German spies want millions of Euros to buy zero-day code holes

Germany's spooks have come under fire for reportedly seeking funds to find bugs – not to fix them, but to hoard them. According to The Süddeutsche Zeitung, the country's BND – its federal intelligence service – wants €300 million in funding for what it calls the Strategic Technical Initiative. The Local says €4.5 million of …

[Anonymous Coward]

... the future is digital: Internet of Things, Smart-This-that-and-the-other, downloads/uploads, always connected citizens, digital criminals(as bankraids are in steep decline), empowered world-affairs-aware citizens, and presumably, they tell us, the odd rare terrrist

...so Spooks in Germany talk about needing a "Strategic Technical Initiative", with million quid honeypots and they need £300M of our taxes to pay for monitoring/controlling us.

Fine, go ahead. I'm generating fake data to fill all your databases with! that's my response. Am I a terrrist yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

your spelling already scares me

does that count as 'terrrism'?

[Frankee Llonnygog]

Bad value

You can but these exploits much more cheaply on the black market

[Charlie Clark]

The money could be better spent…

…funding research on security. Rather than snooping on its citizens, a free state is better served by devoting resources to securing their individual freedom, and making its own systems more secure and resilient to attack.

The few potential terrorists that are around will be caught using the traditional but boring methods: patience, observation, search and wire-tapping with a warrant.

[Anonymous Coward]

was it the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy? I can't remember...

Lets just put all the spy agencies on a one way ticket to another planet.. where they can then spy on each other to their hearts content and leave the rest of us alone.

every time a country starts up a spy agency that gains more than 3 employees we automatically promote them to offworld intelligence.

[Alister]

So, the German spooks are wanting to spend £300M for an STI?

Surely there are streets in Berlin where you can pick one up cheaper than that?

[h4rm0ny]

First the agencies buy up exploits. Then they lean on the software companies "asking" them not to patch them yet. It's the next logical step.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny old world

This is not an attack on you or I personally but it feels like one because they are directly seeking to subvert something that we might hold dear: Privacy.

A dodgy analogy: Front door vs Encryption to preserve Privacy.

* My front door is pretty strong, it costed £n00 (I think - it was on the house already) and will withstand a shoulder barge or a naive attempt at picking the lock. Drive a tank through it or get a locksmith or a sledgehammer and its not going to do the job anymore.

* My encryption is free and libre. If I'm careful it's as good as the best possible in the world.

However, it is possible to get through both my front door and my encryption without me knowing. In the case of my door by being a good locksmith and my encryption by asking a govt for shit loads of loot and making sure that the world + dog knows about it because it is cool and trendy. I'm sure that the South German Times is a reputable read, packed with quality investigative journalism and nothing like the Sunday Sport in the UK.

Really?

That cash is probably destined for something far more esoteric and spooky than messing with OpenSSL. I suspect that "mucking about with crypto" is now the new nod and a wink for spies n govts to put cash where it's really needed.

Cheers

Jon