Joachim Güntner: It used to be that when people heard about hackers, especially ones in a Chaos Club, they had an image of scatterbrains, social nuisances.
Constanze Kurz: The image of the club has changed for the better, but there are still people who talk about hackers without differentiating between those who do it with criminal intent and those with ethical standards.
The Chaos-Computer-Club recently discovered a trojan on hard drives that seemed suspicious to their users, a trojan apparently launched by government authorities. In what way did this online spy-service violate the rights of the citizens affected?
Kurz: In fact it gave a kind of general authorisation to technically sniff out the infiltrated computers. It was not only able to divert data, but additional malware could be uploaded and executed by remote control. The entire hard drive of the targeted person was open to search by investigators. It was also possible to activate the camera, the microphone, or perform a keypad protocol. It went as far as acoustic and visual surveillance of the person's home.