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Germany Plans To Email Trojans 166

Posted by kdawson from the we-can-do-it-but-you-can't dept.
speardane sends us word of a proposal in the German legislature to make it legal for that government to email spyware to terror suspects. The action comes in response to a court denying prosecutors' requests to break into suspects' computers over the Internet. The German chancellor supports the measure despite considerable outcry from political opponents and rights groups.
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Germany Plans To Email Trojans More

Germany Plans To Email Trojans

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  • Fan-diddly-astic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @05:59PM (#20436013) Homepage Journal
    It sounds like the honour virus to be honest, "We need to monitor you, if you would wear this covert recording hat whilst doing your illegal stuff it would be fan-diddly-astic".

    Will it be illegal to thwart the attack?

    Will it become illegal to use an alternative operating system or antivirus software or even just common sense to deflect these payloads?

    • Re:Fan-diddly-astic (Score:5, Funny)

      by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:01PM (#20436033) Homepage
      I just don't see how this is possible at all. How do you get those foil wrappers in an email? Just won't work.

      And besides, what happens if the guy is celibate? Or a Unix?

    • Re:Fan-diddly-astic (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FlyByPC ( 841016 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:16PM (#20436103) Homepage

      Will it be illegal to thwart the attack?

      More to the point, would it be illegal to reverse-engineer the spyware and send the guvmint all sorts of interesting information (that it would presume to be the spyware reporting back in?)

      After all, Big Brother deserves the very best, right?

      • Re:Fan-diddly-astic (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @08:11PM (#20436723)
        Here's a more interesting thing: Would it be illegal to forward the same trojan to, say, the NSA with the intent to infect and making it look like it's from the German Feds?

        Think of the diplomatic fun we'll all have!
        • Supposedly, all incarnations of this crap will be "personalized" to match whatever software runs on the victims computer. How that is supposed to work is unclear as of yet. It seems unlikely they will rewrite their trojan every time, so it can be assumed they'll assemble a suitable trojan from components. So in other words it will probably not work on just any other computer, except if it happens to run the same software.
          • Rather unlikely. It's quite hard to really "personalize" a trojan. It would most of all decrease the chance of success when you try to "bind" it to certain hardware, all that needs to happen is the suspect changing parts of his hardware to disable it.

            Besides, it is code. Code can be disassembled and rewritten, and "de-personalized". Can you imagine the damage possible by a widespread distribution of a depersonalized "Bundestrojaner"? No matter how it's a desaster. Either no AV kit finds it (due to it being
            • Ok first of all, nobody said anything about binding anything to hardware, no idea where you got that notion from. Secondly, I'm only repeating what the department of the interior is claiming about their tool. No detailed explanation was given, only that the trojan would be adapted to indivdual needs (the software running on the target computer).
              • Ok, then don't bind it to hardware and show me how you want to 'personalize' the trojan. Computer name? User name? Those are changed even more easily. Software running? Mailboxes checked? Even a notch easier.

                How do you want to personalize the trojan and yet ensure that it keeps running at the target without being able to run on a different computer that you do not want to spy on?
      • Thwarting the attack would require 'hacker tools'. Which are ILLEGAL in Germany.

        Reverse-engineering: dito. You'd actually end up in JAIL for this: usage of hacker tools.
        No wonder these tools were forbidden a while ago.

        Welcome to political morons of massive stupidity.

        Yes, I live in Germany.

        Ciao,
        Klaus

    • Will it become illegal to use an alternative operating system or antivirus software or even just common sense to deflect these payloads?

      yes. there was a story net a few says ago where a court ordered that the guy couldn't use anything other than windows because their monitering software only worked on it, he had ubuntu and apparently they didnt find a way to port the software. of course that doesnt prevent the guy from bypassing all that crap and using a live cd and installing linux again- the software o

      • Re:Fan-diddly-astic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hazem ( 472289 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:41PM (#20436527) Journal
        yes. there was a story net a few says ago where a court ordered that the guy couldn't use anything other than windows because their monitering software only worked on it,

        There is a huge difference. In the case you're referring to, the man was already convicted of a crime. A result of conviction is often a loss of certain liberties and rights. As a condition of his parole (which can be quite arbitrary on the part of the state) he can continue to use a computer provided it is with the monitoring software running - this is only possible with Windows. It's difficult to make a case that will stand up that the conditions are particularly onerous or truly cruel and unusual.

        On the other hand, this article is about a case where a government wants to send spy software to suspected criminals in the homes they can get useful information for a prosecution. I'm not familiar with German law, but if this were the US, it's probably okay for the government to do this. There are similar tactics that have not been thrown out, such as mailing a "you won a prize" envelope to a suspected murderer/rapist - which he then licked, leaving his DNA, and returned - thus giving the probable cause for an arrest and prosecution).

        The government can't yet compel someone to give up their DNA and I suspect that a similar logic would be applied to a person's choice of computer software - the government can't compel you to use a certain kind of software just to make it convenient to gather data to be used against you. We are all presumed innocent and they have to have probable cause merely to investigate. To actually compel you to give up rights (requiring you to run specific software) you need to have a conviction... or a law that applies to all of us.
        • the government can't compel you to use a certain kind of software just to make it convenient to gather data to be used against you

          I wonder.

          What about that story the other day about the torrent distributor who was ordered to keep his ram data because he wouldn't log IP addresses? He was apparently told to "Just turn on logging", he refused so they made an order for him to store his ram contents.

          Is "You must keep logs" all that much different from "You must run THIS operating system"

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ajdecon ( 233641 )
            Yes: the torrent distributor was involved in legal proceedings, currently in the discovery phase. This was a specific court order for the purposes of trying a particular case, rather than some blanket "Everyone must use Windows so we can spy on them!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cez ( 539085 )
      Interesting questions... How about would it be illegal to forward that Trojan to someone else unsuspecting so it's installed on their PC instead... or hell a disorderly conduct charge for running it on your PC and knowing its there...keeping the enforcement agency busy with a script to continuously peruse some Goatse and tubgirl links of course...

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
        Or forward it to 10,000 of your closest friends. After half the world's computers get infected, and we trace back the virus to the German government, we'll see how impressed the rest of the world is with them.
    • The question raised by LiquidCoooled of whether "thwarting the attack is illegal" is very interesting. Would such activity (i.e. deleting the trojan, altering the trojan's behavior or altering the messages it sends back) be considered something akin to evading arrest or fleeing the scene of a crime?

      Other questions that come to mind include:

      Will the German government call upon anti-virus makers to allow the Trojans to be inserted onto machines without a red flag being raised?

      Will the anti-virus companies go

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by nospam007 ( 722110 )
        Will the German government call upon anti-virus makers to allow the Trojans to be inserted onto machines without a red flag being raised?

        Will the anti-virus companies go along with such a request?

        --
        They already said they'd refuse.
    • And if the trojan is mistakenly mailed to a person not linked with terrorism and ruins their PC, can they sue the government for damage successfully?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbrutus ( 71639 )
        They would have about the same rights and chances for compensation as someone who lost their garden to an errant artillery shell
        • caused by an errant shell.

          Well in peace time anyway.

          I had a sister who lived in Lawton OK for a long time and a few random shells made way from the artillery range from time to time.

          That's why they fire duds. The damage is limited to a small diameter.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbrutus ( 71639 )
            Thank you for pointing out, at least indirectly, the problem with most of the commentary here. All the self-righteous protests assume we're at peace. We're not. We're in a type of war that's both new (cyberwar) and very old (pre-westphalian rules). It's going to get very, very ugly and a lot of institutions, including apparently the FRG government are confused as to what the new rules are.

    • Will it be illegal to thwart the attack?

      No more illegal than speaking Navajo over the phone to thwart eavesdroppers.

      Will it become illegal to use an alternative operating system or antivirus software or even just common sense to deflect these payloads?

      No more illegal than dumping the analog land line in favor of Skype.

      Let's analyse this from the classic wiretapping perspective everyone can relate to. I personally agree with wiretapping: it's a very good compromise between the the loss of liberty and privacy

  • Because if only she had understood what the proposal is about...

    I guess we need to wait for another generation to get into politics, the one that is currently growing up with computers.

    • I guess we need to wait for another generation to get into politics, the one that is currently growing up with computers.


      I don't know about Germany, but my generation grew up with computers. (I'm 35). And most of us seem to have almost no interest in politics.

    • I guess we need to wait for another generation to get into politics, the one that is currently growing up with computers.

      How is that going to help necessarily? The relative number of people who actually understand computers isn't going up. The current crop of high schoolers just uses (or attempts to use....) the things without the least understanding of the technical, societal, or political issues involved. If anything, they're even dumber. They put their whole lives on MySpace and Facebook for the

    • The problem is movies about computers. These movies depict cracking as easy as hitting a few keys.
      Passwords could be found on an alien system in like 10 minutes by trying,
      Viruses contain more graphical elements than 'useful' payload, etc.
  • So, what happens when one of these emails is undelivered and bounces back to the sender. The German government better have _very_ good email filtering.

  • Thanks for the heads up... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:12PM (#20436083)
    ...sincerely,

    The Terrorists.

  • Honeypot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:13PM (#20436093)
    Now wont the terrorists set up their own honeypots for these?

    I think it would be pretty cool to get a trojen written by the government, that sends data back to the government and is read by computers in the most secret government areas... imagine what terrorists could do if they find a bug in it?

    • I think it would be pretty cool to get a trojen written by the government, that sends data back to the government and is read by computers in the most secret government areas... imagine what terrorists could do if they find a bug in it?

      Like feed the government false info? Install back doors into government databases? Hit the servers that skim the data with DDOS attacks?

      Seems to me to be a good way to turn a law abiding citizen into an 'enemy combatant' in an instant, especially if they discover the tro

      • German Intelligence report:

        The information feed from our Trojan has started revealing new information in the last few days.
        Analysis of the terrorist communications reveals the ring leader is a man named Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, with his co-conspirators being an Omar Simpson, and a chemical weapons expert known only as "Professor" Frink. They have access to an unknown chemical or biological weapon referred to as a 'jumbo Squishee'. Their exact target is unknown yet, but is somewhere in northern Belgium.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arminw ( 717974 )
        ......especially if they discover the trojan and have their 12 year old kid hack it to feed the government bogus info........

        Why bother hacking it? Just use it to do all sorts of stuff to give the listeners at the other end fits. Get another computer for the real stuff. Computers are cheap these days. What's a few hundred to an oil funded terrorist?

  • Via e-mail? (Score:5, Funny)

    by peipas ( 809350 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:16PM (#20436105)
    The leader of your terrorist cell has sent you an e-card! Double-click the attachment to view it!

    [Attached: ecard.exe]

  • The German chancellor supports the measure despite considerable outcry from political opponents and rights groups.
    Just send them by the trainload to conce...err, Computer Camp. Bore them to death with "edutainment" software. Green blood and robots for all!

  • Email terror suspects and... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:19PM (#20436123)
    ...terror suspects will know they are being investigated.

    If I were a terrorist, or really any kind of nefarious criminal (because you just know there are foolish people salivating about doing the same to any criminal suspects) I would welcome this decision. If was a bad guy and I was worried that 'they' were on to me, receiving this trojan would be proof positive.

    And then I would take the opportunity to feed false information back to the people who sent me the trojan. Hooo boy, what a great way to make trouble for people I don't like, better than falsely reporting them to the IRS.
    • Maybe you overestimate how clever terrorists are. Just look at the next James Bond film: Terrorists are really clever there, but the law (James Bond) is just a bit more clever. Translated to reality, the police are not the brightest, and terrorists are slightly more stupid (if you look at their motivation, they are actually quite a lot more stupid).

      I don't have any doubt that a good hacking attack against terror suspects would succeed.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You understand that movies are not reality right? If anything, they're anti-reality. Stop letting Hollywood propaganda define your views.

        Real terrorists are smart and nasty, and often successful (the existence of Ireland and the USA itself being prime examples - terrorist/freedom-fighter forces overthrowing the brits).

        That said, the people the USA defines as "terrorists" usually aren't these days.

      • Sure, there are tons of stupid terrorists, the whole recent non-explosive 'car-bombs' in the UK is proof of that, as was Richard Reid and Jose Padilla and those guys who thought they could blow up JFK or the other ones in Florida who had no resources or training or even transportation but thought they could blow up some buildings in Chicago.

        But, this stuff works the same way it does with internet-hacking. Just think of all the dumb criminals as the equivalent of script-kiddies. It only takes one smart guy
        • But, this stuff works the same way it does with internet-hacking. Just think of all the dumb criminals as the equivalent of script-kiddies.

          Think of it as natural selection. At least sometimes in the history of humanity, Darwin deserves to be right.

    • Re:Email terror suspects and... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:02PM (#20436341) Homepage Journal
      If was a bad guy and I was worried that 'they' were on to me, receiving this trojan would be proof positive.

      Nah; it would just mean that you had a computer (presumably one running MS Windows ;-).

      Note that they want the right to send it to any "terror suspect". The word suspect means anyone at all. If challenged, all they have to say is that they suspect you of something. Or they suspect a relative of yours. Or someone you knew in college 20 years ago. Or someone three houses down the street. Or someone with a name vaguely like yours. Or they learned that an ancestor of yours five generations ago wasn't German.

      Such a law is really just a legal excuse to do nasty things to anyone at all, at any time.

      The fun thing in this case is that you just know that their software would be isolated, probably within a week, and would soon be available at warez sites everywhere, for anyone's own private use. Someone annoying you? Send them a trojan that would start reporting all your keystrokes to the police.

      • "Such a law is really just a legal excuse to do nasty things to anyone at all, at any time."

        Bingo. It's not about "them." It's about YOU. Do you honestly think that real terrorists plot via email? Do you believe that the Govt. believes that? Silly boy. None of this surveillance shit, the security cams in every two-horse burg, the taps on every single electronic communication, is about "terrorism." It's about controlling people who have been taught to think that their lives are in imminent danger from

  • Don't the real trsts know enough not to fall into this ?

    I mean there is people monitoring the net to prevent trsts actions. If they are feared in the sense that they could take important internet infrastructures down and cause considerable economic lost, would it be possible that they might have already learned to protect their data?

    I mean we aren't talking about getting into child prX0m amateur computers here.

    Do real big shot trsts run linux ? ;-)

  • Leave it to the Germans! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fishthegeek ( 943099 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:27PM (#20436155) Journal
    To come up with a way to distribute birth control so efficiently! This would never work in America though, it's difficult enough getting them out of that quarter machine that resides in the restroom at the gas station.

  • Also in other European countries (Score:4, Informative)

    by tonk ( 101504 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:40PM (#20436231) Homepage
    Papers that leaked from the German Federal Ministry of the Interior state that legal regulation allowing so called remote forensic searches exist
    - explicitly in Romania, Cypria, Latvia, Spain, and Switzerland,
    - implicitly in Slovenia,
    and that a similar approach to establish explicit allowance for remote forensic searches is ongoing in Sweden. At least readers in Sweden should contact their members of parliament and do some lobbyism. The current political discussion in Germany only got that public attention beacause some people started what they call nerd lobbyism.

    The German papers are available at http://netzpolitik.org/2007/bundesinnenministerium -beantwortet-fragen-zur-online-durchsuchung/ [netzpolitik.org]

    It is also noteworthy that an also leaked draft of a new law regarding German federal criminal police (c.f. CCC press release at http://www.ccc.de/updates/2007/bkaterror [www.ccc.de]) lists several other new or extended competencies.

    Criticism claims that Germany is on it's way to reinstate a secret police, with the last German incarnations being http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo [wikipedia.org].

  • How is this different? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:41PM (#20436237)
    How is this different from being allowed to tap someone's phone or plant a bug? As long as warrants are involved this sounds like the privacy law actually working since they aren't allowed to carry out any espionage that isn't specificially allowed by law.
    • Exactly. As long as a warrant is required, this is exactly comparable to phone intercepts or bugging a location or car. In the US, those have been legal for a long time, with proper warrants.

    • Re:How is this different? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rudolf ( 43885 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @08:15PM (#20436753)
      How is this different from being allowed to tap someone's phone or plant a bug? As long as warrants are involved [...]

      With a warrant you have court approval. This is being done because the court did not grant approval.

      From the summary:
      The action comes in response to a court denying prosecutors' requests to break into suspects' computers over the Internet.

      • With a warrant you have court approval. This is being done because the court did not grant approval


        I would rather say that the court did not grant approval because remote forensics is not in the law. Putting this into the law would enable courts to grant/deny approvals on merit grounds.

        Cheers

  • If it can be abused, it will be.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by budword ( 680846 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @06:42PM (#20436241)
    Next they will just email their super duper virus to child porn operators, then tax evaders, then jay walkers. As the DMCA and the Patriot Act have taught us, if it can be abused, it will. It's just human nature, or the nature of people who choose to work for the man, anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cliffski ( 65094 )
      the good old slippery slope argument. But hold on, if we give the right to the state to imprison murderers and rapists, next it will be tax evaders, next litterbugs, next it will be gays and black people!
      No system where you give strong powers to the state is perfect, for obvious reasons, but I'm glad the state can lock people up, given due process, fair trials etc. I'm also glad the state has people with guns to shoot the *bad guys* and that it has wire tapping tech to find out what the *bad guys* are plann
  • There is no doubt in my mind that the ethics of this law are in favor of the government.

    The REAL issue here is not whether the government should be allowed to do it. The dilemma is how these terror suspects are sorted out and what it takes to be a terror suspect.
  • This seems like a rather lame, feel good proposal. "Emailing spyware" and having it be a success is a lot more complicated than it sounds.

    This assumes a lot. I'm pretty sure most stuff emailed this way would be utterly foiled by someone who uses Mail.app, mutt, elm, pine, Mailwasher Pro, or even Thunderbird. If the email is successful as a law enforcement trool, black hat criminal organizations will be going head over heels to get a copy so they can disassemble it, and use it for their own schemes.
    • I'm so tangled in the multiple layers of paradox I can't get out.

      If this is "secret" spyware, then it's fair game for the terrorists to ... send back to spy on the government!!

      I'm dying to see a fiction treatment of the top German Govt hacker vs. the top Terrorist hacker. Given the ridiculous layers of influence both command, that would be a knockout.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rts008 ( 812749 )
        Uhmmm...How 'bout an old computer game?

        (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_vs._Spy_(compute r_game))
  • looks like linux distros may find a new group of users to reach.... terrorists who don't want to get government virusses on their computer

  • Next headlines: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Arancaytar ( 966377 ) <arancaytar.ilyaran@gmail.com> on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:20PM (#20436421) Homepage
    Entire IP range used by governmental mail servers now blacklisted by most email filters.

    And I was half hoping it would finally grow out of fashion to be ashamed of this country now that the US was setting the world standard in pulling all this crap. Premature hope, apparently.
    • Nope.
      Bushism #insert#: "The terrorists find new ways to harm our country and so do we."
      Does that answer your question?
  • If the Germans were able to do this to the terrorists that burnt down the Reichstag Building they might have saved millions of lives...

    oh, wait...
    • It really is a pity if the terror comes from within the government. Fortunately these time are over... well, nevermind.

  • You've got a friend! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:21PM (#20436425)
    "You've got a friend! OsamaBL wants to add you to his friendslist, Cancel or Allow?"

  • I expect its already being done (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cdn-programmer ( 468978 ) <(ten.cigolarret) (ta) (rret)> on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:21PM (#20436429)
    I expect this is already being done. The only issue really is how to bring anything found into court.

    Non-Germans would be expected to have no rights in a German court of law. Non-Americans have little rights in an American Court of law. This means it is legal for one country's law enforcement personnel to spy on non-citzens ...and then trade data with the said country's law enforcement personnel.

    The thing is how a German citizen living in Germany would be taken into court in Germany.... Similarly, how would an American Citizen be taken into court in America? If the said individual lives outside of his own country then perhaps its a bit easier...

    Nevertheless, our authorities have been spying on everyone for decades.

    I think all this really boils down to is what is admissible in a court of law. I doubt it will have any effect on what our spies actually do on a day to day basis.
    • Yep, the government has most likely been doing this for years. Or something like it. The difference now being that surveillance has become more high profile and, as you mentioned, governments are now trying to justify this stuff to use it in court.

      Bear in mind that I am not suggesting these things are OK, just that I believe they are nothing new.

      I would hope the Germans have people who can come up with something better than emailing viruses to suspects. Heck, I would hope we (in the USA) have people smar

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Knuckles ( 8964 )
      Non-Germans would be expected to have no rights in a German court of law.

      No, with a few exceptions, all human beings have the same rights in a German, or really any European, court of law.

      Non-Americans have little rights in an American Court of law.

      I don't think so, I'd expect more or less the same.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by techno-vampire ( 666512 )
      Non-Americans have little rights in an American Court of law.

      Actually, that's not true. The Bill of Rights applies to all persons living in the USA, even undocumented aliens. They have the same right to a fair and impartial trial, the same right to confront their accuser, the same right to counsel and so on. Not just in theory, but in practice, too. (Except for impartial trials, because that's not always easy to enforce, and partiality can't always be proven. But the courts do try to be as fair as t

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Ignoring for the moment their clearly idiotic beliefs, just how stupid are terror suspects? Do they open random attachments? Do they use Outlook? Don't they run AV software that can detect rootkits regularly?

    Well, okay, the recent attacks in the UK looked like amature night, but surely the first thing in the Al-Quaida Computers for Terrorism and Jihad manual (after the bit about how they are the creation of infidels and how you mustn't look at porn on the internet if you want your 76 virgins) is "don't open
  • AV companies around the world are going to add the signatures to their lists. Are antivirus applications going to be banned then? I wouldn't be surprised, considering that other moronic law in regards to security/hacking tools.

    • Re:1A Plan, really! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @08:43PM (#20436965)
      You'll have a hard time getting that through.

      The German government could technically issue a "please do not find" letter. Now, I know a few people with a few AV labs and such a letter would most likely be met (inofficially) immediately with a shady tool on a shady page finding exactly this trojan and nothing else.

      But let's just for a moment assume that this won't happen. Instead, KAV gives the German government the finger, citing the "Russia is big, the Czar is far" proverb. Avira would most likely be forced to comply, sitting in Germany, so would probably some other EU-based AV vendors.

      They would, though, immediately go to Den Hague and sue for unfair trade disadvantages due to the laws in one member country.

      AV writers tend to be a zealous lot. If you think the EFF is hard on GPL violations, you've never seen AV fanatics meet malware proponents.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      I don't think so. F-secure found the Sony rootkit and had discussions with Sony for a long time before anything happened (and someone else took steps). Blocking a government Trojan would have even greater consequences so the antivirus companies would most likely leave it alone - even if it was from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or China.

  • There is still a chance... (Score:5, Informative)

    by zeromorph ( 1009305 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @07:49PM (#20436571)

    ...that the Trojan won't actually be realized. (BBC) [bbc.co.uk]:

    Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, of the Social Democrats (SPD), has voiced concern about the spyware plans, saying they might infringe privacy laws,...

    But that depends on a lot of factors. Germany's biggest hacker organization [wikipedia.org] the Chao Computer Club [www.ccc.de] and others are very effectively campaigning [wikipedia.org] against this plans.

    In recent news [heise.de] (only german, sorry) the federal police states that it won't be a trojan but what they call "remote forensic software" which they intend to install on the terrorists' computer manually. More like a software version of a bug (in the covert listening device sense).

  • Subject (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @08:04PM (#20436657)
    So what are they going to title the e-mail? I mean, they'll have to be really clever, to make sure the terrorists actually open it:

    "dude! you'll never believe what Osama said"
    "wow, I can't believe you haven't blown yourself up yet"
    "this video has your 72 virgins in it!"

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by 6Yankee ( 597075 )
      "this video has your 72 virgins in it!"

      The promise of 72 virgins is a powerful motivator, but nowhere does it say they won't all be male Slashdotters.
  • As a number of posters have pointed out, this is hardly feasible. The proposed "Bundestrojaner" (federal trojan) legislation is most likely unconstitutional and has been struck down in one federal state already for exactly that reason. (Large parts of) The social democratic coalition partner SPD and the opposition as well as civil rights groups and trade associations deny the need for such practices and question that it would be in any way reconcilable with the constitution.

    The proposition is part of a mu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cpghost ( 719344 )

      Most other parts of the BKA bill would have caused hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens hit the streets some 15 or 20 years ago, but go largely unnoticed because of the Bundestrojaner smoke grenade. (And the claim that whoever opposes the bill will have to take the responsibility for the victims of coming terrorist attacks.)

      Yes, indeed. But that's not the only reason, neither is it limited to Germany. In all western countries, people have grown very passive w.r.t. increased government surveillian

  • Anti-hacking law? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dmclap ( 1103635 )
    Didn't Germany recently pass a law banning most "hacking" tools, and by extension, most tools that can be used to detect and defeat hacking? And if so, could these be related? I sincerely hope not, since if so, someone (or multiple persons) in the German government is outclassing the Bush administration in asshole terrorism laws. Suspected of terrorism? Get a trojan. Try to detect/remove the trojan? Break the law and get sent to jail anyway!

    Yes, I know that it can be a stretch to say that no hackin

  • "terror suspects" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @09:50PM (#20437309) Homepage Journal
    Ya, that label will never be abused.

  • So they have developed Time-Travel Email? (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrSteveSD ( 801820 ) on Saturday September 01, 2007 @09:53PM (#20437323)
    I thought the Trojans were wiped out long ago.
  • In a recent move, Angela Merkel has forced an amendment to the liberty laws through Der Bundestag. It is from now on prohibited to use any operating system that is non-trivial to break into.
    German police have started to do house-to-house searches of Internet users reported to be not hackable by the Security Services (SS) of the Federal Government. First images can be seen on http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9db_1178813405 [liveleak.com]

    More action is to follow soon, the Minister of Information of the Federal Government, who

  • This is ludicrous, no this is Germany!!!!!
  • Emailing the Trojans? At first I said "Bernie,", I said, "that can't be right, they'll never accept the messages, they don't even have SMTP servers in those days!", but then I realized they're so crazy, they'd accept anything, even a giant wooden horse if somebody ever built one!
  • ... and in the next move, Google and Yahoo will be forced to shut down their mail filtering capabilities in order to expediate the delivery of trojaned mails to Tora Bora.

    "Intelligence is constant. Only the number of humans increases." Rapidly, as we can make out.
  • German gov't PCs hacked; China offers to investigate — Trojan horse programs were found on a number of computers

    Quote [computerworld.com](August 27, 2007):"Security experts from Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Federal Data Protection Office discovered Trojan horse programs in computers used in several government ministries, including the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Economics and the Research and Development Ministry, as well as Merkel's office, Der Spiegel reported."

    *grins diaboli

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