Sweden's Watergate

An anonymous reader writes, "Sweden's ruling Social Democratic Party's internal network has been illegally accessed several hundred times over a period of several months. Party treasurer Tommy Ohlstroem describes the incident as "wide-scale and systematic." Computer security company Sentor's investigation has revealed intrusions originating from computers belonging to Sweden's Liberal Party, and with the upcoming election in only two weeks many commentators are already describing this as Sweden's Watergate (Swedish only). An employee of the Young Liberals has admitted to unauthorized access, but a series of mysterious coincidences in the form of exceptionally well timed public announcements by the Liberal Party suggests the involvement of more than one person."

Comments

Explanation of 'swedish liberal'

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

saying 'Liberal' in Sweden is not the same as saying 'liberal' in the USA. Of the two major Swedish political parties, the liberals are the more right leaning. In the US however, both swedish parties however would be generally considered to be left of the Democrats.

(Generally, I don't find terms like 'left' or 'right' helpful for a serious political discussion, but it will do for slashdot)

Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal'

[Opie812]

saying 'Liberal' in Sweden is not the same as saying 'liberal' in the USA.

I'm no expert, but I'd suggest that the United States is the only country in the world where 'liberal' is a derogatory term.

Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal'

[DaveRexel]

No need for downmodding, the "Folkpartiet liberalerna are not one of the two major parties" as it's true that they belong very firmly to a grouped entity that forms the right-wing coalition in Swedish politics.

The largest party in the opposing coalition, that is "Socialdemokraterna" is the hackee and this smaller party in the other block is the hacker, but, living in Sweden, my suspicions run deeper than this:

*- A focus on hacking so the governors can impose higher surveillance.
      Remember the ruling Swedish coalition, with the Socialdemokraterna in the leadership;
      Taking orders from Hollywood and confiscating the Pirate Bay servers...

*- A very Swedish joke, i.e. an easily exposed attempt
      - that shows the oppositions lack of IT-skills
          (That's a head-shot in the pre-election posturing IMHO)

*- This breach is old news, why expose it now?

*- Profit!! [Sorry, can't ever make a list without Profit! at the end ;-) ]

Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal'

[Big Nothing]

Yep. Just like "intellectual".

*sigh*

As always, Germany is just a step ahead...

[DoktorTomoe]

... over here, not members of opposing parties are opening the respective other boxes, but email is illegaly read by members of the own conservative party CDU without consent... See http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/77680 for further information (or Googlelated)

Seems like a borrowed idea

[A beautiful mind]

Just before 2006's Hungarian Parliamentary Election, the Hungarian Socialist Party accused the Alliance of Young Democrats with accessing the private server of theirs. The "proof" was a screenshot from a Win2003 server log showing the host belonging to the party. The accused party countered by showing proof that their internal site was systematically accessed by the other party, also showing logs.

The internal server of the Socialist Party turned out to be a password protected http server containing some upcoming promotional campaign pictures, with some trivial password like hsp:redflower. The pass somehow leaked and thousands of other people viewed it, myself included, before it became a "scandal" and "proof of hacking" and "ServerGate".

I hope the swedish parties are more grown up than to play stupid games like that and I hope the swedish public is more educated than the hungarian, so that they can tell if nothing extraordinarily happened, just some PR hype..

Many misleading statements

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

1, 84 times not hundred of times.

2. If was done by ONE member of the LUF - not the Liberal Party - LUF is the youth organisations associated with the Liberal Party.

3. He did it by trying to login using the same password as the username and other simple methods - and cracked 3 accounts. Socialist party had not a very secure system.

4. The journalist claims ha was approached by a member of the liberal party who showed him how to accces the webbsite on a cyber cafe. That member claimed that many within the Liberal party know about it. Even though as far is known only 1(one) person did know about it.

5. The journalist was/is a active member of the Socialist party youth section.

6. The socialist party has know about this break-in for some time.

7. The disclosure was made the same night as the major candidate to take over as prime minister was on TV being questioned - the leader of the Moderate party. (swedish right wing - but more like US democrats)

9. The Socialistic party has before had an politician send emails pretending to be the Moderate party leader to journalists - trying to make it sound like the party leader was an idiot - and the socialist party member got fired in a scandal.

There is an election this month in Sweden. The alleged crime was committed last year and until mars this year but not publicly known until now just before the election.

You take your pick of who has done most to use this to win the election.

Well, that is not exactly true...

[Mindjiver]

The largest party in sweden would be the social democrats, the second largest party are Moderaterna, the liberal party would be the third largest. And your placement of the parties on an american left-right-scale is not entirely true either.

- Social Democrates, pragmatic power party with an emphasis on a large welfare state and a regulated labour market.
- Moderates, previously somewhat conservative that now have triangulated the social democrates more or less totally.
- Peoples Party - Liberals, Social-liberal party that now could be placed to the right of the moderates.

Since there are seven major parties in sweden instead of two large coalitions like in the United States I find it hard to compare them to either the democrats or the republicans. For example it is hard to find any great amount protectionism in any of the parties platforms, but all favour a welfare state with socialized medicine for example. So you are over-simplifying things a bit too much! :)

Re:Well, that is not exactly true...

[the-intersocialist]

The reason why you cannot compare the parties in Sweden with the Democrats and the Republicans is that the social democrats is a party of the workers movement (their name is actually "the workers party social democrats"). The basis of the social democratic party is in the peoples movements (tennants associations, tradeunions, cooperative enterprises, temperance movement, student unions, the peoples education movement, etc.), which consists of millions of people and are controlled by the social democrats (the social democrats themselves has 150 000 members, which is much compared to the other parties but small compared to what they used to be). For this reason, the division in Sweden is not between the liberal and the conservative but between the bourgeois and the workers parties. Bourgeios (Swedish "borgerlig") is a strange word in English, but in Swedish it what the right-wing parties call themselves. In the US there are only bourgeios parties, with very limited base in mass movements and very limited activities outside of the parliamentary context.

Bad Joke Thread

[ettlz]

Hee bor shteer, bom bor shteer doo,
A dish-pi-doo.
Bor bor shteer, lum bor shteer doo,
Bork! Bork! Bork!

Shteer!

Sheeba shleeba goo, dish mooga hacken PC. Ung gish libo hacken PC, mish gee looder bouffer ooverfloo. Gee pish der bouffer ooverfloo mish der leety scripty in der shellcode mik joo inken Intel assoumbler. Fish, ung gish leeber scannen porten mooga funky nmap, bish der open port shif lish der foorwoll. Dish skel loder mish der leety scripty, spur gifor der bouffer ooverfloo, ung desh ooger morgen der stackenschmoosher! Ung gesh, mooga dish spur lorger hacken PC!

Re:It's probably not close to Watergate

[hey!]

The enemies list and the dirty tricks were an offense against the spirit of democracy, but as you say that wasn't Watergate.

The break in at the Watergate was not most of the Watergate story, although it was the germ from which the scandal of Watergate grew. It was, as you say, just dirty tricks.

What Watergate was about was about the Nixon administration trying to cover up the Watergate break in, and in the course of doing so using the powers of the Presidency to undermine the law. Every American has been taught: the powers of the President are granted to uphold the law and defend the nation. It is obvious to all but the most partisan Americans that when a President uses his powers to undermine the law, it is an abomination that strikes at the foundation of our nation's identity.

The single act that fatally poisoned the Nixon presidency was when he fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, for getting too close to the truth. When he was fired, he said this: "Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." It was a ringing endorsement of the American people, and a throwing down of the guantlet in the court of public opinion. My mother-in-law was a Harvard Law School secretary for many years, and Archibald Cox was one of "her" professors. During the Iran Contra scandal, he remarked to her that it was unlikely that much would come of it, because when a President decides to break the law, there is really no practical way to stop him, unless the American people rise up against him. In Watergate, American public opinion rose up agains the President. In Iran Contra, it may have disagreed with him, but it did not rise up as a whole.

Over the many years I've been following politics, one thing has become very clear: democracy doesn't ensure that politicians pursue wise or virtuous policies. Vietnam, the Watergate coverup, Iran-Contra, the second Iraw War; no practical democratic system can prevent such misadventures from starting.

The great virtue of democracy lies not in preventing folly, but in the inevitability of people doing collectively what individuals who have identified themselves with a disasterous plan seldom can: they change their mind.

I like to remember this when prospects for my country look bleak, so that I can never be totally discouraged. Over time, there are truths that are too large and connected to too many lives to be hidden. Inevitably, the scales fall from the people's eyes, and when that day comes it is a day of reckoning for politicians who pursue the Big Lie. It does not prevent untold harm from befalling; indeed it is only great harm that brings this about. But as long as there is any memory of democracy, any shred of the democratic spirit left in us, we will exercise the greatest democratic right of all: throwing the bums out.