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Comment by niemandhier | Hacker News Reader

It’s even funnier: I am not allowed to do projects that allow me to gain the skills I would need to build this tech in Germany. Yet my government buys.

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Fellow German here, could you elaborate? Because I was under the impression that I could whatever I wanted with the devices that I own.

The famed “§ 202c STGB: Vorbereiten des Ausspähens und Abfangens von Daten”, colloquially called the “hacker tools” law.

> I am not allowed to do projects that allow me to gain the skills I would need to build this tech in Germany

Can you give examples of what you must be able to do to learn this, but isn't allowed to "do" and that doesn't have any other alternatives to learn?

The creation of tools to circumvent security measures that protect “data”, is punishable by up to 2 years in prison under vague conditions here.

So anything that would build skills towards being able to crack an iPhone is at least legally ambiguous.

I'm sure there's a carve out for academic purposes or when produced under a proper government license.

It is nearly almost as if there were hidden hands at work in governance of the entire Western world, with invisible gatekeepers in each place which serve those hands. But that's mad talk, isn't it?

You'll be treated like this is crazy, even though it's true they are some countries that can break every rule without issue while the rest of us must live by strict standards. Asking for fairness is simply over the line. Upholding this system simply contributes to falling trust in our current system.

But hey maybe that's a good thing in the long run, if our current system isn't just.

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