Swedish ISPs To Thwart EU Data Retention Law 110
aaardwark writes "After a leaked document from the department of justice showed police will be able to demand extensive private information for minor offenses, some Swedish ISPs have decided to fight back (translated article). By routing all traffic through VPN, they plan to make the gathered data pointless. ISP Bahnhof says they will give you the option to opt out of VPN, but giving up your privacy will cost extra."
Re:Wrong motive (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way it's good for the customers. Google likewise decides to be notsoevil because otherwise it would cost them too much. Data retention is the wet dream of every mainstream politician these days, it allows for unlimited powers of coercion. The fact that storage is expensive and our governments are too broke to pay for it themselves is a blessing albeit a temporary one.
LE is not the real privacy enemy anymore (Score:3, Interesting)
The privacy violation and spying that Law Enforcement does is nothing compared to what google, facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc. are doing. I think the privacy advocates need to rethink who the real enemy is. With search, chat, mail, ads, analytics, like buttons, and other embedded icons/code spread throughout the web, these big web companies can gather more intelligence than anyone. LE has the goal of eliminating crime, big-web has the goal of raking in cash. Who is your real privacy enemy?
Re:LE is not the real privacy enemy anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wrong motive (Score:3, Interesting)
They're a business, they're in the business to make money, and will find ways to make as much money they can. That's plain economics, every business tries to do so (and, one could argue, that includes non-profit organisations). Altruism doesn't make money directly - however it can give goodwill, promotion, whatever that in the long run increases the company's profits.
Now back to the altruism/principles part what this is about: like Google with their famous "do no evil" slogan, they want to be seen as caring for their customers. There may or may not be personal reasons of the company's leadership behind this of course. Some companies will say "OK we'll just follow the law, store data as required, keep a low profile, go on with business", and set up their servers to comply with the law. This ISP and apparently others too have said "we don't agree with these laws; we consider it highly intrusive for our customers; and we will find ways to protect our customers' privacy while staying within the letter of the law", and are planning to make the necessary investments to do so. They obviously have to make bigger investments than the first group as they have to implement both the storage and the extra work for the workaround, and they have apparently thought publicity.
This publicity I think is good, really. It makes the law and it's intentions and consequences so much better known with the public - basically with this they could even hope to spark enough of an outrage to have the laws repealed. And if not, at least they got a lot of free advertising of their ISP out of it. That may be so good for their business that they make a net gain out of it.
Altruism is simply part of smart business operation. You give some you get some. Goodwill is important, and this way they could build up goodwill with their customers. Just don't expect a business is going all altruistic just because they can - their owners may on a personal basis, but businesses are about making money. That, and nothing less.
Re:Wrong motive (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is not a good example, as they have more cash in the bank than they know what to do with. I don't want to take anything away from Brin and Page, they have done a sterling job so far, but a small ISP in a competitive market with razor thin margins trying to take a stand is more impressive.
Phillip.
Re:Wrong motive (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wrong motive (Score:4, Interesting)
I was one of the people who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that "unlimited" in adverts actually means "limited" when you read the small print. Their response was that limits were a normal part of traffic management for ISPs so they are basically allowed to lie with impunity. No word on what constitutes a "normal" amount, e.g. T-Mobile used to advertise their mobile BB as unlimited when in fact there was a pathetic 3GB/month limit.
The attitude to provisioning sounds similar to Japan. If you build it, they will come. If your network is awesome you can offer lots of new services like reasonable quality video on demand and eat into other markets. If you network is shit you have to block BBC iPlayer in the evenings or only allow people to watch a postage stamp resolutions (e.g. BT, Virgin Media). Rather than seeing bandwidth as an opportunity they see it as a problem.
The privacy aspect is interesting. On the one hand we are the most watched country in the world, and on the other our internet access if fully recorded and available to the police. So we are pretty much screwed at this stage, and the much touted repealing of overreaching laws has yet to actually happen.
Viking Heritage (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, English is a close cousin of all the Scandinavian languages, but more to the point Old Norse.
The original Old English language was influenced by two waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second by the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman.
However it was the Danish and Norwegian Vikings that attacked and settled in Britain. Have you heard of the Danelaw [wikipedia.org]? So it would be more precise to say English has a closer relationship with Danish/Norwegian than Swedish.
In fact some dialects still exist in the northwest of England that sounds like modern Norwegian (BBC, 2008). Indeed, modern genetic sampling and research reveals a lot of Viking blood heritage [youtube.com] in England, Ireland and Scotland.
The influence of this period of Scandinavian settlement can still be seen, and is particularly evident in place-names: name endings such as -howe, -by ("village") or "thorp" ("hamlet").
Furthermore many British island groups, including the Isle of Man(n) and Shetland [bbc.co.uk], belonged to Norwegian Kings for hundreds of years. Indeed York [historyofyork.org.uk] was once known by its original name Jorvik. Dublin (Dubh Linn) [dublinks.com] and other Irish cities were Viking settlements.
Then later the descendants of Norwegian/Danish settlers in Normandy, France, decided to invade and conquer England. Of course by that time William the Conqueror and his men spoke French. His father again was the well known [Norwegain/Danish] Rollo, or Hrólfr, who forced the French king to sign a treaty ceding part of the province to him, from which it took the name of Normandy [normandie-tourisme.fr], the country of the Northmen.
Ironically it was the attack of the invading Norwegian Viking army under King Harald Hardråda [wikipedia.org] and Tostig Godwinson, brother of the English King, that led to the fall of England to the Normans. King Harold [wikipedia.org] managed to beat the Norwegian invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge [battle-of-...066.org.uk], near York, but was not strong enough to withstand a second attack by the Norman army. In 1066 at the time of the Battle of Hastings [battle-of-...066.org.uk] the languages were mutually intelligible.
Swedish Vikings moved east and played a major role in the development of Russia [pbs.org]. These Vikings are know as the Rus and it is from this name that the name of Russia has been derived. Actually the Rus were Swedish Vikings meaning the northern Germanic tribes which setteled in Sweden. The Term Rus was not what they called themselves, but the name given them by the Finns. Today Sweden is Ruotsia in Finnish.
English, the three Scandinavian languages, Icelandic, Dutch and German all belong to the Germanic language family [wikipedia.org].