After Snowden leaks, Germans wary of Internet

BERLIN - When the German version of the FBI needs to share sensitive information these days, it types it up and has it hand-delivered.



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This time last year, it would have trusted the security of email. But last year was before former contractor Edward Snowden revealed the scope of the National Security Agency’s electronic intelligence-gathering program.

“We’re now carrying our information to our allies on foot,” said Peter Henzler, the vice president of the Bundeskriminalamt. He was speaking recently at a German Interior Ministry panel on the country’s digital future. The focus of the panel was how to counter U.S. surveillance measures and what it will take for Germans to be safe again on the Web. “We’re no longer using the open Internet.”

The message is clear: The United States is no longer trusted not to spy on any and every facet of German life and policy.

Henzler was not alone on the panel in his concerns, and the worries appear to be an accurate reflection of the wider German, and even European, concern about the reach of U.S. surveillance programs.

Last week, the news broke that the United States had tapped the cellphone of Gerhard Schroeder when he was the German chancellor from 1998 to 2005. Four months earlier, news broke that the same American surveillance program was tapping the cellphone of the current chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Many Germans have told pollsters they’ve either left or reduced their time on Facebook for fear of spying. German television ads note the peace of mind and freedom that come with email that doesn’t leave European servers. Providers publicly say that they now encrypt all email. Anti-surveillance National Security Agency protests are common in Berlin.

Such thoughts aren’t limited to Germany. A $900 million French deal with the United Arab Emirates for two new intelligence satellites appears to be in doubt after the buyers noticed U.S. components in the French satellites that they feared could compromise their data.

Experts note that there may be no better place to find the effect this distrust is having on the United States than in the emerging cloud-computing market.

Before Europe met Snowden, there was little doubt that it was moving fast to an American-dominated cloud-computing future.

The biggest players in the market were U.S. companies. The best products were generally accepted to be American products. There were some folks insisting that a European cloud, governed by European privacy laws, was needed to protect European communications and data. But they were largely ignored.

But that was before the Germans and French and others worldwide learned that the National Security Agency - in the name of counter terrorism - peeked at essentially any and all communications and data that crossed its path.

Now, German cloud-companies are posting better-than-expected earnings. There have been signs that some U.S. tech companies might be suffering. Network equipment-maker Cisco, for instance, noted government issues when it predicted a revenue drop for this quarter.

The new reality is simply that data that pass through the United States isn’t seen as safe.

“A year ago, a German cloud was a bad idea,” said Daniel Castro, a senior analyst for the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in Washington. “German business didn’t want a German product to help them in a global market, they wanted the best product. Today, even if businesses still believe a German cloud is a bad idea, they’re accepting it as a necessary idea.”

Castro put together his predictions before the news reached the current level. The recent Interior Ministry panel showed just how paranoid Germany has become. Reinhold Achatz, the head of technology and innovation at the German steel giant ThyssenKrupp, noted that “whoever can read data is also likely to be able to change data.”

“For example, they could switch off a power station,” he said. “So from my point of view, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone came up with the idea of switching off Germany. I’m serious about that.”

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere summed up the fears of Germans, asking “whether the Internet can be made secure again or whether this is an illusion.”

“We are dealing with a crisis of confidence,” he said.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/14/2014

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