Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

Loki-L t1_ja4h4or wrote

It probably doesn't help that the German government and major German institutions still see the Internet as newly discovered uncharted land and that Fax machines are often still considered the height of communication technology.

96

Febra0001 t1_ja4lts8 wrote

Au contraire, I actually think it helps a lot. There’s nothing to hack if all the communication still goes by mail and all the paperwork is.. well.. paperwork.

51

Morfildur t1_ja4nvdx wrote

Indeed. No one has yet found a way to hack paper over the internet. Until that happens, Germany should be fine.

15

eris-touched-me t1_ja6yxg1 wrote

You you can still hack network connected printers…

5

KingXavierRodriguez t1_ja77z35 wrote

You also could social engineer some kind of physical or electronic document transfer. SCIFI: Maybe like an AI having the credentials of a superior and requesting whatever it is you need.

2

Timey16 t1_ja4taqh wrote

I'm gonna be real with you, I am German, I do consider our administration behind the time.

But in my 30 years of life I have never even SEEN a fax machine... IDK maybe it's because I'm from the East of Germany so our region just skipped the Fax generation in it's entirety and went straight to the internet.

23

Loki-L t1_ja4xjgb wrote

I am German too and while I admit that some parts of government especially on the local level can sometimes be not nearly as bad as we all love to say, at other times things are really, really bad.

Anything to do with health care makes it even worse. Having had to work with public and private organization during the height of Corona has shown me just how bad things can be.

But you are right, fax-machines are slowly losing their importance. Nowadays it is often something as high tech as a PDF of a document that was written on a computer, printed out, signed and scanned back into a computer and then forwarded by mail.

14

KingXavierRodriguez t1_ja7850n wrote

I've seen and used a fax machine from the 90s - 2010s.

I can't remember using a fax machine after covid. Just my anecdote from America.

1

Alcobob t1_jaby700 wrote

Hi, I'm an IT guy for a local municipality:

We operate FAX machines. Mostly advertisements arrive these days, but also offers for contracts.

The reason why FAX machines were so widely used is because they offer a unique combination of factors. Those factors are:

  • They are fast
  • They are secure/secret (*)
  • They are valid for contracts

(*) Not really, but they were defined as secure/secret during a time when it was illegal to wiretap telephone lines without approval by a judge.

No modern tech offers the same combination. For example E-Mails are transmitted unencrypted most of the times and as we know since the Snowden leaks, everything going over the internet is intercepted and read if it isn't encrypted.

DE-Mail was designed to fix that problem, but since it wasn't widely adopted it is dying a slow death. The Telekom shut their DE-mail service down last year.

One huge chance that might make a difference is the new electronic ID-card. You can use it to file your taxes, and i wouldn't be surprised if way more will happen with it later.

1

TASTY_TASTY_WAFFLES t1_ja4qs3q wrote

Aha but if they don't have the InternetAmtsBescheinigung, ElektronikerBüroStampfen, and Ausweis in dreifacher Ausfertigung we will know they are malicious!

Once again proper paperwork will save the day.

5

Qancho t1_ja4jrss wrote

I'm getting flashbacks from the beginning of the pandemic x-(

1

japadobo t1_ja45pf0 wrote

Can't we just cut the internet cables servicing russia

67

Ferelwing t1_ja4ab7r wrote

If they outsource the hacks or send their hackers elsewhere in the world then cutting the cable isn't going to work. That doesn't even get into how easy it would be to reroute the traffic to another location that isn't "cut off", they could just reroute through China if they wanted to. China being their ally they could just use the cables that run there. To stop the hacking it would require people to actually follow the best practices for IT security and let's be honest here, the vast majority of people don't and it only takes one mistake to leave your network open.

57

flinnbicken t1_ja4v49y wrote

I've seen a lot of them coming through Dubai as someone who works in cybersecurity.

27

Ferelwing t1_ja4wlc6 wrote

I am not surprised at all. Considering how interconnected everyone is there really isn't a way to "cut Russia off".

My brother says that ransomware and state sponsored infiltrations for the most part are the most common forms these days. Is that what you're seeing as well? (He's also in cybersecurity)

If what he mentioned is the main behaviors then even if we got rid of cables that doesn't prevent satellites etc. Sure they'd be "slower" but if all one has to do is connect to set it off there's not really much need for a fast connection. As for bot networks with DDOS, I doubt they need a fast connection to set off the attack either.

10

VegasKL t1_ja5jqa2 wrote

>I am not surprised at all. Considering how interconnected everyone is there really isn't a way to "cut Russia off".

Pretty much. Except for maybe very poor nations, it's impossible to isolate them as all they need is a beachhead somewhere where they can then bounce their connections all around (to hide said beachhead). In Russia's case, that could be a satellite connection to another country or even some form of line of sight connection over a border. Just to name a very few.

5

Ivcsi t1_ja53993 wrote

Talk about a bad idea... They could route traffic through one of their friendlier neighbours, or just have their agents work out of different nations.

What that would do is further reinforce the global precedent of "if you oppose the incumbent order we can do whatever we want".

That might not sound like a bad thing to you, but nations aren't friendly fairies flying around spreading love through the hills. There are plenty of nations out there that, while not openly hostile, don't want to exist for the rest of eternity in a USA dominated world.

India, as an example, has a bright outlook for the future, and is already very concerned by what the global reaction to the Ukrainian war may mean for its future.

At the end of the day, all justifications of right and wrong aside, we basically live in a world where America and American aligned nations can bend and bypass international laws as they see fit, while nations opposed to these collective powers can not. While America may have no reason to oppose a nation like India today, that may very well change in the future.

Doing something like cutting a nation off from the internet will without a doubt convince many other nations to lower their reliance on the world wide net so that they never find themselves on the wrong side of the gun. This would inevitably translate to things like invasive national firewalls, state endorsed copy right infringement, and secondary networks between non-Western nations (ala a central Asia network).

And then there's also the risk of Russia taking this as a sign of "well maybe I should just cut your wires as well".

5

bored_toronto t1_ja4soao wrote

Cybersecurity Industry: "First time?"

44

Ooops2278 t1_ja4uix0 wrote

And coming from anybody else that would be a fair warning.

But Nancy Faeser -as it seems to be a basic qualification for that job- is a total and utter nutjob only looking at another topic to exploit as a "totally legit" reason to implement wide-spread surveilance of people's online activities.

16

xSilverMC t1_ja52lpm wrote

Remember two things:

  1. Surveillance is only bad if it's foreign

  2. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

^(this comment is brought to you by nancy fucking faeser herself)

13

666satanhimself t1_ja54y1n wrote

you kid, but my life could have turned out very differently had i not had my privacy violated. there are scenarios. one day we will learn lessons in duality

2

afoam t1_ja62cby wrote

> but my life could have turned out very differently had i not had my privacy violated

Have you switched topics or what are you alluding to here?

1

Ma1nta1n3r t1_ja42n9q wrote

Better late than never. But you really should have been taking your cyber-security more seriously.

1

SilverCamaroZ28 t1_ja5ugmx wrote

Germany: they will never guess our password, 1-2-3-4-5

USA: Only an idiot would have that as their password.

Russia: That's amazing, that's the same combination on my luggage.

1

kookookokopeli t1_ja638nz wrote

FB: And don't even think of using z-x-c-v-b-n-m. That's reserved exclusively for Mark Zuckerberg.

2

Braveliltoasterx t1_ja6i459 wrote

Microsoft needs to brick all the computers in Russia so the only operating system they can use is ComradOS.

1

izit23 t1_ja6u9jc wrote

Time for r/rust

1

7buergen t1_ja6x2gj wrote

Faeser doesn't know shit about shit. She's a career politician and shouldn't be listened to without a metric ton of salt. That being said, German digital infrastructure is miserable and it's been at risk for many many years now with very little improvements of systemic nature.

1

GrowlyBear2 t1_ja777n7 wrote

Not to worry. I've heard that safety is their number one priority.

1

SignificantDetail822 t1_ja7avhn wrote

I think the world needs to fight back with all this hacking, maybe it’s time that it should work both ways !

1

ScurvyBOT t1_ja4rbkv wrote

I think if someone invented a satellite that doesn't need cables for interwebz stuff it could be a game changer 😉

Then invent SAT Phones and go full Star Trek shit on it.

The possibilities would be endless 😁

−2