NSA

Yesterday “The Intercept” reported about GCHQ and NSA stealing crypto keys for cellphone communication (see https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/) At the beginning I thought “oh my good”. After thinking about this for some time I was wondering why I thought this way. It was very clear to me that only end-to-end encryption can defend from spying. Here PGP/GPG is a good example.

When I read the article I was once again very surprised that NSA&co are doing everything to catch all possible traffic and decrypt it. The German Ministry for State Security (MfS) did the same some years ago. The only difference between them is their relationship to german citizens. The MfS was actively fighting against parts of their citizens. The NSA is fetching all information and they are able to do all you can think about … and they will do if there are interests.

We, the citizens, learned from history. Mass surveillance is always a bad idea for democracy. We have to fight mass surveillance. There is no reason for accepting the current situation. Anybody spying on innocent people is our enemy no matter what reason he has.

One last note. For me, there is a difference between the people of a country and their Intelligence Agencies. It is not the people I am afraid of, it’s only the Intelligence Agencies and their mass surveillance.