Re: Standing Up Against German Laws - Project HayNeedle

[Frank Guthausen <fg-bugtraq () nsv-server de>]

Hello.

On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 04:38:39PM -0500, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:07:02 PST, johan beisser said:
> > The logs don't contain  context, just who/where/when. While
> > encryption will prevent (one  hopes) the capability of recovering
> > context, who you talked to is not  kept private or otherwise secret.
>
> It's probably a good idea to deploy encryption *now*, and use it for
> *everything*, and be ready for when (not if) they decide to be more
> draconian in their logging requirements.

AFAIR the German situation is as follows:

Any German email provider having more than 1000 customers has to provide
a method for giving government access to the mailbox including the
ability to read the content. Access should be controlled by judges. If
there are more than 10000 customers it has to be done with hardware, so
called sina boxes. Even if there is not a precise definition of customer
(person, company, contract) it is quite clear that the law has got an
impact on users of t-online, web.de, GMX, Freenet and others.

This law started Jan 1st, 2005.

The data retention law is a possibility to analyze social networks even
if email is encrypted. There are other purposes, too.

regards
Frank