Dutch Law Would Authorize Police To Hack Into Foreign Computers And Phones: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

from the thinking-it-through dept

Tue, May 7th 2013 12:11pm — Glyn Moody

When we wrote last year about a Dutch idea to give police there the power to break into computers -- even those located abroad -- we and many others pointed out a number of deep flaws with the plan. Undeterred, the Dutch government seems to be going ahead with the scheme, as Bits of Freedom explains:

The police should be allowed to hack into mobile phones and computers, even when these are located abroad. This is proposed by the Dutch government on May 2nd of 2013. While this appears to be a powerful asset for law enforcement, in reality it creates unnecessary vulnerabilities for citizens.

Not content with that really bad idea, there's a couple of others tacked on for good measure, as the BBC reports: The bill would also make it a crime for a suspect to refuse to decipher encrypted files during a police investigation.

It is expected the draft legislation will be put to parliament by the end of the year.

The bill singles out child pornography and terrorism as two areas of special concern. The publication of stolen data would also become punishable.
It's easy to see how the last of those could be abused to silence inconvenient whistleblowers. Bits of Freedom sums up well the key danger with the bill: other countries, such as China, will use the powers as a justification for their own activities. They will follow the Dutch example by allowing their police to use the same methods, including hacking abroad, in order to delete controversial data. Civilians will become the victims in an arms race between hacking governments.
Indeed, it's worth considering for a moment what the Chinese response will be when it finds Dutch police, with the full approval of the Dutch government, deleting files or installing spyware on computers on its territory. It won't matter if the latter were involved in breaking into Dutch systems, or controlling a global botnet: national pride will be at stake over what will effectively be an attack on Chinese citizens and property. So as not to lose "face", a robust response is guaranteed. Is the Netherlands (population ~~6,065,459~~ 16,788,973) really ready to take on China (population 1,353,821,000) over this?

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Filed Under: computers, hacking, law enforcement, netherlands, surveillance, unintended consequences

40 Comments

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silverscarcat (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 11:00am

Just more proof...
Government doesn't understand technology.
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Ninja (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 11:04am

Is the Netherlands (population 6,065,459) really ready to take on China (population 1,353,821,000) over this?

China? Shall we add the whole rest of the world? After all if they can apply their rules to stuff inside MY borders I'll feel free to do the same to them, right?
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Chris-Mouse (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:19pm

Hey hackers. The Dutch government is getting ready to provide you with an attack vector that has the full support of Dutch law enforcement behind it.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 12:22pm

They are asking for trouble with this. Its even more silly as they say its okay to go for foreign countries which is just asking for trouble.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 12:22pm

Re:
Before the sovereign state of Ninja, they rightly tremble.
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Colin, 7 May 2013 @ 12:23pm

"Child pornography and terrorism"? Thank God they're finally focusing on those two things, those very necessary cards aren't played nearly often enough.
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ethorad (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:25pm

Try "defending their citizens from attack"
Don't try and belittle China's hypothetical response by ascribing it to some mystical belief in the need to keep face.

How about protecting their citizens from attack?

After all consider if some foreign power, say Iran, decided that a US citizen in the US had committed a crime against Iran, and so they hacked into US computers in an attempt to attack the targeted individual. How would the US react to that? I'm guessing a lot more belligerently than China would.
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Jay (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:26pm

Re: Just more proof...
No... This is the very stupid and broad way to promote the idea of a police/nanny state.

1) Gain access to laws to screw over the populace
2) Promote the universal scourges of terrorism, hackers, and piracy

3) Work to undermine legitimate speech concerns by deleting them

4) ????

5) Profit.
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ethorad (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:26pm

Re:
They really need to stop child terrorism - my 1 year old terrorises me when she's hungry/sleepy/bored/over excited/god knows what ...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 12:28pm

Forget China...
This is an open invitation to Anonymous and the rest of the hackers in the world to show them the errors of their ways, en masse Can they be more stupid?
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gorehound (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:32pm

Re:
That is just what I was thinking.We will in turn make mincemeat out of them if they dare try to Hack The World.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 12:34pm

'Is the Netherlands (population 6,065,459) really ready to take on China (population 1,353,821,000) over this?'

particularly when you consider how adept the Chinese are at just about everything they do. there is a Chinese copy of almost everything produced elsewhere in the world (and the look-a-likes look more like the real thing than the real thing does!!). on top of that, even the 'real things' are manufactured in China!
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 12:40pm

Re:
Also, I'm assuming Dutch law enforcement are just as technologically inept as American LE, so this work would be outsourced...to China.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 12:40pm

Sidenote
For the population you cited the wikipage for Holland, wich should have been the page for the Netherlands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
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joost, 7 May 2013 @ 12:45pm

It's 16,000,000, not 6,000,000
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out_of_the_blue, 7 May 2013 @ 12:53pm

What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
My bet is to use backdoors built into all current Windows, Apple, and Google OSs.

This is a typical "limited hangout" type of announcement that actually obscures the much more alarming point that the spyware that allows a gov't "hack into" is ALREADY on "YOUR" computer. -- You even PAID for it, suckers!
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ScytheNoire, 7 May 2013 @ 12:58pm

I wish I could be a politician. Unfortunately I am neither corrupt or an idiot.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 1:02pm

Child Pornography accusations are the new Communist accusation of our days, the new justification to use any force/means necessary to hunt down such people.

Want to ruin anyone's reputation for life, just accuse them of being a child rapist and/or having child porn.

There was one church around where I live where one member there REALLY hated their church's pastor. So he decided to get rid of him by getting him in jail for child pornography, by creating a new email address just to mail his pastor Child Porn. And THEN he called the police right away to report that his church's pastor had child porn on his computer.

At first it worked for a day or two when the cops seized the pastor's church issued laptop, with the reason why spreading all around the church that the pastor was into child porn/possibly raped kids. But then the cops traced the IP address to the guy who originally reported the crime and arrested him.

But even the police arresting the guy for trying to frame his pastor with possessing child pornography couldn't save the pastor's reputation. The church members STILL demanded his head, so the pastor was forced to ask a higher up person in the church hierarchy to assign him to a different church several hours away from that local community, since even with his innocence proven there was no salvaging his reputation there. He was quickly transferred to another church that never heard of the false accusations against him.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 1:05pm

Re: What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
I hate agreeing with OOTB, but this is actually correct: if you're using Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. operating systems that you're already compromised: it's just a question of when someone will decide to avail themselves of the gaping security holes that you bought and paid for.

Your government (and other governments) thank you for self-funding the destruction of your own privacy and security.
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sehlat (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 1:08pm

"in Dutch" could get a whole new meaning here
Just sayin'.
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Glyn Moody, 7 May 2013 @ 1:45pm

Re: Sidenote
Thanks, fixed.
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Glyn Moody, 7 May 2013 @ 1:46pm

Re:
Thanks, fixed.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 1:53pm

What is with all these bloodthirsty world leaders? Newsflash, guys: this is 2013, not 1913. The general public does NOT want World War 3, thank you very much!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 2:01pm

What is going to happen when the Dutch hack into some US, Russian, Chinese et alaphabat soup operation like ATF, DHS, FBI, CIA, et.?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 2:01pm

Re: What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
Pray tell, what are these backdoors that the government (which in all locales across the world is clueless about technology) has access to that the general public, along with black, white and gray hats, are unaware of?
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Lizzardborn, 7 May 2013 @ 2:09pm

Am I the only one that thinks the "innocent" force decrypt clause is much more scary - you are easy to defend from hacking your PC, but you could get in trouble for not being able to decrypt something that is not even encrypted (a hard drive after secure erase is a good candidate)
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 2:14pm

Whelp it's just about time to hand over the reigns to this internet to these governments that have NO CLUE what they are doing, and simply create a a new internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 2:15pm

Re: Re: What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
Well, on Windows, they're called "Outlook" and "Internet Explorer". On Android, they're called "apps". On multiple operating systems, they're called "Adobe Acrobat". And so on.

By the way: http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/05/07/0226229/popular-android-anti-virus-software-fooled-by-trivial- techniques
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fake_out_of_the_blue, 7 May 2013 @ 2:58pm

Re:
LOL Who cares? Even if it was 60 million that is nothing compared to China.
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out_of_the_blue, 7 May 2013 @ 2:59pm

Re: What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
Shame on them. :( I don't need the Gov spying on my 4TB of porn.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 5:10pm

Re: Try "defending their citizens from attack"
Depends who the citizen knows.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 5:22pm

Re:
Hey, wouldn't hacking into, and disabling another nation's computers be cause for war? Or at the very least a violation of another nation's sovereignty?
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AnonCow, 7 May 2013 @ 5:22pm

It's not like they are flying drones into countries and killing those citizens without even the vaguest hint of due process! Now THAT would be grossly irresponsible and a major breach of national sovereignty!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 May 2013 @ 6:39pm

Re: Re: Just more proof...
Maybe you should go put this on Step 2. It's been on life support since launch. Maybe it would get a couple of views or even a comment that will sustain it another six months.
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ethorad (profile), 7 May 2013 @ 11:19pm

Re: Re: Try "defending their citizens from attack"
Unfortunately you're probably right there
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PaulT (profile), 8 May 2013 @ 1:23am

Re: What does "hack into" mean, anyway? ...
While you actually came up with a good point for once, yet again your moronic need to attack negates your point and rests on fiction. Why do you insist on acting like a child when mature conversation would be so much more effective?

"You even PAID for it, suckers!"

So did you, you drooling moron. Unless you're a Linux/FreeBSD user, which given your usual level of technical knowledge displayed here, I seriously doubt.
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Angry dutch dude, 8 May 2013 @ 4:27am

It surprises me every time that this minister isn't thrown to the side.
He has been working on limiting civil liberties for years now.
- Dutch ISP's have to retain all data for 6 months. (Yes they can read your email)
- All data broadcasted is public, so police can listen in to you, but you are not allowed the same...(pretty much all cell-phone calls and the locations of your phone at all times)
- The use of software to monitor (civilian) computers (sort of trojan software)
- All citizens need to carry ID all the time. It is against the law to go outside your house without an ID card. Reminds me of the nazis and their "ausweis"

and now he wants to break in to computers in other countries and take away everybody's right to stay silent.

It's all so incredibly stupid and unconstitutional. I hope the EU steps in and prevents this.....

Could someone please find some proof of his misconduct in the IRT affair so I can be rid of his crazy right-wing BS ?
(He oversaw the special police unit that smuggled in tons of dope, under the pretence of catching a criminal organization that didn't exist anymore)

PS : it's the same minister that wanted to start prosecuting downloaders, but that plan was shot down by pretty much all the other political parties.

I WANT MY FREE NETHERLANDS BACK !
F*ck this police state that opstelten en teeuwen are making it into.
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Anonymous Howard (profile), 8 May 2013 @ 5:15am

Re: Re:
Stuxnet, anybody?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2013 @ 7:43am

Children of the Porn
Thank you for bringing this to my attention

I had no idea that Dutch children downloading porn was such a problem.
Here in merika kids download porn all the time and they're doing OK.

Can someone please explain just how the Dutch kids are using their porn to terrorize people.I mean are they using naked purple dinosaurs or something?
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somethingsmellsfishy, 9 May 2013 @ 8:19am

The timing of this bill makes me wonder if the DDos attacks on the iDeal payment system (which served no purpose to any criminal) were done with a political agenda.
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