From: InfoSec News (isnC4I.ORG)
Date: Mon Apr 09 2001 - 22:26:08 CDT

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42921,00.html

by Steve Kettmann
8:20 a.m. Apr. 9, 2001 PDT

BERLIN - The Germans are planning an attack.

At least, that's the threat that Interior Minister Otto Schily has
made, vowing the German government may resort to denial-of-service
attacks as a way to shut down U.S. and other foreign websites that
help German neo-Nazis.

Condemnation of the plan was immediate. But as of Monday afternoon in
Germany, Schily's office had reported no backtracking from his
statement, which has been the focus of recent media attention in
Germany.

"If I said something like this in public as a speaker of the Chaos
Computer Club, I could count the minutes before I had an investigation
against me," said Andy Mueller-Maguhn, a leader of Berlin's famed CCC
hacker group -- and also Europe's representative on the ICANN board.

"It might be that Mr. Schily does not know anything about infowar, but
I know a lot of countries see attacks coming at their computers from
other countries as an act of war. If even one country in the world
were to start acting like this, it could lead to an open infowar that
no one could win."

Schily regularly makes headlines in Germany with his denunciations of
far-right groups, who have grown not only more numerous over the last
year but also more violent. In fact, the government announced last
month that in 2000, the number of far-right crimes reached its highest
level since World War II.

Schily believes right-wing websites, increasingly based in the United
States, foment this violence. Last December, Germany's Supreme Court
ruled that German law could be applied to material placed on the
Internet and available in Germany, raising the possibility of German
legal action against Americans sponsoring such sites.

Meanwhile, political pressure has built for the government to take
strong action. As Paul Spiegel, head of Germany's Jewish community,
said in response to the figures on escalating right-wing crime: "I
hope now for a first effective step in fighting right-wing extremism."

But in delving into such sensitive territory as a government
sponsoring DOS attacks, Schily may stir up more controversy than he
realizes.

"I don't think he knows what a Pandora's box he's opening," said Frank
Rieger, a longtime member of Berlin's hacking scene who last year
co-founded a Berlin startup.

"If even one American ISP decides to say, 'We are being attacked by a
foreign government, and we are going to counter-attack,' they have
much bigger resources, so that could be really devastating. There
wouldn't be much bandwidth left, because there is not as much
bandwidth here in Germany as there is in the United States."

If it all sounds far-fetched, maybe it should. But that does not mean
Schily floated the idea without being serious about it. His office did
not return repeated calls asking for comment, but Mueller-Maguhn has
established the existence of a recent letter -- signed by Schily
himself -- outlining the DOS plan in detail.

"The letter says that such an attack would not violate the law,"
Mueller-Maguhn said.

"Watching the situation, it might be that I have to start an
investigation against Mr. Schily, because of two things. One is
promoting illegal things in public. You're not allowed to tell people
to do something illegal. And the other thing is a little bit worse.
German law says if you prepare an act of war, that's something quite
serious.

"I ... hope that the Americans don't take it too seriously, what he
said here. I have no idea what his motive was saying something like
this in public. That's not accepting the sovereignty of another
country."

Mueller-Maguhn, who has consulted with the German government before,
said he had been unable to reach Schily on the phone to get an
explanation.

"If Mr. Schily wants to say what is happening here (with right-wing
violence) is caused by American computers, that's bullshit," he said.

Schily's increasingly hard line stands in contrast to his background.
A former Green Party leader, he switched to Gerhard Schroeder's
left-center Social Democratic Party -- but no one has forgotten his
Green past.

"From his history, he's not at all wild," said Mueller-Maguhn. "Not
even when he helped defend terrorists. He was always a very straight
lawyer. He was not a man of political interests. He was a man of
spreading his own name as a good lawyer. He was a real careerist."

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