14 DAY TRIAL // The German authorities are trying to promote a law which would allow them to install software on some suspected computers to monitor malicious activities, The Sydney Morning Herald reported today. According to the same source, these utilities would be intended to track terrorist activity and to prevent such dangerous attacks that could threaten the security of the residents. The law was not voted yet but the Interior Ministry already demanded the police to find and hire two experts to develop such utilities. The government intends to build the tools and roll them out once the law is accepted.
"Germany is hiring software specialists to design "white-hat" viruses that could infiltrate terrorists' computers and help police detect upcoming attacks, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman in Berlin confirmed Saturday," The Sydney Morning Herald wrote. "The government is still drafting legislation to permit snooping via the internet under judicial control, but has decided there is no time to lose in developing the "remote forensic software."
There's not much to be said about this attempt to promote such a law because some of you might consider that installing monitoring utilities on users' computers may infringe their privacy and the human rights. However, this wouldn't be the first time when the German authorities attempt to obtain the approval for installing malicious technologies on suspects' systems to obtain sensitive information.
Some time ago, the German police demanded the authorities to allow them to use hacking techniques to break into a suspect's computer which was rumored to contain incriminatory information about him. At that time, the request was rejected so the police couldn't use "brute-force attacks" to invade the sensitive information.
In today's case, the government's opponents already started complaining that such a law may infringe the human rights and infringe the privacy. "German opponents charge that planting viruses in potential offenders' computers would be a breach of civil liberties," The Sydney Morning Herald continued.