Information Privacy and Security

Computer crimes, access to information, and security are problems globally as geography doesn’t limit the internet. Germany is not immune to these problems and attempts to actively protect its citizens from such infringements and crime.

Critical information can range from copyrighted material to security information. Piracy in Germany is widespread.

A few statistics:
374 million music titles were illegally downloaded from Germany file-sharing systems in 2006
Damage was estimated at 440 Euros (US$ 642 million)
From January to June 2005, 11.9 million Germany-language or German-dubbed films were illegally downloaded
In 2006, film industry measured up 2 million downloads of their films within 30 days of their availability
Book and journal publishers cite an increase of infringing on ebook and audio book files on P2P networks.

In an effort to combat accessing information, under EU guidelines, an individual or company has the right to the IP addresses and identity of infringers on their privacy and information. However, Germany does not adhere to the EU guidelines. With the passing of Data Retention Directive, it is no longer possible to obtain ISPs in civil cases, even under court order. Copyright owners are left with only using a criminal action in obtaining the identity.

Germany, along with its European community, has tried to proactively create measures that would detect and protect. Beginning in 1998, Germany joined forces with Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States to coordinate efforts and investigate and prosecute cyber crimes. In 2001 European countries met at a Convention on Cybercrime to being creating a unified front against cybercrime. Since then, Germany has consistently tried to create laws and regulations that align with the Convention’s goals.

However, this active approach against cybercrime in Germany has not met the support of all of its citizens. For example, in 2006-2007 Germany debated and adapted a revised anti-hacking law. The purpose was to align with the Convention’s Article 6 which bans the creation of computer programs for the purpose of committing cybercrime. The law tightened up existing sanctions and “prohibits unauthorized users from disabling or circumventing computer security measures to access secure data.” It made it illegal to create, program, install or spread software that goes around security measures.

While this law is designed to proactively combat computer and cyber crime, many in Germany feel it over generalizes the problems and prevents some individuals from using these programs to legitimately combat cyber-crimes. Often, they will create such hacking programs to test the security of their company’s data. Under this new law, these programs would be considered illegal and could be accompanied with stiff penalties. "In essence, the way the laws are phrased now, there is no way to ever comply... even as a non-security company," says researcher Halvar Flake, a.k.a. Thomas Dullien, CEO and head of research at Sabre Security. As the law and many others continue through the court system, the question continues in Germany as to how far a country should go in its fight against cyber crime.

Sources:
http://www.darkreading.com/security/app-security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208804698
http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/241/Computer-Crime-INTERNATIONAL-COMPUTER-CRIME.html
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9003712/Computer_crime_laws_worry_security_pros
http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2008/2008SPEC301GERMANY.pdf