In a law left vague enough for ridiculous exploitation, the German government has just passed Paragraph 202C, which states that it's illegal to possess, produce, use or distribute a "hacker tool".
Make points out that the law could easily encompass network monitoring systems, and that since the ban, Kismac WiFi detection software has shut down. Here is the note left on Kismac's site:
With the introduction of §202c German politicians proved their complete incompetence. Law in Germany: possession of child pornography - two years imprisonment. Distribution of security software is half as bad. Even worse politicians still believe in the successful ban of digital information, obviously not reckoning globalization.
We are heading straight to a country I do not want to be living in.
There are legitimate threats that this bill will stop. But my guess is the government will create more defiant computer users as a result. [make and Kismac]
DISCUSSION
"the government will create more defiant computer users as a result."
German government policy has already labeled almost every citizen owning security copies of their CD collections criminals, so why not just declare every computer user a cyber terrorist?
Time to move to Sweden, where piracy is a legitimate political movement.