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Old 28 Jun 2017, 03:40 AM   #16
joe_devore
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Join Date: Dec 2003
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Cool

Quote:
Originally Posted by xor View Post
Oh, and btw.: Germany now requires Youtube bloggers to get a German broadcasting license. No kidding!
GOOD GAWD, Germany IS INSANE!
AND..! NEEDS SOME FREEDOM BROUGHT TO IT AGAIN!
WMwhaha ;p


German regulator says Twitch and YouTube streams are considered broadcasts, must apply for broadcasting license
Quote:
A broadcast license costs anywhere between €1,000 and €10,000, depending on the size of the audience and other factors.
- $1,132.95 US Dollar
to
- $11,334.50 US Dollar
NO individual COULD EVER AFFORD THAT...!

IF THE GERMAN PEOPLE ARE INCAPABLE OF STANDING UP TO THIS TYRANNY AGAIN..!!

THEN IT WOULD SEEM THAT THEY ARE IN OF NEED SOME "FREEDOM"
FREE of CHARGE courtesy of the USA! lol
LOL Bwhahaha
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Old 28 Jun 2017, 03:50 AM   #17
BritTim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xor View Post
German government interception (also) happens on the protocol level (they intercept SMTP, IMAP, HTTP, etc)

If you do not encrypt the email content before(!) it leaves your own computer, then, yes, you can be targeted by these interfaces.

Therefore, encrypt in your own local mail client, do not rely on web browser interface encryption.
If you cannot trust your email provider, I cannot see how any encryption helps. If you trust your provider, then I cannot see how an encrypted IMAP connection is any more secure than an encrypted HTTP connection using the same algorithm and key lengths.
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Old 28 Jun 2017, 06:01 AM   #18
edu
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That's not what Posteo says about it, maybe you misunderstood that law, and I know that Posteo had some problems with authorities before and always defending their users.
https://posteo.de/en/site/faq



Is Posteo affected by the reintroduction of data retention in Germany?

No, Posteo is not affected by data retention. You don't need to be concerned about the privacy of your Posteo emails. The law on the reintroduction of data retention ("Gesetz zur Einführung einer Speicherpflicht und einer Höchstspeicherfrist für Verkehrsdaten") completely excludes email providers. The entire area of email is excepted from retention.
In short, Posteo is not one of the affected parties. At Posteo, therefore, it remains the case that no data is retained.

https://posteo.de/en/blog/transparen...edly-decreased

https://posteo.de/en/site/transparency_report

Quote:
Originally Posted by xor View Post
German government interception (also) happens on the protocol level (they intercept SMTP, IMAP, HTTP, etc)

If you do not encrypt the email content before(!) it leaves your own computer, then, yes, you can be targeted by these interfaces.

Therefore, encrypt in your own local mail client, do not rely on web browser interface encryption.
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Old 28 Jun 2017, 06:07 AM   #19
xor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BritTim View Post
If you cannot trust your email provider, I cannot see how any encryption helps. If you trust your provider, then I cannot see how an encrypted IMAP connection is any more secure than an encrypted HTTP connection using the same algorithm and key lengths.
First of all, you can indeed no longer trust your email provider if they are forced by law to conspire against you. There is nothing they can do about that.

Second, encrypted IMAP or HTTP connections do not help in this case: they only protect you from outside eavesdroppers. They hide nothing from the email provider and so they do not help against a government forcing the provider to cooperate.

However, encryption properly done on your machine, with only your communication partner (and not the email provider!) holding the decryption key, is practically unbreakable, even by the government infiltrated email provider.

Use PGP or S/MIME and the content of your email is safe! (The subject line, sender, and recipient address are always revealed, though).

But do not rely on web clients provided by your email provider to do the encryption - these will be infiltrated also!

This is what I was trying to get across.
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Old 28 Jun 2017, 06:33 AM   #20
xor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edu View Post
That's not what Posteo says about it, maybe you misunderstood that law, and I know that Posteo had some problems with authorities before and always defending their users.
https://posteo.de/en/site/faq
Is Posteo affected by the reintroduction of data retention in Germany?

No, Posteo is not affected by data retention. (...)
Posteo does the best they can.They do a great job in fact!

You are correct in stating that "data retention" does not apply to email providers, only network providers (and I already wrote that in my first post).

But, like I wrote, Germany also requires all email providers to offer remote interfaces for government agencies to conveniently and secretly access their customer's email on demand.

No exception for Posteo: Posteo does a very good job trying to fend of the usage of these interfaces, but they can not in all cases as their transparency report shows.

So, to summarize: data retention applies to German network providers, eavesdropping interfaces apply to German email providers, inclusing Posteo, but hopefully not Fastmail.
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Old 28 Jun 2017, 07:31 AM   #21
BritTim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xor View Post
First of all, you can indeed no longer trust your email provider if they are forced by law to conspire against you. There is nothing they can do about that.

Second, encrypted IMAP or HTTP connections do not help in this case: they only protect you from outside eavesdroppers. They hide nothing from the email provider and so they do not help against a government forcing the provider to cooperate.

However, encryption properly done on your machine, with only your communication partner (and not the email provider!) holding the decryption key, is practically unbreakable, even by the government infiltrated email provider.

Use PGP or S/MIME and the content of your email is safe! (The subject line, sender, and recipient address are always revealed, though).

But do not rely on web clients provided by your email provider to do the encryption - these will be infiltrated also!

This is what I was trying to get across.
Now, I understand you. Of course, there is some leak of information even if the main content of your email is encrypted. The big problem, though, is that almost none of my correspondents are willing to go to the trouble of using client-to-client encryption. I have had PGP keys for such purposes for about 15 years, but (in that time) have used it with less than 1% of my email communications.
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Old 29 Jun 2017, 01:29 AM   #22
ReuvenNY
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Moderator's Comment

Folks, cool down the rhetoric and refrain from political comments.
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Old 7 Jul 2017, 01:46 PM   #23
TheJapanese
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Some news concerning the issues with germany?

As a german user (willing to bring fastmail to my whole family) it's not easy to decide what to do... No answer from fastmail at this point
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Old 7 Jul 2017, 03:15 PM   #24
n5bb
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Location: Irving, Texas
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As long as the help link below remains the same, I don't think you can expect any difference. You can always file a support request by clicking the link shown on this page.
https://www.fastmail.com/help/accoun...available.html

Bill
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Old 19 Jul 2017, 06:33 PM   #25
edu
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Posts: 194
You could be right about it, I am not sure.
Posteo answered me that they don't post about these things in forums..., I told them that I only wanted to know the answer, not in forums, and that I was dissapointed with that answer but no reply until now... Suspicious.


Quote:
Originally Posted by xor View Post
Posteo does the best they can.They do a great job in fact!

You are correct in stating that "data retention" does not apply to email providers, only network providers (and I already wrote that in my first post).

But, like I wrote, Germany also requires all email providers to offer remote interfaces for government agencies to conveniently and secretly access their customer's email on demand.

No exception for Posteo: Posteo does a very good job trying to fend of the usage of these interfaces, but they can not in all cases as their transparency report shows.

So, to summarize: data retention applies to German network providers, eavesdropping interfaces apply to German email providers, inclusing Posteo, but hopefully not Fastmail.

Last edited by edu : 19 Jul 2017 at 07:42 PM.
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Old 19 Jul 2017, 07:41 PM   #26
edu
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But, for example, Tutanota posted about this here:

https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/data-protection-germany
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Old 19 Jul 2017, 07:47 PM   #27
pr1v
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Please read:

https://airvpn.org/topic/12766-whats...e-7#entry64210
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Old 2 Aug 2017, 10:16 PM   #28
FredOnline
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Location: Manchester UK
Posts: 2,616
FastMail apps and signup available in Germany again

FastMail blog, posted by everyone's favorite, Bron!

https://blog.fastmail.com/2017/08/02...germany-again/
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Old 3 Aug 2017, 06:44 AM   #29
TenFour
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I wonder what the legal situation is for your email stored on Fastmail servers that are based in the USA? Sure, the company personnel are in Australia, but they own a nexus in the USA (POBox.com) and store data in the USA. I can't claim to be a legal expert on this, but that would seem to indicate that at least some US laws would apply as they do to any other foreign company doing business in another country.

OT a bit, but let's pretend we are government spies and we are looking for something suspicious and we have a list of everyone and their email services they are using. My own attention might be immediately drawn to those using services like Proton Mail or Tutanota as obviously those people feel they have something to hide. Maybe the spies can't directly read the email, but knowing who is sending messages and to whom might be information equally as valuable. Not saying this is right or wrong, but it just makes sense.
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