Angela Merkel: Let US spies keep their internet. The EU will build its own German Chancellor Angela Merkel has lent her support to the idea of building out new European data networks to help keep Europeans' email and other data out of the hands of US spies. In the latest edition of her weekly podcast on Saturday, Merkel said she planned to raise the issue among other topics in a meeting with French …
Dear Sir,
OK, building that non-US data network is not too difficult. One could easily use Huawei from eh China to put that together. London (TfL) has good experience with using Huawei, so that must be no issue to use their experience Europe-wide.
Services on top of that may need programming and orchestration, but we'll get to that, for sure.
How does this EWW interface with the WWW? Everything the EWW will be liable to snooping by some non-EU government organization, I suppose.
And of course since China is now knowingly holding much of the switching and routing equipment in the EWW, and since China is the biggest world economy by the time this EWW is built, they will eh implement the ehm exact same type of ehm patriotic laws that the eh USofA implemented.
So really, nothing to gain, but billions to lose to a ehm non-EU business where the EU is not really getting any benefit at all...
Now, there's something new! Oh well: It's IT: Every ten years we re-invent the same thing under a different name... How clever, especially since we do it in such a way that nobody really ever catches on... Aren't we smart?
Regards,
Guus
I don't think it's fair to blame china in the same sentence where they are all naked.
But there is a losing battle we must fight is tell the truth that Internet or any of its fork (US/EU/RED) was never about personal sharing (likes/banking, anything you name).
If you still want, whispering is still better than tweets.
Any EU data network that includes Britain will automatically be plugged into the US spy system via the 5 Eyes agreement.
To be cynical, I'd paraphrase Angela as saying 'How dare the US spy on our citizens? We can do that for ourselves!'
Over the last decade the cold, dead hand of government has been slowly closing over the internet. This is just another brick in the wall.
Gold medal.
German citizens and residents are even more protected from domestic spying than US citizens. They are protected by laws put in place by the legislature they elected.
German citizens and residents have no legal protections from US spying because the US courts do not recognize foreigners as human beings with human rights.
'German citizens and residents are even more protected from domestic spying than US citizens. They are protected by laws put in place by the legislature they elected.' - what actually happens to German citizens privacy is so far from the legislation that using the words 'they are protected' makes you seem utterly laughably naive. No offence but all our Governments security services don't give a shit about what 'protections' we may theoretically have... can't say who I am sadly.
But she obviously does have something to hide, because her phone was tapped by the NSA/GCHQ.
And as has been made plain repeatedly, it's all about terrorism, the spooks are not interested in reading your emails or mine, or conducting corporate espionage.
So the only logical conclusion is that they suspect Merkel of creating bombs on her kitchen table or some other underhand activity to forward the cause of jihad.
Then again, it might be that we've been lied to....
Don't downvote the cap'n before reading the whole post, folks ;)
Of course it's ALL LIES. There is no significant terror threat. There is a threat of losing control over the crowds. Which is significantly more dangerours. Therefore the crowds have to be kept in check and VERY AFRAID. Afraid of terror of course, and since that fails to work: afraid of being destroyed for stating political opinions online, arrested by help of planted evidence, publicly shamed, convicted of thoughtcrime…
Uhh, is it just me, or is she not suggesting that networks be *added to the existing internet* in a way that prevents intra-EU traffic from having to transit the US? I'm not sure why that would be the case as it is, but stranger things have happened; at any rate, she explicitly does not seem to be saying that she wants Europe to build a network that's air-gapped from the rest of the world. Justified or not, the logistics and costs involved that would be absurdly high - not to mention the practical necessity for access to the wider internet to be effectively banned lest it create unintentional (or intentional) links from the evil US spies to the pure-as-driven-snow, scrupulously-law-abiding spies in the UK, France, Germany, etc...
"Uhh, is it just me, or [...] she explicitly does not seem to be saying that she wants Europe to build a network that's air-gapped from the rest of the world."
I read it as "As long as we're using US services at the other end of the wire, we are routed through the NSA. The solution is to get our our arses and create some European service providers who would be based in Europe (so no traffic passing over foreign wires) and subject to EU law (so it would be GCHQ doing the snooping, which is presumably OK)".
Possibly still a flawed plan, but not entirely ridiculous. It certainly *is* ridiculous to expect privacy if you are talking to someone based abroad who is obliged by their local law to spill the beans on your conversation. Apparently the EU leaders have finally woken up to this.
There would be the 'EU except UK' segment of the internet with 'EU except UK' controlled equipment.
It would have its own internal mail servers and DNS that people could choose to use, or not. They would be under the care custody and control of people with EU-only citizenship.
Then there would be an interface to the rest of the WWW where the undersea cables connect to the UK, Africa, and the overland cables connect to Asia.
It would be as if the EU was Microsoft, Apple, GM, or IBM headquarters. An internal network interfaced with an external network.
Backbone: Laser Semaphores
Last Mile: Talking Drums
both Enigma cyphered.
High latency but safe.
Movie streaming might suffer but we are talking safe communication not Entertainment.
Jobs for sub saharan people ...
Must meet noise pollution regulations like airports.
So, no nightly e-mails from the Boss...
Just perfect ...
Most ISPs in Germany peer with each other, so e-mail hardly ever leaves the country....
However Deutsche Telekom rarely peers, which means that packets from one German ISP to Deutsche Telekom can well go through other countries or at least foreign providers.
Obviously this is just some ploy to shift more money to that company. It'll do absolutely nothing against foreign or domestic secret services.
If she is replacing the network then the protocols should be thrown out with the baby as well. Some fundamental tracking flaws in IPv4, and IPv6 has tracking built in even better built in. But IPv6 does have IPsec end-2-end encryption built in (HMAC-SHA1,TripleDES-CBC, AES-CBC). And if you are going to throw away the network and protocols then you may as well throw away the US endorsed encryption algorithms as well. And then there is the issue of trusting all the microchips involved, you would have to ban all US produced microchips, CPU/RAM/NIC/Storage. Yes sound like a great idea that would produce a lot of extra manufacturing for china - the factory country.
I totally agree that IP protocols need a huge overhaul and I share you wish that that would happen.
I suspect she is really suggesting something more minor, at least for Phases I and II.
- ISPs with no board of US citizens liaising to process surveillance requests, as is mandated by the USA for undersea cable connections in Asia (the connections not routed through the UK).
- Hopefully a requirement of EU citizenship (or only non-UK EU citizenship) for technicians working on the EU's internet backbone.
- Either routing tables that mandate sticking to intra-EU pathways where possible, or an NAT router between the non-UK EU and the rest of the world.
The US uses Chinese microchips in military equipment including Air Force One. I don't see a need for the EU to be even more paranoid than the USA.
But I would not be surprised to see EU designed electronics components used all over the world by African and Asian countries seeking privacy from the US, Five Eyes, Russia and China.
It is bollocks to think you can build a Made in $COUNTRY_OF_YOUR_CHOICE product any more...
I have some Cisco gear here. Cisco is American right? Well not this stuff.... The main development team is in Norway, the products are made in Poland. Some specialised software for it is developed in Germany and it runs u-boot and Linux (which come from everywhere). The CPUs are designed in USA using IP cores and ASIC development software from USA, UK, Europe and elsewhere. Other chips come from everywhere as does the various development tools used for the software.
We all know that software can be back-doored, but it is becoming increasingly viable to back-door silicon. Intel, Qualcomm or whomever are in less control of their chip-building than they ever were. Gone are the days of the 8080 when the whole device was taped out at the transistor level. Now they are designed by software using bought in IP cores. Nobody really knows what's deep inside that ethernet controller IP, or whether the ASIC design software is "linking in" some naughty stuff - Stuxnet style. These days the cores are getting more and more intellignet. Ethernet controllers can have embedded smarts and have have full access to the system bus. It would be trivial to insert something into an Ethernet controller IP core that allows full r/w access to a computer's RAM, and hence full access to the running OS. Send it a magic packet and you own the computer.
Most of these IP cores and ASIC design software come from places with some bad history for spying: USA, UK, Isreal...
If the Germans (becuase that's what the EU really is) want a fully trusted system, it will have to be designed from the foundations up using trusted German engineering. One mole and it all goes to hell.
The bottom line is that there are so many potential vectors that thinking you can slam down an EU (or USA, UK, or whatever) ring of steel is naive. Makes for good politcs in front of the Great Unwashed though.
Lieber Richard,
last time I looked... 20 years ago now... the German electronics industry was already sold out to Japan! Today, Fujitsu-Siemens still supplies truck loads of kit branded Fujitsu or Siemens depending upon the sensitivities of the local markets they peddle into. ....And Hitachi Data Systems took over the German storage manufacture when I was a young lad.
The don't forget that all encryption e-proms used by US firms are manufactured by just one interesting US company, that has share holding in it from each of its 'customers' and the US Govt. The company is listed on Wall St. and very interestingly grows very fast without every turning any significant profit, not mainly organically but by buying up every new player on the block... more than ten a year when I was watching them a decade ago. try getting a software only encryption methodology accepted into a market place where you exclude the US... the doors will slam in your face faster than you can duck the next bullet. Try Eriksohns, even. Start talking to them with something interesting that they like.. the moment a senior manager lets on to their GE shareholders the drawbridge will go up. Grinaker Technologies in RSA... same story. Five Eyes? try the whole OECD.. just for starters.
Merkal has the right idea.
She is not doing anything to the EU's internet that the USA hasn't already tried to do, but she is doing it from the point of view of protecting EU residents rather than spying on them wholesale.
Siemens or some other EU country can make the equipment, no problem there.
And then you interface the EWW to the USWW and UKWWW through an NAT firewall.
The technical challenges are trivial.
True that you can never stop spying 100%, but you can make it difficult enough that the spying must be targeted rather than mass.
True that you can never stop spying 100%, but you can make it difficult enough that the spying must be targeted rather than mass.
And while it is true that EU nations and the EU itself will still spy (obtain wiretaps) on their own residents, those wiretaps will be subject to EU human rights legislation, legislation passed by various the elected parliaments of various EU nations -- rather than non-leglislation passed by some imperial power somewhere elected by its alien populace.
US human rights legislation does not recognize non-US persons as humans. We foreigners have no human rights protections under their law.
If this Euro-internet were ever built, why bring in Huawei gear? That's at least as likely to be backdoored as American gear. How much of this could be built with marginally European gear from Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent?
Stop it with the "U.S. law doesn't recognize people outside the U.S. as humans" hyperbole. The U.S. doesnt assign cobstituional rights to people outside the U.S., but then as an American not living in the EU, I don't have any privacy laws protecting me from snooping by varios EU-based sigint agencies.
Unfortunately, even if such a network could be built, you still have large U.S. SigInt capabilities attached to our embassies in the EU. Our Berlin embassy is apparently a famous for having an NSA facility on-site. So there will still be some NSA spooks on the Euro-'net.
just silly willy waving to please some sections of the electorate going " we dont need no stinkin NSA spies"
Yeah with our EU only internet, you'll need special permission to connect outside the EU..... and guess which companies would like that... yupp all those US media companies with their region locking, and you'll be able to block access to pirate bay et al.... finally of course, you'll get spied on anyway since the French, Germans, Italians, Swiss, russians, chinese all admit or have been found doing it anyway.
Well, it's not like she can play the race card like Obambi. Are there more elections due in Germany? Oh, and for all those bleating on about excluding the UK from the EWW (AKA, das Internet fur die Volk) I think you'll find that might run into a few EU hurdles. And as for excluding Brits from working on it, apart from the breach of EU employment law, it would hardly be necessary given the massive levels of corruption endemic in Europe. The question with such an EU-led project would be who WASN'T bribing their way in! Merkel is just making soundbites. Even if she did manage to create some form of European Great Firewall, it's pointless unless she wants to rip out all the existing telecoms kit across Europe which the NSA and GCHQ have already (allegedly) p0wned. And what about US companies in Europe that open VPN tunnels back to the US and therefore provide plenty of access pipes for the NSA to stroll in through? The woman has no clue on tech, as already demonstrated with her daft insistence on mothballing all the German nuke power stations, just as long as she can score some political points.
Well let's examine this a bit:
"The woman has no clue on tech, as already demonstrated with her daft insistence on mothballing all the German nuke power stations, just as long as she can score some political points."
A PhD in physics with a thesis regarding nuclear decay (including some quantum mechanics).
"Even if she did manage to create some form of European Great Firewall, it's pointless unless she wants to rip out all the existing telecoms kit across Europe which the NSA and GCHQ have already (allegedly) p0wned."
Germany plans to upgrade its networks, see e.g. here: http://www.telekom.de/netz-der-zukunft and here: http://www.initiatived21.de/portfolio/deutsche-breitbandinitiative/
The networks are not deemed efficient enough for new types of services.
"And what about US companies in Europe that open VPN tunnels back to the US and therefore provide plenty of access pipes for the NSA to stroll in through?"
The idea was not to have a completely separated network. The idea was to have the traffic and the data under European jurisdiction so as to require the service providers to secure them properly against "strolling in".
"Oh, and for all those bleating on about excluding the UK from the EWW (AKA, das Internet fur die Volk) I think you'll find that might run into a few EU hurdles. And as for excluding Brits from working on it, apart from the breach of EU employment law, it would hardly be necessary given the massive levels of corruption endemic in Europe."
Where is this "bleating" going on? At least not in the podcast referred to. Or are you referring to the UK referendum? The general consensus on this in the German press has been that it is preferred that the UK stays ...
"Are there more elections due in Germany?"
No, just the elections for the European parliament. And the German public has been rather less sensitive to the issue. The pirate party tried to bring it up in the general election and did not get much traction because most assumed that data retention laws were in place anyway (the constitutional court revoked these).
".....A PhD in physics with a thesis regarding nuclear decay (including some quantum mechanics)...." Wrong, she is actually a chemist, not a physicist, and her extensive experience working in the power industry is.... Oh, she hasn't! She did work for the former East German Communist government as a spokesperson, but nothing to do with either power generation or nuke physics. In fact, she has done SFA other than be another vote-chasing, opportunistic, European politician. She used the Fukishima event in a cynical attempt to reduce the impact the Greens were having:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/merkel-and-nuclear-energy-defeated-in-german-state-election-green-party-gains-53687.html
Even funnier, one of the biggest critics of her plans to shut down the German nuke stations are the Greens, because Merkel was forced to backdown on her stupid claim that wind power could replace the lost generating power. Instead, she will have to use more coal-fired stations, guaranteeing more pollution! And that's even before she had to admit her party had not correctly calculated the cost of the additional distribution network required for all those coal-fired power stations.
Merkel is the German Blair - saying whatever she thinks will get the audience of the day to vote for her. She has jumped on the anti-Yank sentiment of recent years in an attempt to garner votes, nothing more.
Personally I'm not concerned with whether Merkel fiddled with physics or chemistry (bit of both apparently), it doesn't mean that she understands the innerned anyway. However, there does seem to be value in parts of those policies. If the amount of traffic (e.g. for inner-German email providers) that leaves (1) Germany and then (2) Europe can be reduced, that'll make it harder to intercept and even more of an affront when someone's caught red handed.
And as for compromised nodes, Germans tend to be thorough and they'll certainly see what can be done, longer-term not necessarily just in Germany (hell, there were significant German investments in the Czech Republic to reduce the amount of chemicals Czech companies released into e.g. the river Elbe a few decades ago, why not help out with secure networking infrastructure). While it's obviously impossible to attain complete security, it's certainly possible to make it harder/more expensive for an attacker.
I'm neither a big fan of Merkel nor of the nuclear exit that's being performed. However:
> In fact, she has done SFA other than be another vote-chasing, opportunistic, European politician. She used the Fukishima event in a cynical attempt to reduce the impact the Greens were having: ...
What she has done is reacted to the vast protests and overwhelming public opinion (which in large parts had been there well before Fukushima). Yes, presumably largely to ensure she stays in power and prevent the Greens taking a massive surge in votes. Not sure what's wrong with bending to voter's will. Looks almost like a functioning democracy.
It seems a pretty decent feature of German democracy that thanks to proportional representation small parties can and do effect the way things are going, sadly for the Greens in this case Merkel managed to neuter them by embracing one key aspect of their policies. Looks similar to what Gerhard Schroeder did when he realized that participating in an attack on Iraq would be the end of his days in power. Germans are certainly chuffed they had no part in "hmmm-now-where-are-the-WMDs?"
"...... I'm not concerned with whether Merkel fiddled with physics or chemistry...." But you tried to claim she had a good understanding of nuke power and electricity generation because you tried to claim she was a nuke physicist. And she has never worked in the power generation industry nor held a post in any government related to power generation. Fail on your part! Try actually reading a bit of background for some evidence to backup your claims before you bleat them, mmmkay?
".....And as for compromised nodes, Germans tend to be thorough...." Er, so what about Merkel's phone then? Didn't you need Snowdope to tell you about that? And I notice das Volk are getting a bit shirty about a suspected coms interception unit on the British Embassy roof in Berlin - surely if you're so 'thorough' you have nothing to worry about? And it's not like the GCHQ seem to have p0wned all your coms anyway - oh, but Snowdope said they did! Oops, looks like your thorough Germanic efficiency is just as big a load of cobblers as the rest of your post!
".....What she has done is reacted to the vast protests and overwhelming public opinion (which in large parts had been there well before Fukushima)..... Not sure what's wrong with bending to voter's will. Looks almost like a functioning democracy....." You are being simply too obtuse for words. Firstly, politicians are not there to just do what the voters want but what is actually best for the country. Often the two differ and the measures needed are unpopular with voters, but they will forgive a politician if they realise they are honestly doing what they think is best (or deselect them if they think they are not). If you ask anyone 'do you want to pay less taxes' and 'would it be nice to retain the current level of social services spending', then I can just about guarantee the answer to both would be 'yes', but if a politician just lowers taxes to win public favour without also adjusting spending then you get another Greece. Politicians need to have the guts to make unpopular decisions for the longer term good of the country, such as cutting spending in a recession or raising taxes to meet spending commitments. Merkel did not decide on de-nucleurisation because she thought it was the best thing for Germany, her decision was based on trying to stop a surge in support for the (even more loony) Greens.
Secondly, if the policy of de-nucleurisation had been overwhelmingly popular and popular democracy was the only correct gauge of rightness then the nuke power stations would never have been built in the first place. Instead, they were built due to NECESSITY. Dance around it all you like, but the fact remains that Merkel has made a mistake that will push up German electricity bills and saddle your kids with the same problem a few years down the road when she has retired, when the cheap coal and gas runs out and the only option is to go BACK to nucleur energy.
Merkel's moaning about the NSA is just as obviously about garnering votes seeing as her own security services have been happy to receive information on terrorists and Islamists in Germany shared with them by the NSA and GCHQ (hint - Yahooogle 'Germany BND used NSA information', read some of the many hits, then try THINKING). And it's not like the German Schroeder administration allegedly helped the CIA perform extraordinary renditions of German Islamists to Gitmo (Yahoogle 'Mohammad al-Zammar')......
> "...... I'm not concerned with whether Merkel fiddled with physics or chemistry...." But you tried to claim...
I didn't. Radbruch1929 did. And as I said I don't really think it matters much. She might be a fantastic physics/chemistry/etc PhD of the 70s and still have little clue about how the internet works.
> ".....And as for compromised nodes, Germans tend to be thorough...." Er, so what about Merkel's phone then? Didn't you need Snowdope to tell you about that? ...
I mean there is likely to be thoroughness now that they've become aware of the issue. I agree it shows a lack of thoroughness they haven't figured that out for themselves earlier and I do agree that stereotypes are rubbish anyway. I suppose we'll just have to see what will actually be done and how much sense that makes in the end.
".....What she has done is reacted to the vast protests and overwhelming public opinion (which in large parts had been there well before Fukushima)..... Not sure what's wrong with bending to voter's will. Looks almost like a functioning democracy....." You are being simply too obtuse for words.
Apparently not.
> Firstly, politicians are not there to just do what the voters want but what is actually best for the country.
Well, Germans are apparently largely of the opinion that it's best for the country not to have nuclear power and I don't agree that their politicians should decide it for them. Mainly because there's - contrary to what you seem to think - no obvious right or wrong here, it's a matter of opinion and preference.
I'm saying this despite my opinion they'll probably come to regret this since the chances of making up the shortfall with non-nuclear energy at reasonable prices are about equal to the chances of getting fusion to work anytime soon - that is to say miniscule.
But I do understand their reservations. Fukushima did actually happen. There's a markedly increased likelihood of children living near the nuclear reactor Kruemmel (now shut down) to suffer from Leukaemia. And of course NIMBY.
> Often the two differ and the measures needed are unpopular with voters, but they will forgive a politician if they realise they are honestly doing what they think is best (or deselect them if they think they are not).
This is a topic people feel strongly about in Germany and so there's a pretty good chance Merkel would have been deselected with no one waiting to see how her grand plan played out...
> Merkel did not decide on de-nucleurisation because she thought it was the best thing for Germany, her decision was based on trying to stop a surge in support for the (even more loony) Greens.
... and the red+green(+perhaps yellow) coalition to follow them would have got rid of nuclear all the same, so what's the point?
> Secondly, if the policy of de-nucleurisation had been overwhelmingly popular and popular democracy was the only correct gauge of rightness then the nuke power stations would never have been built in the first place.
Is it at all possible that perceptions change over time?
> Instead, they were built due to NECESSITY. Dance around it all you like, but the fact remains that Merkel has made a mistake that will push up German electricity bills and saddle your kids with the same problem a few years down the road when she has retired, when the cheap coal and gas runs out and the only option is to go BACK to nucleur energy.
As I said, I'm neither a big fan of Merkel nor the nuclear exit and I largely agree. But there are arguments supporting their views and I welcome the fact it's for them to decide. Perhaps they'll just pay up and live with it.
You're just dancing round the fact that Merkel is just playing the anti-Yank card, especially given her country's previous happiness to not only do plenty of eavesdropping themselves but also use information passed to them by the NSA and GCHQ.
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