Kinks on the ground
A very controversial law was adopted on Monday by deputies of the German Bundestag. Following the path of gradually tightening the articles of the criminal code against cyber crime, the legislators did what they were afraid of among information security specialists - they seriously went too far in imposing bans and virtually completely erased the boundary between the "white" and "dark" sides of the computer underground.
A completely reasonable provision on the illegality and punishability of any actions to circumvent information security measures by unauthorized persons is supplemented in the new rules by confusing the ban on developing, replicating, distributing, installing and using any software that can be used for these actions. That is, now in Germany it is impossible to check the durability of the security system without the risk of being thrown into jail.
The law, according to experts, is as stupid as the law against the acquisition and use of, for example, forks. They can also cause serious harm to a person (and with a certain dexterity - to several people), but it has never occurred to anyone to equate them to melee weapons with all the ensuing consequences.
In addition to software, the organization of botnets and DoS attacks is also banned, regardless of whether it is carried out with malicious intentions or only for research purposes. Because of this, almost all independent work to improve the defense mechanisms against this Internet plague will become at best “gray”, and their authors will inevitably fall under the strict control of the “organs”.
')
The law was adopted on the eve of a broad discussion of a common European policy on the fight against e-crime. The need for a single European legislation in this area has long been advocated by the ministries of justice of many countries of the Union, with the most active support from the United States. However, until very recently, all large-scale initiatives in this direction were wrapped up under public pressure, worried about too much authority, which the special services invariably demanded for themselves. But how will the fate of these projects now, amid the flare-up (and heated) hysteria about the recent massive cyber attacks on Estonia, now no one will undertake to predict unequivocally.
A completely reasonable provision on the illegality and punishability of any actions to circumvent information security measures by unauthorized persons is supplemented in the new rules by confusing the ban on developing, replicating, distributing, installing and using any software that can be used for these actions. That is, now in Germany it is impossible to check the durability of the security system without the risk of being thrown into jail.
The law, according to experts, is as stupid as the law against the acquisition and use of, for example, forks. They can also cause serious harm to a person (and with a certain dexterity - to several people), but it has never occurred to anyone to equate them to melee weapons with all the ensuing consequences.
In addition to software, the organization of botnets and DoS attacks is also banned, regardless of whether it is carried out with malicious intentions or only for research purposes. Because of this, almost all independent work to improve the defense mechanisms against this Internet plague will become at best “gray”, and their authors will inevitably fall under the strict control of the “organs”.
')
The law was adopted on the eve of a broad discussion of a common European policy on the fight against e-crime. The need for a single European legislation in this area has long been advocated by the ministries of justice of many countries of the Union, with the most active support from the United States. However, until very recently, all large-scale initiatives in this direction were wrapped up under public pressure, worried about too much authority, which the special services invariably demanded for themselves. But how will the fate of these projects now, amid the flare-up (and heated) hysteria about the recent massive cyber attacks on Estonia, now no one will undertake to predict unequivocally.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/9045/
All Articles