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How the Internet works video - some thoughts
Written on 11.07.2021 20:12 by Florian Streibelt
Hi .*,
as you may have noticed, the video by Franziska and me on how the Internet works beyond the technology, is 'recycled' from last year. Which is fine, as not much has changed concerning the inner workings of the communities - of course with one exception, that all the meetings are now online and virtual. And everybody really want's to meet in-person again.
However, watching the last part of the video, where I look at the implications of politics on the Internet, I want to give you some more thoughts and if you are interested in that topic, I suggest you to check what has happened since we recorded that video.
For example, I mention that in Australia, ISPs have to help spy on their customers. Well, we now have that law in Germany as well. The ISP has to help law enforcement and all the secret services in Germany to tap into the traffic of customers to allow e.g. man in the middle attacks. Also breaking into computers to install malware and even to secretly break into a flat to access computers is now legal. They even allowed house searches at night, because they claim hackers are active at night and only then they can access unencrypted harddrives. And of course, they are discussing of outlawing encryption again. Meanwhile they just legalized scanning chat and private messages on platforms like Facebook for illegal content. Of course they justify that with scanning for pictures of child abuse. And coming back to malware: to be able to access computers, law enforcement needs backdoors in software, which is in stark contrast of having a safe Internet for everybody.
So, this is not an additional homework, just some kind of an afterthought I got when I watched the video again.
Looking forward to the Q&A and a lively discussion :)
Florian