Germany: As Germans prepare to vote, a mystery grows: Where are the Russians? | The Washington Post

In 2015, suspected Russian hackers broke into the computer networks of the German Parliament and made off with a mother lode of data — 16 gigabytes, enough to account for a million or more emails. Ever since, German politicians have been watching nervously for the fruits of that hack to be revealed, and for possible embarrassment and scandal to follow. Many warily eyed September 2017 — the date of the next German election — as the likely window for Russian meddling to once again rattle the foundations of a Western democracy. But with the vote only two weeks away — and with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s European nemesis, Chancellor Angela Merkel, seemingly on track for a comfortable win — the hacked emails haven’t materialized. Nor have Russian-linked propaganda networks churned into overdrive with disinformation campaigns. Even Kremlin-orchestrated bots — blamed for the viral spread of fake news in last year’s U.S. presidential campaign — have been conspicuously silent.

Germany: White-Hat Hackers Expose Security Gaps in German Voting Software | Bloomberg

Hackers could tamper with Germany’s election results because the country is relying on poorly protected software, according to German tech watchdog Chaos Computer Club. While Germans hand in paper ballots that are hand-counted, the results are collected and disseminated electronically, including with a software called PC-Wahl that can be manipulated, CCC said in a report released Thursday. CCC found passwords online and easily figured out others — one was “test.” The group said the software isn’t secure because it uses an older encryption method with a single secret key, rather than newer and more-secure “asymmetrical” combinations. Hackers could “influence the transmitted voting result data on a nationwide level,” CCC wrote in the report. It urged the German government to modernize its software to protect the Sept. 24 election.

Germany: Election ballot box closed to 7.8 million residents | Deutsche Welle

Some 7.8 million adult foreign residents in Germany will see themselves sidelined when federal election polls open on September 24, according to 2016 microcensus data sifted for DW by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). On average, these resident foreigners have lived in Germany for 15 years while paying tax and obligatory levies into health and pension funds, often acquiring intimate knowledge of German politics and culture. But they cannot vote, nor stand as political party candidates – unlike 61.5 million Germans, including 3 million first-timers, who can vote in the federal election.

Germany: How Germany Is Preparing for Russian Election Meddling | Der Spiegel

In recent weeks, officials inside Germany’s security agencies have been fondly circulating an article from the website of Foreign Policy magazine that was published on Aug. 3 with the headline, “Russian Hackers Can’t Beat German Democracy.” The article speculates about what Russia could do to disrupt the German federal election, which takes place on Sept. 24, and argues that the Russians will certainly attempt to interfere. Notably, though, the magazine concludes that the Kremlin is unlikely to succeed. Germany, the article argues, is excellently prepared for dealing with any attack because politicians and voters alike have been sensitized to the threat — and because the country’s media system provides a protective shield against disinformation campaigns.

Germany: Merkel ally cites thousands of cyber attacks from Russian IP addresses | Reuters

A top leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party said her website had been hit by thousands of cyber attacks — many from Russian IP addresses — before Sunday’s televised election debate. German intelligence and government officials have often voiced concerns that Moscow could seek to interfere in the Sept. 24 national election, in which Merkel is widely expected to win a fourth term. Russia has repeatedly denied trying to influence foreign elections. Julia Kloeckner, vice chairman of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said on Monday that her political website had seen some 3,000 attacks on Sunday before the debate between Merkel and Social Democratic leader Martin Schulz.

Germany: CDU politician accuses Russia of hacking website | Politico.eu

A senior politician of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lashed out at Russia after her website appeared to be hacked Sunday. Julia Klöckner, the leader of the CDU in the state of Rhineland Palatinate, said on Twitter: “Today a massive hacker attack on my homepage – with greetings from Russia. [As] if this has something to do with the election.”

Germany: Wahl-O-Mat App pairs voters with political parties | Deutsche Welle

Animal rights, weapons exports, health care, fake news, refugees, sovereign debt, retirement and marijuana legalization. Those are just some of the issues on voters’ minds ahead of Germany’s federal election next month – and some of the issues the Wahl-O-Mat, Germany’s official voting advice application (VAA), quizzes its users on. With a reported 46 percent of voters undecided on which way to cast their ballots, the unveiling of the latest Wahl-O-Mat on Wednesday came with an extra sense of buzz and anticipation. Since first launching in 2002, the Wahl-O-Mat (roughly translated as “Vote-O-Meter”) has become an engrained part of the German election process. At Wednesday’s presentation in Berlin, the president of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb), Thomas Krüger, described the voter tool as Germany’s “democratic national sport.”

Germany: Election could be won by early voting | Deutsche Welle

Election day in Germany isn’t until September 24. But what if the decisive votes have already been cast? More and more Germans are choosing to vote early, which also changes who loses and who wins. More people in Germany are skipping the trip to the voting booth and casting their ballots ahead of election day. In 2013, 24.3 percent of German voters cast their ballots early and by mail, and Cristina Tillmann, director of the Future of Democracy Program at the Bertelsmann Foundation, said that number could rise even further this time around. “Mail-in voting is here to stay,” Tillmann told DW.  “It’s become a full-fledged alternative to going to the polls in the real lives of voters, so it’s no longer an exception, even if it’s legally still defined as one. Parties and election workers need to reckon with a quarter or even 30 percent of voters casting their ballots early.”

Germany: Third is the new first in German election | Politico

With less than a month to go in Germany’s election campaign, third place has become the most sought-after prize. Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc has held a lead of about 15 percentage points across a variety of polls for weeks. The Social Democrats, under Martin Schulz, may yet close the gap, but history suggests they have virtually no chance of winning. The battle for third place, however, is anything but over. A cluster of parties, including the far-left Die Linke, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) are in a dead heat, all polling in the 7-10 percent range.

Germany: This German political party is a complete joke — literally | The Washington Post

On posters blanketing the German capital, a warning is emblazoned: “We give a face to the crisis.” The visage is Nico Semsrott’s, ghost white save the shadow cast on his right cheek by the upturned hood of his black sweatshirt. He glowers. This is the face of a hoodlum — gazing out from placards advertising his campaign for the German Parliament. The election is next month. But crisis? What crisis? Semsrott is not campaigning in the United States, where emotions are red hot. This is Germany, where politics is seemingly untroubled. The chancellor, Angela Merkel, is poised to claim a fourth term, polls show. One poster for her center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union, features a young woman lying in the grass, sleeping. “Enjoy the summer now and make the right choice in the autumn,” the flier counsels, suggesting that voters sleepwalk through the race. 

Germany: CDU, SPD and Greens use big data to target Bundestag voters | Deutsche Welle

The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats are going door-to-door collecting voter information. They are hoping to gain access to the electorate in a way that was once unthinkable under Germany’s strict privacy laws. Cornelius Golembiewski takes an iPad and a smartphone with him when he goes door-to-door for the Christian Democrats (CDU). On the iPad, he sees a map of his hometown, Jena, covered in green spots. The green indicates clusters of houses where potential CDU voters are likely to live.

Germany: Turkey hits back at Germany over election ′interference′ criticism | Deutsche Welle

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the German government on Saturday for criticizing his appeal to ethnic Turks living in Germany not to vote for the county’s two ruling parties in the upcoming September elections. Addressing a crowd of supporters in the southwestern province of Denizli, Erdogan had particularly harsh words for German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel.
Read more: Ankara mayor slams German Green party leader for ‘treachery’ “He knows no limits! Who are you to talk to the president of Turkey? Know your limits. He is trying to teach us a lesson… How long have you been in politics? How old are you?” Erdogan said.
‘Unprecedented act of interference’

Germany: Russian-Germans in focus amid fears of Moscow propaganda | Reuters

German political parties campaigning for elections next month are competing to attract 2 million voters with roots in the former Soviet Union, amid concerns that Russian propaganda could sway votes in the community. The biggest push for votes has come from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has six Russian-German candidates on its party slate, and whose leaders have had two meetings with the community in recent weeks. Including candidates for the Social Democrats, conservatives and other parties, a record number of Russian-German candidates are standing in the election on Sept. 24, after years of having just one representative there – Heinrich Zertik, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). Zertik is one of about 3 million Germans with roots in Russia and the former Soviet Union, whose ancestors moved there hundreds of years ago, but who faced persecution, torture and exile after two world wars.

Germany: In German Election Campaign, Third Place Is the Real Winner | Wall Street Journal

Germany’s general election campaign kicked off in earnest over the weekend and it promises to be a nail-biter—for third place. Chancellor Angela Merkel looks like a sure bet to win a fourth term as the head of Europe’s biggest economic power when the country votes in late September. Her center-right alliance has a 15-point polling lead over its closest challenger, the center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPD, of candidate Martin Schulz. Merkel’s campaign slogan—“For a Germany in which we live well and happily”—channels a public mood wary of change. In a 40-minute speech to supporters in the city of Dortmund on Saturday that opened six weeks of campaigning, she didn’t even mention her opponent by name.

Germany: Russia Has Launched a Fake News War on Europe. Now Germany Is Fighting Back | Time

One morning in November, Simon Hegelich, a professor of political science at the Technical University of Munich, was surprised to get an urgent invitation from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wanted to hear more about his research on the manipulation of voter sentiment. Less than two weeks earlier, the U.S. elections had ended in victory for Donald Trump, and the post-mortems were full of buzzwords the Chancellor urgently needed to understand: filter bubbles, bots, fake news, disinformation, much of it related to the claims that Russia had somehow hijacked the elections. “Basically she wanted to know what the hell is going on,” Hegelich recalls. What was past, Merkel thought, may be prologue. With German elections scheduled for Sept. 24, the Chancellor knows that her bid for a fourth term in office may be subject to the same dirty tricks employed in the U.S. presidential race. As Europe’s most powerful leader and its most determined critic of the Kremlin, Merkel has long been a target of Russian influence campaigns. Troves of emails were stolen from her political allies in 2015 by the same Russian hackers who later targeted the U.S. presidential race.  During her 12 years in power, Merkel has also watched the Kremlin’s media apparatus air broadsides against her policies in a variety of languages, including German, English, Spanish and French.

Germany: Intelligence officials expects Russia election meddling | Washington Times

Intelligence officials here are on high alert, bracing for a wave of cyberattacks, embarrassing information leaks and fake news stories spread on social media as part of an expected Russian campaign to sow political discord ahead of next month’s German federal elections. The nation’s domestic intelligence agency says Moscow would like to see Chancellor Angela Merkel, a backer of sanctions against Russia, lose in September, but since that outcome is unlikely, the Kremlin can be expected to settle for any shenanigans that weaken the public’s “faith in democracy.” Many fear the Russian subversion effort will get fuel from the U.S. presidential vote while even contested charges of Russian hacking and meddling in the campaign have become a consuming political and legal distraction for the Trump administration.

Germany: Russian Hackers Can’t Beat German Democracy | Foreign Policy

Less than two months remain before Germans go to the polls in a general election. On the surface, this has been as regular an election season as can be: Parties have assembled their programs and teams, candidates have been out campaigning, and politics have mostly revolved around the classic issues: taxes, social benefits, public investment. Yet hanging over this appearance of normalcy is the question of when and how Russia will inject itself into the upcoming ballot. After apparent interference in the U.S. and French elections, there can be little doubt that the Kremlin will also attempt to sway the vote in Germany. Indeed, the German interior minister recently issued a public warning about potential Russian cyberattacks and disinformation ahead of the elections. While it remains unclear what the Kremlin has in store, chances are that it will try — and that German democracy will weather the onslaught.

Germany: As Election Nears, German Media Braces for Devious Hacks | The New York Times

To come here as an American on the eve of Germany’s next national political campaign is to go back in time to our own recent past, before the hacks and the (Wiki)leaks led to the paralyzing debate over whether Russia intervened in our presidential election. I arrived in this idyllic, rational and not completely batty world capital (a strange sight to these American eyes) the week before last to find the country’s political world on tenterhooks, waiting for disruptive leaks but not knowing when or whether they might come. A group of hackers — “not us,” say the Russians; “yeah, you,” say the Germans — was sitting on a huge trove of political secrets gathered over the past couple of years. Its first big attack, on the Bundestag, the German Parliament, came in 2015. It vacuumed up some 16 gigabytes of emails and digital files from at least 16 members’ offices, including, officials here believe, that of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Cyberthieves have since struck think tanks related to her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and to its junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats.

Germany: OSCE mulls monitoring German election, as far-right complains of ‘massive interference’ | The Local

The intergovernmental OSCE organization is considering whether to send a monitoring mission to the upcoming German election after speaking with each of the parties, Spiegel reports. Spiegel reported on Monday that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is deciding whether to monitor the September 24th German national election. For the first time, delegates from the OSCE met with party leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at their central headquarters, who provided documentation of “attacks, violence, obstructions, and criminal acts against AfD members through private and public positions” as well as “individual acts and in their alarming sum make up a massive interference in a democratic competition for votes in the parliamentary election campaign.”

Germany: Anti-fake news lab yields mixed results | Politico.eu

With an election looming in September, fake news is big news in Germany. So concerned is the German government by a growing quantity of false and defamatory information online that it is going further than others in pressuring tech companies to better police their networks. Parliament approved a new law this month under which lawmakers could soon impose fines of up to €50 million on social media firms if they fail to remove criminal content like defamatory and hate-inciting posts quickly enough. “Something has changed,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament shortly after fake news played a prominent role in the U.S. election. “Today we have fake sites, bots, trolls … We must confront this phenomenon and if necessary, regulate it.” It’s one thing to confront fake news and another to find a solution for it. Germany is hardly alone. Policymakers, the media and tech companies on both sides of the Atlantic have struggled for months now to improvise responses.

Germany: De Maiziere expects Russian leaking to start in ‘weeks’ | EUObserver

Germany expects Russia to start publishing compromising material on German MPs in the summer in order to destabilise elections in September. Its interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, and spy chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, issued the warning in Berlin on Tuesday (4 July) after unveiling a yearly intelligence report. De Maiziere said the material “could be published in the coming weeks,” the Reuters news agency reported. Maassen said Russia’s intention was “to damage trust in and the functioning of our democracy so our government should have domestic political difficulties and not be as free to act in its foreign policy as it is today.”

Germany: Interior Minister is expecting Russian effort to influence election | Reuters

Germany is expecting Russia to try to influence its general election on Sept. 24, but there are no indications of which party it would seek to back, officials said on Tuesday. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said at a news conference that data stolen in 2015 in a hack of the lower house of parliament could surface in the coming weeks. Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said that while it was not known what Russia would do he suspected that Russian President Vladimir Putin would prefer a different German chancellor than Angela Merkel. It was likely that Russia had sought to influence the U.S. election and everything points to Moscow’s involvement in efforts to influence the election in France, de Maiziere said. “As a result, it cannot be excluded – and we are preparing internally – that there will be a similar effort to influence the election in Germany,” he said. Russia has denied trying to influence foreign elections.

Germany: Berlin braces for Russian meddling before September election | Financial Times

Berlin is braced for a possible Russian campaign aimed at damaging democracy in the run-up to September’s German election, officials warned on Tuesday, as they pointed the finger at several states for launching cyber attacks. Russia, China, Iran and Turkey are all accused of having targeted Germany in an annual government report on domestic and foreign security threats. The dangers range from the loss of sensitive data to the planting of delayed-action malware that could trigger “silent, ticking digital time bombs” primed to manipulate computers and sabotage infrastructure. The warning, a few days before G20 leaders are due to discuss global cyber threats, shows increasing international concern over cyber security but could also raise tension at the Hamburg summit, which Angela Merkel, German chancellor, is hosting.

Germany: Government report says Germany big target of cyber espionage and attacks | Reuters

Germany is a big target of spying and cyber attacks by foreign governments such as Turkey, Russia and China, a government report said on Tuesday, warning of “ticking time bombs” that could sabotage critical infrastructure. Industrial espionage costs German industry billions of euros each year, with small- and medium-sized businesses often the biggest losers, the BfV domestic intelligence agency said in its 339-page annual report. The report mapped out a range of security threats, including Islamist militancy and increased far-right violence, but highlighted the growing incidence of cyber espionage. It cited a “noticeable increase” in spying by Turkey’s MIT foreign intelligence agency in Germany in 2016, following the failed July 15 coup in Turkey, and said Russia was seeking to influence a parliamentary election on Sept. 24. “The consequences for our country range from weakened negotiating positions to high material costs and economic damage all the way to impairment of national sovereignty,” it said.

Germany: How Much Does It Cost to Influence an Election? About $400,000 | Bloomberg

Want to influence an election? All you need is about $400,000, according to cyber security consultant Trend Micro Inc. That’s the sum it takes to buy followers on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, hire companies to write and disseminate fake news postings over a period of 12 months, and run sophisticated web sites to influence public opinion, according to Udo Schneider, a security expert for the German-speaking market at Trend Micro. “Hacking the actual voting process isn’t worth it as it leaves traces, is very expensive and technologically challenging,” Schneider said Wednesday at a security conference organized by Deutsche Telekom AG in Berlin. Yet influencing public opinion via fake news and data leaks, as is believed to have happened during the U.S. and French election campaigns, is relatively simple and “could also happen ahead of the German elections.”

Germany: Chaos Computer Club: The Hackers Russia-Proofing Germany’s Elections | Bloomberg

The hack began as trash talk. Germany’s voting computers were so vulnerable to tampering that they could be reprogrammed to play chess, the hackers boasted. But then the machines’ maker dared them to try. Bound by honor and curiosity, the hackers got their hands on one of the computers and had it playing chess after about a month. “We have to admit,” they later wrote, “that it does not play chess all that well.” This wasn’t just a prank. The hackers, several of them associated with the Hamburg collective known as the Chaos Computer Club, or CCC, also proved they could manipulate votes that the computers had recorded. As a result, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court struck down the nation’s use of voting computers, citing CCC by name in its ruling. Oh, and this was in 2006. From imperfect voting machines to the fake news that chokes social media, the U.S., the U.K., and France are only beginning to wrestle with the ways in which democracy can be hacked. In Germany, which is heading to the polls in September, CCC has been paying closer attention. Sometimes that means such stunts as reprogramming computer systems on a dare, but the loose confederation of about 5,500 hackers isn’t a bunch of bored teens in it for the lulz. Its 29 local chapters are stocked with professionals who run security for banks, head encryption startups, and advise policymakers. The group publishes an occasional magazine, produces a monthly talk radio show, and throws the occasional party, too.

Germany: Bundestag cancels German government funding of non-democratic parties | Deutsche Welle

A majority of 502 of 579 delegates in the German Bundestag voted Thursday in favor of amending the country’s constitution to deprive anti-democratic political parties of federal money. One of the first groups likely to be affected by the new rules is the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which received 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) last year. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas was pleased with the constitutional amendment. “The state is under no obligation to finance enemies of democracy,” Maas said in a statement just ahead of the vote. “Devoting tax money to the NPD is a direct state investment in radical right-wing incitement.” Under the previous rules, any party garnering 1 percent in a local election or 0.5 percent in a national or EU election automatically qualified for state funding up to the amount of money raised by the party itself. The NPD polled 1.5 percent and 1 percent respectively in the 2013 German national election and the 2014 EU election.

Germany: Germany Builds an Election Firewall to Fight Russian Hackers | Bloomberg

In March and April hackers tried to infiltrate computers of think tanks associated with Germany’s top two political parties. A year earlier, scammers set up a fake server in Latvia to flood German lawmakers with phishing emails. And in 2015 criminals breached the network of the German Parliament, stealing 16 gigabytes of data. Although there’s no definitive proof, the attacks have been linked to Pawn Storm, a shadowy group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies—raising the possibility that the Kremlin might disrupt a September vote in which Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strongest critic in Europe, is seeking a fourth term. “There’s increasing evidence of attempts to influence the election” by Russia, says Hans-Georg Maassen, head of BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. “We expect another jump in cyberattacks ahead of the vote.” While polls show Merkel is likely to defeat the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD), the concern is that the Kremlin will try to strengthen the far-right Alternative for Germany and turn the estimated 2.5 million voters who speak Russian against her. “Cybersecurity is a top priority, and Chancellor Merkel is taking it very seriously,” says Arne Schönbohm, president of the BSI, the country’s top technology security agency.

Germany: Election director eyes possible quiet period before election | Reuters

Germany should consider imposing a “quiet period” immediately before the federal election in September, similar to a media policy in place in France, election director Dieter Sarreither said, amid concerns about possible meddling by Russia. “We should discuss it and examine whether such steps are necessary,” Sarreither told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in an interview published on Saturday. France has a 24-hour ban on media reports that could affect a French election before polls open. The measure helped to prevent more widespread reporting of a massive hack that released emails, documents and financing information just before campaigning ended ahead of the May election.

Germany: Facebook says Germany’s fake news rules don’t comply with EU-law | Business Insider

Facebook has criticised a new German law that would force social media companies to pay up to €50 million (£43 million) if they fail to remove hate speech and false news, saying it will encourage paranoid tech companies to delete legal content in order to avoid the hefty fines. In March, the German government proposed legislation to fine social media companies if they fail to remove slanderous or threatening online postings quickly. The plans were approved by Germany’s cabinet in April but they are yet to come into force. Now Facebook has responded to the new law, which is being referred to as the “Network Enforcement Act” or “Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz” in German (NetzDG, for short). The Californian tech giant issued a statement over the weekend explaining why the draft law “is not suitable to combat hate speech and false news.”