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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."
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.
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).
You know what's weird? Electronic cigarettes. 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.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Or fortune 500 with flaky wi fi
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Cute. But whenever the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is brought before a popular audience, it's always worth mentioning that the hypothesis in its strict form (the language constrains the way you think) is rejected by the vast majority of linguistics, and even its less strict form (that language influences the way you think) is highly contentious. Unfortunately, from popular media like Stephenson's Snow Crash and reports that "the Japanese have a word for it", there's much misunderstanding about how languages actually differ and how those differences appear to speakers.
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.
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 ) 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.
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).