Almost every politician in Germany has had their personal data leaked online

[Master Disaster]

Hundreds of politicians from Germany are involved in this mass doxxing which includes personal information, financial information and private correspondence. The leak also includes some German celebrities and journalists too.

Quote

Hundreds of German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have had personal details stolen and published online.

 

Contacts, private chats and financial details were put out on Twitter that belong to figures from every political party except the far-right AfD.

 

Data from celebrities and journalists were also leaked.

 

It is unclear who was behind the attack, which emerged on Twitter in the style of an advent calendar last month.

 

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said the authorities were working hard to find the perpetrator. There was, he said in a statement, as yet no evidence that German parliamentary or government systems had been compromised.

 

The leak appears to have originated on a Twitter account operated from Hamburg and the authorities in the north German city say they are now working with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to stop the spread of German politicians' data.

What's unusual about this leak is the data might not have been stolen digitally and instead it might have been a lone leaker with authorised access.

Quote

The true extent of damage caused by the leak is not yet known although Justice Minister Katarina Barley said it was a "serious attack".

 

"The people behind this want to damage confidence in our democracy and institutions," she said.

 

A government spokeswoman said no sensitive data from the chancellor's office had been published. MPs, Euro MPs and MPs from state parliaments were affected, said Martina Fietz.

 

She said the government was not yet certain that the data had been stolen by cyber-hackers. Some reports suggested a lone leaker might have had access to sensitive data through their work.

 

Although nothing politically explosive is known to have been leaked, the sheer volume of personal data involved suggests the consequences could be considerable, says Michael Götschenberg, a reporter for German broadcaster RBB, who researched the attack.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46757009

 

Ah, a good old fashioned leak. Makes you all warm and fuzzy with nostalgia.

[BigDamn]

damn

[Fasauceome]

I'm not really seeing the "tech" part of this news article, except the hint that it could have been an online hacker.

[Ashleyyyy]

1 minute ago, fasauceome said:

I'm not really seeing the "tech" part of this news article, except the hint that it could have been an online hacker.

and that the data was leaked on twitter. that's a big deal. 

[PlayStation 2]

 

[Delicieuxz]

9 minutes ago, Deus Voltage said:

This topic is just begging to get locked (although I'm extremely tempted to intervene with my own political agenda).

Threads involving politicians and political actions are not automatically political. In a recent thread, one that I made, there was very little political discourse in it, and there was some meaningful discussion in it, but there was a huge amount of people saying 'I think this is too political' and 'waiting for this to be locked'.

 

There is no positive value to saying that something is political and therefore likely to be locked. If discussion goes sour, then it will be locked - and if it doesn't go sour, then the purpose in not allowing political discussion is not violated by the discussion. But when people make vapid posts like 'I think this will be locked' / 'this is political', they only increase the likelihood that the thread will be locked, even if there wasn't any negative discussion going on - and some lower-quality people even make their 'this is political' / 'this is going to get locked' posts knowing that by doing so they're inviting the thread to be locked and do so deliberately.

 

6 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

I'm not really seeing the "tech" part of this news article, except the hint that it could have been an online hacker.

That goes for lots of Tech News discussions: What was the tech angle of the CEO of Huawei being arrested in Canada? She works for a tech company?

 

This back-seat moderation and trying to evaluate whether something is too political or not is as bad as nasty political partisanship arguments.

 

85%+ of responses in this thread are now contemplating whether the thread is political and should be locked. What an inane waste of post-space. Just discuss the topic or don't, and leave the rest to the moderators. Don't bloat topics with commentary that doesn't contribute anything.

[LukeSavenije]

i don't see 2019 to be going well with data leaks... having 2018 flashbacks rn

[Fnige]

Can we go back to 2018 already

[Deus Voltage]

2 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Threads involving politicians and political actions are not automatically political. In a recent thread, one that I made, there was very little political discourse in it, and there was some meaningful discussion in it, but there was a huge amount of people saying 'I think this is too political' and 'waiting for this to be locked'.

 

There is no positive value to saying that something is political and therefore likely to be locked. If discussion goes sour, then it will be locked - and if it doesn't go sour, then the purpose in not allowing political discussion is not violated by the discussion. But when people make vapid posts like 'I think this will be locked' / 'this is political', they only increase the likelihood that the thread will be locked, even if there wasn't any negative discussion going on - and some lower-quality people even make their 'this is political' / 'this is going to get locked' posts knowing that by doing so they're inviting the thread to be locked and do so deliberately.

 

That goes for lots of Tech News discussions: What was the tech angle of the CEO of Huawei being arrested in Canada? She works for a tech company?

 

This back-seat moderation and trying to evaluate whether something is too political or not is as bad as nasty political partisanship arguments.

 

85%+ of responses in this thread are now contemplating whether the thread is political and should be locked. What an inane waste of post-space.

Quote:

Quote

Contacts, private chats and financial details were put out on Twitter that belong to figures from every political party except the far-right AfD.

I hope you know where this will lead.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Deus Voltage said:

Quote:

I hope you know where this will lead.

You're literally the only person to bring that up.

[Deus Voltage]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

You're literally the only person to bring that up.

Well in my field of study, it's the one thing that catches my eyes the most. 

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Deus Voltage said:

Quote:

I hope you know where this will lead.

political debate... so let's just talk about the technical aspect before locking

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

political debate... so let's just talk about the technical aspect before locking

I found it interesting because it probably WASN'T a hack and instead a good old fashioned Assagne.

 

Oh crap, I mean Snowdon don't I LUL

[Deus Voltage]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I found it interesting because it probably WASN'T a hack and instead a good old fashioned Assagne.

Assagne? Gotcha now

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Deus Voltage said:

Assagne?

See my edit.

[Delicieuxz]

11 minutes ago, Deus Voltage said:

Quote:

I hope you know where this will lead.

MD makes the important point:

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You're literally the only person to bring that up.

 

Until such things are brought up, the topic hasn't gone there. And it seems that in many of these threads, the people to take the discussion to those places are those fear-mongering that the discussion is going to go to those places. The people saying 'this is political' / 'this is going to get locked' are commonly the catalysts for the discussion going political or becoming something that deserves a lock.

 

If people didn't go 'this is going here or there or is political or should be / is going to be locked' then, in many cases, discussion would never go to those places.

 

IMO, a forum like LTT should maybe hand out 1-day bans for lock-prophesying, because those posts are as toxic to a discussion as most anything else, and they don't demonstrate consideration for people who take the time to present a topic.

 

And if political topics manage to be discussed without going sour, even if there's a no-politics rule, then that's a positive thing and something to be appreciated. It isn't a positive thing to have a no_X_topic rule - and such rules are only there to prevent nasty discussion. But, if the topics can be discussed without turning nasty then the purpose of no_x_topic rules is fulfilled. People should strive to discuss these topics in a manner that doesn't conjure up expectations of the thread being locked. But, when people knee-jerk say the topic is political, or is going to be locked, they aren't even trying - they're cashing in a negative trope for 5 seconds of ADHD self and sometimes selfish-gratification.

[BuckGup]

13 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

i don't see 2019 to be going well with data leaks... having 2018 flashbacks rn

Don't worry companies will still store everything in plain text

[Deus Voltage]

1 minute ago, Delicieuxz said:

MD makes the important point:

 

Until such things are brought up, the topic hasn't gone there. And it seems that in many of these threads, the people to take the discussion to those places are those fear-mongering that the discussion is going to go to those places. The people saying 'this is political' / 'this is going to get locked' are commonly the catalysts for the discussion going political or becoming something that deserves a lock.

 

If people didn't go 'this is going here or there or is political or should be / is going to be locked' then in many cases discussion would never go to those places.

 

IMO, a forum like LTT should maybe hand out 1-day bans for lock-prophesying, because those posts are as toxic to a discussion as most anything else.

 

And if political topics manage to be discussed without going sour, even if there's a no-politics rule, then that's a positive thing and something to be appreciated. It isn't a positive thing to have a no_X_topic rule - and such rules are only there to prevent nasty discussion. But, if the topics can be discussed without turning nasty then the purpose of no_x_topic rules is fulfilled. People should strive to discuss these topics in a manner that doesn't conjure up expectations of the thread being locked. But, when people knee-jerk say the topic is political, or is going to be locked, they aren't even trying - they're cashing in a negative trope for 5 seconds of ADHD self and sometimes selfish-gratification.

I agree. 

[Taf the Ghost]

Clever. Extremely dangerous, but a clever attack.

 

Germany is going to be ground-zero for a lot of European political conflicts for the next couple of decades, as a result, there's a lot of factions that might be sending a signal with this type of release. It's something like the classic case of "Who had motive to kill the mob boss? Everyone in a 20 km/mile radius." Thus, we can't point any fingers at anyone very easily, which is why the Tech Angle is important. You can do a lot of damage to institutions without doing anything, directly, to that institution. 

[Tristerin]

4 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

"Damage our democracy".

 

 

By what, providing actual transparency?

I didn't read the article - Im tickled pink by these politicians having to be public about their everything.  They and their ilk deserve a lot worse than this.  However I have to stop I think lol cause politics.

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, Tristerin said:

I didn't read the article - Im tickled pink by these politicians having to be public about their everything.  They and their ilk deserve a lot worse than this.  However I have to stop I think lol cause politics.

Personally, I think all politicians should be required to give up their right to privacy as a requirement for volunteering to take on more power than the rest of the citizenry.

[Tristerin]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

Personally, I think all politicians should be required to give up their right to privacy as a requirement for volunteering to take on more power than the rest of the citizenry.

100%

 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Everyone except the AfD... hmmmm...

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

42 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

i don't see 2019 to be going well with data leaks... having 2018 flashbacks rn

2016 : Season 4

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

i don't see 2019 to be going well with data leaks... having 2018 flashbacks rn

I'm having Jennifer Lawrence flashbacks