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Pirate Party Launches Commercial Darknet
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Tue Aug 15, 2006 01:42 AM
from the nothing-to-see-here dept.
from the nothing-to-see-here dept.
CrystalFalcon writes "The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a commercial, high-capacity darknet, on an unprecedented scale and bandwidth. This service lets anybody send and receive files anonymously without being tracked or traced. 'There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet,' says Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate Party. 'If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check.'"
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Rock On Dude (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rock On Dude (Score:5, Interesting)
One question we get is if this works in the US. Yes, it does.
It looks like just a PPTP connection to a Swedish ISP, doling out some Swedish IP addresses. I'm curious as to the speed the service offers. What's the pipe feeding into Relakks?
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Re:Rock On Dude (Score:5, Informative)
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swedish ip's (Score:5, Funny)
Basically, this gives users the advantage of a Swedish IP address from anywhere in the world.
That's what I call massaging the numbers!
(Unfortunately,) I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waiter.Re:swedish ip's (Score:5, Funny)
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Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Read The FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
Legal
RELAKKS is a company incorporated in Sweden. The service is basically a Swedish broadband subscription offered over the Internet. This means that the legal framework mainly consists of the The Electronic Communications Act 2003 389. What will this mean if:
Swedish authorities or,
Other organization or individuals demands access to information protected by RELAKKS?
RELAKKS Safe Surf enjoys the strongest legal protection possible under Swedish Law because of the service type (pre-paid flat-rate service). This means that RELAKKS do not have to keep an ordinary customer database (to be able handle transactions etc.). This is of importance if forced to hand over information.
If Swedish authorities can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they have a case for demanding subscription information from RELAKKS (they have to be of the opinion that if convicted the user will be imprisoned - fined not enough). .
RELAKKS then have to hand over the subscription information entered by you (but that's all). RELAKKS do not store any subscribtion information about you except what you entered yourself when signing up for the RELAKKS Safe Surf service.
For Swedish authorities to force RELAKKS to hand over "traffic data" including your RELAKKS IP at a specific point in time, they will have to prove a case with the minimum sentence of two years imprisonment.
Regarding inquires from other parties than Swedish authorities RELAKKS will never turn over any kind of information.
The combination Swedish high-tech encryption and the strongest legal protection give you true access to Internet, safer and speedier then ever before.
For more information about Swedish Telecom Law: The Electronic Communications Act 2003:389
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is commercial, couldn't the company' records be subpoenaed (in a worst case scenario) by state/local/etc authorities?
Records? What records?
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Funny)
by dcapel (913969) on Tuesday August 15, @02:01AM (#15908566)
(http://wot.narg.googlepages.com/)
Records? What Records?!
Re:Question?
(Score:2)
by mincognito (839071) Alter Relationship on Tuesday August 15, @02:01AM (#15908567)
(http://thegreennotebook.blogspot.com/)
If it is commercial, couldn't the company' records be subpoenaed (in a worst case scenario) by state/local/etc authorities?
Records? What records?
Ok, you are either copying me (your post id is one larger) or that is plain SCARY.
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Funny)
Now, in the 21st century, we have 'dcapel' and 'mincognito' with identical, +1 Insightful Slashdot posts simultaneously.
I call that progress.
It's now time for you two to sue the pants off of each other for copyright infringement.
Ready, set, call your lawyers...now!
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Re:Question? (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words...
DUPE! DUPE! DUPE!
Okay, everyone can mod him down (-1 Redundant) now, for being a fraction of a second slower than you to submit.
You should be happy that this is nothing major. I heard an American sniper tell a story of when he was assigned to kill a Vietnamese sniper. The American's bullet went straight down the scope of the Vietnamese sniper's riffle, and killed him. If the American had pulled the trigger just a bit slower, it would have been the other guy telling the exact same story.
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Re:Question? (Score:5, Informative)
I understand it that it's business and laws as usual here too, of course, but if they're enforced of leaving out user details, I wonder what exact differences their unconventional subscriber register has compared to a regular one. They don't seem to go into detail of that, and I'd guess that is the most interesting part here.
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So it is an encrypted proxy service (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy really isn't all that bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all piracy is a bad thing. I mean, software these days is seriously overpriced. You could teach yourself some very basic programming skills (Visual Basic, for instance), and create a program that'll do exactly what the $100+ equivilant does.
So of course people will pirate it. Why? Because it's rediculous to pay for something like that.
Then there's music. Just to let you know, piracy HARDLY hurts the musician. Considering that 90% of the sales go to the record company before the artist ever sees a penny, they're really not "losing" much at all.
Then again, sometimes piracy is a bad thing. Especially for the movie industry. Millions (if not billions) of dollars go into the making of a movie. While, yes, theater sales bring in tons of cash, DVD releases are also a huge factor in a movie's income. Downloading a movie hurts people a lot more than downloading music.
Piracy has become such an overrated "controversy" lately that it's unbarable. Look at the price of blank CDs. Did you know that you have to pay a "piracy tax" for these? Yep. All because some higher-ups think that an extra buck or two will help save a movie studio or a record company. It's batty. What if I just want to burn copies of pictures from my family vacation? Now I've gotta pay the MPAA and RIAA some extra cash for something that they don't deserve? Get real.
All these corporations think that they're helping people by attempting to foil piracy. Yes, they've got their hearts in the right places, but they're doing it all wrong. "Right track, wrong train" is a good saying for this. They really need to clean up their acts when suing people. I mean, they've gone so far as to sue old ladies who can barely turn their computer on, yet let huge pirates go unnoticed.
Why's this?
Because if they let big pirates continue doing their thing, then they get to keep on making more and more money with the "piracy taxes" and suing people left and right for WAY more than the material they've pirated is worth. They're letting people go to keep themselves in the game, which is horrible.
Also, just a little side note, to anybody who thinks the RIAA or MPAA might be knocking on your door. Go ahead and go to court, but bring up the fact that an IP address is not a person. Since your IP is the only log they have of the download (even if they have the MAC, that'll only ID a computer, not a single person), you'll win in court. And they'll lose out on a bunch of money for the court date, as well. Two-for-one, if you ask me. =D
Software piracy really is all that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats not enough for some cheeky bastards, though. After people have gotten their latest crackz, I get a surge of search results from Google for things legitimate customers never search for (e.g. Name of the Program V 1.0 download). I lost $10 last time I got the hacker surge because I bid on my own program name as an AdWords keyword and the "its not stealing, its copyright infringement!!!1" crowd literally picked my pocket for a quarter a click.
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Re:Software piracy really is all that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the issues I have with smaller shareware apps is the price - rather than $25 for your app, if you cut the price to say $10 more people will be tempted to pay rather than look for a crack/serial. And I am writing from experience.
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The math doesn't work, trust me (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The math doesn't work, trust me (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Software piracy really is all that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe all people have the right to take anything they need to live regardless of ability to pay. Oddly enough, I do consider myself a bit of an anarchist and am not ashamed to say it; do not make the mistake of taking my sig for my ideology though -- it is just something interesting I read. Since the topic is copyrighted works, none of which are essential for survival, it is odd that you would say that.
Just as nobody is born with an innate right to sell episodes of "24" for whatever they wish. You seem to mistake copyright as being a property right. I assure you, it is not. Society has decided it is better for all of us if we give creators that monopoly on distribution that I spoke of. My society (well, politicians) thinks that the life of the author plus 70 years is the length of monopoly best to get people to distribute their works (with the overall goal being the enrichment of the public domain, mind you). I respectfully disagree.
Reminder: copyright infringment is illegal, but not necessarily immoral.
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Exporting a society's good things (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, i expect that if the Relakks service becomes popular expect laws to be passed soon in other countries to curtail access to it.
Re:Exporting a society's good things (Score:5, Insightful)
Most laws are designed to make it possible for people to live together in the most productive way possible (thus NOT an anarchy and NOT the law of the strongest). These laws thus concern themselfs with avoiding that one person knowingly or purposelly causes harm to another person (such as murder, theft, etc), secure trading (contracts, sales laws, etc) and avoiding "tragedy of the commons" situations with shared resources (environmental laws, zoneing laws, etc)
Any laws dictating what a person cannot do with their own bodies in the privacy of their own house and without causing any harm to others is a moralistic law in that it tries to forcifully deny to others the (lawfull) possibility of acting in certain ways, even though those actions would have no negative impact for third parties.
Soft drugs prohibition is thus a moralistic law since smoking pot in the privacy of one's home causes no harm to others, while for example a law prohibiting driving while under the influence of drugs would NOT be a moralistic law since driving under influence strongly increases the chances of an accident which could harm to others.
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Copyright incompatible with privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
it will just be full of movies and music and games (Score:5, Insightful)
And copying a King Kong DVD rip is not one of them. Its sad when people take the legitmate point about anonymity that you might need for political organisations, journalists and whistle-blowers, and just use it as an excuse to facilitate warez and music copying.
And calling yourselves the 'pirate party' is just plain insane. Whats wrong with "the consumer rights' party? or do they realsie thats way too hypocritical.
Re:it will just be full of movies and music and ga (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a kid we had these things called "people." I miss them. Nice folk; and a good many of them were producers.
KFG
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Re:it will just be full of movies and music and ga (Score:5, Informative)
The consumer rights party would be a stupid name, as it would infer some capitalist values and the party does not take a stance in questions like that.
Everyone please read! http://www2.piratpartiet.se/international/english [piratpartiet.se]
The party is here to counter the police state we are turning into with Bodström giving the lobbying organisations whatever they want, and to put a stop to the silliness of patents and eternal copyright.
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PPTP tunnel ? (Score:5, Informative)
"PPTP is known to be a faulty protocol. The designers of the protocol, Microsoft, recommend not to use it due to the inherent risks. Lots of people use PPTP anyway due to ease of use, but that doesn't mean it is any less hazardous. The maintainers of PPTP Client and Poptop recommend using OpenVPN (SSL based) or IPSec instead."
Warning! Not Anonymous (Score:5, Interesting)
The claim that this service provides anonymity and immunity to logging is only true in a very limited sense! This is basically a simple one level proxy which keeps access records which the authorities can get their hands on if they "suspect" a crime is being committed. Sweden is signator to various levels of intellegence sharing deals on international crime and terrorism so none of the Swedish laws on privacy have effect if some outside government presents "reasonable suspicion" of a crime being committed. And no, you don't have to be a terrorist or kiddy pron baron to be concerned here - tyrannical governments have been known throughout history to use any means to available to them suppress and oppress their citizens...
Tor [eff.org] on the otherhand can claim to provide a level of true anonymity because of the 'onion routing' concept. A potential adversary would have to infiltrate the network with enough fake nodes to get to both the input end (to get the ip) and the the exit node (to get the traffic) and then do some traffic analysis to match these two together in order to figure out who is doing what. This being very resource intensive, such capability would only be available to the highest levels of intellegence gathering and even then only for a limited set of survaillance targets.
Re:Ahem (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Although this is better for speed, isn't it bad for anonimity? Traffic that has been over four hosts is harder to trace back than traffic that has hopped over a single host.
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Re:Ahem (Score:5, Informative)
So as long as the Swedish government can prove beforehand that you will be convicted, then they'll hand over the data, otherwise it's no-go. And as for non-Swedish authorities, Relakks say they won't give them anything.
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Re:Net Neutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Net Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Inside the US, though, the customers of large US telecom companies may be firewalled off from the service by the very people they are paying for Net access. If not that, they may be slowdd to a trickle of traffic.
If I was paying for access to "The Internet", and my service provider wasn't giving me access to everything I could legally access, then I'd be getting ripped off, wouldn't I?
So for the rest of the world US net neutrality laws don't matter so much. For those of us in the US, they matter a great deal, even when the traffic starts overseas.
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Some definitions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Authoritarian: Government based on manipulation of power where access to government information is limited and access to citizen information by government is unfettered.
Ask yourself which direction the US government is heading.
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Re:Net Neutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
*Yes yes I know or packets traversing across a US network segment.
**Neutral until the Telco's lobby the US administration to reign in them darn foreigners. After all its their divine right to extort money from those who have made a successful internet business.
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Re:Net Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Snuff films are not real [snopes.com]. And the problem with pedophilia isn't the transmission of images of the sexual abuse of children, it's when actual sexual abuse of children goes on.
Freedom has risks. If you have free elections, the "wrong" guys might win. If you have secure communications, "terrorists" might use them to make plans. If you have the right to keep and bear arms, "bad guys" may have guns.
But if you believe in freedom, you're very very wary of the state getting to define who the "wrong" guys, the "terrorists", the "bad guys", are. Consider that Martin Luther King Jr. was a target of COINTELPRO; consider Nixon's "enemies list"; consider the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dredd Scott decision, the Alien and Sedition acts, the Red Scares, the concentration camps for Japanese Americans...
And? "Anarchy" means no ruling hierarchy. Some people think that's a good idea [blackened.net], especially when it comes to communication. As Robert Anton Wilson put it [rawilson.com], "A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of `monopoly in the means of production.' Since man extends his nervous system though channels of communication like the written word, the telephone, radio, etc., he who controls these media controls part of the nervous system of every member of society. The contents of these media become part of the contents of every individual's brain."
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Slashdot: yesterday's news for nerds (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Slashdot: yesterday's news for nerds (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Slashdot: yesterday's news for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing that I think
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Re:Important note... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's very little in the actual document which isn't in the published article when it comes to cost.
Have you been living on Gilligan's Island?
5eu/month is, as pointed out in the FA, at the current exchange rate: $6.359.
Before Scotty Richter was castrated, he was bringing $2M into his office, yes, two million U$ monthly. And he wasn't the king of the mountain.
Can you explain how $6.359/month going to make a spammer think twice about using the service? Particularly when you consider the anonymity. No more looking for open proxies & relays.
They pay far, far, far more than that to set up shop in China, then send all of that crap back to the US. Most spam originates from the US as the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM law[1] basically gave them free reign, but the big boys still rely upon China.
Here are the top 200 spammers responsible for 80% of the crap which is dropped in your inbox. [spamhaus.org]
Some of these guys (e.g. Ralsky) have substantial setups in their basements or an office (when they-he aren't|isn't getting caught running around in nothing but a black thong -- yes, there's a picture of it in an anti-spam archive.
But seriously. How do you think ~$6/month is going to stop a spammer. I'm not trying to present a loaded question here. I really do want to know your perspective on this because you may have insights no one else has considered.
The only way I can see this not becoming a spam haven is if there's a volume limit for that price and you have to pay $x/volume for each increment after that.
I'm all ears.
_______________________________
[1] Very effective, wouldn't you say? Has your volume of spam decreased (without human intervention to separate the wheat from the chaffe?)
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Re:ah... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm nervous when people are nervous about standing up for themselves and saying, "Go fuck yourself, I'll read whatever I damned well like."
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Re:ah... (Score:5, Insightful)
What country do you live in? I live in the USA where people voted in a facist administration that thinks the Constitution is a quaint document that is exactly where it belongs in a museum. If we could wrap copper around the founding fathers we wouldn't need foreign oil. Their spinning bodies could power the country for the next thousand years. If you mod this funny you aren't paying attention.
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Re:Darknet? (Score:5, Informative)
1 and 4 being pretty big for USians who are using it...2 for people whose ISPs filter. 3, dubiously so, as at some point they have your credit card saying that you have an account although I suppose that, if they don't store your tunnel account with your CC number, they have no way of getting to you personally.
It doesn't matter if someone nefarious is on the same link-local segment sniffing all your traffic, if they can't identify through technological means who you are, and can't compel the provider through legal means either because they didn't keep that information or just won't give it over.
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
rhY
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Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)
For example;
There's a zillion reasons really. But more importantly, you shouldn't need any reason at all. The simple fact is, there exist people who would prefer, atleast sometimes, being anonymous online.
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Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. "The Watchmen"
2. Star Trek.
3. At least 6 million news stories about the CIA each year.
4. Bruce Schneier
5. About 6 hundred million blogs commenting about the news stories.
Oh, and
6. Decimus lunius luvenalis, better known as Juvenal.
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