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Swedish Pirate Party Launches ISP
WillDraven writes "Torrentfreak is reporting that the Swedish Pirate Party has launched an ISP. Starting with 100 residents in a housing organization in the city of Lund, Pirate ISP hopes to gain 5% of the market in Lund before spreading to other markets. Headed by longtime Pirate Party member Gustav Nipe (video interview in English), the company aims to provide Internet service with the sort of guarantees one would expect from the Pirate Party. Most notable are the promises to keep no logs of subscriber activity and thus to provide no data to law enforcement or private corporations."
But isn't it better to trust people with freedom than to treat everyone like criminals?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
And? People use highways for illegal things. They use their homes for illegal things. Hell, they probably use government buildings for illegal things. Cracking down on freedoms in the name of a minority of miscreants is never a good thing.
... people start using it for child pornography transfer and other things that SHOULD be illegal.
This is precisely why these things shouldn't be illegal. At least, possession and transfer of information (including child pornography) shouldn't be illegal. (Of course, abusing children to make child pornography should be illegal, and child pornography itself could very well be evidence of a crime.) The problem is, as soon as you make certain kinds of information illegal, then it would be impossible for ISPs to provide the kind of anonymity many of us would desire. Child pornography makes a wonderful excuse to impose strict data retention laws that affect a wide variety of users.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
...that a special ISP has to be launched to get the type of protections every ISP should have.
Downloading child pornography is a major crime?
It's better to let a guilty man go free than convict an innocent.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
I'm not sure if you're trolling or trying to be funny but that's just fucking scary.
If you can be found and punished for that then you can be found and punished when you want to speak out against your government, when you want to say unpopular things, support unpopular positions or organize acts of civil protest.
"... this age of terrorism and child pornography ..."
What the hell? You think this age is "different" some how?
Terrorism is certainly not rampant. Look back a few decades, to say, the fifties or the sixties when there were riots all over the USA.
Child Pornography, hell. Look back a century, "children" were getting married to middle-aged men and having their babies. The only difference is, back then nobody arrested you for it, or even thought twice about it.
"This age" is noted only for everybody being declared a criminal and living in fear that their government is going to lock them up if they happen to say something ... like, say, this post on SlashDot RIGHT HERE.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
If you want to make analogies, do it right. There is no "just in case" recording of everything I do in my home so that cops can get a warrant and watch what I did. Even for "live" investigations, there's a high legal barrier before a cop can enter my home. If someone just accuses me of stealing something, it is not sufficient for a warrant. On the internet, with most ISPs, not only is there a record which ties my online activities to my identity, there's also almost no barrier if someone wants to access that information.
logging every site that every user visits through an ISP just in case law enforcement want to check up on it later to see if they're viewing illegal material is like putting a camera in every bedroom just in case law enforcement want to check up on it later to see if you've been raping victims in the room.
an equivalent to a warrant to search your house would be a warrant to search your computer not having your ISP recording everything you view for future inspection.
"for the purpose of illegal activities"
Why would you assume this?
Believe it or not, there are people in this world who are just as law-abiding as you may be, but who don't want our every action cataloged by those in government.
There is no reason that anybody needs to know where I am, when I'm asleep, or when I poop, despite what the people pushing for National Healthcare might think (when you poop could be important, if you're constipated it'll cost us all more money to pay for your healthcare).
"for the purpose of privacy"
IS NOT
"for the purpose of illegal activity"
No matter what those in power would rather you believe.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Child pornography is a red herring, a talking point cynically trotted out by politicians and duly repeated ad nauseam by the unthinking masses. I've seen nothing to suggest that its prevalence is any more than anecdotal, yet it is repeatedly used as an excuse to promulgate laws that shape the future of our society. It's our time's Emmanuel Goldstein and The Brotherhood.
Child Pornography, hell. Look back a century, "children" were getting married to middle-aged men and having their babies. The only difference is, back then nobody arrested you for it, or even thought twice about it.
I know, that always kills me. People try to say that they're "kids", yet not that long ago they would be married at that age. Hell, people try to talk down on teenagers and say that they're stupid and such, but it's only because society changed to make them less responsible. 100 years ago many of those high schoolers would have had a job and a family already. That's how things were for thousands of years, then all of the sudden society goes batshit crazy and decides that anyone under 30 is incompetent and needs the government to tell them what they can and cannot do.
I'm all for punishing people who intentionally harm others. However, I'm not for having blanket rules because a few old people who had crappy lives decide that they know better than everyone else.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Defending the legalization of private sharing is legitimate (as any other speech, as in Free Speech), and it's their main platform. They don't need to "cover it" using other stuff - they call themselves the "Pirate Party", for crying out loud, do you really think they're trying to hide their motives?
Privacy is just another of their position, it's not a cover up for anything, because they obviously aren't trying to cover up their main motive.
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So, someone that pushed for legalization of alcohol during Prohibition was illegitimate in their goals and reasons because alcohol use was against the law and anyone wanting to change that has to be evil?
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