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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."

40 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Government accountability by saiha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Its a beautiful thing.

    1. Re:Government accountability by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 4, Funny

      Until the government raids and confiscates the servers that the site is hosted on....

      Oh, wait..... this isn't Phoenix....

      --
      "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
    2. Re:Government accountability by emilv · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, but this is Sweden. The motto of our police force are something along the lines of "Raidin' The Pirate Bay and keepin' their servers forever". Thus, your comment are not at all inappropriate to describe Sweden.

  2. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thats a terrible analogy. I am a native English speaker and I did not hear of habeas corpus until recently.

    OTH my wife is a native Cantonese speaker and I have noticed the trouble she has in English with the concepts of lights vs mirrors, ground vs floor and gate vs door.

  3. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by BlueParrot · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you're writing this from the US I'm going to laugh at you.

  5. 127.0.0.1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "127.0.0.1 has not been reported as beeing investigated."

    How long until the government finds a loophole allowing them to investigate 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1, or maybe even one of the 224.0.0.0/4 addresses? They could simultaneously investigate everyone with a single incriminating IP address!

    Reminds me of this quote: http://www.bash.org/?742386

    1. Re:127.0.0.1 by HonIsCool · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The whole thing about this Swedish IPRED debacle is that it's not the police nor the government that are doing the investigations or raidings. It's private interests such as representatives or the record or movie industry. In some capacity, these groups have now been given more authority than the police, because awhile ago it was ruled that the police were not allowed to force ISPs to release subscription data on IP-addresses suspected of being used to break copyright law, because copyright-violation was not a serious enough crime to warrant it.

      But now private groups can petition the ISPs (through the courts) for the identity of subscribers behind IP-addresses claimed to be used for "illegal filesharing"...

      Welcome to the future :(

      --
      "Give me six lines of C++ code written by the most competent programmer, and I will find enough in there to hang him."
    2. Re:127.0.0.1 by HonIsCool · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not exactly. I think that in the USA, the police can also get the information from the ISPs, no?

      --
      "Give me six lines of C++ code written by the most competent programmer, and I will find enough in there to hang him."
    3. Re:127.0.0.1 by laederkeps · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't worry, this is going away in Sweden too.

      Whacky police state theory begins here

      Now that we allow the record companies and their kin to run their own prvate police force, it's only a matter of time before the lawmakers realize how f*cked up that really is.
      The answer, of course, is to give that power to the actual police in stead.

      How do you do that?
      That's something I theorized a few years ago; They will raise the upper limit of punishment for copyright infringement to levels which allow the police to engage in, for example, wiretapping (I believe that limit is reasonable suspicion of crimes warranting 4 years in prison at the moment).
      Hey, presto! Since just about everyone in the country can be accused of copyright infringement, they now have a listen-to-your-communications-free card for ~9M people.

    4. Re:127.0.0.1 by houghi · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't care about the 127.0.0.1. It will be a problem when they want to investigate hackme.houghi.org

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  6. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Sapir-Worf hypothesis

    1) It's Sapir-Whorf - watch less star trek.
    2) That hypothesis does not work like you think it does.
    3) You don't understand Swedish laws, or the concept of habeas corpus.
    4) ????
    5) Oh, and fuck you.

  7. Legislating towards IPv6 by jrumney · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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).

    1. Re:Legislating towards IPv6 by Zarhan · · Score: 3, Informative

      IPv6 has a nice little RFC going for it - Cryptographically generated addresses (CGA), defined in RFC 3972. Consider the possibility where every TCP/UDP session, or even every packet, comes from a different address...

    2. Re:Legislating towards IPv6 by mdmkolbe · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

  8. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by ParanoidJanitor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    English is also not derived from Latin (although it does borrow a large amount of words from Latin.) Swedish and English actually come from the same language family (Germanic) and share a large number of words (whether they share more than English shares with Latin is something that I don't know.) By the hypothesis you mentioned, the concept of habeus corpus is not something that English speakers should be able to conceptualize either.

  9. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Quothz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since Swedish doesn't have the concept of habeas corpus, they find themselves in this kind of circular "watching the watchers" predicament.

    *sniff* That's a beautifully constructed troll, sir. The obvious response, of course, is that habeas corpus has nothing whatsoever to do with initiating investigations. At all. In any way.

    The only reasonable conclusion, of course, is that your native tongue is Chewa, which of course has no phrase for "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I could sure use another drink".

  10. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thats a terrible analogy.

    I think you meant to say that it was a bad analogy, considering the username you replied to.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  11. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, now "fuck you" is insightful?

    Fuck you.

  12. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    My left nut carries a much higher cost. Just sayin'.

  13. Come on everybody, by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Funny

    it's the proxy dance!

    You can share if you want to
    You can leave those Swedes behind
    Cause your cops don't share
    And if they don't share
    Then they're no friends of mine.

  14. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by proton · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a swede, I can say that our laws seems to function quite alot better than the american laws do.

    We actually have the freedom to watch our watchers (in most cases). The government is quite significantly more "for the people by the people" than in the United States.

    And just for you, the european human rights convention explictly states "habeas corpus" rights, although not under the title "habeas corpus". This convention is also considered part of swedish law since 1998.

    And we certainly have the sense not to run camps were our "habeas corpus" doesnt apply...

  15. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by BattleApple · · Score: 2, Insightful

    yeah.. well, you're probably right-nutted!

  16. Re:Parallel with e-cigarette case by exley · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

    What you're looking for is the iCigarette -- it lets you do all the stuff you mentioned. Just like anyone else, really, but never has lung cancer looked so trendy.

  17. Re:Non static ip by gandhi_2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    with the use of a PCI, USB, or PC/PCMCIA card and a driver, a daemon could also trigger something like the ANM-14 thermite grenade. the subsequent (and warning-less) fire would destroy all evidence, as well as your eyesight. a blind guy getting sued for movie piracy? ha!

  18. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the concept of habeus corpus is not something that English speakers should be able to conceptualize either.

    Yes, we did lose that ability just a few short years ago.

    --
    What?
  19. Re:Parallel with e-cigarette case by gandhi_2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    No no. That's Cigarette 2.0. It runs on jSmoke. Although the Tobacco in Tubes implementation looks promising.

  20. Re:Potential for wonderful mischief? by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or fortune 500 with flaky wi fi

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  21. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Threni · · Score: 2, Informative

    > English is also not derived from Latin (although it does borrow a large amount of words from Latin.)

    It borrows to within less than 1% as many words from Latin as from the biggest influence, so where it's derived from is something of a moot point for the purpose of this argument!

  22. Re:i'm swedish by bigmouth_strikes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And when they make it illegal to use VPNs and start enforcing it ?

    The fuss is about that you shouldn't have to use proxies in order not to be monitored by a corporation playing cops.

    --
    Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
  23. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Sapir-Worf hypothesis states that you can only conceptualize those things that your language supports.

    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.

  24. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Kjellander · · Score: 3, Informative

    English is also not derived from Latin (although it does borrow a large amount of words from Latin.) Swedish and English actually come from the same language family (Germanic) and share a large number of words.

    Not only that. A lot more English words than you think are borrowed from old Norse, the root of Swedish, Danish , Icelandic and Norwegian, and this because we Vikings invaded a thousand years ago.

    Don't believe me, check out the etymology on the word window, which means eye to the wind. (Swedish has since borrowed the German word Fenster into the word fönster, but that is beside the point. Norwegian still uses vindue)

    Think about that next time you see for instance Microsoft's trademark on a +1000 year old Norse word, vindauga.

  25. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by fbjon · · Score: 2, Funny

    You're all nuts anyway...

    --
    True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
  26. Doesn't work that way by bigmouth_strikes · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are no scripts involved in this. As much as it may disturb basement-dwellers, exercising your Swedish freedom of information involves showing up at the specific public office/gov't branch/etc yourself.

    You have to show up at the court in person and ask to see any documents pertaining to specific IP-addresses. The court is not obliged to prepare lists or in any other way format the data; they will just hand out the entire court document itself for you to sift through. The work is also expected to be "reasonable", which is why you just can't show up with 1000 ip-addresses every day.

    The general idea behind the Swedish freedom of information is that you know what you're looking for, not that you're scanning everything in order to find something interesting. This of course makes it hard to apply in cases like IPRED where you may not be informed that you are under investigation until after a whole month.

    --
    Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
  27. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Petrushka · · Score: 3, Informative

    > English is also not derived from Latin (although it does borrow a large amount of words from Latin.)

    It borrows to within less than 1% as many words from Latin as from the biggest influence, so where it's derived from is something of a moot point for the purpose of this argument!

    Latin/Romance-derived words in your post (including the quotation, since including it actually works in favour of your claim):
    derived, Latin, large, amount, Latin, per cent, Latin, influence, derived, point, purpose, argument.
    Total count: 11.

    Germanic words in your post:
    English, is, also, not, from, although, it, does, borrow, a, of, words, from, it, borrows, to, within, less, than, one, as, many, words, from, as, from, the, biggest, so, where, it, is, from, is, something, of, a, moot, for, the, of, this.
    Total count: 42.

    I hope that clarifies the slip in your reasoning.

  28. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by reachinmark · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  29. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by blackest_k · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am not a linguist however it doesn't seem to be an unreasonable hypothesis, one of the problems in translation is finding reasonably equivalent phrases between languages.

    Within any individual language there are specialized vocabularies that people outside the profession have very little grasp of, the language of stockbrokers or software engineers or marketing for example.

    I believe thats referred to the domain of discourse. Within different languages there are subtle differences between what we would think of as universal concepts. For example the word you in Japanese has maybe 7 roughly equivalent words, the difference is directly related to the relative positions of the two speakers in relation to each other and society. In Polish for example there is a similar difference where there are formal and familiar forms of discourse. If your being respectful then you use the third party form of verbs. As nonnative speakers we are liable to trample all over that difference and may be considered rude or ignorant.

    I believe 0 was late to arrive in mathematics but it made a considerable impact on thinking about numbers. Of course there is a tendency of languages to assimilate words from other languages sometimes with a direct relation such as the word bungalow which comes from india or a different meaning such as 'handy' which I believe the Germans use for 'Cell phone' or 'Mobile'. I've not even touched on English idiom which can really baffle non native speakers yet can be extremely vivid concepts for native speakers.

    The problem with the hypothesis is that if I were fluent enough to recognize a conceptual difference in one language and were able to convey that concept to you in English or another language then that concept is no longer constrained by its original language.

    However the essential idea that language is a framework in which we express our idea's is quite reasonable, the idea that frameworks differ between languages and individuals also seems reasonable, however these frameworks are not fixed and can be expanded on. So given two differing frameworks it is likely that a difference in the concepts as expressed in two different languages may lead to different approaches which may yield different results. Chances are that if it's important enough the language frameworks will be modified to share the concept. Obviously change is ongoing so differences will become more subtle, but it's obvious that if you talked about working with computers for example to someone from the 1900's the concept computer used to be a man who worked with mathematics and windows were glass panels set into walls. I've no doubt you could teach the modern day concepts to someone from the 1900's but then your modifying his frame of reference.

    As a final thought I'm reminded of a scifi story where a stricken spacecraft needed instruction from earth to be able to avoid disaster but the delay in sending a communication and receiving the answer meant there wouldnt be enough time to avoid disaster, the problem was solved by the presidents wife who told them to speak at the same time in her field of expertise gossiping nothing would get done if they waited for one party to relay one story before they related their own.

           

  30. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Dextrously · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, personally I'd mod this whole thread funny. However, the AC has a point. Your post appears to belittle an entire group of people. Whether or not that was your intended goal doesn't really matter. I shouldn't be surprised if you get a "fuck you" here and there for it though.

    By saying that Swedish doesn't have a concept of Habeus Corpus--the liberty to not be detained unlawfully--is insulting, I would think.

    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis doesn't mean you can't think outside of your language, but the translation may be rough. For example, if someone literally translated Habeus Corpus to english without understanding its meaning, you get "You have the body". "Of course I have my body! Are you on crack?", someone who understands both languages and cultures would translate the concept, and not just the words.

  31. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    English and Swedish have a lot in common. If you're good at Swedish and have been exposed to some different Swedish dialects, you understand British English pretty well, even if you never learned it (but it's really hard to find an adult Swede with normal brain capacity that haven't learned English in school). I don't know if the opposite is true. If your good at Swedish you also understand many dialects of German (dialects in Uplandia sounds a lot like Low German and Stockholm had more German speaking inhabitants then Swedish ones during periods of the Middle Ages) and of course all of the Scandinavian languages. Swedish have also had a lot of influence from modern French (18th and 19th century) and Latin (both Vulgar and Book Latin: B.C. until late 19th century, we traded with that part of the world even before the Roman empire).

    After the Normands invaded Britain, Swedish vikings where actually able to get by speaking their native tongue on the British Islands (they usually hitched a ride with ships from Norway to that part of the world). As Normands where vikings that had settled in French and spoke a language with strong influence by Old French but with a Old Norse base, English has more loan words from Old Norse (the "grandfather" of Swedish) than it has from Latin, although sometimes it's hard to tell which ones was borrowed from Old Norse and which ones originates in older Germanic dialects (or French ;-). Some of these English loan word from Old Norse (at least from what I learned in Swedish schoolbooks when I was a kid) are: father, mother, stone, house, I, me, you. As you can see they are part of the English base language. In Swedish they are: fader, moder, sten, hus, jag (from ek or ik), mig/mej (alternate spelling), du (from thu).

    Of course, English have abandoned more grammar from it's Old Norse and Germanic roots then Swedish (we replaced and complemented some of our Old Norse grammar with some from Low German, Latin and French, but we didn't dumb down things as much as in English). English use only a small fraction of the Swedish phonemes (we have even more then Old Norse is likely to have had). And most English dialects are very monotonous in comparison with Swedish, even the most lively English/American dialects are just as monotonous as our most dull dialects (and why do most English/American dialects have to sound so aggressive). If you see The Muppet Show, the Swedish Chef singing in early episodes are actually a rather good imitation of how people from Rättvik sound when they talk (not singing), in later shows he's just an imitation of himself. But English/US people usually only have experienced the rather dull dialects around our Swedish capital. Those dialects are also prevalent in Swedish television and radio (even persons that normally speak other dialects usually adapt somewhat when in TV/radio, to be understood by people in that part of Sweden, which are not used to be exposed to other dialects/languages as much as people in other parts of Sweden (they traded mostly with the Swedish colonies in Finland, Lapland and Balticum, all of which they forced to use Swedish, and Germany).

  32. Re:Swedish does not derive from Latin by carpe_noctem · · Score: 2, Funny

    I am a native English speaker and I did not hear of habeas corpus until recently.

    Dubya, is that you?

    --
    "Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K