Germany proposes hacker law update
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Fear of a Black Hat The German government this week published proposals to modernise the country's computer hacking laws.â¦
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Moves by several European countries to tighten laws against computer hacking are concerning security professionals, who often use the same tools as hackers.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on  Friday that Germany must allow security services to use the  Internet to track terrorist suspects&#39; online movements.
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(InfoWorld) - New legislation proposed by the German government aims to makeÂ computer hackingÂ a punishable crime. The draft law, announced Wednesday, defines hacking as penetrating a computer security system and gaining access to secure data, without necessarily stealing data. As part of the draft, groups that intentionally create, spread or purchase hacker tools designed for illegal purposes could be punished by law, the Federal Ministry of Justice said in a statement. OtherÂ punishable cybercrimesÂ include denial-of-service attacks and computer sabotage attack on individuals, which would extend the existing law that limited sabotage to businesses and public authorities. Offenders could face up to 10 years in prison for major offenses. Although Germany already has a comprehensive penal law against attacks on IT systems, the proposed revision aims to close any remaining loopholes, the ministry said. Some security experts warn, however, that "good" hackers, also known as "white hats" who work for security companies, could be restricted in their ability to help software makers and businesses as a result of the proposed law. If hackers can't share their tools with the public, "white hats will not be able to get them and use them internally for testing or external security consultants won't be able to do security testing," a hacker, known by the pseudonym van Hauser, wrote in an e-mail. "It's a win-lose law in favor for the bad guys." Van Hauser is president of The Hacker's Choice, a noncommercial group of security experts.
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A new hacking method is causing concern for the lengths it goes to avoid detection by security software and researchers.
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Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a bill that would make companies liable when hackers breach their security systems and steal credit card data and other precious information, state officials said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - Germany will store digital fingerprints in addition to digital photos in passports as one of several biometric security measures planned toÂ fight organized crime and international terrorism. All new passports issued from November will store two digital fingerprints in an embedded chip, which, since 2005, includes a digital photo, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior said Friday. While fingerprints will be stored exclusively in passport chips, photos will continue to be saved additionally in databases of local authorities. A new amendment gives police and other authorized government officials online access to these databases. Unlike several other countries in Europe and abroad, Germany has no central database for photos or fingerprints of all citizens or for registered foreigners living in the country, and currently lacks plans to establish one, according to a ministry spokeswoman. Centralized data, including photos and fingerprints, exists only for people registered with the police for criminal activity, and for applicants for German visas. Only readers equipped with a new cryptographic protocol can read the passports including both photos and fingerprints. The Extended Access Control system connects the chip and the reader by establishing a secure communications channel over a distance of 10 centimeters to 20 centimeters. Moves by the German government to digitize increased levels of personal data and link databases among authorities have led to an outcry by some groups, including federal and state data privacy commissioners. At a meeting in DÃ¼sseldorf on Friday, the commissioners criticized the government's programs that amass personal data, including telephone records, and its plans to give greater power to police officials to monitor terrorists and other criminals online by allowing them to hack into computers. In 2008, the German government plans new ID cards for all citizens with the same biometric features, according to the spokeswoman. "There are three primary reasons to issue biometric ID cards: to avoid false IDs, strengthen the identification process and also offer an authorization possibility for services such as online purchases," she said. By 2010, Germany hopes to have a new central database containing core data about each citizen and registered inhabitant of the country, according to the spokeswoman. The data includes name, birthday and address but will not contain a photo or fingerprints, she said. In February, the government passed a law allowing security officials in the country to create theÂ largest and most comprehensive pool of personal dataÂ ever amassed in the country. The databases of nearly 40 different agencies, including the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), are now being linked to allow authorities to run searches on suspected individuals and retrieve information within minutes. An expanded index file is being created for suspected terrorists. The file will contain the person's name, bank account number, telephone number, e-mail address, driver's license information and other data, including the names of companies, organizations and other parties associated with the person and linked to terrorist groups. Since the start of this week, law enforcement officials in Germany and Austria have electronic access to each other's criminal fingerprint databases. Since 2006, the countries have shared their DNA databases as one of several measures agreed by some European Union nations under the Treaty of PrÃ¼m in 2005. Â
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Germany's president says a new law allowing for hijacked airliners to be shot down may violate the constitution.
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A decision Monday by the German Federal High Court renders it illegal in that country -â for now -â for police and intelligence services to use clandestine tools such as Trojan horse routines, or what would normally be categorized as malware, for use in surveillance on federal suspects.  But that ruling could actually launch a new law that makes such surveillance viable.
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As mentioned by the Zend Developer Zone, Ed Finkler has posted the latest version of his Inspekt security tool.   Although downloads have been on the Google Code site for a bit, I recently put up a new build of Inspekt. This could probably be described as a late alpha release, with most proposed features implemented.   Also included in this new edition are full API documentation for the application, some documentation on its basic usage and, of course, the source of this latest release.
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A few of my previous columns discussed my vision of creating a more secure Internet. It involved replacing the Internet's default anonymity with pervasive authentication, from the hardware initialization, through the OS and all applications, the user, and ending with a verifiable network stream. It is my strong belief that without a complete overhaul of default authentication, malicious hacking is going to continue indefinitely.
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Hacking contest renews the debate over 'responsible disclosure' of system holes.
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Activists and computer programmers Wednesday demonstrated what they said were flaws with electronic voting machines that could allow hackers to change vote outcomes Nov. 2. They recommended new procedures for states and counties to put in place before Election Day.
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We have ways of hearing you talk German cops are pushing ahead with controversial plans, yet to be legally approved, to develop "remote forensic software" - in other words, a law enforcement Trojan.â¦
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Federal Trojan for 'online searches' Analysis Germany's police and secret services are pushing for a legal basis for "online house searches" â carried out without the knowledge of suspects, using spyware similar to a Trojan.â¦
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Dear Sir, you personal data has been made public... The European Commission has published proposals for a law change that would force telecoms firms to notify regulators and customers of all breaches of their data security.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - GoogleÂ is unhappy with proposed German legislation to ban anonymous e-mail accounts and may consider dropping the German version of its Gmail service. "This whole initiative is a bad idea," a spokesman for Google in Germany said Monday. The draft bill would require ISPs (Internet service providers) and providers of e-mail service to collect and store customer data that security officials could access if necessary. In an interview with the German weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer was quoted saying that if the German government passes its proposed Internet surveillance legislation into law, "if need be, we will switch off Google Mail in Germany." Fleischer could not be reached and the Google spokesman declined to comment on Fleischer's statement about possibly switching off Gmail in Germany. In the interview, Fleischer urged the German government to drop its plans and warned that a German scheme to monitor e-mail was pointless, given that users could easily turn to foreign e-mail addresses.