World's largest internet exchange sues Germany over mass surveillance The world's largest internet exchange point is suing the German government for tapping its communications systems. DE-CIX runs a number of critical exchange points – most of them in Germany, but with others in France, Spain and the United States – and has sued the German interior ministry over orders from the German security …
> In the last days of the GDR, the HVA shredded most of their files.
It's difficult to say how many documents were destroyed exactly, I am not sure I would say "most". In any case, that any remain at all, and that those can be accessed by the public, is quite a feat already.
If only we had the same access to our own documents from that time...
With interchange points in the US as well, will they sue or have they also sued the NSA? Or do they know well enough that they may have a prayer in German court, but wouldn't get anywhere in the US?
Seems weird - or very smart - going after the piddly BND and not the 800lbs gorilla.
USA does not have the European large public peering exchange points. A cosy telco oligopoly of private peerings exists instead. Some members of it have been actively sabotaging any attempts to have public peering points in the USA for years while trying to spread their stinky fud on this side of the ocean too.
There is no need to tap the USA peering points as USA Agencies already has the relevant relationships with the all the members of the oligopoly.
IMHO the more interesting comparison is to LINX. By the way, since when is DECIX larger than the LINX? It used to be smaller (in terms of traffic).
"USA does not have the European large public peering exchange points. A cosy telco oligopoly of private peerings exists instead."
The USA actually has many many more public exchange points than Europe. It is large area, so it needs a lot of exchange points.
"Some members of it have been actively sabotaging any attempts to have public peering points in the USA for years while trying to spread their stinky fud on this side of the ocean too."
The US has a lot of peering exchanges already. At least one per city. I'd like to some references to the "sabotage".
Like in many countries, the German government is – theoretically at least – not allowed to spy on its own citizens.
As we've seen for 60 years now (ECHELON et al) all these laws are meaningless - can't spy on your own citizens? Ask your friends to do it for you - they will be glad to help since they have the same problem that you can help them resolve.
Everything is legal - although what good it has ever done is a bit of a mystery.
...and power is addictive. Now that the BND, NSA, GCHQ etc. have experienced the rush of that corruptive stuff in their veins, they're not going to relinquish it without a fight just because it's inconveniently unconstitutional.
They'll use all the guile and lies of a junkie to get their fix again, and again, and again.
Anyone who thinks that this predilection for surveillance/tapping/data leakage is something that is unique to U.S. and British tech and telecoms companies is just kidding themselves. A few more mall shootings and jihadi suicide bombings and the German government will be quite happy to turn to the dark side, though perhaps they will hedge it with more hand-wringing and insincere apologies than other countries might.
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