The European Parliament has called upon the Commission and public bodies across Europe to help citizens protect themselves from surveillance. Free Software (referred to here as “open source”) plays a key role in this effort: The European Parliament: […] 29. Urges the Commission and Member States to devise appropriate measures to promote, develop and manufacture Read more »
Germany has always prided itself on being a nation of engineers. So it’s not surprising that unlike the British, who prefer to leave their confidential data on trains or lose it in the post, Germans opt for the technologically more advanced solution of making it available online to all comers (DE): Bei Einwohnermeldeämtern in Deutschland Read more »
In Germany, a discussion is raging on whether the police should be allowed to search a suspect’s computer by hacking into it (rather than by confiscating it and reading out the hard drive). Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is the chief advocate of this. The youth organisation of the Social Democrats — a party that shares Read more »
In an ideal world, an authoritative statement that something is a bad idea would actually stop the implementation of the concept in question. But not here, not now. As The Register reports, an advisory committee to the US government has published a draft report (and draft it may well stay) which says that while RFID Read more »
Reality can’t wait to catch up with me. When yesterday I blogged about Bruce Schneier’s explanations why privacy is a human right, little did I know that the Powers That Be were spoiling for a fight on the issue as I was typing. As The Register reports, the UK government wants to bring into force Read more »
What do you have to hide? When it comes to privacy, that’s not the question, says Bruce Schneier in an excellent comment on Wired. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintainingthe human condition with dignity and respect. Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watchesthe watchers?") and Read more »