
German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA - mattjaynes
http://www.dw.de/german-intelligence-agency-halts-internet-monitoring-for-nsa/a-18435768
======
thesimon
German 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-
wei...](http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bnd-kann-daten-weitergabe-
an-nsa-nicht-rekonstruieren-a-1032596.html)

~~~
spacefight
Over VPN - but is that key exchange safe? Is that proprietary crypto system in
use at $diplomacy backdoored with a weak RNG?

------
cryoshon
Good, 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.

~~~
DamnYuppie
While 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
"Being safe" does not matter as much as "having power" does.

~~~
MrZongle2
Well, 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...

------
PythonicAlpha
The 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
There 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
Are 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
No, 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
I guess, they have to much to do, spying on people.

~~~
madez
And we want them to spy on some people. But supervised and controlled by the
parliament.

------
junto
Right 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.

------
urlwolf
Happy to hear this, as an expat living in Berlin and being very concerned with
the current NSA situation.

~~~
odiroot
Same 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.

~~~
aw3c2
I 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
It's behind a tall fence. You'd probably be in a bigger trouble for
trespassing.

------
higherpurpose
Now on to UK, Sweden, Spain, France, etc to make them do the same.

------
PythonicAlpha
Newest 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...](http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/NSA-Ausschuss-BND-hat-Liste-
brenzliger-Ausspaehziele-geloescht-2638435.html)

~~~
revelation
This 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.)

------
valevk
Yeah, just because it's a major topic in German media...

