Watching the IPRED Watchers In Sweden

digithed writes "In response to Sweden's recent introduction of new laws (discussed here recently) implementing the European IPRED directive, a new Swedish Web site has been launched allowing users to check if their IP address is currently under investigation. The site also allows users to subscribe for email updates alerting them if their IP address comes under investigation in the future, or to report IP addresses known to be under investigation. This interesting use of people power 'watching the watchers' is possible because the new Swedish laws implementing the IPRED directive require a public request to the courts in order to get ISPs to forcibly disclose potentially sensitive private information. Since all court records are public in Sweden, it will be easy to compile a list of addresses currently being investigated."

Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin

[Ethanol-fueled]

I know nothing of the Swedish language but I'd give my left nut to be able to request that information in America, especially since our governmental attack dogs behave as if they have no responsibility to provide proof of anything to simply go ahead with investigation anyway.

Legislating towards IPv6

[jrumney]

One good thing that might come out of all these witchhunt laws that the media industry mafiaa is purchasing, is that to be enforcable, everyone needs to be using static IP addresses. Roll on exhaustion of IPv4 address space and the rollout at last of IPv6 to the consumer (without tunnelling).

Parallel with e-cigarette case

[Gizzmonic]

You know what's weird? Electronic cigarettes [wikipedia.org]. Their legal status is uncertain in Sweden. I think if they work out the details of this IP agreement, it might help clear up the patent status of the e-cigarette, which was invented in Hong Kong (although it's now illegal there). Yep, e-cigarettes. I don't understand the name. Can your cigarette surf the web? Can you print out nicotine using your inkjet printer? I didn't think so.

Re:Potential for wonderful mischief?

[AHuxley]

Or fortune 500 with flaky wi fi

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Government accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, even if the police give your hardware back, you have to at the very least go over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for tiny embedded keyloggers, if you're feeling particularly paranoid maybe best just to sell it on as "handled by the pigs" damaged goods and get new kit.

Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin

[reachinmark]

In the case of comparing Sweden to the US, I think this is fair, at least as far as comments about watching the watchers goes.

The Swedish constitution (also seen as a basic civil right here e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenon_Panoussis [wikipedia.org] ) requires that all government paperwork be publicly accessible (and this includes e-mails, etc) - all you have to do is ask for it. Of course, that presumes that you *know* about it - but a heck of a lot better than in most other countries. This is how the IPRED watching site can exist - any activity carried out under the IPRED law must be reported and thus becomes immediately publicly available.

Re:Legislating towards IPv6

[mdmkolbe]

RFC 3972 seems targeted at authentication, not anonymity. For that you would want something more like RFC 3041 [ietf.org]. But even then that is only for interface anonymity, there is no network/typology anonymity (i.e. they can still track down the network).

Re:Government accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

You brought up the Pirate Bay case as an example. The police confiscated a lot of unrelated servers as evidence but one got returned real fucking quick, even though it is an extremely controversial site. The reason for that is that it was registered as a news outlet, which is especially protected in the Swedish constitution (see tryckfrihetsförordningen and yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen)

A site like this could easily get the same protection by registering at rtvv.se (Radio & TV verket).