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German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
- urlwolf 11y agoHappy to hear this, as an expat living in Berlin and being very concerned with the current NSA situation.
- madez 11y agoI'm also happy to hear this. If another spy agency wants to know something they always have to state exactly what and why. Then, for each case, can be decided if help is given or not. Foreignly spying is a criminal offence and must be prosecuted. If it was ever different then there are serious fundamental problems that must be fixed.
- odiroot 11y agoSame here. Privacy issues are something that boosted Berlin's (and German in general) startups or at least gave them an opportunity for easy marketing -- "we are not in five eyes". Now it's kind of awkward. By the way, the pictured building (new BND headquarters) is in my neighborhood; I cycle past it nearly every day. On the other side of the building there are two conspicuous palm trees; really tall and green, they even survived winters. I always joke these are actually antennas in disguise but who knows.
- allendoerfer 11y agoYou might be right: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/beitrag/video/2396252/Van-Ryssen-beim-Fun-BND http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/#/beitrag/video/2396252/Van-R...
- aw3c2 11y agoI wonder what the fee for is for intentional damage of a public tree (hoping it would not be a "good tree, that would not be nice to damage). Worth trying? :)
- odiroot 11y agoIt's behind a tall fence. You'd probably be in a bigger trouble for trespassing.
- cryoshon 11y agoGood, the more political fallout, the better. These kinds of cold shoulders are the language of diplomacy and power. In some small abstract way, the US's ability to defend itself has been reduced by this action-- power has been reduced. The power players in the government will take note of this, and ultimately tiny intangible reductions will be unsustainable and policy will have to change.
- madez 11y agoYes, vulnarabilities are corrective measures. This becomes clear when official are too safe in their seat. Power corrupts. Nothing should be undefeatable. In this context, making a country vulnarable - to some degree - can be good.
- DamnYuppie 11y agoWhile I don't disagree that it is a strong political move, and an appropriate one, I have seen no proof that any of the NSA's operations have made the USA materially safer.
- aylons 11y ago"Being safe" does not matter as much as "having power" does.
- MrZongle2 11y agoWell, once you're one of the people in power...you'll have a staff of people whose sole job is to ensure you stay safe. Everybody else? Something about eating cake, I think...
- cryoshon 11y agoI agree, but I like to think about these things in the terms the government does, which includes a lot of paranoid fear produced by false and frequently cynically malicious assumptions. Like I said, the difference in actual security here is abstract, difficult to quantify, and potentially nothing practically speaking.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoThe question here is, if it is only a temporary halt until the dust has settled. As much I read in the source, phone calls and faxes are still submitted, so it appears to me very half-hearted. I know, that the German intelligence agency "BND" always wanted to have a more tight corporation with the NSA.
- madez 11y agoThere is a significant difference between the collaboration of surveillance of fax and telephone on one side and the internet on the other side. In the former case, specific justification was and is needed for each selector. In the latter, case that was not the case.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoAre you sure? I'm not. Who controls what the BND is doing? Oh, yes, I know, they report to a group of politicians, right. They already admitted, that they are overworked and have not the facilities to check up the BND. Also, the BND already lied to parliament ... I guess, the BND is likely worse controlled than the NSA and the NSA has still more control over the BND than our own parliament, since the NSA is in the same building as the BND surveillance team, the politicians from parliament are not (they are hundreds of miles away in Berlin).
- madez 11y agoNo, I'm not sure. I just read that the BND-officials said that they are overworked, too - since years. There seem to be systematic issues in the German intelligence services.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoI guess, they have to much to do, spying on people.
- madez 11y ago
- higherpurpose 11y agoNow on to UK, Sweden, Spain, France, etc to make them do the same.
- valevk 11y agoYeah, just because it's a major topic in German media...
- thesimon 11y agoGerman Spiegel reports, that mostly European agencies and diplomats were being spied on by the NSA with the help of the German Intelligence Agency, but "Schindler [Head of Germany intelligence agency] tries to play it down: Most european agencies and most diplomats from the EU don't communicate through unsecure emails. Connections over a Vpn would prevent the capturing of emails by the BND [German intelligence agency]" And obviously, no terrorists would ever use a Vpn. Source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bnd-kann-daten-weitergabe-an-nsa-nicht-rekonstruieren-a-1032596.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bnd-kann-daten-wei...
- spacefight 11y agoOver VPN - but is that key exchange safe? Is that proprietary crypto system in use at $diplomacy backdoored with a weak RNG?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoNewest news from Germany: An important information artifact that was needed to illuminate this topic, was deleted. So, it should be clear, that the BND did not change, but somebody is now hushing up the whole topic. (German) Source: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/NSA-Ausschuss-BND-hat-Liste-brenzliger-Ausspaehziele-geloescht-2638435.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/NSA-Ausschuss-BND-hat...
- infinity 11y ago"it's a good rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put in." - from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- revelation 11y agoThis seems like a common theme with intelligence agencies, building datacenters to store petabytes, but no one can spare a 2TB external to store the list of selectors that were queried. (I mean, there really aren't too many options here. Either they did store the data and deleted it, in which case the person in question and everyone up the chain in command committed treason, or they just don't store queried selectors, in which case 1) the program is probably illegal, 2) they are incompetent if they don't monitor what the 'allies' query. Intelligence agencies have no allies, that is the whole point of their existence.)
- junto 11y agoRight at the end of the article is an interesting statement: The report said the NSA had equipped the listening station in Bad Aibling with sophisticated technical equipment. A number of NSA personnel are believed to work there together with some 120 BND personnel. The point here is that NSA personnel are on secondment or implants to use another term. Having implants encourages complacency. You end up with scenarios like: Bob (NSA): hey Klaus, can you add these new selectors to the filters please? Klaus (BND): Ja, when do you want that? Tomorrow ok? I'll get Alice to run them tomorrow. You still want to come to the summer party this weekend? Familiarity in security scenarios is dangerous. Implants breed familiarity.