Wiretapping Bill Passes Swedish Parliament, 143 to 138 326
Assar Bruno Boveri writes "Swedish lawmakers came down in favour of a fiercely debated surveillance bill in a vote at the Riksdag on Wednesday evening. Despite some cosmetic changes, Sweden's proposed surveillance law is still a monster, writes Pär Ström from the independent New Welfare Foundation." The Swedish newspaper DN (in Swedish; translations welcome) compares the implications of the proposed law with activities carried out by East Germany's Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (STASI).
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
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See the løveli lakes
The wonderful telephøne system
And mani interesting furry animals
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Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
There would likely be a lot less outrage from folks outside of Sweden, except for The Pirate Bay, Relakks, and a whole flock of other Swedish-related services that most of the entire Internet-using planet has an interest in.
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right?
Hello? Anyone there?
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No, actually not, I'm a swede just wishing I was canadian.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like you'll have to pick a different country.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
I foresee some interesting torrent developments. (Score:5, Interesting)
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In other news, here's some way to solve the issue:
* http://www.gnupg.org/ [gnupg.org]
* http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/ [cypherpunks.ca]
* I feel bad for linking this but atleast they know their encryption: http://www.skype.com/ [skype.com]
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for those of us who can't read sweedish (Score:4, Informative)
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.se%2FDNet%2Fjsp%2Fpolopoly.jsp%3Fd%3D2502%26a%3D794124&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=sv&tl=en
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a href, for father Dagon's sake! (Score:3, Informative)
Here's an example [google.com].
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Re:for those of us who can't read sweedish (Score:5, Informative)
Done by a human!
In two days, on wednesday, it is expected that Riksdagen will give the swedish intelligence service the right to scan all email, sms and telephone traffic that passes swedish borders. Christop Andersson is reminded of the surveillance in the old DDR and poses questions regarding privacy.
In the east-german security-police archive are shelves of yellow, redish or dark brown files. The total length of which is 110 miles. Here there are transcripts of regular east-german telephone conversations and long logs of people's phone use with timestamps. Especially interesting to Stasi was the telephone traffic across the east-german borders.
The giant system of surveillance had as a purpose to protect "Democracy" in DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threats gave Stasi the right to check up on everyone.
Since 1989 the Stasi is gone. Yet, a similar but perhaps worse system of surveillance is about to be created. This time in Sweden. For this purpose the Forsvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) has aquired a monster computer worth millions of SEK according to Computer Sweden. It is expected to get company in the near years.
With help of the computers FRA will scan through all emails, all sms and all telephone calls that cross swedish borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Just like in the old DDR the purpose is to prevent "terrorism" and prevent outer threats against society.
The system will be fed search-word both in Swedish and other languages. Further the FRA will search after text strings with randomly selected words and numbers.
Encryption, the defense minister closest man state secretary(?) HÃ¥kan Javrell in a video interview shown at the group "Gravande journalisters"(investigating/digging journalists) seminar in Gotenburg in april.
In the interview he makes it clear that mail with encrypted contents are of special interest to the FRA. Possible terrorists would likely not use clear-text naming of where they will strike and with what sort of force. Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources. The latter is protected by constitutional rights. FRA can not know anything about the content before the encryption is broken. Thus a catch-22 is created. In practice the constitutional paragraph regarding protection of sources worthless.
The only thing required for the green light for FRA is the approval of Riksdagen for "En anpassad forsvarsunderettelsestjenst". "An adjusted defense intelligence service". Behind the inocious title is a breach of swedish privacy without comparison in the swedish history. FRA will not just search for terrorism but will also search for "forsorjingskriser", ecological imbalance, threats to the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large scale refugee and migration and economic cases like currency and interest rate speculation. The mind wanders back to the Stasi system of surveilance.
At the same time HÃ¥kan Javrell and the right wing politicians promise that the public has nothing to fear. The only traffic that will be scanned is the traffic that crosses the swedish border and not traffic inside the country. The problem is just that even email within the country will pass the border. Partially because businesses and organizations use foreign email-servers, partially because email does not heed borders. The email between Lulea and Malmo could just as well go through the US if there is available bandwidth.
Stricly by the rules any information gathered from in-country traffic should immediately be destroyed if it is cought in FRA's net. The problem here is that there is no way for FRA to know if the data is covered by this rule.
Further vagueness in the proposed law conserns the protection of sources in
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In the interview he makes it clear that mail with encrypted contents are of special interest to the FRA. Possible terrorists would likely not use clear-text naming of where they will strike and with what sort of force. Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources. The latter is protected by constitutional rights. FRA can not know anything about the content before the encryption is broken. Thus a catch-22 is created. In practice the constitutional paragraph regarding protection of sources worthless.
Well lets all send lots of emails encrypted with the best avalible methods, and lets make sure that the text we encrypt is just random letters and numbers. If they are going to monitor our traffic at the very least we can do our best to flood the system with crap.
Dig out those Latin textbooks (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a famous Cold War story about a father and son, one in Soviet Russia, the other having escaped to the West. Both spoke Latin well. When they'd get together on the phone, they'd pass all the political news in Latin. By the time the state snoops found someone who could understand them, they'd already finished with the forbidden topics and gone on to mundane subjects.
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Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources.
"Supposedly" ? Has there been some kind of advance in mathematics I'm not aware of ? Or have computers suddenly gotten insanely faster ? Or do Swedish politicians expect to live for centuries ?
The best thing to do would be a huge campaign to promote high grade encryption all over the country IMO.
There are lots of vocal activists that could start this kind of thing.
Then the listeners can "supposedly" feel free to try and decrypt all that crud. It'll give their expensive servers something to do.
Wha? (Score:2)
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Re:Wha? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually not. This bill was originally created by the previous Social Democrat administration (which was supported by the Green Party and the Left Party), while the current administration voted against the bill in parliament. Pretty quickly after gaining being voted into power, the current administration resurrected the scrapped social democrat proposal as their own, and put it before parliament. The opposition (the previous administration) used a law that enabled them to defer a decision for one year, and voted against the proposal today.
The only reason for the opposition's no-vote seem to be that they would prefer to vote it into law when they are in power themselves.
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
The socialists will now complain about this law all they way into goverment after the next election, when they will....do exactly nothing about it.
Just as with everything else they complain about.
That's swedish politics for you.
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Both sides can come up with ideas which don't fit their political profile and both sides will just vote against whatever the other side said even if it actually fit their own ideals and so on.
If that wasn't true how could you else say "But hey, it's all their fault! Look how bad it become!"
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Not so. They vote no, because they no the public does not want this. They are EXTREMELY happy that the centre-right goverment takes the hit for this, otherwise they would have to.
The socialists will now complain about this law all they way into goverment after the next election, when they will....do exactly nothing about it.
Just as with everything else they complain about.
That's swedish politics for you.
Actually, this sounds astonishingly similar to American politics. Note, the Democratic Congress hasn't made any attempt to repeal the much-reviled Patriot Act or stop the war in Iraq, both of which they rode into office on...
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Not that I can understand why the left side wanted this crap either, probably because of that (personal preference:) prick Thomas Bodström.
Some of this work: http://bodstrom.pelpet.com/ [pelpet.com]
Especially the liberals went to election with lots of talk about more police resources and surveillance.
Quite funny actually how it's their side doing this considering how much bullshit they have proba
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And as for your statement that "The opposition (the previous administration) used a law that enabled them to defer a decision for one year", that was done by the green party + the left party + the christian democrats. To refer to that as "the opposition"
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Oh right, the old "the social democrats started it!" excuse. Some of the right-wing politicians who passed this law actually used that one as a reason for not opposing it. While the observation is factually correct, it is not a valid reason to pass bad laws.
You obviously misunderstood my point. I did not excuse passing bad laws because the current opposition created it, I just observed that this bill would likely have been passed regardless of administration, simply because it was supported by both the alliance and the social democrats.
And as for your statement that "The opposition (the previous administration) used a law that enabled them to defer a decision for one year", that was done by the green party + the left party + the christian democrats.
I read in several articles that this was done by the social democrats, the left and the greens. If I was wrong, I'm sorry for that.
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Re:Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, even the left wing states like California, where they want the government to control the thermostat in your own home are known for their personal freedom records.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, even the left wing states like California, where they want the government to control the thermostat in your own home are known for their personal freedom records.
I think this exchange is proof that RightBad=Insightful and LeftBad=Troll in the minds of some mods.
Remember, the first part of freedom is tolerating those that have different opinions than yourself and even defending their right to have those opinions. When I get downmodded for something like this, it proves to me that regardless of all the talk,
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I think this exchange is proof that RightBad=Insightful and LeftBad=Troll in the minds of some mods.
Since mods are just regular people who have posted a few times, or even just meta-moderated sometimes, all you have done is say, "a handful of people out of the hundreds of thousands with accounts on slashdot hold simplistic political beliefs."
Wow! Keen fucking insight there. If it weren't for your magnificent pontification no one would have ever thought things worked like that. You should be on TV! Have you considered applying for Tim Russert's old job?
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I think this exchange is proof that RightBad=Insightful and LeftBad=Troll in the minds of some mods.
And now look, your comments are both at +4 Insightful. I'd say that's proof that complaining about phony liberal bias is insightful in the minds of some mods.
You got modded down for comparing "left wing" California to the "left wing" USSR, China, and Cuba, as if those countries are even on the same political spectrum as the US. Then you got modded back up, a net positive, for whining about the moderation. Does that mean the system works?
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)
The two biggest parties in Sweden, the right wing Moderates and the left wing Social Democrates are both authoritarian.
And several other parties have authoritarian pressure coming from their party tops.
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Re:Wha? (Score:4, Interesting)
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You aren't forced into any religion, if you are borned a few years ago or earlier you was a member of the swedish church by default and have to pay taxes to them but
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The "right wing" platforms, depending on what Right Wing means in your part of the world, tend to be geared towards less government involvement and more emphasis on freedom and natural states of welfare and
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)
The German nazi party (NSDAP) had, in its full name, the title "NationalSozialistische Deutsche ArbeiterPartei". And it fulfilled NONE of those parts in its acronym.
It was not nationalist. No, really, it wasn't. The nationalism was a propaganda tool to rally the masses behind it. Sure, quite a few of the upper echelons in the nazi party were nationalistic dreamers (namely Hess and Heydrich), but in general, the "national idea" was used as a tool. Germany "sacrificed" Southern Tyrolia, an area that is largely inhabitated by people of German(ic) descent and was part of Tyrolia until WW1, to Italy to appease Mussolini. Would a nationalist country do that, surrender part of its people and territory? They also supported other nationalist parties throughout Europe and even beyond Europe, also nothing that goes well with the idea of the own nation's supremacy.
It was not socialist. It was actually anything but socialist. A fascist state has not the benefit of its people and equality amongst them as a key principle. The socialist aspect of the "unity of Germans" was a propaganda tool to keep people from being jealous of those who have it better. Germany during the 30s and 40s was anything but an egalitarian state, and I'm not even talking about payment. People were anything but equal before the law (and I'm not even talking about the Shoa).
It was not Deutsch (German). Might surprise you, but it wasn't. It was heavily dependent on foreign money, it even had a leader that came from abroad. The only thing German about it was that it was operating in Germany.
It was not for the Arbeiter (worker). Again, a fascist state puts the benefit of the state and the strength of its industry before anything else, including its people and workers.
And finally it was not a party in the original sense. A party consists of more than a leader and some bootlickers.
So please, don't go by the name. If there ever was a party that lied in every single letter of its acronym, it's the NSDAP.
I got an idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Put up a couple of SMTP servers, and creating a script that makes them email each other unprotected emails in plain text with headers like "bomb" "nuclear bomb" "jihad" "destroy the Swedish government" "bomb assembly guide" "kill Fredrik Reinfeldt"
If the government intend to fuck me with, I fully intend to fuck with them back.
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In order of increasing annoyance level I'd suggest you follow these procedures:
a) Use a Slavic or Arab sounding email address. Then use GPG to encrypt the content (suggested content: How much did it cost the taxpayers to let you read this?).
b) Run a TOR node to encourage encrypted comms passing their way.
c) Start an ABF (workers education union) class on how regular users
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I'd use other keywords, though. Like "crack", "decss", $new_movie_name...
Re:I got an idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not even in Sweden (My great-great-grandfather was kicked out for marrying a Norwegian lass), but I think Mr Reinfeldt might like to know about my emails.
All of them.
Every day.
Including system notices.
Sure, my emails aren't that great in number, but what if a couple hundred people were to do such a thing? A couple thousand? Hundreds of thousands?
-Rick
So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Also the left party and the green party wants to rip up the law when power shifts (the right-wing government isn't very popular right now and this isn't going to make them any more popular), the question is if the social democrats will agree to that.
This is truly the worst behaviour of any Swedish government I've seen yet. The government didn't really have any arguments for the law, just the general "The terriorists are coming to get you" propaganda.
To add to that, the law was voted to go back to committe this morning, and by nightfall, the "new" law, with minor modifications was passed.
The Left Party made an official complaint about the law and the government to the constiutional committe, but it would appear that they didn't do what they should have.
Right now there are two parties in parliament that I can trust. That would be the left party and the green party. The social democrats won't say no to wiretapping, they just said no to this specific proposition. The left and green parties and some great people up there debating against this and really kicking right-wing ass, not that it mattered in the end.
The only right-wing party where some members had the courage to stand up to this proposition was Folkpartiet (aka Peoples Liberal Party, though I certainly wouldn't call them very liberal after this), where one member voted no and one abstained.
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
On this matter, there is only one party that I trust, and that is the Pirate Party. They might be most well-known for their views on non-commercial file-sharing and copyright laws, but they also have really sane views on protection of privacy, something I care a lot about.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Birgitta Ohlsson (fp) abstained, the only MP to do so. She said that she would have voted no if there was enough opposition to bring down the proposition though.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like a constitutional court? We don't have one. The only instance that vaguely resembles one is the joke that is the Committee on the Constitution [wikipedia.org]. They have no power to rule any law as unconstitutional, they just argue among themselves with no actual results.
Ironically, the current administration has actually argued for setting up a constitutional court when they were in opposition. When they were voted into power, those arguments seemed to be forgotten.
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The real control is SUPPOSED to be with the
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The only hope, however faint is that people neither forgets nor forgives this treason, and remember who the traitors were the next time elections are coming up.
That won't help. The previous social democrat administration created this proposition, and they aren't going to throw out this law unless held by their throat by the greens and/or the left party. And the only way that could happen would be if the lefts/greens would threaten to unseat the social democrats by siding with the (assumed) right-wing opposition. And that is highly unlikely, especially for the left party, because regardless of how much they dislike the social democrats, they dislike all the right
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Behaved well? The leader of the Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, in a conversation with the director of FRA back then (which was secretly recorded by Rick) got a confession that the FRA has been tapping the wires for many years already. The Pirate Party filed a complaint with the police shortly afterward.
If we could get enough people to encrypt their communications, such a flag would be worthless. They would have to break an enormous number of encrypted messages (which is hard work even for the biggest supercomputers in the world) just to find out that they are not relevant.
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They don't HAVE to break encryption. As long as they store the endpoints of every conversation (which they have done for years, illegaly [svt.se]) they have all the candy they could want. Complete sociograms of every citizens is a very powerful t
The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:4, Interesting)
or am I confused?
Re:The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:4, Informative)
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The major motivation for the law, as the Swedish government sees it, is to enable the FRA to lawfully continue to do what they've been doing illegaly over the last 10 years or so (now a police matter, after i
news (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.thelocal.se/12534/20080618/
Sad sad sad day (Score:2, Insightful)
Now it will only be a matter of time before the government in my country (Denmark) will try to pass the same kind of law, i'm sure.
Tomorrow I'm calling my mobile phone company (Telia) and making sure that none of my calls are routed through Sweden.
I hope ThePirateBay.org will start to educate the swedish people on how to encrypt their communications, because they will need it.
Re:Sad sad sad day (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sad sad sad day (Score:4, Informative)
Unless forced to by the greens and the left party, the social democrats won't rip it out, quite the contrary. They will say thank you to the previous administration, for implementing and taking all the heat on a proposition that was originally created by the social democrats.
Re:Sad sad sad day (Score:4, Interesting)
More Coverage (Score:4, Informative)
'Ja' to Lex Orwell [radsoft.net]
Lex Blair [radsoft.net]
Orwellian Update I [radsoft.net]
To the Vote [radsoft.net]
Lex Orwell & Intent [radsoft.net]
Lex Orwell - No for Now [radsoft.net]
'I Have To Be Able to Look Myself in the Eyes' [radsoft.net]
FRA holds the 11th place on top500.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FRA holds the 11th place on top500.org (Score:4, Interesting)
I got my free S/MIME certificate from Thawte today, for encryption of email, and so did all my co-workers.
Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
They should be voted out of power immediately by No Confidence/Popular Referendum/whatever. Now!
What they have just done goes against Everything the public has told them! They only succeeded by suppressing all media outlets for months - something so blatantly and grossly corrupt does not call for grumbling; it does not call for petitions; it calls for the immediate dis-bandment of the parliament, and re-election of public representatives; NOW ! Today/Tomorrow/Within the week !!!
Also, the dominant party must not be voted into office next election.
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You seem to feel pretty strongly about this. I do hope you are doing a little more than posting on slashdot.
When I was young, I used to think... (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes me want to go into politics, try and change the system for the better, protect the liberties we still have here before even those get stolen by those in power, but each time I consider it, I think, "Do I want to let myself become like them?"
How does one change one's government without being corrupted by the system? This is not just a question for those in any specific country to answer, but one every man and woman must consider.
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Get involved.
If you don't, who will?
Think about the children. Your children.
Seriously, bad apples are drawn to authority like hornets; we need you in there, bud.
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Steve
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^_^ (Score:3, Interesting)
There will be a resurgence of the anarchist movement. Only violent upheaval can stop this ongoing bloodletting of freedom and privacy.
(Hello ECHELON)
There goes sweden (Score:2)
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. we need to get rid of all those faggots and start direct democracy.
Think of how many people go nuts when they can't watch american idol and dancing with the stars.
Think of the nearly 50% of americans who believe the horse crap the intelligent design people are shoveling.
No, this is not what you want.
what you want is a meritocracy. Specifically, you want to amend constitutions world-wide to require a Ph.D. to run for office, but exclude the business and law fields.
PhD ? (Score:2)
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For a decade and a half I've watched half baked legislation and other initiatives pushed over and over, and never, ever, have I seen a Ph.D. speak up who was for any of them.
They either were directly against it or wanted deeper examination and substantiation of the so called "problems" they supposedly solved.
you are well aware that scholastic education system is reminiscent of medieval church
Let me know when ranking state and private institutions schedule a witch burning. The scientific community requires tested proof to accept a new theory, this not the same as
Why have politicians at all? (Score:2)
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You might want to look into the three major studies looking at AIDS transmission and circumcision.
60% less like to get AIDS if you are circumcision.
Human translation (Score:4, Informative)
In two days, on wednesday, the parliament is expected to give swedish intelligence the right to scan all e-mails, sms and phone traffic passing through the borders of Sweden. Christoph Andersson is reminded by the surveilance system in the old DDR - and questions where the personal integrity is going.
In the east-german security police's archives there are shelves of fire-yellow, red or dark brown files. The combined length is a total of 180km. Here are printouts of common east germans' phone records and long lists of different persons phone contacts, together with dates and times. Particularly interesting for Stasi was the phone traffic that crossed the border of east germany.
The gigantic surverilance system had as a mission to protect the "democracy" in the DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threat image gave Stasi the right to collect information about everything and everyone.
Since 1989 Stasi is only a memory. None the less, a similar but even worse surveilance system is about to be created - this time in Sweden. To this end, the military department "Forsvarets radioanstalt (FRA)" has aquired a supercomputer worth millions of swedish crowns (100 SEK = 16 USD), according to Computer Sweden. That is expected to become several in the years to come.
With the help of the computers the FRA will scan all e-mails, all SMS and all phone calls that pass through Sweden's borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Precisely like in old DDR the purpose is to stop "terrorism" and prevent foreign threats towards society.
Concretely this will be done through FRA feeding different search words into the computer system, both in Swedish and in other languages. In addition FRA will search for stings with randomly chosen words and numbers. (Yes, translation is good)
- Encryptions, explains the defense minister's closest man, state secretary Håkan Jevreli in a video interview that is shown on the society "Digging journalists" seminar in Göteborg in April.
In the interview he gives the understanding that mail with encrypted contents are of particular interest for the FRA. Any terrorists would hardly write in cleartext where they will strike - and with what force. Surely cryptographic systems like PGP are judged hard to crack. But with one or more computers in the million (SEK) class surely everything from encrypted love letters to journalists' correspondance with sources can be cracked. The latter is portected by the constitution's anonymity protection. FRA can not possibly know anything agbout the contents before they break the encryption - thereby creating a catch 22. In practise the constitution's paragraph about protection of sources becomes worthless.
All that is required so that FRA can begin work is that the parliament (Riksdagen) accepts the proposal "An adapted military intelligence service". Behind the contentless title hides a breach of integrity that lacks its equal in Swedish history. FRA should not only search for information on any terrorist cells or terrorist acts. According to the proposition FRA shall even collect information regarding "supply crisises, ecological imbalances, threats against the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large refugee- and migration movements as well as economic challenges in the form of currency or interest speculation. The thoughts once again returns to Stasi's old surveilance system.
At the same time Håkan Jevrell and "borgerlige" (right wing) politicians assures that the general public has nothing to fear. It is only border crossing traffic that is to be scanned, not domestic sms, phone and e-mail traffic. The catch is just that domestic e-mail also goes via foreign countries. Partly because swedish companies and organiations has servers in other countries, partly because e-mail does not take national borders into consideration. Post between for example Luleå and Malmö can very well go through the US - if there is free capac
Civil disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
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Rough Translation (Score:2, Informative)
In two days, Wednesday, is it assumed that the riksdag (The Swedish instrument of government) will give the surveillance service the right to scan all email, sms (phone texts) and phone traffic that pass through the borders of Sweden.
Christoph Andersson is reminded by the surveillance machine in the past DDR - and wonder where the personal privacy is going.
IN THE EASTGERMAN SECURITY POLICE archives exists shelves with fire-yellow red or dark brown files. The combined length is 180 kilomete
/. needs a "failureofdemocracy" tag (Score:4, Insightful)
Granted the modern democracies are representative republics, but I think the continuous jury nullification in lynching cases in the early to mid 20th century already show that direct democracy will never produce a free society either.
Its back to the drawing board.
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Lets fight back! Tor nodes and encryption! (Score:2)
Lets fight back!
Lets give our unused bandwidth for this cause.
Lets set up TOR nodes sabotaging the logging by causing log entries not truly originating from our machines, preventing mapping of our own profile as well as that of those using the network.
Let the unused bandwidth you have paid for come to use for something truly important - our privacy - lets not just talk, but start the fight for our privacy!
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The resources would be better spent on encrypting absolutely everything. Rather than setting up open proxies, we should convince server owners to use SSL/TLS anywhere that it would help. If you have bandwidth to spare (most browsers don't cache HTTPS by default), have control over the server,
This is it Sweden. (Score:3, Insightful)
YOU MUST DO IT NOW!
What a geek can do (Score:4, Informative)
1. Many of us are webmasters. Buy an SSL certificate and run your sites through TLS *by default*. Yes it uses more CPU. Do it anyway.
2. Start reminding your friends to use PGP or S/MIME for the email. Start turning up the urgency, week by week, until you finally demand that they do it or you can't talk them by email anymore.
3. Start acting surprised if your friends don't use any other forms of encryption - disk, etc. Don't layer it on too thick. Just enough to start to create a doubt in their mind that they're doing it right.
For us, encryption is normal and everyday (I hope so anyway!). Our tasks is to use our positions as tech "influencers" - either in positions of direct power or in the respect and regard of friends - to discreetly push the theory and practise of encryption and privacy into the normal lives of those around us.
The days grow dark indeed. Just a week ago France became maybe the first large rich country to start systematically blocking websites at the country level. And now this. It's tempting to withdraw into depression and fatalism but these measures will be implemented with technology and can be defeated with it too. Encryption, VPNs, mesh routing - it's all within our reach; even installed on everyone's computers! And it's time for us to do what we can, and start educating those around us to do what's right.
This is a bad abuse of the democratic process. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll try to translate into US politics.
Consider a controversial legislation that would allow the US government to get a copy of all electronic communications that could somehow cross the US border. Because you cannot be sure if the communication could cross a border, the telecoms have to give your government a copy of all communications. (Even more true in a small country like Sweden.)
Now think of this law being proposed again and again, and turned down each time. If you really want the law passed what would you do?
Wait until the eve of the super bowl. Secretly inform the proponents of the law in advance, and then on the eve of the super bowl: Call in congress for a debate and vote on the law by email with one hour's notice. You would be sure to have the majority.
This is what happened in Sweden. It wasn't the super bowl, but an important national soccer match. Soccer is the national sport in Sweden, just as football is in the US.
HTTPS channel for Slashdot, please! (Score:3, Interesting)
I am fully aware that SSL will increase the resource use of the site, but if you make it a feature that must be enabled in a user's profile, it wouldn't be a default and thus the performance impact should be manageable. As we all know, anything requiring "opt in" will mean only a fraction of the total population will use it.
If you can spare the CPU-cycles, a good service would be something akin to Google's, where you enable SSL for certain (surveiled) IP-ranges where as Google uses it to "i18n" their pages.
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