Slashdot Mirror

New submitter TheP4st writes "A group of Swedish police officers thought it would be a good idea to use WhatsApp as a work tool for surveillance operations. The officer that set up their chat group mistyped one of the phone numbers to mistakenly include a civilian IT teacher. Once the teacher informed authorities about the mistake, it took more than 24 hours before he stopped receiving sensitive case information, which included criminal records, passport photos, and communications between surveillance teams tailing suspects. When confronted by Computer Sweden (Google translation of Swedish original), the officer responsible for setting up the group said, 'I know this server is not located in Sweden and that one cannot share every kind of information.' The only mobile chat medium approved for sensitive information is BlackBerry, and this initiative by a small group of officers happened because they do not have access to BlackBerry handsets."

An anonymous reader writes "A 28-year-old man in Sweden has been fined 4.3 million SEK (~650,000 USD) for uploading one movie. 300,000 SEK of that was added because of the upload's low technical quality (Google translation of Swedish original). The court ruled that the viewer watching the pirated version of the movie had a worse experience than people watching it legally, thereby causing damage to the movie's reputation (full judgement in Swedish)."

An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, alias "anakata," was arrested two days ago (Original, Swedish) in Pnohm Pehn, Cambodia and may soon be facing extradition to Sweden (alternate sources: Aftonbladet (Swedish), IDG (Swedish)). He was sentenced to one year in prison for his involvement in The Pirate Bay in 2009 and failed to appear at the prison to serve his sentence. On a related note, the domain freeanakata.se seems to have been registered today although it currently isn't resolving."

Several readers let us know about a program in which a US FBI agent and employees of the MPAA led a seminar for Swedish police officers in methods of finding and stopping illegal downloading from the Internet. The writer at zeropaid.com says, "I bet the Swedish people are going to love to find out that the US government and a US lobbying group now have a hand in training their police personnel. So much for the notion of national sovereignty." Reader Oxygen provided a bit of translation from an article in Swedish on IDG.se: "According to Bertil Ramsell, responsible for the course, the purpose of the visit was to give the invited speakers a chance to explain to the students what their organization's purpose was. But in a report from the IIPA, the purpose was to educate students in anti-piracy."

muffen writes "IDG.se has an interesting article up giving more details about the raid on PirateBay, and a little history of the organization. The news organ reports that nearly 200 servers were taken, and many of them had nothing to do with the torrent-serving group. After yesterday's raid, the site is back up with a single page explaining the situation. Brokep, one of the people behind PirateBay, claims that the site will be up and running within a couple of days. He also says that there is no legal basis for the raid against them and that he is certain that the case will not go to trial." From the site: "The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existence of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing whether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal."

fredr1k writes " A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter." Also note that unless you read Swedish, you still have plausible deniability when asked to windex yours.

Shippy writes "Straight from Yahoo News on the other side of the pond comes a story about Samsung's latest creation: a five-megapixel camera phone. This is pretty cool considering it's a pretty big jump from the camera phones that are currently available (many max out around 1.5 megapixels). It's expected to be available by the end of the year, but only in South Korea. I doubt it'll take long for a domestic carrier to pick up on this hot new toy." Other readers submitted a closeup picture and the company press release.

dillkvast writes "According to this article (swedish) at ComputerSweden swedish websites must now have the user's consent to use cookies. The law also states that the user is to be informed of what the information stored in the cookie is, and its intended use. This leaves swedish website with two options: No cookies at all, or a special page where the user is informed of the cookie use and can choose to either accept or reject the cookies. This represents a huge problem for swedish sites which use .asp and .php session variables, the article states, which will have to rewrite their sites to present the user with a chance to confirm that cookie use is ok. The law comes into force today."

Iorek writes "International Data Group/Sverige has a great interview with Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly & Associates Inc. From predictions of eBay's purchase of Oracle to discussions of the failings of open source licenses, O'Reilly's certainly not reserved. I couldn't help but be reminded of the rise of this site and slashcode."

Iorek writes "International Data Group/Sverige has a great interview with Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly & Associates Inc. From predictions of eBay's purchase of Oracle to discussions of the failings of open source licenses, O'Reilly's certainly not reserved. I couldn't help but be reminded of the rise of this site and slashcode."

mpawlo writes: "According to Swedish IDG.se, the president of Microsoft Germany is outraged over the Bundestux campaign. The campaign aims to put Linux in the Bundestag (German Parliament). He has sent a letter to the campaign workers - some of them members of the German parliament - stating that Microsoft is not a threat to democratic values (as argued by the campaign). Kurt Sibold also states that the only thing achieved through the campaign is a public slander of Microsoft." Also reported by the Register, if you prefer English.

mpawlo writes: "As reported by ICANNwatch IDG Sweden has published a column where I discuss the result of the At Large Study Committee. I have been asked by Mr Byfield, one of the editors of ICANNwatch, to provide ICANNwatch with a rough summary of the article. This summary might interest some Slashdotters as well, even though it's hardly front page material. The chairman of At Large Study Committee, Mr Carl Bildt, has submitted a reply to my column. Following is a rough summary of both our articles.

I state in my column:

"It should be noted that what we discuss is merely a regulation of new top-level domain names. In case ICANN or another domain name regulator should have a wider scope of power and decide upon other technical measures, ICANN needs to get such a mandate."

(---)

"Bildt is speaking of the leadership over the Internet and Pontus Forsstrom is speaking of the "power over the Internet. I think such metaphors lead the reader in the wrong direction. The Internet is not regulated top-down in the way that Bildt and Forsstrom suggests. The force of the Internet and the success of the Internet are depending upon the protocols. The protocols are often developed in the working groups of the IETF, but any protocol might as well be developed in a boy's room in his parents' house at Lidingo (Mikael's note: Lidingo is a suburb to Stockholm, Sweden) as well as in the most secret corridors of Microsoft. The power over the Internet is distributed."

(---)

"Bildt is convinced that ICANN will remain as a domain name regulator. Bildt suggests in his report a possibility to let the domain name holders elect the board members of ICANN. In the Bildt suggestion every domain name holder get one vote in the global election to the ICANN board."

(---)

"The only regulation that I consider sound is a global regulation based on the participation of nations. The work of ICANN affects mostly those who still have not found their way out on the Internet. To make domain name ownership a condition for voting rights is therefore not appropriate. Current domain name holders should be most interested in decreasing the amount of new top-level domain names. New top-level domain names will lead to inflation in the legal and economic rights of the domain name holder.

A new top-level domain name can lead to multiple registration of the same domain names and defamation and degeneration. A "good" domain name will be less worth if it's available under multiple top-level domain names.

However, it will benefit society if the name space is widened, while it will lead to more competition and innovation.

Hence, I find it more suitable to make as many nations as possible, offline or online, participate in ICANN or an organisation replacing ICANN. It can be achieved through the United Nations or a similar body."

(---)

"The connection between ownership and voting rights was a la mode in Europe at the mid 19th Century, but as an instrument for democracy in the 21th Century I consider the concept dusty and obsolete."

(---)

"I am afraid of the politician Carl Bildt. If Bildt's suggestion is approved and used, we will create a domain name regulator that lacks severely when it comes to representation. Only the landowners will get to vote. I am also afraid that Icann and its investigator Carl Bildt consider a widened ICANN with a broadened scope and a new government for the Internet."

Mr Bildt replies:
"It is good if we get more debates on the ICANN issues in Sweden. We brag about being best in the world on the Internet, but we are silent as mice (idiomatic expression, Mikael's note) when it comes to these issues. Crap."

(---)

"Mikael Pawlo seems to have two points. First, he wants to keep the decentralised decision making process on the Internet. Second, he wants to have some UN like organisation to make decisions, in practice probably the International Telecommunications Union, ITU."

(---)

"However, you can't have both."

(---)

"ICANN is certainly no government of the Internet and can not be such a body. The scope of ICANN is technical. But with the Internet as the most important infrastructure those issues will be important."

(---)

"Therefore I have a hard time to appreciate his (Mikael Pawlo's) suggestion as a real alternative."

Read my column (in Swedish).

Read Mr Bildts reply (in Swedish).

The column and the reply was published by the Swedish branch of the International Data Group. Please be advised that the translations are unofficial translations and that Mr Bildt may or may not agree with me on the paragraphs choosen to be translated."

mpawlo writes: "As reported by ICANNwatch IDG Sweden has published a column where I discuss the result of the At Large Study Committee. I have been asked by Mr Byfield, one of the editors of ICANNwatch, to provide ICANNwatch with a rough summary of the article. This summary might interest some Slashdotters as well, even though it's hardly front page material. The chairman of At Large Study Committee, Mr Carl Bildt, has submitted a reply to my column. Following is a rough summary of both our articles.

I state in my column:

"It should be noted that what we discuss is merely a regulation of new top-level domain names. In case ICANN or another domain name regulator should have a wider scope of power and decide upon other technical measures, ICANN needs to get such a mandate."

(---)

"Bildt is speaking of the leadership over the Internet and Pontus Forsstrom is speaking of the "power over the Internet. I think such metaphors lead the reader in the wrong direction. The Internet is not regulated top-down in the way that Bildt and Forsstrom suggests. The force of the Internet and the success of the Internet are depending upon the protocols. The protocols are often developed in the working groups of the IETF, but any protocol might as well be developed in a boy's room in his parents' house at Lidingo (Mikael's note: Lidingo is a suburb to Stockholm, Sweden) as well as in the most secret corridors of Microsoft. The power over the Internet is distributed."

(---)

"Bildt is convinced that ICANN will remain as a domain name regulator. Bildt suggests in his report a possibility to let the domain name holders elect the board members of ICANN. In the Bildt suggestion every domain name holder get one vote in the global election to the ICANN board."

(---)

"The only regulation that I consider sound is a global regulation based on the participation of nations. The work of ICANN affects mostly those who still have not found their way out on the Internet. To make domain name ownership a condition for voting rights is therefore not appropriate. Current domain name holders should be most interested in decreasing the amount of new top-level domain names. New top-level domain names will lead to inflation in the legal and economic rights of the domain name holder.

A new top-level domain name can lead to multiple registration of the same domain names and defamation and degeneration. A "good" domain name will be less worth if it's available under multiple top-level domain names.

However, it will benefit society if the name space is widened, while it will lead to more competition and innovation.

Hence, I find it more suitable to make as many nations as possible, offline or online, participate in ICANN or an organisation replacing ICANN. It can be achieved through the United Nations or a similar body."

(---)

"The connection between ownership and voting rights was a la mode in Europe at the mid 19th Century, but as an instrument for democracy in the 21th Century I consider the concept dusty and obsolete."

(---)

"I am afraid of the politician Carl Bildt. If Bildt's suggestion is approved and used, we will create a domain name regulator that lacks severely when it comes to representation. Only the landowners will get to vote. I am also afraid that Icann and its investigator Carl Bildt consider a widened ICANN with a broadened scope and a new government for the Internet."

Mr Bildt replies:
"It is good if we get more debates on the ICANN issues in Sweden. We brag about being best in the world on the Internet, but we are silent as mice (idiomatic expression, Mikael's note) when it comes to these issues. Crap."

(---)

"Mikael Pawlo seems to have two points. First, he wants to keep the decentralised decision making process on the Internet. Second, he wants to have some UN like organisation to make decisions, in practice probably the International Telecommunications Union, ITU."

(---)

"However, you can't have both."

(---)

"ICANN is certainly no government of the Internet and can not be such a body. The scope of ICANN is technical. But with the Internet as the most important infrastructure those issues will be important."

(---)

"Therefore I have a hard time to appreciate his (Mikael Pawlo's) suggestion as a real alternative."

Read my column (in Swedish).

Read Mr Bildts reply (in Swedish).

The column and the reply was published by the Swedish branch of the International Data Group. Please be advised that the translations are unofficial translations and that Mr Bildt may or may not agree with me on the paragraphs choosen to be translated."

Roberth Edberg writes "The Swedish birthday congratulationlist for Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) is increasing every minute. Will he have an world record in individual birthday congratulations? Even the Swedish Linux World site, made news about it. Why not follow the example and make lists for your own country?" Linus Torvalds is turning 30 on 28 December 1999, so start sending those greetings! Update by RM: I can be an idiot sometimes! I originally thought Linus's b-day was 10/28 & wished a "belated" congrats. 28 Oct. is um, *Bill Gates's* b-day. Thanks to all who spotted the error.

pinkunicorn writes "The teen sued for linking to MP3 files has been freed by the local court (the article is in Swedish which Babelfish doesn't grok). The court says that he's still guilty of assisting copyright crimes, but since that wasn't what he was accused of he will be let off. " Update: 09/15 10:29 by H :Thanks to Martin Wickman for a quick translation/summary-click below to read it in English.

7 year old free from charges in swedish mp3-case

The district court of Skövde announces today that the 17-year old who had using links to mp3-files on his homepage, is now acquited. Justification being that the 17-year old had only been directing to, not distributing the actual files. The classification was "crime against the copyright law through digital mp3-technics".

Even though he is now acquited, the court thinks he is guilty of complicity to crime against the copyright law. But since he was never prosecuted for that crime, he is released.

This is the first time in Europe a mp3-case has been brought to court. Its the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) who prosecuted the 17-year ord. The organisation has charged him with fines, but crimes against the copyright law can result in up to two years in prison. IFPI has not yet responded if it will appeal against the judgement.