do something does not mean they do it.
- abliefern 5y ago
  > everyone knows that just because it says in the paper that a new gov't wants to do something does not mean they do it. That's a common misconception. 80% of the commitments in the previous coalition agreement were fully or partially implemented: https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/unsere-projekte/monitoring-der-demokratie/projektnachrichten/versprechen-gehalten-schlussbilanz-zum-koalitionsvertrag-der-groko-2018-21 https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/unsere-projekte/monit...
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
    However, in general, I think it does reign true. This is a (welcome) exception to the rule, I think.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- monopoledance 5y ago
  While that's true, the Green party and FDP seem to mean it, when they pushed for these rights and progressive legislation - and combined, they have the majority within the coalition. Here is to hope.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > they have the majority within the coalition A majority within the coalition does not translate to a majority in the Bundestag, which is what's needed to put any of these many promises and plans into actual action.
    - 5y ago
quotemstr 5y ago
I approve of constitutionally guaranteeing that people can keep their communications secure, but as an American, I think the rhetorical framework surrounding the movement could be improved. We need negative rights, not positive ones. People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all. What people do have is a right to be free of government limitations on the freedom of individuals to run whatever software they want on devices they own. When you make something a positive right, that means it's something the government has to give you, and a government that can give you rights can take them away. The American perspective is that people have rights just by virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and immorality interfere with rights that you always possess, unconditionally, no matter what. IMHO, the right framing isn't that people have a right to encryption, but that the state has no business interfering with the math people do on their own computers.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  It's not a matter of positive / negative really, it's not like encryption will be mandatory. The right to not have their encryption backdoored sounds negative enough to me
- xxpor 5y ago
  >People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all This is an incredibly American libertarianish view, and essentially completely unheard of in Europe. The Europeans frame things in terms of positive rights all the time.
  - jeofken 5y ago
    Let’s keep the level higher on HN. The ideas of freedom and universal rights isn’t unheard of in Europe - it originated here, and you’re certainly not speaking for all os us when you claim we accept the idea of “positive rights”.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    Yes, although you can also see the libertarianist approach in also some strains of British thinking. All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. I don't have anything against Europeans or their approach --- I just disagree with them on how to form a basis for limitations on state power.
ersii 5y ago
[flagged]
- pille 5y ago
  It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected by the unvaccinated. I’m thankful we’re making the right choice.
  - ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
    > It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected by the unvaccinated. I’m thankful we’re making the right choice. False dichotomy. Also what if you are wrong? You seem very certain. Why? No meaningful discussion is allowed, so how is it that you feel you have all the information you need to make the decision -- first for yourself, and second, for every other person in your country? It seems like you are just thankful your fears about your neighbors have been tranquilized? Where did those fears come from again?
    - pille 5y ago
      It’s been discussed to death, literally. It’s hard to believe you’re asking for a discussion in good faith, when there’s clearly no evidence on your side, and your baseless “skepticism” has been indulged for almost 2 full years by the government and media. The outgoing German government bent over backwards for you Querdenker, and that’s why we’re still in this mess. You’re simply wrong. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion, but you’re no longer entitled to force the rest of us to suffer for it.
      - ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
        The list of times when scientists and politicians have been wrong or just lied is a long one. Are you so sure they are right this time? You are probably no expert so it seems like you are just taking their word for it. Good thing they are telling you it's the right thing to do! > You’re simply wrong. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion, but you’re no longer entitled to force the rest of us to suffer for it. The only one making you suffer is you not some 'other'. You are choosing to let fear become a wedge. As a moral exercise, consider that when you force people against their will to do anything, you necessarily assume responsibility for the results, unless you are an immoral person. Are you willing to assume that responsibility? The manufacturers of the products are not. This in particular is a big red flag. How would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was you who did not want some medical procedure? What if others just discounted your position out of hand?
cblconfederate 5y ago
Is it a right to End-to-end encryption or a right to "encryption from everyone except government" ?
- volta83 5y ago
  Ideally it would be a constitutional ammendent, stating that privacy is a right of every citizen, and a human right. Legislation to the right to encryption would then just follow from it, but having it in the constitution would make it harder for future governments to pass certain kinds of legislation, or if they pass them, the supreme court would declare them inconstitutional.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    The problem is defining "privacy" though, isn't it? What, specifically, would the amendment require or prohibit under the banner of "privacy"? How could this definition, if enshrined into nearly immutable law, be modified to account for a changing technological environment? How do you prevent such an amendment from suffering from the fate of the US second amendment, which in many places is honored mostly in the breach?
    - xxpor 5y ago
      The Germans have a completely different legal system that isn't based on court decided precedent, so the comparison doesn't make any sense.
  - JCWasmx86 5y ago
    > human right This should be the goal. In the days of the internet, mass surveillance, nearly eradicated privacy we need a right to have and use strong encryption without any backdoors.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    To be clear, it is already a human right, right of expression association privacy etc. Just nobody defends it
JCWasmx86 5y ago
> There is [...] a prohibition of state authorities to keep vulnerabilities a secret. This is another great thing. It is simply unethical to hoard vulnerabilities, as this will eventually backfire[0] > On top that all future security legislation will be subject to an evaluation by a panel of independent experts who have to look into issues with any potential restrictions on freedom. I really hope this will be people from the CCC. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/28/nsa_backdoor_wyden/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/28/nsa_backdoor_wyden/
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  I'm genuinely a bit confused and suspicious. The german state is known for it's contradictions regarding security and privacy, e.g., mapping sites cannot record "street level" images in public view, but the government will decree what is and is not allowed speech and has been caught compromising systems to monitor that. Now the government that is obsessed with making sure everyone thinks only approved things is going to codify a right to encryption and prohibit state authorities (Is there a 5+1 eyes workaround prohibition) from building in or maintaining vulnerabilities? Maybe this really is just a bone for the peasants that will fool them into feeling like they have rights, while the Ol' 5+1 Eye Switcheroo is used to keep vulnerabilities and compromise encryption anyways.
  - JCWasmx86 5y ago
    > but the government will decree what is and is not allowed speech Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really sense, as this is simply wrong)
    - MrYellowP 5y ago
      There is no "free speech, but". It's a binary. You either have free speech, or you don't. Limited free speech is, by definition, not free. It's limited.
    - rightiousrob 5y ago
pyuser583 5y ago
The history of encryption it includes doesn’t dwell West Germany. The West German government had a reputation for supporting strong crypto (unlike the East Germans and Nazis). They were aware that many of their day-to-day communications were being intercepted by the East Germans (much as they intercepted East German communications). Many West Germans had loved ones in East Germany who could at least in theory face negative consequences for the actions of West Germans. West Germany simply couldn’t be free without strong crypto.
- freeflight 5y ago
  This is such a weird take, considering the reality how the NSA mass spying on Germans, and even Merkel, is quite legal and has been for many decades [0]. So while NATO forces are really big on supporting "strong crypto" for their own practical needs, what they were not really big on is supporting strong privacy rights for them West German people, as that would just "complicate" finding all those Communist spies and sympathizers. Who were suspected to be everywhere, as split Germany was pretty much the main battlefield of the covert cold war. That's why the West German G-10 law was specifically modified [1] at the request of the NSA [2] to legalize their, and that of NATO forces, mass spying on German citizens. Btw: In terms of "Nazi encryption" it's a bit odd to make a statement like that, the Nazis, just like the USSR, the US, or pretty much any formal military force, did and still do use "strong crpyto" for their own needs [3]. That's why conflating encryption tech with privacy rights, as if they're just synonyms, is quite misleading. [0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-uerberwachung-merkel-interview-foschepoth https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-uerberwa... [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/2014... [2]https://opendatacity.github.io/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html https://opendatacity.github.io/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine
Hamuko 5y ago
Does it matter if strong encryption is being eroded on the EU level?
- cm2187 5y ago
  My thinking. Not sure how they will translate “right to encryption” into law, but if they mean right to E2E encrypted correspondence, then german law will be on a collision course with EU laws in development. If that happens it will be interesting to compare the debate with what happened with Poland this year.
  - mantas 5y ago
    There's already a case where EU and German law clashed. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/german-court-dismisses-legal-challenge-against-eus-fund.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/german-court-dismisses-legal...
- AnssiH 5y ago
  Despite some people pushing for it, I'd say we are very far from EU eroding strong encryption. The support just isn't there. I know there are claims that EU is on the verge of banning E2E, but they seem to be, AFAICS, exaggerated or unfounded.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    It is a recurring topic on Hacker News though recently. Here's a story from Mailbox.org which is another German email provider focused on Privacy, just like Tutanota: https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans-to-outlaw-encryption-and-introduce-telecommunications-surveillance?nl https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans... And here a more detailed site: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co... Not sure if this is indeed exaggerated or unfounded and I hope it is. I heard it was taken off the agenda but that was more of a "for now", with plans to revisit it next year.
gremloni 5y ago
Germany does a lot of things right. Why can’t we achieve anything reasonable in the US anymore?
- melff 5y ago
  I think the main issues are polarization and the two party political landscape for you guys across the pond. Don't forget that the grass often seems greener on the other side, we here in germany also have a lot of polarization going on esp. in recent times. Also these coalition agreements are not reliable, politicians talk a lot if the day is long, we'll have to wait and see what actually comes of it.
- Zak 5y ago
  Germany and the US have completely different electoral and legislative systems. The US, notably has single member districts with plurality voting, which is extremely likely to produce two dominant parties. That's combined with a Senate that requires a supermajority to pass most legislation. Add a little more polarization than usual to that mix and the government can't legislate. Neither plurality voting nor the filibuster rule are in the constitution. States have the authority to determine their own voting systems, and two states, Maine and Alaska have adopted instant-runoff voting for some elections. The Senate has the authority to change its rules, and has chosen to keep the filibuster in something resembling its present form since the 1970s with a small number of exceptions.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > Germany and the US have completely different electoral and legislative systems. I wouldn't call them completely different, they are also not exactly the same, but there are also quite a few parallels. Case in point; In neither place the people vote directly for president/chancellor.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - rsynnott 5y ago
Cu3PO42 5y ago
One thing I, personally, find very interesting is that a lot of wording from the coalition contract on this and related matters is apparently taken from or at least based on [0] a document [1] released by the CCC for that very purpose. I haven't personally carefully verified this to be true, but I have no reason to distrust the linked report. [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9f60b12e https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9f60b12e [1] https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/ccc-formulierungshilfe-regierungsprogramm https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/ccc-formulierungshilfe-re... (both in German)
- majewsky 5y ago
  Well yeah, after years of seeing lobbyists slipping their suggested phrasing into bills, it was about time we took a page from their playbook. :) (Disclosure: I volunteer in a local CCC chapter, mostly in public relations.)
  - _the_inflator 5y ago
    The last sentences already address this: "Ich sollte an der Stelle vielleicht auch klar ansagen: Die Politiker, die anderer Lobbyisten vorformulierte Entwürfe übernehmen, sind faule Schufte. Die, die unsere vorformulierten Entwürfe durchwinken, sind wohlinformierte und hochintelligente Ehrenleute!1!!" ;)
    - tempestn 5y ago
      Google translate for others curious: "At this point I should perhaps also state clearly: The politicians who adopt other lobbyists' pre-formulated drafts are lazy villains. Those who wave through our pre-formulated drafts are well-informed and highly intelligent people of honor!1!!" Nice.
      - Garlef 5y ago
        I think "scoundrel" is a better translation of "schuft" in this context (over "villain").
    - 5y ago
throwawayfear 5y ago
[flagged]
- starfleet_bop 5y ago
  I agree, it’s bizarre the German government wants to enshrine the right to encryption in law, but is mulling whether to violate individual sovereignty and control over one’s body by imposing mandatory vaccinations.
- melff 5y ago
  I agree that a lot of theses restrictions are serous restrictions to civil liberties, but they are not fascistic in nature and our attitude towards the government is quite different than the attitude of ppl from the USA towards their government. I see the power of social media platforms and political radicalization as greater problems than pressure or even mandates for vaccines. What bugs be though is that when people voiced concerns about "indirect vaccine mandates"(=pressuring people to get vaccinated by excluding them from social gatherings, etc) the political mainstream claimed that that won't happen and that that are just right-wing conspiracy theories. I think these kinds of lies smell far more like fascism than vaccine mandates themselves
  - starfleet_bop 5y ago
    How are vaccine mandates and restrictions of people based on their medical status and beliefs not fascist / authoritarian? The parallels between apartheid, East German “where are your papers?”, and the enforced wearing of the Star of David are very disturbing.
  - throwawayfear 5y ago
    [flagged]
max-ibel 5y ago
I think this is all fine and dandy until the new Innenminister is starting his or her work early next year. They will project the concerns of the civil service and somehow carve out enough special regulations that will all but hollow out any such rights. I really want to believe that the majority of the coalition parties believe that they are saying, but that's not how politics are made or put into practice. E.g., after Zimmermann, there was great hope that Germany would be a lot less conservative in it's interior policy, but following interior ministries have not really become much less conservative. Here's to hope, though - Cheers.
- 2-718-281-828 5y ago
  Innenminister ... dude, have some respect - it's secretary of interior
btdmaster 5y ago
https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/publiccode.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/publiccode.en.html is finally taking shape!
cryptonector 5y ago
Let me guess: as long as there's key escrow or equivalent.
yyyk 5y ago
What does 'right to encryption' actually mean in this new plan? Can anyone explain in English? For example, Google Translate (always dubious) gives the following*: "The state must also offer the possibility of real encrypted communication". Which may mean either 'e2e communication' or 'e2e communication except government' or even merely 'the state must create an encrypted messaging solution and allow everyone to use it, but nothing else will change' (and no one will actually use it due to scale effects Whatsapp etc. have). * From Cu3PO42's excellent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434183
- namibj 5y ago
  I suggest Deepl for DE=>EN translation, it's significantly better than google translate.
- melff 5y ago
  The Google Translation is accurate in this case, it's just as vague in German as it is in English
hammock 5y ago
Wonderful how many good changes are happening so quickly with the new government. Merkel held power uninterrupted for over 18 years straight. The new leadership is basically Trump's campaign promise, for Germany (anti-globalist elite), but without all the backlash and manufactured outrage. I guess these anti-globalist ideas have had enough time to percolate that even HN is supporting their fruits now.
- TheGigaChad 5y ago
  Were you dropped on your head as a baby?
- oytis 5y ago
  Well, these are not changes yet, these are intentions (though good ones). Let's see what they can achieve, and whether they will stick to their promises when confronting tough problems.
officeplant 5y ago
Germany often makes me wish I could just show them my family history of when we immigrated to the US so they can let me back in.
- jonp888 5y ago
  Many people have done that and found that they actually were German citizens all along. The exact rules are complicated but it's worth looking in to.
- bserge 5y ago
  [dead]
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  Find a job in Germany and you can start packing. There are plenty of English-speaking companies here and shortage of skilled workers.
- quelltext 5y ago
  Why would they just let you in because of your family history? I presume your ancestors once left Germany to find a new country to live in and became successful there. Not saying that Germany shouldn't "let you back in" if you want to immigrate back, but the mere fact that your ancestors were German should not qualify you more (safe for certain exceptional populations in recent war history) than others whose ancestors might for instance come from the UK.
  - jonp888 5y ago
    Germany, like most countries outside North America has citizenship based on ancestry, not place of birth. In the eyes of Germany, if you parents were German you are German too, even if your parents never visited Germany. The chain is only broken if you apply for foreign citizenship or serve in foreign armed forces. To me it is bizarre that the mere fact of being on holiday in America at your time of birth makes you American.
    - 5y ago
AtNightWeCode 5y ago
"We require all government agencies to report security vulnerabilities they are aware of to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and to undergo regular external audits of their IT systems." If some well known agencies done this, loss of billions of dollars could have been avoided. "In the future, development contracts will be regularly commissioned as open source, and the software will be made public as a matter of principle. There will be a right to encryption, and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted communication." Personally I have a hard time to trust anything after heart bleed. A very basic attack that caused havoc. It proved that the quality of open source is nowhere close to the promises of OSS. It also tells that the automatic tests are too simple, if there are any. Fact is that a student in any class about the network stack probably already been targeted about far more complex attacks than heart bleed. Encryption is mandatory for most things in EU. But the quality is difficult to evaluate.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > Personally I have a hard time to trust anything after heart bleed. A very basic attack that caused havoc. It proved that the quality of open source is nowhere close to the promises of OSS. Heartbleed made international headlines, and got fixed very quickly. The equivalent bugs in Mike's Proprietary Encryption Layer are just another Tuesday. Which is better: being able to discover a bug like Heartbleed, or not being able to discover a bug like Heartbleed?
- wolverine876 5y ago
  OSS is certainly no guarantee of security, but there is quality, secure OSS, such as WireGuard.
verisimi 5y ago
In all honesty, I don't/can't value government provided rights. The reason is governments have no basis to grant anything more than an individual. If you think about it, if I grant you a right to privacy - what can that possibly mean to you? If not just I, but I and 10 others (or 100, or 10000) agree to grant you a right, still - what does that mean? Do you now have that right? In fact, the position is nonsense. The question then, is at what point do a bunch of people become a government? What is the magic number? And on what basis does a government have greater rights than the individuals it purports to represent? The answer in reverse, is that government does not have greater rights than individuals. It does not determine morality. A majority of people might decide to rule over others - and they may be successful via their greater or co-ordinated force - but at no point does that use of force become a right. Put simply, if someone or a group or a government initiate force, that is a wrong. Re rights, you can do whatever as long as you are not harming another. Governments are not greater than individuals. While we might go along with government dictats or government 'granting of rights', there is no moral basis for it. It is just the labouring under an illusion. The government illusion is powerful, for sure, and there is malign threat therein, but at no point can government create a right that is not already existent for the individual. If some people believe it can, they are mistaken. If those people undertake the dictats of government, acting forcibly against other that have done them no wrong, they are acting immorally. In answer to the main post then, individuals have always had a right to encryption, if it is not harming anyone. Governments have never had the (moral) 'right' to decrypt as that is stealing someone's privacy. Governments can of course write laws to justify whatever they like, but these laws themselves need to align with morality to be 'right'. PS I seriously don't mind being down-voted, but would rather understand what the objections are to my argument.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Governments are not greater than individuals. Perhaps not ethically or morally or whatever. But that only matters in a philosophy classroom. In the real world, they are. HTH!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 5y ago
GekkePrutser 5y ago
What about the EU working on mandating a backdoor though? EU law supersedes local law.. I remember another German email provider raising this last week: https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans-to-outlaw-encryption-and-introduce-telecommunications-surveillance?nl https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans... And https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co... Other posts here mentioned it as exaggerated but it sounds pretty detailed there. It worries me a bit because it would instantly move the EU from one of the best on privacy protections to one of the worst in the western world.
- nerbert 5y ago
  That EU thing is work in progress. Germany can probably sink that easily.
  - felixhammerl 5y ago
    Especially with the UK out of the picture.
- MinorTom 5y ago
  To expand on everybody elses arguments re:"EU law supersedes local law.." The German Constitution supersedes EU law, especially considering that some parts of it cannot be changed, but the German Constitutional Court has decided to always try to read the Constitution in a way that matches EU law. The only exception is if they believe the EU has gone 'ultra vires', i.e. significantly above their power. A recent decision by the GCC about policy of the European Central Bank has invoked this exception and has been fairly controversial because of that[0]. This situation has been defused by now, the German government has promised to reign in the GCC. [0] and also bc some economists disagree with the economic basis of that decision, but that's a topic for another time
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  These EU law worries seem to be blown put of proportion. But EU law is (while not legally required) most of the time adopted by consensus. I.e. a No by any EU gov can block a bill more or less indefinitely - certainly no one will try to outvote Germany or France on an important bill.
jollybean 5y ago
Then they are setting up a constitutional challenge with the ECJ, just like Poland. They were on the brink of it recently, when it got hushed it 'because Poland was doing it', but this kind of thing will highlight the fact that Germany doesn't accept ECJ Supremacy either. Interestingly enough, they may back off just enough so that the Germany-ECJ '40 year dispute' doesn't get inflamed, hoping that maybe after a few more decades it will just 'go away' with a German Judiciary, Parliament and Population that just accept the ECJ Supremacy, even though it doesn't actually say that in any treaty.
Proven 5y ago
There's no right to encryption, there's only right to free speech. And stop this nonsense with pretending that the government decides what rights we have. Idiots.
vlovich123 5y ago
> In the future, development contracts will be regularly commissioned as open source, and the software will be made public as a matter of principle. There will be a right to encryption, and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted communication Would be neat if they also mandated that all such software must be in a memory-safe language unless there’s no available alternative or there’s a compelling performance reason or the software is well-established/reviewed by experts in the field and no reasonable alternative exists.

899 points by Audiophilip 5y ago

Good! German opposition and political activists desperately need good encryption to organize! Large opposition party was placed under surveillance before election, its leaders wiretapped. Today activists are monitored on Internet by secret services.

qwertox 5y ago
Just today the German online IT magazine heise.de published an article [0] claiming that the interior ministers (home secretaries?) will expect from social platforms like WhatsApp to implement backdoors so that the government can access a copy of the data. This is a wish they've been having for ages. So, there's clearly an opposition. [0] https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-Verschluesselung-und-Anonymitaet-im-Netz-6284331.html https://www.heise.de/news/Innenminister-Angriff-auf-Verschlu...
- estaseuropano 5y ago
  Outgoing government! This article is about the incoming one.
wolverine876 5y ago
Who are you talking about?
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  The AFD, a right wing party with quite a few ties to known neo-nazis or nazi symphatizers/apologists and also quite a bit of ties to some of the uglier right wing extremism that pops up its ugly head in Germany every once in a while. For example, there were a few arrests near the Polish border recently of some people who took it upon themselves to do a little policing in that area. Also, it's easy to forget that this country had active right wing and left wing terrorists not so long ago. So, yes Germany may have slightly overstepped their authority putting AFD party members under surveillance considering it is now a major party in several of its states and of course the parliament. In that sense it's a big scandal actually. But it's not entirely without reason. There are some really shady and scary people associating themselves with that party.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure Nazis are outlawed in Germany. I don't think they overstepped their bounds. They'd be pretty stupid to let it happen again.

gumby 5y ago

Excellent. I hope they fix the deliberate botch they made of the use of ID cards as key carriers. As far as I know the hardware is fine but the Bundestag fucked up the infrastructure. Germany should look to Estonia who, IMHO, gets it right.

Hendrikto 5y ago
I, and a lot of people I know, microwave their German ID cards immediately upon receiving them. Bad enough that German citizens are required by law to have a valid ID card in the first place (see Ausweispflicht). Something pretty unique and a relic from the third Reich. We don‘t need more data on them. It will be leaked, it will be misused, it will have exploitable mistakes. ID cards should stay a dumb piece of plastic.
- gumby 5y ago
  I wouldn’t bother to do that myself, though it’s harmless since there’s essentially no infrastructure support for the chip in DE, which is my complaint. The chip only contains the info readable on the card plus what you want to store there (public keys, basically) and can’t be read remotely. I agree with you that mandatory ID cards are an affront to human rights, but you are sadly wrong to consider it unique to Germany. Quite the contrary: apart from commonwealth countries and the USA they required by all other OECD countries and many others besides (e.g. India, China, Malaysia, Russia…) Their origin predates the nazi era too. For example passport system was introduced on a “temporary” basis during WWI but rather than revoking it several countries used it as the foundation of their ID system.
vlovich123 5y ago
What are the differences in infrastructure and what choices did Estonia make that are better? Is it possible that a 83x larger population has different infrastructure needs and it’s not that Estonia did an outstanding job but that Estonia’s problem space is much simpler?
- solarkraft 5y ago

sennight 5y ago

huh, it wasn't that long ago that they outlawed the kind of "hacking tools" that would be used to verify the integrity of cipher systems... is that still on the books? My German is rustier than my Fourth, so I'm drawing a blank on a position reversal...

akavel 5y ago

Could someone help me understand the following sentence from the article? > Controversial hackbacks, i.e., the hacking back of attacks, are rejected as a "means of cyber defense in principle." Does this mean "hackbacks" are seen as cyber defense and therefore rejected, or that they are refused the name of cyber defense? Or something else? Does this mean there's intention to forbid cyber defense, esp. by govt/army?!? I'm confused by what's attempted to be communicated here. (Also, who's the presumed actor of those "hackbacks" here, govt? private entities? anyone?)

iforgotpassword 5y ago
They are seen as unethical or at least pointless, since 99% of attribution is reading coffee grounds anyways. Instead of hacking back, why not try to get your security up to it in the first place.
dragonelite 5y ago
How are you going to trace back the hacking to country of origin? Scan on Russian and Chinese characters or IP addresses in the code, that such a naïve take so yeah wouldn't be surprised if European leaders would totally go for it. Allies and other actors would totally not fake that as a distraction.

uniqueuid 5y ago

This is great, of course, but ~50 years of hesitant, schizophrenic legislation regarding digital security leaves me hesitant that Germany will actually be a forerunner on this one.

freeflight 5y ago
Not sure were you are seeing 50 years of this? It mostly started becoming relevant in the 90s, back then Germany didn't even have any legislation on that front at all, just a very general paragraph about "computer/information system sabotage" they had to throw at phreakers and other early hackers, for the lack of any other law. By the late 90s they tried to fix that situation, but as usual, only for the worse; The so called "Hackerparagraphs" were enacted, which literally banned the ownership of "hacking tools", that by legal definition technically even included stuff like a mundane Linux nmap or security tools distributed by the BSI [0]. [0] https://www.tecchannel.de/a/das-bsi-und-202c-der-hackerparagraf-und-das-bundesamt,1729025 https://www.tecchannel.de/a/das-bsi-und-202c-der-hackerparag...

formerly_proven 5y ago

It's neat how many genuinely good points regarding information security and privacy made it into the coalition agreement, but everyone knows that just because it says in the paper that a new gov't wants to do something does not mean they do it.

abliefern 5y ago
> everyone knows that just because it says in the paper that a new gov't wants to do something does not mean they do it. That's a common misconception. 80% of the commitments in the previous coalition agreement were fully or partially implemented: https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/unsere-projekte/monitoring-der-demokratie/projektnachrichten/versprechen-gehalten-schlussbilanz-zum-koalitionsvertrag-der-groko-2018-21 https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/unsere-projekte/monit...
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  However, in general, I think it does reign true. This is a (welcome) exception to the rule, I think.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
monopoledance 5y ago
While that's true, the Green party and FDP seem to mean it, when they pushed for these rights and progressive legislation - and combined, they have the majority within the coalition. Here is to hope.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > they have the majority within the coalition A majority within the coalition does not translate to a majority in the Bundestag, which is what's needed to put any of these many promises and plans into actual action.
  - 5y ago

quotemstr 5y ago

I approve of constitutionally guaranteeing that people can keep their communications secure, but as an American, I think the rhetorical framework surrounding the movement could be improved. We need negative rights, not positive ones. People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all. What people do have is a right to be free of government limitations on the freedom of individuals to run whatever software they want on devices they own. When you make something a positive right, that means it's something the government has to give you, and a government that can give you rights can take them away. The American perspective is that people have rights just by virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and immorality interfere with rights that you always possess, unconditionally, no matter what. IMHO, the right framing isn't that people have a right to encryption, but that the state has no business interfering with the math people do on their own computers.

cblconfederate 5y ago
It's not a matter of positive / negative really, it's not like encryption will be mandatory. The right to not have their encryption backdoored sounds negative enough to me
xxpor 5y ago
>People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all This is an incredibly American libertarianish view, and essentially completely unheard of in Europe. The Europeans frame things in terms of positive rights all the time.
- jeofken 5y ago
  Let’s keep the level higher on HN. The ideas of freedom and universal rights isn’t unheard of in Europe - it originated here, and you’re certainly not speaking for all os us when you claim we accept the idea of “positive rights”.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Yes, although you can also see the libertarianist approach in also some strains of British thinking. All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. I don't have anything against Europeans or their approach --- I just disagree with them on how to form a basis for limitations on state power.

ersii 5y ago

[flagged]

pille 5y ago
It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected by the unvaccinated. I’m thankful we’re making the right choice.
- ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
  > It was either forcefully vaccinated or forcefully infected by the unvaccinated. I’m thankful we’re making the right choice. False dichotomy. Also what if you are wrong? You seem very certain. Why? No meaningful discussion is allowed, so how is it that you feel you have all the information you need to make the decision -- first for yourself, and second, for every other person in your country? It seems like you are just thankful your fears about your neighbors have been tranquilized? Where did those fears come from again?
  - pille 5y ago
    It’s been discussed to death, literally. It’s hard to believe you’re asking for a discussion in good faith, when there’s clearly no evidence on your side, and your baseless “skepticism” has been indulged for almost 2 full years by the government and media. The outgoing German government bent over backwards for you Querdenker, and that’s why we’re still in this mess. You’re simply wrong. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion, but you’re no longer entitled to force the rest of us to suffer for it.
    - ospzfmbbzr 5y ago
      The list of times when scientists and politicians have been wrong or just lied is a long one. Are you so sure they are right this time? You are probably no expert so it seems like you are just taking their word for it. Good thing they are telling you it's the right thing to do! > You’re simply wrong. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion, but you’re no longer entitled to force the rest of us to suffer for it. The only one making you suffer is you not some 'other'. You are choosing to let fear become a wedge. As a moral exercise, consider that when you force people against their will to do anything, you necessarily assume responsibility for the results, unless you are an immoral person. Are you willing to assume that responsibility? The manufacturers of the products are not. This in particular is a big red flag. How would you feel if the roles were reversed and it was you who did not want some medical procedure? What if others just discounted your position out of hand?

cblconfederate 5y ago

Is it a right to End-to-end encryption or a right to "encryption from everyone except government" ?

volta83 5y ago
Ideally it would be a constitutional ammendent, stating that privacy is a right of every citizen, and a human right. Legislation to the right to encryption would then just follow from it, but having it in the constitution would make it harder for future governments to pass certain kinds of legislation, or if they pass them, the supreme court would declare them inconstitutional.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  The problem is defining "privacy" though, isn't it? What, specifically, would the amendment require or prohibit under the banner of "privacy"? How could this definition, if enshrined into nearly immutable law, be modified to account for a changing technological environment? How do you prevent such an amendment from suffering from the fate of the US second amendment, which in many places is honored mostly in the breach?
  - xxpor 5y ago
    The Germans have a completely different legal system that isn't based on court decided precedent, so the comparison doesn't make any sense.
- JCWasmx86 5y ago
  > human right This should be the goal. In the days of the internet, mass surveillance, nearly eradicated privacy we need a right to have and use strong encryption without any backdoors.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  To be clear, it is already a human right, right of expression association privacy etc. Just nobody defends it

JCWasmx86 5y ago

> There is [...] a prohibition of state authorities to keep vulnerabilities a secret. This is another great thing. It is simply unethical to hoard vulnerabilities, as this will eventually backfire[0] > On top that all future security legislation will be subject to an evaluation by a panel of independent experts who have to look into issues with any potential restrictions on freedom. I really hope this will be people from the CCC. [0]: https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/28/nsa_backdoor_wyden/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/28/nsa_backdoor_wyden/

frankfrankfrank 5y ago
I'm genuinely a bit confused and suspicious. The german state is known for it's contradictions regarding security and privacy, e.g., mapping sites cannot record "street level" images in public view, but the government will decree what is and is not allowed speech and has been caught compromising systems to monitor that. Now the government that is obsessed with making sure everyone thinks only approved things is going to codify a right to encryption and prohibit state authorities (Is there a 5+1 eyes workaround prohibition) from building in or maintaining vulnerabilities? Maybe this really is just a bone for the peasants that will fool them into feeling like they have rights, while the Ol' 5+1 Eye Switcheroo is used to keep vulnerabilities and compromise encryption anyways.
- JCWasmx86 5y ago
  > but the government will decree what is and is not allowed speech Do you mean "free speech"? Here in germany have free speech, except for denying the holocaust (And this makes really sense, as this is simply wrong)
  - MrYellowP 5y ago
    There is no "free speech, but". It's a binary. You either have free speech, or you don't. Limited free speech is, by definition, not free. It's limited.
  - rightiousrob 5y ago

pyuser583 5y ago

The history of encryption it includes doesn’t dwell West Germany. The West German government had a reputation for supporting strong crypto (unlike the East Germans and Nazis). They were aware that many of their day-to-day communications were being intercepted by the East Germans (much as they intercepted East German communications). Many West Germans had loved ones in East Germany who could at least in theory face negative consequences for the actions of West Germans. West Germany simply couldn’t be free without strong crypto.

freeflight 5y ago
This is such a weird take, considering the reality how the NSA mass spying on Germans, and even Merkel, is quite legal and has been for many decades [0]. So while NATO forces are really big on supporting "strong crypto" for their own practical needs, what they were not really big on is supporting strong privacy rights for them West German people, as that would just "complicate" finding all those Communist spies and sympathizers. Who were suspected to be everywhere, as split Germany was pretty much the main battlefield of the covert cold war. That's why the West German G-10 law was specifically modified [1] at the request of the NSA [2] to legalize their, and that of NATO forces, mass spying on German citizens. Btw: In terms of "Nazi encryption" it's a bit odd to make a statement like that, the Nazis, just like the USSR, the US, or pretty much any formal military force, did and still do use "strong crpyto" for their own needs [3]. That's why conflating encryption tech with privacy rights, as if they're just synonyms, is quite misleading. [0] https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-uerberwachung-merkel-interview-foschepoth https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-uerberwa... [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/2014... [2]https://opendatacity.github.io/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html https://opendatacity.github.io/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

Hamuko 5y ago

Does it matter if strong encryption is being eroded on the EU level?

cm2187 5y ago
My thinking. Not sure how they will translate “right to encryption” into law, but if they mean right to E2E encrypted correspondence, then german law will be on a collision course with EU laws in development. If that happens it will be interesting to compare the debate with what happened with Poland this year.
- mantas 5y ago
  There's already a case where EU and German law clashed. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/german-court-dismisses-legal-challenge-against-eus-fund.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/german-court-dismisses-legal...
AnssiH 5y ago
Despite some people pushing for it, I'd say we are very far from EU eroding strong encryption. The support just isn't there. I know there are claims that EU is on the verge of banning E2E, but they seem to be, AFAICS, exaggerated or unfounded.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  It is a recurring topic on Hacker News though recently. Here's a story from Mailbox.org which is another German email provider focused on Privacy, just like Tutanota: https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans-to-outlaw-encryption-and-introduce-telecommunications-surveillance?nl https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans... And here a more detailed site: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co... Not sure if this is indeed exaggerated or unfounded and I hope it is. I heard it was taken off the agenda but that was more of a "for now", with plans to revisit it next year.

gremloni 5y ago

Germany does a lot of things right. Why can’t we achieve anything reasonable in the US anymore?

melff 5y ago
I think the main issues are polarization and the two party political landscape for you guys across the pond. Don't forget that the grass often seems greener on the other side, we here in germany also have a lot of polarization going on esp. in recent times. Also these coalition agreements are not reliable, politicians talk a lot if the day is long, we'll have to wait and see what actually comes of it.
Zak 5y ago
Germany and the US have completely different electoral and legislative systems. The US, notably has single member districts with plurality voting, which is extremely likely to produce two dominant parties. That's combined with a Senate that requires a supermajority to pass most legislation. Add a little more polarization than usual to that mix and the government can't legislate. Neither plurality voting nor the filibuster rule are in the constitution. States have the authority to determine their own voting systems, and two states, Maine and Alaska have adopted instant-runoff voting for some elections. The Senate has the authority to change its rules, and has chosen to keep the filibuster in something resembling its present form since the 1970s with a small number of exceptions.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > Germany and the US have completely different electoral and legislative systems. I wouldn't call them completely different, they are also not exactly the same, but there are also quite a few parallels. Case in point; In neither place the people vote directly for president/chancellor.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rsynnott 5y ago

Cu3PO42 5y ago

One thing I, personally, find very interesting is that a lot of wording from the coalition contract on this and related matters is apparently taken from or at least based on [0] a document [1] released by the CCC for that very purpose. I haven't personally carefully verified this to be true, but I have no reason to distrust the linked report. [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9f60b12e https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9f60b12e [1] https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/ccc-formulierungshilfe-regierungsprogramm https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2021/ccc-formulierungshilfe-re... (both in German)

majewsky 5y ago
Well yeah, after years of seeing lobbyists slipping their suggested phrasing into bills, it was about time we took a page from their playbook. :) (Disclosure: I volunteer in a local CCC chapter, mostly in public relations.)
- _the_inflator 5y ago
  The last sentences already address this: "Ich sollte an der Stelle vielleicht auch klar ansagen: Die Politiker, die anderer Lobbyisten vorformulierte Entwürfe übernehmen, sind faule Schufte. Die, die unsere vorformulierten Entwürfe durchwinken, sind wohlinformierte und hochintelligente Ehrenleute!1!!" ;)
  - tempestn 5y ago
    Google translate for others curious: "At this point I should perhaps also state clearly: The politicians who adopt other lobbyists' pre-formulated drafts are lazy villains. Those who wave through our pre-formulated drafts are well-informed and highly intelligent people of honor!1!!" Nice.
    - Garlef 5y ago
      I think "scoundrel" is a better translation of "schuft" in this context (over "villain").
  - 5y ago

throwawayfear 5y ago

[flagged]

starfleet_bop 5y ago
I agree, it’s bizarre the German government wants to enshrine the right to encryption in law, but is mulling whether to violate individual sovereignty and control over one’s body by imposing mandatory vaccinations.
melff 5y ago
I agree that a lot of theses restrictions are serous restrictions to civil liberties, but they are not fascistic in nature and our attitude towards the government is quite different than the attitude of ppl from the USA towards their government. I see the power of social media platforms and political radicalization as greater problems than pressure or even mandates for vaccines. What bugs be though is that when people voiced concerns about "indirect vaccine mandates"(=pressuring people to get vaccinated by excluding them from social gatherings, etc) the political mainstream claimed that that won't happen and that that are just right-wing conspiracy theories. I think these kinds of lies smell far more like fascism than vaccine mandates themselves
- starfleet_bop 5y ago
  How are vaccine mandates and restrictions of people based on their medical status and beliefs not fascist / authoritarian? The parallels between apartheid, East German “where are your papers?”, and the enforced wearing of the Star of David are very disturbing.
- throwawayfear 5y ago
  [flagged]

max-ibel 5y ago

I think this is all fine and dandy until the new Innenminister is starting his or her work early next year. They will project the concerns of the civil service and somehow carve out enough special regulations that will all but hollow out any such rights. I really want to believe that the majority of the coalition parties believe that they are saying, but that's not how politics are made or put into practice. E.g., after Zimmermann, there was great hope that Germany would be a lot less conservative in it's interior policy, but following interior ministries have not really become much less conservative. Here's to hope, though - Cheers.

2-718-281-828 5y ago
Innenminister ... dude, have some respect - it's secretary of interior

btdmaster 5y ago

https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/publiccode.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/publiccode.en.html is finally taking shape!

cryptonector 5y ago

Let me guess: as long as there's key escrow or equivalent.

yyyk 5y ago

What does 'right to encryption' actually mean in this new plan? Can anyone explain in English? For example, Google Translate (always dubious) gives the following*: "The state must also offer the possibility of real encrypted communication". Which may mean either 'e2e communication' or 'e2e communication except government' or even merely 'the state must create an encrypted messaging solution and allow everyone to use it, but nothing else will change' (and no one will actually use it due to scale effects Whatsapp etc. have). * From Cu3PO42's excellent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29434183

namibj 5y ago
I suggest Deepl for DE=>EN translation, it's significantly better than google translate.
melff 5y ago
The Google Translation is accurate in this case, it's just as vague in German as it is in English

hammock 5y ago

Wonderful how many good changes are happening so quickly with the new government. Merkel held power uninterrupted for over 18 years straight. The new leadership is basically Trump's campaign promise, for Germany (anti-globalist elite), but without all the backlash and manufactured outrage. I guess these anti-globalist ideas have had enough time to percolate that even HN is supporting their fruits now.

TheGigaChad 5y ago
Were you dropped on your head as a baby?
oytis 5y ago
Well, these are not changes yet, these are intentions (though good ones). Let's see what they can achieve, and whether they will stick to their promises when confronting tough problems.

officeplant 5y ago

Germany often makes me wish I could just show them my family history of when we immigrated to the US so they can let me back in.

jonp888 5y ago
Many people have done that and found that they actually were German citizens all along. The exact rules are complicated but it's worth looking in to.
bserge 5y ago
[dead]
ivan_gammel 5y ago
Find a job in Germany and you can start packing. There are plenty of English-speaking companies here and shortage of skilled workers.
quelltext 5y ago
Why would they just let you in because of your family history? I presume your ancestors once left Germany to find a new country to live in and became successful there. Not saying that Germany shouldn't "let you back in" if you want to immigrate back, but the mere fact that your ancestors were German should not qualify you more (safe for certain exceptional populations in recent war history) than others whose ancestors might for instance come from the UK.
- jonp888 5y ago
  Germany, like most countries outside North America has citizenship based on ancestry, not place of birth. In the eyes of Germany, if you parents were German you are German too, even if your parents never visited Germany. The chain is only broken if you apply for foreign citizenship or serve in foreign armed forces. To me it is bizarre that the mere fact of being on holiday in America at your time of birth makes you American.
  - 5y ago

AtNightWeCode 5y ago

"We require all government agencies to report security vulnerabilities they are aware of to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and to undergo regular external audits of their IT systems." If some well known agencies done this, loss of billions of dollars could have been avoided. "In the future, development contracts will be regularly commissioned as open source, and the software will be made public as a matter of principle. There will be a right to encryption, and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted communication." Personally I have a hard time to trust anything after heart bleed. A very basic attack that caused havoc. It proved that the quality of open source is nowhere close to the promises of OSS. It also tells that the automatic tests are too simple, if there are any. Fact is that a student in any class about the network stack probably already been targeted about far more complex attacks than heart bleed. Encryption is mandatory for most things in EU. But the quality is difficult to evaluate.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Personally I have a hard time to trust anything after heart bleed. A very basic attack that caused havoc. It proved that the quality of open source is nowhere close to the promises of OSS. Heartbleed made international headlines, and got fixed very quickly. The equivalent bugs in Mike's Proprietary Encryption Layer are just another Tuesday. Which is better: being able to discover a bug like Heartbleed, or not being able to discover a bug like Heartbleed?
wolverine876 5y ago
OSS is certainly no guarantee of security, but there is quality, secure OSS, such as WireGuard.

verisimi 5y ago

In all honesty, I don't/can't value government provided rights. The reason is governments have no basis to grant anything more than an individual. If you think about it, if I grant you a right to privacy - what can that possibly mean to you? If not just I, but I and 10 others (or 100, or 10000) agree to grant you a right, still - what does that mean? Do you now have that right? In fact, the position is nonsense. The question then, is at what point do a bunch of people become a government? What is the magic number? And on what basis does a government have greater rights than the individuals it purports to represent? The answer in reverse, is that government does not have greater rights than individuals. It does not determine morality. A majority of people might decide to rule over others - and they may be successful via their greater or co-ordinated force - but at no point does that use of force become a right. Put simply, if someone or a group or a government initiate force, that is a wrong. Re rights, you can do whatever as long as you are not harming another. Governments are not greater than individuals. While we might go along with government dictats or government 'granting of rights', there is no moral basis for it. It is just the labouring under an illusion. The government illusion is powerful, for sure, and there is malign threat therein, but at no point can government create a right that is not already existent for the individual. If some people believe it can, they are mistaken. If those people undertake the dictats of government, acting forcibly against other that have done them no wrong, they are acting immorally. In answer to the main post then, individuals have always had a right to encryption, if it is not harming anyone. Governments have never had the (moral) 'right' to decrypt as that is stealing someone's privacy. Governments can of course write laws to justify whatever they like, but these laws themselves need to align with morality to be 'right'. PS I seriously don't mind being down-voted, but would rather understand what the objections are to my argument.

CRConrad 5y ago
> Governments are not greater than individuals. Perhaps not ethically or morally or whatever. But that only matters in a philosophy classroom. In the real world, they are. HTH!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
5y ago

GekkePrutser 5y ago

What about the EU working on mandating a backdoor though? EU law supersedes local law.. I remember another German email provider raising this last week: https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans-to-outlaw-encryption-and-introduce-telecommunications-surveillance?nl https://mailbox.org/en/post/chat-control-the-latest-eu-plans... And https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-control/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co... Other posts here mentioned it as exaggerated but it sounds pretty detailed there. It worries me a bit because it would instantly move the EU from one of the best on privacy protections to one of the worst in the western world.

nerbert 5y ago
That EU thing is work in progress. Germany can probably sink that easily.
- felixhammerl 5y ago
  Especially with the UK out of the picture.
MinorTom 5y ago
To expand on everybody elses arguments re:"EU law supersedes local law.." The German Constitution supersedes EU law, especially considering that some parts of it cannot be changed, but the German Constitutional Court has decided to always try to read the Constitution in a way that matches EU law. The only exception is if they believe the EU has gone 'ultra vires', i.e. significantly above their power. A recent decision by the GCC about policy of the European Central Bank has invoked this exception and has been fairly controversial because of that[0]. This situation has been defused by now, the German government has promised to reign in the GCC. [0] and also bc some economists disagree with the economic basis of that decision, but that's a topic for another time
estaseuropano 5y ago
These EU law worries seem to be blown put of proportion. But EU law is (while not legally required) most of the time adopted by consensus. I.e. a No by any EU gov can block a bill more or less indefinitely - certainly no one will try to outvote Germany or France on an important bill.

jollybean 5y ago

Then they are setting up a constitutional challenge with the ECJ, just like Poland. They were on the brink of it recently, when it got hushed it 'because Poland was doing it', but this kind of thing will highlight the fact that Germany doesn't accept ECJ Supremacy either. Interestingly enough, they may back off just enough so that the Germany-ECJ '40 year dispute' doesn't get inflamed, hoping that maybe after a few more decades it will just 'go away' with a German Judiciary, Parliament and Population that just accept the ECJ Supremacy, even though it doesn't actually say that in any treaty.

Proven 5y ago

There's no right to encryption, there's only right to free speech. And stop this nonsense with pretending that the government decides what rights we have. Idiots.

vlovich123 5y ago

> In the future, development contracts will be regularly commissioned as open source, and the software will be made public as a matter of principle. There will be a right to encryption, and the state must also offer the option of genuine encrypted communication Would be neat if they also mandated that all such software must be in a memory-safe language unless there’s no available alternative or there’s a compelling performance reason or the software is well-established/reviewed by experts in the field and no reasonable alternative exists.