Swedes Cast Write-In Votes for SQL Injection, Donald Duck

An anonymous reader writes "The Swedish elections were held recently (the third Sunday of September to be exact) and it seems that a few people tried to interfere with the election by voting for parties which were in effect named to be SQL injection attacks or similar. Clever stuff! Little Bobby Tables in real life." That wasn't the only oddity of the election; reader MZeroOne writes: "The Swedish Election Authority published the results of last Sunday's general election and even though the current prime minister retained power, the candidate who got the most individual handwritten votes was Disney's Donald Duck." Maybe the existence of the Hard Alcohol Party (237 votes) helps explain why the Pirate Party didn't have a better showing.

Comments

For those who don't read XKCD.

[Dayofswords]

The 'Little Bobby Tables' reference:

"Exploits of a Mom"
http://xkcd.com/327/

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[Anonymous Coward]

best xkcd ever!

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[JazzXP]

There's somebody on /. that hasn't seen that comic?!?!

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[Anonymous Coward]

The blind slashdotters.

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[polle404]

I'm not sure it's the Disney duck the Swedes were voting for...
this duck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Anka is pretty famous as well over here in Skandinavia...

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[Muros]

Ssshhh dont give government ideas. They'll be sanitising polling station input if you show them that.

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[sumdumass]

I imagine that since it was a write in campaign, they would have translated the words to be either Arne Anka or Donald Duck. The entire difference would have been what was actually written so unless they just wrote duck, I guess there wouldn't be much confusion.

Wouldn't it be interesting if the software to count votes had a bug in it put there by the programer who wanted to default all invalid votes to something he could reference easily instead of a no vote or fault vote registering? I mean it could have automatically listed Donald Duck as the candidate instead of having a Florida 2000 hanging chad problem.

Re:For those who don't read XKCD.

[Zibri]

Actually, there was (don't now if "they" registered for this election) a party called "Kalle Anka-partiet" (Donald Duck Party). It is a traditional alternative to blank votes. The Donald Duck Party is run by a bearded old homeless guy from Malmo. "They" promise to give people wider sidewalks and free beer.

The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FlorianMueller]

Since a number of activists from the anti-software-patent movement joined the Pirate Party, including its first MEP (Christian Engström), I've been following its development closely and at some point even lent them a signature to support their participation in an election in my country (Germany), even though I ultimately didn't vote for them.

I've commented on the Pirate Party's failure to evolve into a serious political force. The EUobserver, an independent website covering European politics, published a streamlined version of my analysis. The original version goes into some more detail and appeared on my blog.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FuckingNickName]

What every young, unrepresentative group of loud, idealistic men don't realise is that most people just want peace, a job and a house. And, if you spend your time employed rather than campaigning for the abandonment of the intellectual property concept, you will have enough money to pay for it anyway. And what you cannot pay for, you put on credit. And debt doesn't really matter... continue working hard and you can pay fast enough that no-one takes your stuff away... your government is not going to let civilisation collapse even if everyone else is in debt too.

Life has been easy for quite a while. And of course I want to exploit you if I have the intelligence to do so. And I want to protect my legal rights to make it possible, not to share. Then I'm even more secure and my surroundings even more luxurious.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Nursie]

The only bit I object to in your argument is this -

And, if you spend your time employed rather than campaigning for the abandonment of the intellectual property concept, you will have enough money to pay for it anyway.

It's not necessarily about being able to afford to buy stuff. It's about rights and reform in the new digital age.

Other than that you're spot on, most people would rather get on with life and vote for whoever requires them to think about it the least.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Most pirates probably just vote for the green party (miljöpartiet) instead - they changed their policy to support filesharing after the pp got 7% in the EU election - because they are a mainstream party and there was no doubt that they would get in. How much of a difference this has made I don't know but they did do very well in the election.

Their internet-related policies

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

The only bit I object to in your argument is this -

And, if you spend your time employed rather than campaigning for the abandonment of the intellectual property concept, you will have enough money to pay for it anyway.

It's not necessarily about being able to afford to buy stuff. It's about rights and reform in the new digital age.

Other than that you're spot on, most people would rather get on with life and vote for whoever requires them to think about it the least.

In that case, you really missed the point of his post; "rights and reform" is an activist topic. one that most people don't care about.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[tenchikaibyaku]

As not all the ballots are counted as of yet it's possible that the final result will differ a few points, but it's worth noting that the Swedish Pirate Party basically seems to have retained its voters from the previous election:
2006: 0.63%
2010: 0.65% (preliminary)
This even though they were more or less absent from the public debate before the election.

I also think that the existence of a Pirate Party here in Sweden has managed to affect the public debate regarding piracy and privacy related questions more than what shows up in the polls.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dangitman]

I've commented on the Pirate Party's failure to evolve into a serious political force.

Err, what? That hardly seems worth commenting on. To become a "serious political force" they'd need to actually make some effort and have some desire to become such a force.

I wasn't aware that anyone thought they were serious about it.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[xtracto]

And it has always been that way, since the beginning of the homo sapiens. It is only due to the really few people who have the will and means to promote change that the human species has progressed (both socially and technologically).

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

... and the first thing one of their MEPs did was to vote AGAINST file sharing in the European Parliament just the other day. We still very much need the Pirate Partu.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[mikael_j]

Actually, the grandparent (or rather, the people described in the post) missed the point. The point isn't "we can't afford stuff! stuff should be free! WAAAH!", it's about rights, personal integrity and in extension safeguarding a free and democratic society. However, most people would rather get a $50/year tax cut and not think so much...

And it really helps them when people from established political parties describe the pirate party as thieves, slackers and people who just want something for nothing. Makes it a lot easier to just think "I can afford stuff, I don't need stuff for free." while you vote for whoever promises you the biggest tax cut.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[retchdog]

filler text. i'm really just posting my sig.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Nursie]

Did you read my post?

let me show you again -

"most people would rather get on with life and vote for whoever requires them to think about it the least."

Because it sounds like you didn't. Or I wasn't clear enough. I was disagreeing that the pirate party are just people who want everything for free, and completely agreeing that most people don't give a rats arse as long as they don't have to think about it too much.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FuckingNickName]

Except that no-one considers representative democracy to be the pinnacle of technical/scientific methodology ;-).

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[TheRaven64]

In the Cities of London and Westminster constituency, they got 90 votes in the last UK election. To put this in perspective, Mad Cap'n Tom, a joke candidate, got 84 votes in the same constituency. If the Pirate Party actually want to achieve something, then they need to start being constructive. A few suggestions:

• Change the name. Pirate Party makes them sound like a bunch of teenagers.
• Propose a sensible alternative to copyright, or propose a reasonable term for copyright. Their current proposals, if implemented, would cause significant damage to the economies of most western countries.
• Focus more on the privacy and security policies - people are more sympathetic to people who want to be left alone than to freeloaders.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[timepilot]

Frustrating. I've found that if I post something that's only two words, some doofus is only going to read one of them and post a smarmy comment about how dumb I am. If I respond and point out the second word, yet another doofus is going to read only the second word and tell me how I'm wrong about that one.

Even worse is that I find myself doing the same damn thing to others. Damn you slashdot!

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Kjella]

Just a few things:
1) The EU and national elections are really not comparable, people care about so vastly different things. Neither before, during or after did PP have anything like a 7% support in polls for the national parliament. But in retrospect, they didn't have a good enough national election platform to push while they still had media's attention because all the effort had gone into the EU election. They got silent and when it was ready media had lost attention.

2) There has been extremely little room for any other than the traditional parties and SD who got almost 3% in the last election, the number of "other" votes dropped from 2.75% to 1.41% and all others backed while PP increased from 0.63% to 0.65%. All major issues related to PPs politics have been pushed back to past the election, like the TPB trial who "coincidentally" begins next week.

3) It might look more like an activist group, but as long as no party is willing to seriously fight for the same issues then PP will have to fight for representation on their own. It took three days after the election for the Greens - including the Swedish representative - to vote for another anti-filesharing bill in the EU, they are only playing the populist opinion but will trade it away in any negotiation.

4) There have been no rounds ot mass lawsuits in Sweden, TPB is still up and running, they get some of the world's best free services like Spotify, in short people don't see the immidiate need for political change. But polls asking people for their opinions rather which party they'd vote for show that PP is having an effect on the attitude to copyrights. More and more people dispute that copyright infringement equals theft. If it again becomes a political topic, PP will do better than last "wave".

Personally I'm at least hopeful for 2014...

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FlorianMueller]

To comment particularly on item #4, the Pirate Party might have done gradually better if there had been some procedural moves in a major lawsuit involving "piracy". That apparently was the case before the EU elections but not this time, where some court proceeding will start next week or so. But then the question is whether it's really a serious political game plan to be so much "event-driven" that you get 0.7% without an event and 7.1% with one occurring at the right time. That's actually another characteristic of activist groups (who get more attention and support around such events) that doesn't fit the definition of a political party.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[vadim_t]

No, it's not about that.

I don't object paying for stuff. I pay for indie games, and donated to the musopen project and some others. Many of those are things I don't even have to pay for if I don't want to.

I object paying to parasites who want to create laws that will make it impossible for me to avoid paying them, because they want to introduce taxes on media, internet connections, and restrictions as to what my hardware can do. Simply not buying their stuff doesn't do it, because even if I don't buy or pirate a single CD they'll still put a tax on my hard disk and connection, throttle my torrent of CC licensed music, include DRM crap in my hardware, and prevent centuries old material from entering the public domain. If I don't buy, they'll say that I'm torrenting and use that as a justification for the things I've listed.

That bullshit has to be removed at the source, through laws that make it illegal and cut its funding. I'll gladly pay the artists, but I don't want to give a single cent to the parasites from the RIAA, MPAA and ASCAP.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[TeraCo]

They should also put up their policies regarding other key issues as well. If you want to be a viable candidate to the majors, people need to know that you're not going to do crazy things with their favourite issue.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

No that wasn't the case. The truth is that file sharing was never an issue that was discussed during the election, the issue got lost.

Instead it was a race beetween two blocks of 3 and 4 parties that both was vying for power - none of the blocks won since a 8th party joined and became the deciding factor in the parlament.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Miljöpartiet recently voted in favor of tougher enforcement of intellectual property laws in the EU parliament. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/mp-kraver-hardare-tag-mot-fildelare/&prev=_t

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[wertigon]

Actually, I disagree... The Pirate Party is everything but a one-hit wonder. However in the world of politics, things move slowly, by neccessity.

The Pirate Party made a really bad election this year, but that does not seem to have demotivated any of it's members. If anything, it has made them even more interested in continuing the fight. The fact that members from other parties join PP here in sweden only serve to prove that PP is here to stay, IMO.

So a one-hit wonder? Nay. Not when their core issues are so important. But they do need help, and lots of it...

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[fadethepolice]

One more problem with this theory is that it is unsustainable. In the past economic growth was based on expansion in population, the more slaves you had (sorry factory workers, chinese, and irish as well) the more production your empire had. With the birth of the industrial revolution, gradually over time, increases in productivity have become more and more the basis of economic growth. If the growth in population is exponential, while the growth in production is almost exponential you get to a tipping point where your ability to produce goods requires almost no laborers. At this point capitalism fails as since you can produce an almost infinite amount of goods with very little (relative to the population) need for human workers. It would seem rather silly at this point to just let people starve to death and not get any music when the goods are available, but the work is not needed.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Aceticon]

Intellectual Property law created what in effect is a tax paid directly to other persons/companies:
- Against the natural laws, it gives people and companies ownership of ideas and lets them charge you every time you share an idea.

It's very simple really: with Intellectual Property you have to have authorization to give/share things with others and pay for iy, without it you're free to do as you which with what you have and what you know.

I'm surprised this point is not raised more often by the "Pirate" political parties: instead they tend to get drawn into abstract discussions on (for most people) obscure points ...

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Joce640k]

This ... and the fact the the government is piggybacking all sorts of censorship and internet-usage-log laws on top of what the RIAA wants. And the fact that the government is selling out to the RIAA in the first place, thus undermining the entire democratic process.

I was never particularly militant, I'm now old enough to have a job/house/mortgage, I'm voting pirate in the next elections.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[VJ42]

In the Cities of London and Westminster constituency... propose a reasonable term for copyright.

At the last election, the Pirate party UK proposal was s a 5+5 copyright term; whilst I personally think it should be a 10 (well, up to 15) year fixed term, it's not that dissimilar - how is this unreasonable in the digital age?


Disclaimer - I'm a PPUK member

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[oneofthose]

While I agree with most of what you say in your article, there are large parts of the Pirate-Agenda missing in you analysis. One of the major topics the party concerns itself with is one of the most important questions we as a society will face in the coming years: privacy and freedom. I think these points should not be missing in any analysis of the pirate party.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[TheRaven64]

They also proposed non-commercial copyright infringement be completely legal. This basically means that there is no reason for anyone to ever purchase entertainment, or any other copyright material that they are not going to make a profit from using, because they can legally get it for free. On the other hand, they didn't (for example) say anything about forcing the BBC to abandon DRM, support open standards for distributing its own work, and use CC (or similar) licensing for license-fee funded programming.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[VJ42]

They also proposed non-commercial copyright infringement be completely legal.

Yes, because millions are doing it anyway; the law is next to useless and serves no point except to criminalize teenagers in their bedrooms

On the other hand, they didn't (for example) say anything about forcing the BBC to abandon DRM, support open standards for distributing its own work, and use CC (or similar) licensing for license-fee funded programming.

This is plain wrong: from the relevant section of the PPUK Manifesto

Government copyrights are increasingly becoming a problem for society, with data such as maps and postcodes being jealously protected by government departments. We will introduce a new right of access to government funded data, requiring the release of all maps, statistics and so on that have been paid for by the taxpayer in open formats, under a Creative Commons or similar licence, giving the public access to research that they have already paid for. An exception will be made for cases that genuinely have national security or privacy concerns.

This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence. We pledge to maintain and expand the current list of important national events that cannot be exclusively broadcast pay TV services, and we pledge to put into action the government's existing but widely ignored Open Source Action Plan, which would encourage the use of free software in the public sector, saving money, and making the UK less reliant on foreign software suppliers.

As you can see, we covered all of that.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dkleinsc]

I'm not sure the name is their problem. After all, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party has won elections in Britain.

No, their major limitation is that they're primarily a single-issue party, and their stance on that issue has been taken by some of their opponents. So while they haven't experienced much by way of electoral success, as far as putting their ideas into mainstream politics in Sweden they've done a fantastic job.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[RogerWilco]

I personally find that in my country and the european parliament the greens party sufficiently has an anti-copyright and software patents stance that I voted for them instead of a single issue party like the Pirate Party. I also like a lot of the other policies they stand for.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Steauengeglase]

Excellent description.

I'd like to see someone get a group of musicians together (there were a lot of them in the 80s and 90s) to express the discontent they had for the RIAA. Some of the agreements they signed borderlined on the unconscionable. The real problem with a pirate party is that there isn't really a public face for this issue other than 18-30 year olds that older voters have no real connection to. Any kind of real movement needs a "battered wife".

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Though it's not necessarily about being able to buy stuff, he has a pretty good point anyway.

In Denmark, neighboring country of Sweden, a new tax was recently introduced. A tax on being allowed to take your work PC home. No matter why you're taking it home. For instance, being on call means that you need to pay tax for using your work PC at home.

Some of the people who have to pay the new tax were actually arguing that it wasn't that much, and that if you got a job where you have to use a PC to work from home, you can easily afford it.

The whole thing about having to pay to work being wrong doesn't seem to matter to them (IT people don't generally get paid overtime for being on call, so we're paying taxes for work we don't get paid extra for).

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that once a politician has been elected, these "internet-related policies" aren't worth squat.
It was only a few days ago that a green party representative voted for repressive file sharing regulations, and she's proud of it too:
http://www.mp.se/templates/mct_177.aspx?number=229953

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Hatta]

I'm still waiting for someone to propose a sensible alternative to abandoning copyright.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[t0p]

In the last local authorities election in England, I voted for the local Pirate Party candidate. Unfortunately I was almost alone in doing so: he got just 16 votes IIRC. That's pretty much the party's own fault though: I saw *no* publicity for them, and I didn't even know a PP candidate was standing until I was in the voting booth and read the ballot paper. Idiots. Who's going to vote for someone who calls himself a pirate if they don't know what he stands for? He might be campaigning for the legalisation of piracy on the high seas or something... @FlorianMueller: on that blog page have you transposed the photo or is the flag-maker/bearer an idiot? I thought the PP's symbol was supposed to resemble a letter "p" (you know, cos "pirate" begins with a "p" and all that).

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Antisyzygy]

Amen. The companies that are represented by the RIAA and MPAA actually own the rights to things they did not create. They do this by controlling all the distribution and production facilities of the material so the only way for an artist to make money is to play along and sign a contract giving up their rights to their own stuff. The internet, open-hardware (non DRM) and file-sharing is a big blow to that business model because it takes away their media distribution oligopolies (shared monopoly). Intellectual property rights were meant to protect artists, not some group of mega-corp's, but its being twisted to continue to enforce their business model upon the American consumer and the artists they supposedly represent. Really what it boils down to is that these companies make big bucks off of legally stealing other peoples work, and then nickle and dime the crap out of everyone for it. If they had their way, there would be a box in your house that monitored and charged each person who watched your TV. You are right in that even if we don't buy their stuff they will still try to enforce us to by blanketing competition out of the way through "Copyright" lawsuits and settlement requests. There has been too many cases of abuse and it absolutely boggles my mind our Government which is supposed to be for the people doesn't do anything for us.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Hatta]

Alright, I was being glib earlier but this I mean. Abolishing copyright would not damage the economy. It would expose damage that has already been done to the economy. Big difference. It would be best if we came to terms with the fact that copies of data have no value now, rather than keep up this fraud. It's not sustainable, it will end, and it will be worse for everyone the longer we put it off.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[uiuyhn8i8]

> The point isn't "we can't afford stuff! stuff should be free! WAAAH!", it's about rights, personal integrity and in extension safeguarding a free and democratic society.

And it's a coincidence that they actually want copyrighted stuff for free?

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[robot256]

Here's one start: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090806/1659115788.shtml. The article references other artists who have spoken out against the RIAA's anti-filesharing tactics.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[PeterBrett]

Was this the Edinburgh Liberton/Gilmerton by-election earlier this month? If so, you should have at least received a flyer through the door, and I think our candidate canvassed a decent percentage of homes in the ward (you may have been out when he came round).

Unfortunately, most media is only interested in the "big" parties (I believe that in Scotland, those are Labour, Lib Dems, Conservatives, Greens and the SNP), and without a big campaign that is expensive both in terms of volunteers' time and in terms of money, it can be extremely difficult to get the message out even that it's possible to vote Pirate, let alone why you should.

Of course, if you feel that we missed out on some obvious opportunities to let you know that a candidate was standing, please let me know -- we certainly don't think we have all the answers, and we're always looking for new ways to address exactly the kind of issues you highlighted in your post.

And thanks for voting Pirate!

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[russotto]

If the Pirate Party actually want to achieve something, then they need to start being constructive. A few suggestions:

        * Change the name. Pirate Party makes them sound like a bunch of teenagers.
        * Propose a sensible alternative to copyright, or propose a reasonable term for copyright. Their current proposals, if implemented, would cause significant damage to the economies of most western countries.
        * Focus more on the privacy and security policies - people are more sympathetic to people who want to be left alone than to freeloaders.

As soon as they do that, they're no longer "the Pirate Party". They're just another easily ignored ho-hum political group with no constituency.

Of course, there's no way they can achieve anything through the political process the way they are; the RIAA (et al) are ascendant and will remain ascendant no matter what anyone does, short of force of arms (Pirate navy?). But trying to be "sensible" will just extinguish the Pirate Party.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Archangel Michael]

Taxes are about freedom as much as your "rights, personal integrity and in extension safeguarding a free and democratic society" are. In fact, I would suggest that any government who's tax rates are greater than 20% on personal income is deeply infringing upon the right to pursue happiness.

Of course, well regulated citizenry is key to socialistic bliss. And damn everything else, I want to download music and not pay the artists a wit for it.

Speak all you want about sticking it to the man, and how you're for the poor oppressed artists and whatnot. And poor starving artists still exist, in spite of all the attempts of the Pirate Party and geeks protesting the MAFIAA.

The point is, here we are, ten years into the age of File Sharing and whatnot, and all those people downloading all that music and not paying for it are doing is making noise and giving me a headache.

Meanwhile government fines people for growing food in their backyard.

Government skimming off the top of the productivity of people is 100 times worse than anything the MAFIAA is doing to artists.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Kjella]

The comparison is like I said wildly invalid. And obviously something like "miljöpartiet" = the greens is driven up by high-profile environmental events, so I don't see why the pirate party can't be.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Archangel Michael]

I object paying to parasites who want to create laws that will make it impossible for me to avoid paying them,

You mean like congress and taxes??

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dangitman]

This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence.

So, you basically want to eliminate an important source of income for the BBC, licensing shows internationally. So, you'll discourage creativity and increase the cost of running the BBC for the citizens. Nice job there.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dangitman]

As soon as they do that, they're no longer "the Pirate Party". They're just another easily ignored ho-hum political group with no constituency.

Isn't that what they already are?

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxes are about freedom as much as your "rights, personal integrity and in extension safeguarding a free and democratic society" are. In fact, I would suggest that any government who's tax rates are greater than 20% on personal income is deeply infringing upon the right to pursue happiness.

So you're right wing and believe that freedom is about the right for the rich to be happy while the poor suffer, got it.

Yes, that's flamebait from my side but the way you argue suggests that you don't understand how important the services provided by taxes are.

Of course, well regulated citizenry is key to socialistic bliss. And damn everything else, I want to download music and not pay the artists a wit for it.

What?

bla bla bla evil gubmint bla bla bla

Ah, you're one of those guys. American I assume?

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see someone get a group of musicians together (there were a lot of them in the 80s and 90s) to express the discontent they had for the RIAA.

I don't know about American musicians and the RIAA, but here's what some Canadian artists have to say on the subject (artist members include Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (Co-founder Blue Rodeo) .

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

The point isn't "we can't afford stuff! stuff should be free! WAAAH!"
"Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas". Plenty of people think that is *exactly* the point. Until those people are unequivocally and permanently expelled from under the your banner, there's no reason to think you aren't lying through your teeth.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[gorzek]

It's not necessary to abandon copyright, however the existing laws on the books could stand to be greatly overhauled. As it is now, we call it "intellectual property" and in some ways we treat it as even more sacrosanct than physical property. It's completely contrary to reasoning behind copyright in the first place. Copyright is a privilege we grant to artists so that they may exploit their work for profit for a limited period of time. It is not and was never meant to be a license for corporations to extort their customers to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a song.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[mspohr]

Glad that I have blocked sigs... (no, I don't want to see your sig or any other sig... they are distractions)

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Steauengeglase]

Interesting, thanks.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[VJ42]

This will include the output of the BBC, which is funded by the licence paying public and should therefore belong to the licence paying public. We will amend the BBC's charter to prevent the BBC from using DRM technology, and to require the BBC to release all their content under a Creative Commons licence.

So, you basically want to eliminate an important source of income for the BBC, licensing shows internationally. So, you'll discourage creativity and increase the cost of running the BBC for the citizens. Nice job there.

No, I assume* that the licence would be a CC-BY-NC licence so anyone wishing to profit would have to pay; normal people, however could do as they liked with the content (seeing as we've already paid for it through the licence fee and all).

*It not explicitly in the manifeso, but in line with PPUK thinking.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FlorianMueller]

The question is to what extent a party is event-driven. In case of the Greens we don't talk about a discrepancy of 1 to 10.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[FlorianMueller]

I didn't modify the photo. I didn't even provide or select it. That was done by the EUobserver staff and I guess they found it in some archive.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dangitman]

so anyone wishing to profit would have to pay; normal people, however could do as they liked with the content

So, if "normal people"(i.e: customers) didn't have to pay, then who would buy the rights to distribute if their potential customers could just get it for free anyway?

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[dangitman]

P.S: People outside of the UK haven't paid the license fee. Also, thinking that the license fee completely pays for the content is untrue. It is also paid for by income such as licensing. Which was part of my point. By eliminating this source of income, the license fee will have to go up, or programming will have to be cut.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[retchdog]

distractions from the serious business of slashdot, of course.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[VJ42]

So, if "normal people"(i.e: customers) didn't have to pay, then who would buy the rights to distribute if their potential customers could just get it for free anyway?

I can (unlawfully) get all sorts of TV from other countries via the 'net - I don't, I tend to let the TV networks choose the best so I can watch there; also watching on my giant Flat screen TV is more fun than watching on my much smaller monitor.

I believe that most ordinary people (i.e. not the /. crowd who run MythTV so have their PCs hooked up to their PCs) are the same - foreign networks will still buy the rights for good programmes because most people will still watch Network TV not torrented downloads.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[mspohr]

Yes, serious business indeed. (Usually off-topic... but nothing seems to ever be off-topic... still, it cuts down on the noise.)

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[wootest]

To begin with, I don't know of another Swedish party with an official position on pharmacy patents.

There will always be people who want "copyrighted stuff for free", and since it became plausible a few decades ago, there always has been nearly free availability of "copyrighted stuff". The difference is that the rest of the democracy fundaments weren't being torn down in defense of it.

The IPRED directive intended to halt file sharing, as implemented in Sweden, perverts the concept of common carriers (it's not the PO's fault if you send people pot in envelopes), a fair trial (the civil trials are exempt from setting reasonable damages, they can seize your bank account, raid your house, make you the target of an investigation without telling you and you have to prove that you're not personally guilty) and reinvents the shame pole (you have to take out an ad in a newspaper of your own payment saying that you did something wrong). Some of these concepts date back to the Roman Empire. Is it really proportional to the crime?

There are more directives and motions like these, in other areas, and the Pirate Party is fighting them too, like supporting the repeal of a recent law enabling a defense authority, FRA, to tap every packet of Internet traffic that crosses the country borders in the interests of "preventing external threats", painted by a former Stasi employee as a tool they could only have dreamed of. Or why not by railing against the implementation of the EU Data Retention Directive, which would document every cell phone call or email. Don't confuse poor research and jumped conclusions with their actual, openly-discussed agenda.

But even where the focus is on file sharing, I don't think you'll agree after reading through the actual law that the measures are proportional, necessary or effective.

Something else: the summary mentions the "Hard Liquor Party". Although tiny (the data from the election agency lists where they appear specifically on write-in votes because their per-party ballot papers weren't available), they're a real political party, and they want to reduce the Swedish alcohol consumption by 50% to achieve many other beneficial side-effects, like decreases in domestic violence, poor performance in schools, heart failure and so on. While they didn't get my vote, I empathize with their politics.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[Archangel Michael]

You so left wing, you're not happy until everyone is poor and miserable?

Worst part is you're a pig that loves to enslave people to the state. Get people dependent on services of the state, and you have a great voting block for the rest of their lives. Slavery by any other measure.

Which is why black people regularly vote 90% for the (D) party, even while they've spent two entire generations living substandard lives dependent upon those "services" you're so proud of.

Are you proud of the lifetime achievement of social programs that have enslaved two generations of people?

I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[sumdumass]

Translation of that post can be summed up as:

You have an intriguing and valid point but because it conflicts with my ideology and imposed beliefs, I will totally ignore it on it's face, insinuate some pretty clever (at least for his IQ level)strawman points that neglect the reality of the issues, and go on to pretend that I won this argument without ever bringing a counter point up or disputing anything with merit.

Here is what is wrong with the reply.

So you're right wing and believe that freedom is about the right for the rich to be happy while the poor suffer, got it.

Whether he is a right winger or not is irrelevant. He said nothing about anything that would insinuate that only the rich should be happy. He stated that a limit of 20% is the most any government should be taxing without infringing on your freedoms. How is limiting the amount taxed only making rich people happy? Especially if government could be structured to operate on that limit and provide the needed services we have come to expect from it?

Yes, that's flamebait from my side but the way you argue suggests that you don't understand how important the services provided by taxes are.

You mean the services like funding a campaign to show African males how to wash their pecker after sex to slow the spread of aids and VD in South Africa that was funded by the US stimulus money? Here is your problem, you automagically assume that government services are important. Some are, some are simply a waste of funds. However, the efficiency of government can be vastly improved in most situations making providing many of those services less costly in the end. You seem to be totally ignoring both the reality of the situation and imposing some artificial cover to it.

bla bla bla evil gubmint bla bla bla

Ah, you're one of those guys. American I assume?

Yea, this alone probably makes you unqualified to comment on this. Lets see, you dismissed his comments without ever providing a country or showing how he was wrong, yet you seem to be ignoring everything in order to do so. Here is a hint, reality is whatever doesn't disappear when you close your eyes, I suggest you start paying attention to what it is you are commenting on and then structure your comment appropriately to it. If you do that, you won't seem like the ideological ass you come off as while pretending someone else is and you might even realize the truth of the matter which is that life and government is not strictly a left verses right issue and neither ideologies are perfect.

Re:The Pirate Party probably was a one-hit wonder

[sjames]

Of course, random shakedowns by the local version of the *AA tend to really disrupt that peace. Apparently, those can happen even if you don't own a computer.

Hard Alcohol Party...

[Anonymous Coward]

... sadly isn't what you'd think. They are antibooze-ists. Huge disappointment.
Translated homepage: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http://www.spritpartiet.se/&prev=_t&twu=1

On a separate note, other notable entities voted for were "Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits", and a silly javascript insertion attempt. Full data at http://www.val.se/val/val2010/handskrivna/handskrivna.skv

Re:Hard Alcohol Party...

[Adambomb]

R;12;Skåne län;83;Helsingborg;01;Helsingborg Norra;0701;Ödåkra V;Stick it up your fucking ass!;1

oh my.

http://hittepa.webs.com/x.txt

[MichaelSmith]

Seems to just reference itself. Clever but a bit of a waste. Or are they aiming for a stack overflow? Didn't seem to bother firefox here.

Re:http://hittepa.webs.com/x.txt

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to just reference itself. Clever but a bit of a waste. Or are they aiming for a stack overflow? Didn't seem to bother firefox here.

I think the point is to make it look like what the clerk typed onto the website displays as they'd expect, so that he could later swap x.txt out for something evil.

EUobserver @wiki

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to save others checking that,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUobserver

EUobserver.com is an independent online newspaper focusing on politics related to the institutions of the European Union (EU).[1] It writes on human rights, civil liberties, transparency, anti-corruption, critical environmentalism and the democratisation of the European Union. It also publishes comment pieces and blogs reflecting opinion from across the political spectrum, but it does not publish its own leaders or editorials.

History

Established in 2000, the EUobserver claims to be the largest online daily news site focused on the EU with over 60,000 readers and the second most read EU-related news source used by journalists after the Financial Times.[2][3]

In 2003, the website temporarily agreed to put their story summaries in the public domain so that they could be used in Wikipedia's Current events pages.[4]

In 2008, the website was redesigned in order to include video capabilities and blogs. In 2009, the EUobserver partnered with the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung to launch the WAZeuobserver, providing a similar service but focussed on the Balkans.

The website's editor-in-chief is Lisbeth Kirk, Danish journalist, the wife of Jens-Peter Bonde, a former Danish Member of the European Parliament who used to co-chair the Independence and Democracy group of eurocritical MEPs in the European Parliament.[5]

Donald Duck

[BetterThanCaesar]

The Donald Duck party is an all time favourite joke vote in Sweden, but it is actually a registered party. They promise free alcohol and wider sidewalks. They don't have a budget for voting slips, but write-in votes are valid (if spelt correctly). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_Party

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to giggle when I saw that you typed "spelt" instead of spelled. Sure, you spelled spelt correctly, if you we referring to a grain. Interestingly

Re:Donald Duck

[BetterThanCaesar]

Spelt is a valid and common spelling. I'm not from North America.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spelt#Etymology_1

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

My mistake. I'd never seen it spelt that way before!

Re:Donald Duck

[clone53421]

That’s because it’s primarily only used in En-GB and you’re probably used to En-US.

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

They speak American in other countries!!!???

Re:Donald Duck

[danieltdp]

I had to giggle when I saw that you typed "spelt" instead of spelled. Sure, you spelled spelt correctly, if you we referring to a grain. Interestingly.

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to be correctly spelled either, as long as they cannot reasonably be confused with some other party.

Re:Donald Duck

[bill_mcgonigle]

Spelt is a valid and common spelling.

I try not to pay close attention to regionaliz(s?)ations in English - technology is breaking down our barriers. spelt should win this one as it's much easier to pronounce.
 

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't criticise other's english until you can speak it properly yourself.

Re:Donald Duck

[Anonymous Coward]

..and there it goes another joke

Donald Duck and the Pirate Party

[tagno25]

According to the Swedish Election Authority's published hand written votes, Donald Duck got one vote and the Pirate Party got ~500.

Re:Donald Duck and the Pirate Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Now try Donald Ducks name in Swedish: Kalle Anka

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalle_Anka_%26_C:o

Re:Donald Duck and the Pirate Party

[tagno25]

That is still only about 170 votes and is a party not an "individual". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_Party

Re:Donald Duck and the Pirate Party

[Eudial]

That's only hand written votes, though. The pirate party does have official voting slips, and got a total of 38,491 votes, which is approximately 0.6%, and comparable to the previous national election.

SQL Injection?

[RightSaidFred99]

Seriously? What is this, 1997? Who still writes code vulnerable to those?

Re:SQL Injection?

[MichaelSmith]

More than you might think.

Re:SQL Injection?

[pla]

Seriously? What is this, 1997? Who still writes code vulnerable to those?

Seriously, you don't even want to know.

Over my past two jobs, all but one of the most important enterprise systems we used had zero protection from attacks like these. Talkin' accounting, inventory, POS - Even the Borg of ERP packages, MS Dynamics, still chokes on merely having apostrophes in most fields.

And from what I've seen of banking systems that I've had to interface with, I'd keep my money under my bed - Except many of them haven't quite caught up to all this fancy "new" SQL tech. Nice safe 60s era COBOL code - And yes, they still use two digit years, because after all, we have another 90 years before the Y2K fixes will break.

Re:SQL Injection?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Twitter was hit not many days ago with that type of attack - an javascript insertion attack.

Way to many are voulnerable.

Re:SQL Injection?

[Anonymous Coward]

My home address has an apostrophe in the house name, and every so often this breaks an internet site (usually online shopping). When it does work, most just remove the "nasty" character.

Re:SQL Injection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Over my past two jobs, all but one of the most important enterprise systems we used had zero protection from attacks like these.

Yes, it's so sad. But, in what language are you forced to code SQL directly in the application like it's Business Programming 101 at the Community College?

At least some of the enterprise applications are probably backed by huge Oracle or other 'enterprisy' databases that support stored procedures. You can debate the performance of moving CPU intensive logic into a storage intensive application. It's scary when who's work belongs on a post at Worse than Failure are being allowed to code the SQL that the payroll department depends upon.

But then it's a scary world out there. I was told that once upon a time a lot of our economy ran on burning cow and horse poop. After seeing the code behind some commercial applications, I'm starting to think a lot of it still does.

Re:SQL Injection?

[CODiNE]

Even the Borg of ERP packages, MS Dynamics, still chokes on merely having apostrophes in most fields.

Massive Dynamics what???

Re:SQL Injection?

[clone53421]

In my very brief glance at TFA it didn’t appear to me that any of the attacks were successful. Just attempted.

In particular, the ridiculous Javascript one that used parentheses instead of angle braces. Seriously, what the hell? That couldn’t have possibly worked even if the web pages had been shoddily written...

Re:SQL Injection?

[adnonsense]

People in India for a start. Only a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of tracking down a break-in on the main production server of a partner company, and it turned out their web-facing application had evidently been written by someone working off a copy of "PHP for Dummies" (1999 edition), and would happily accept password-less logins for the user "admin # --".

Re:SQL Injection?

[geekoid]

sadly A great many site. And a lot of large financial institutions.

For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden, is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe.

Re:For those who are American

[MichaelSmith]

Additionally it is in the northern hemisphere of the planet earth and has a population of 9.2 million.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, the only reason to know of Sweden's existence, is the women.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

[typical American]Planet Earth? That's from Star Wars, isn't it?[/typical American]

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans are aware of that. Swedish women prefer marrying American men over Europeans. So, we hear all about Sweden.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes. I love my Swedish babes!

Re:For those who are American

[caluml]

Its capital is Bern, and they are famous for cuckoo clocks and Hitler.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. I wouldn't want to marry American women either. No wonder you want the Swedes.

Re:For those who are American

[g4b]

when the eiffel tower was built in bern, they really did want to use it as scaffold for a big cuckoo clock... but they gave it away as a present and sign for freedom to france.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU LIE!!!1!

Re:For those who are American

[ZankerH]

Actually, Bern is the capital of Switzerland (which is also famous for the clocks), and Hitler was born in Austria and was the dictator of Germany. It looks like you've got some problems with geography and history.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Its capital is Bern, and they are famous for cuckoo clocks and Hitler.

false, he came from austria, not switzerland

Re:For those who are American

[Zedrick]

What's that word, woosh? I'm pretty damn sure he was joking.

Re:For those who are American

[arb phd slp]

Actually, Bern is the capital of Switzerland (which is also famous for the clocks), and Hitler was born in Austria and was the dictator of Germany. It looks like you've got some problems with geography and history.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

[typical European]Help the Germans are coming. Someone better call America for help.[typical European]

Re:For those who are American

[Robert Zenz]

...and Hitler was born in Austria...

Oh come on, do you have to spoil it? The Germans have him, the Germans can keep him...but we want Mozart back!

Just in case somebody doesn't realize it, I was joking.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

whooooosh!

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

[typical Swede]Help the russians are coming! Oh, haha! Whiskey on the rocks![typical Swede]

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

They built the pyramids, and are currently locked in deadly combat with Julius Caeser. ... what, like you haven't lost the last three days to Civ V?

Excuse me, I'm going to play for just one more turn.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

So we're dumb and have guns, what's your point? Hardly a scathing rebuttal.

Re:For those who are American

[V!NCENT]

USA: Yes?
Eurpope: Oh hai thar, teh Germanz be attacking us! Help!
USA: Yes the state of germania. I've been there during my trip in Africa I believe. How unfortunate. We realy feel sorry for-
Europa: Oh and they have an intercontinental ballistic missile program, underground intercontinenal balistic missile bunkers facing in the direction of the US; under contructio-
USA: Right away!

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

To make sure none of those who are American get confused: Bern is actually the capital of Swaziland - not Sweden.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does that leave those typical Europeans that happen to be German?

Re:For those who are American

[teh kurisu]

Why would Sweden call for help?

Re:For those who are American

[JustOK]

it's Bach, not back.

Re:For those who are American

[JustOK]

Who said Sweden was the capital of Swaziland?

Re:For those who are American

[Nadaka]

I actually kinda like the idea of Swedish women marrying American Women...

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

[typical swede target="germany"]Oh hi there neighbors, would you like to use our railroads? or perhaps purchase some high quality iron ore?[/typical swede]

[typical swede target="western allies"]Hi, do you guys want some intel on the germans? straight from our wiretapping facility, all the latest news from occupied Norway...[/typical swede]

Re:For those who are American

[clone53421]

Like there’s an actual place called that, or something?! Next thing I suppose you’ll be telling me that French wine, Swiss chocolate and German sausages come from actual places called “France”, “Switzerland” and “Germany”...

Anyway I’m still skeptical, everybody knows that Quaker oatmeal doesn’t come from some place named Quakerville, Carnation condensed milk doesn’t come from Carnatia, and Volkswagen automobiles don’t come from Volksland.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Who pees on another man's carpet?!?

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

[typical European]Help the Germans are coming. Someone better call America for help.[typical European]

[typical American]Does not know anything about the topic he/she is discussing, specifically which countries were and were not neutral during the second World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II).[typical American]

Re:For those who are American

[drolli]

No, Hitler is the Guy the tea Party favours. The always hold Rallies where they display pictures of him. I think they say that they love him so much because he was not born in America and is not Christian or something like that.....

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Better watch out for Sherlock Holmes here, nothing gets past him! Oh, wait...

Re:For those who are American

[Wonko the Sane]

I wouldn't want to marry American women either.

No one does, really. Unfortunately many men learn this after they've already done it.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Bern is the capital of Switzerland (which is also famous for the clocks), and Hitler was born in Austria and was the dictator of Germany. It looks like you've got some problems with geography and history.

Whoooosh!

He's playing on a typical stereotype, wherein people always confuse Sweden and Switzerland.
If he wanted to play on another one, he would have said Lucerne was the capital - 'cos that's about the only town tourists remember.
Also, I hope you weren't referring to cuckoo clocks in your answer, otherwise you've fallen for another common misconception: Cuckoo clocks weren't invented in CH, but in Southern Germany. Unless, of course, you're referring to either the famous Zytglogge in Bern (lit: 'time clock' - is there any other type?) or the clock face of St. Peter's Church in Zürich, the 2nd biggest clock-face in Europe, and the most well-known in CH.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny/awkward moment: A birthday party in Germany, with an American guest. During a guessing game, he is tasked with describing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so he starts off with "Okay, he's a famous German". When the group finally guessed who it was supposed to be, one of the comments made was "Yeah, this guy is about as German as Hitler."

Re:For those who are American

[sumdumass]

Yea right, Silly American, think what you want.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

"[typical European]Help the Germans are coming. Someone better call America for help.[typical European]"

And every time an USian says this one more European wishes the Nazis had won, make no mistake about it.

Re:For those who are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden, is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe.

Sweden is not a country. We lost that definition the moment the police started to break the law to stop those who follow it (the law vs the smartdrugs industry). That started in the 90's and sweden has been a paper product ever since.

Personally I think it's time to set that paper on fire. /Henke

Re:For those who are American

[jurgemaister]

Let me get that right for you.

Sweden is not a democracy. We lost that definition the moment the police started to break the law to stop those who follow it (the law vs the smartdrugs industry).

You stopped being a country when you joined the European Union.

If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . it really says a lot about the quality of the "serious" candidates. As in, none of them are worth voting for anyway, so why not vote for a joke candidate?

Re:If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[halfaperson]

Well yeah, that is actually often the point of humourus votes. It shows you support the democratic system but perhaps none of the available representatives, whereas ignoring to vote means not using your democratic rights at all.

Re:If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[AronHennerdal]

In this case it doesn't say that much about the seriousness of the candidates, since the number of humorous votes are vanishingly small. In a country of 9 million people, 1580 voted on parties without preprinted ballots (which includes these examples) and 84.6% of the registered voters used their right to vote (http://www.val.se/).

Re:If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[daremonai]

It's not tossing a vote (or a table) away. SQL injection attacks have done more for (to) this country than most politicians could ever dream of.

Re:If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[bint]

No, it just says a lot about what *these people* think about quality of the candidates.

Re:If people are tossing their votes away . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden is still in the top 20 in the list of countries with highest voter turnout. It says a lot about the quality of the "serious" candidates in other places.

Please, don't misuse "piracy" and "property"

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, Florian. I'm one of your secret fans (no, really :).

Still, I do feel uneasy about your straight backing of this wdespread misuse of piracy and property:

piracy:

Kidnapping a ship in high seas, possibly endangering the lifes of crew and passengers can't be seriously associated with illegal copying of software. Granted, both is illegal. Still, if I threw a pie in your face (also illegal), it'd be wise not calling that "rape" or "murder". It's still nasty. It'd still your right to take me to court for that.

property:

There's no such thing as intellectual property. There are copyrights, trademarks, patents; Those are restricted monopolies granted by the state. By analogy (and seemingly, for convenience) those are subsumed as "intellectual property rights". But there is a fraction (mainly desperate capital, trying to find new things to speculate on, since physical world doesn't grow exponentially, as one has come to expect of capital) which tries to make this chimaera of "intellectual property" more and more like "real property" (cf the never-ending copyright extension farce in the U.S. and elsewhere; cf. patent trolls, which trade and speculate in "intellectual property" as others trade in real estate, etc.).

Those who know better have to be critical of this language. And I know that you know better.

Remember: language kills

What? fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't understand the headline nor the summary...

Yuck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, the neo-Nazi Sweden Democrats won 5.7% of the vote, 20 seats, giving them the balance of power.

Thanks for the joke votes. Your apathy just gave actual Nazis a say in parliament.

Re:Yuck it up

[halfaperson]

Nazis? They are actually more Israel friendly than most established parties, and one of their MP:s is jewish.

While their ideological platform is built mainly on restricting immigration, that hardly qualifies as nazism. And joke votes are hardly a sign of apathy. If you really need to point fingers, why not aim them at the ~18% of the population that didn't vote at all? Get your facts straight.

Re:Yuck it up

[Vintermann]

The SD was created by the merger of several small, right-wing anti immigration parties, some of which were pretty openly nazist. The Jewish community in Sweden are among the many who accuse them of still "wearing their brown shirts under their jackets".

For what it's worth, though, there is still at least one openly neo-nazi party that did not join them, and now occupies the niche (such as it is) on their right.

Re:Yuck it up

[halfaperson]

But for the benefit of anybody happening upon this post, yes, they are Nazis:

It won't be long before Sweden Democrats show true anti-Semitic nature.

From your link:

The SD did not include any anti-Semitic messages in its platform. On the contrary, it has two Jewish members among its top ranks and has actually come out in support of Israel at times.

Seriously, that's the best you can manage to come up with? One would hope for some evidence of your claims since you apparently feel entitled to judge for others.

Re:Yuck it up

[BetterThanCaesar]

To be fair, the blame should be on those who actually voted for SD, many of whom say they "only want a more sane immigration policy".

Meanwhile, in reality, the party they voted for is openly against any immigration from outside of Europe, they say Islam is a threat to Sweden's culture, and their members are people who are significalty more likely to have been convicted of assault, abuse, rape and hate crimes. Stopping immigration is pitched as a question of cost for society – give the money to the sick and the elderly instead.

Sweden's population would be shrinking if it weren't for immigration. SD's solution to this dilemma is to have women stay at home and make more babies. That's a really fresh new idea...

Sweden used to have the world's most equal parliament. Even the conservatives had a 50-50 rule for men and women. Then came SD. 20 seats: 17 men and 3 women.

But we'll survive. It's quite likely they won't make it into the parliament the next time. Hopefully the "angry young men" have found another party to vote for by then.

Re:Yuck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the joke votes.

"Joke votes"? I interpret them as "I'm civilly responsible for voting, but every one of you suck and I'm not casting a ballot for any of you assholes."

Re:Yuck it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you know, all right wingers are Nazis, Homophobic, Corporate Shilling, knuckle dragging troglodyte haters? Therefore we don't have to consider anything they say as being legitimate, we just have to call them names like "Teabagger" and be condescendingly dismissive.

Re:Yuck it up

[RAMMS EIN]

``Nazis? They are actually more Israel friendly than most established parties, and one of their MP:s is jewish.

While their ideological platform is built mainly on restricting immigration, that hardly qualifies as nazism.''

I guess that very much depends on the definition of nazism one uses. I don't personally think it matters much if the party is antisemitic or anti-some-other-ethnic/cultural/whatever-group.

In the end, though, I don't think it matters what definition of nazism one uses and whether or not a political party fits that definition. What matters is what the party actually proposes, and how beneficial or harmful that is. It's easy to brand a party as nazist or fascist or communist or even left or right, but that isn't very helpful. We need to evaluate and address ideas on their merits, and not based on what labels we can attach to them and how people feel about those labels.

no public minded representation here in 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

so, in order to to maintain taxation without representation..... they must FUDge the already phony #s over&over. phewww. that's how we feel. that's US. most of us anyway. it's quite doubtful any 'pirates' could out do our own fauxking murder & mayhem system.

the search (for one honest/selfless person) continues;
google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=weather+manipulation

google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=bush+cheney+wolfowitz+rumsfeld+wmd+blair+obama+weather+authors

meanwhile (as it may take a while longer to finish wrecking this place); the corepirate nazi illuminati is always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?

greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)

"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse this trend to ensure that our enduring legacy is not to wipe out many of our closest relatives."--

"The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born." --emerson

no need to confuse 'religion' with being a spiritual being. our soul purpose here is to care for one another. failing that, we're simply passing through (excess baggage) being distracted/consumed by the guaranteed to fail illusionary trappings of man'kind'. & recently (about 10,000 years ago) it was determined that hoarding & excess by a few, resulted in negative consequences for all.

consult with/trust in your creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal g

Democracy???

[Vexler]

I'd like to see their reaction one day when they somehow get enough people to write-in an idea/patent/cartoon character/medical condition into office. Maybe no one will be laughing then.

Psoriasis for Prime Minister in 2050.

They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[FlorianMueller]

It's telling that you doubt they ever had the "desire" to become a serious political force. That shows what impression they created. But their founder, Rick Falkvinge, said repeatedly in recent years that Swedish elections usually have a close outcome between the left wing and the right wing and his game plan was to make it into parliament so that the Pirate Party would then be able to tip the scales in favor of either left or right, subject to concessions on intellectual property policy by whomever they would ultimately support. Being the decisive small part that determines who governs a country was a pretty serious plan, I would say.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[dangitman]

Being the decisive small part that determines who governs a country was a pretty serious plan, I would say.

It might be a serious goal, but I don't see anything that indicates they had any kind of plan for achieving that.

If they were serious, why did they name their party the "Pirate Party" and where are their policy positions on other issues not related to copyright and similar issues? You know, the issues that people vote on, and want their government to address?

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[FlorianMueller]

You ask all the right questions but let me explain what they said their plan was (I've been describing all the time, not justifying).

They thought that the "Pirate" name was key to draw attention to the issue and they tried to ride on that PR wave. By now, however, I'm convinced that the "Pirate" name -- more befitting of a costume party than of a political party -- was a mistake and with a "dull" name they might not have had that initial PR momentum but they could have built a real organization that's here to stay.

In terms of single-issue party or not, they figured they could do it like the Greens, who started out as an environmentalist and pacifist movement that over time took positions on all of the issues. I believe the Greens actually did have more of a an all-issue kind of party program in the beginning even though they were indeed very focused on protecting the environment, fighting against nuclear reactors, and opposing all weapons and wars (although in the end the German Greens, when they were in the government, supported the bombing of Serbia and the war in Afghanistan...).

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[dangitman]

They thought that the "Pirate" name was key to draw attention to the issue and they tried to ride on that PR wave

Yeah, not really such a good idea. Contrary to popular sayings, not all attention is good attention. It's kind of like calling a marijuana legalization party the "Getting Really Fucked Up On Drugs Party." That will certainly win much attention, but not votes.

In terms of single-issue party or not, they figured they could do it like the Greens, who started out as an environmentalist and pacifist movement that over time took positions on all of the issues.

Well, yeah. Whether you agree with it or not, environmentalism is a fairly coherent, holistic philosophy. There's enough broad support and substance behind the ideas to make a workable government. Opposing copyright just isn't in the same ballpark of useful ideas.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[Zironic]

I honestly don't think anyone cares at all about what name they attach to their politics, have you looked at the names of all the established parties? They're all equally silly.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[HungryHobo]

They thought that the "Pirate" name was key to draw attention to the issue and they tried to ride on that PR wave. By now, however, I'm convinced that the "Pirate" name -- more befitting of a costume party than of a political party -- was a mistake and with a "dull" name they might not have had that initial PR momentum but they could have built a real organization that's here to stay.

I feel I must mention that there's a long tradition of political parties having names like that.

In the UK-

the name "Tory" derrives from tóraidhe- meaning outlaw or robber.
'from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men".'

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[Anonymous Coward]

They chose Pirate Party as a name because the Liberal People Party was already taken by a party that rather restrict peoples rights in Sweden.
It also draws attention and make young people read up on what the party actually wants. Give it two or three decades and the voters that are considered young today will be a majority.
People tend to be too short sighted when it comes to politics. Unless you want unrest and disorder it can take more than a generation to turn a country around.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[dangitman]

the name "Tory" derrives from tóraidhe- meaning outlaw or robber.

But isn't Tory and epithet for the Conservative Party? I've never heard it used in a positive sense.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[FlorianMueller]

Silly names don't come across as silly if they have a very long (and successful) tradition.

Re:They wanted to tip the scales in parliament

[FlorianMueller]

Right, it's not the official name at this stage. According to Wikipedia, "The Conservative and Unionist Party,[5] more commonly known as the Conservative Party, [...] was founded in 1834 out of the old Tory Party, which itself had been founded in 1678, and even today it is still often colloquially referred to as the Tory Party, with its members, the Conservatives, also being referred to as Tories. It changed its name to "Conservative and Unionist Party" in 1912, after merging with the Liberal Unionist Party."

You might want to sit down for this...

[Chineseyes]

There are banks, hospitals, utilities and other institutions that don't take kindly to change. These institutions have ancient (as in I ran across a piece of code that was written when I was in diapers) legacy systems running key functionality that many people's everyday lives depend on. If you ever had to take a look at any of the code for these legacy systems it would frighten you, but what is more frightening is that most of these institutions have an "if it's not broken don't fix it" mentality so don't expect modern security issues to be addressed in a lot of these legacy systems anytime soon.

Re:You might want to sit down for this...

[Pentium100]

what is more frightening is that most of these institutions have an "if it's not broken don't fix it" mentality

So, in your opinion, it would be better, if they replaced their old system that everyone knows how it works and what problems it may or may not have with a new system that may or may not work as good as the old one and have bugs that nobody will know about until they surface (the same was with the old system when it was new, but now probably all bugs were fixed or people at least know what not to do).

If a bank has a 30 year old mainframe and uses it - great, as long as it works correctly, and it probably has more chance to work correctly than a new system running new software.

Re:You might want to sit down for this...

[rastos1]

I guess that is still better than the plans of my bank: rewrite the whole internet-banking in ... Flash. Yes, they have actually nice, secure, lightweight web a application that works in IE/FF/Opera/Chrome/Konqueror/... in Windows/Linux/PDA/iPhone/... and they intend to throw it away and write a new one. Requiring "Adobe ® Flash ® Player 10.0 or higher". They claim that it will improve the security. On the other hand my intent is to move to different bank as soon as they deploy it. To a bank that has this frightening mentality of "if it's not broken don't fix it".

Re:You might want to sit down for this...

[Chineseyes]

The problem is that at some of these places, no one actually knows how these systems work. They've become the mystery blackbox that no one touches for fear that it might stop working. If documentation exists it's in dozens of binders that someone put together in the 80s but hasn't been updated since the 90s, if documentation doesn't exist anyone who was involved in developing the application has moved on, retired, or died. They contain cute little coding trick there were nice when resources were expensive but are time consuming to follow and painful to workaround when a bug fix is required. These examples are real world I'm talking about and involve applications that would make you want to keep your money under a mattress.

Re:You might want to sit down for this...

[ImprovOmega]

On the other hand, most of these legacy systems have pretty good physical security and no physical way to be connected to the internet. So...hacking exploits aren't as likely to find their way in from any kind of automated vector. Employee/insider exploits are equally dangerous for such systems as they would be for any Uber-Mega-Super Secure Lockdown System 4000 - because if you have the passwords to it, you're getting in anyway.

It's funny - laugh

[Saint Stephen]

Yeah! The reason our party didn't do better is there are too many other parties! They oughta outlaw the other parties! There should just be one party, our party ! Maybe we could have some kind of way of forcing peole to join our party, I don't know, some little groups called soviets!

Re:It's funny - laugh

[RAMMS EIN]

I'm from the Netherlands, where we have a parliamentary democracy with multiple parties and proportional representation. I haven't heard anyone propose a one-party system, but I've certainly heard proposals for a two-party system. Why people think that is better than what we have now, I don't know. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if this idea had some support in Sweden, as well.

Swedes?

[matthiasvegh]

Vegetables vote now?

Re:Swedes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they vote "green"

Re:For those who are European

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell us about Norway, Finland, and Denmark.

Do it without looking at Wikipedia first.

237?

[pedantic bore]

I don't think 237 votes would have increased the Pirate Party's tally to any significant degree... How many millions of voters does Sweden have?

Down in the noise is down in the noise.

Re:237?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about registered voters, but Sweden's population was about 9.2 million in 2008.

Population of Sweden

Which, btw, was a few hundred thousand people less than the population of Los Angeles county at the same time.

Population of Los Angeles

Reality catching up to fiction

[Drakkenmensch]

From the Norm MacDonald Show, Laurie's concession speech:

"I'd like to congratulate the winners who got more votes than I did, write-in candidates Mickey Mouse and pornstar Wendy Whoopers."

as an american, i am intrigued

[circletimessquare]

what is this europe you speak of?

is it some sort of territory somehow unincorporated into the american union for some ungodly reason?

do they eat their own babies there?

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[Anonymous Coward]

what is this europe you speak of?

is it some sort of territory somehow unincorporated into the american union for some ungodly reason?

Yeah, but they don't know it yet.

do they eat their own babies there?

You'd be surprised what they do there.

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

do they eat their own babies there?

You jest, but when my wife spend one year in a US high school, she was (seriously) asked if we had running water in Europe.

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[daem0n1x]

do they eat their own babies there?

Yes. Europeans are tree hugging pot smoking liberal evolutionist god hating nanny state abortionist lesbian commies. Everybody knows what communists enjoy for breakfast. And they also execute non-productive elders with an injection behind the ear.

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a perfectly valid question, especially if their knowledge of europeans is limited to frenchmen.

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[orgelspieler]

You'd be surprised how little Americans even know about each other. In the 90's I was visiting DC. When I mentioned to somebody that I went to high school in Texas, they asked about what it was like riding a horse to school each day. Seriously.

Re:as an american, i am intrigued

[operagost]

Dude, you were in DC. That's the city that had a mayor get caught on video smoking crack with a hooker-- so they reelected him.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"from the anybody-but-pirate-party dept."

Did you really go there? "but pirate?" .... yeah I know it's butt.....

still....

Re:For those who are European

[Antisyzygy]

Uhh, The Finnish may as well be Russians, Norway is that other country up there nobody cares about and WTF is Denmark? (Im joking everyone)

Re:For those who are European

[Nadaka]

Uhh, The Finnish may as well be Russians, Norway is that other country up there nobody cares about and WTF is Denmark? (Im joking everyone)

Denmark? Well Horatio, it smells kinda rotten.

Swedish election authority pretty safety aware

[TheHonch]

They were the first swedish authority to get ISO 27001 certified http://www.isoguiden.com/ResultHit.aspx?compId=C2804905___________&compName=val I know it doesn't make them immune against attacks...

Amanda Seyfried/Julian Moore love scene: Thumb up!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"The Swedish elections were held recently (the third Sunday of September to be exact) and it seems that a few people tried to interfere with the election by voting for parties which were in effect named to be SQL injection attacks or similar. Clever stuff! Little Bobby Tables in real life."

That's just brilliant.

1. Write in the hack as the "name" of your candidate
2. Slackworker dutifully types it into...what might be an SQL database
3. Hack takes effect.
4. ???
5. etc.

Democracy == mob rule

[tepples]

It's kind of like calling a marijuana legalization party the "Getting Really Fucked Up On Drugs Party."

There was a time when "democracy" referred to mob rule, and "democratic party" was an insult. Even the Democratic Republican Party, which grew into today's Democratic Party, preferred to be called "Republican" at the start.

Whether you agree with it or not, environmentalism is a fairly coherent, holistic philosophy.

Is freedom of expression likewise "a fairly coherent, holistic philosophy"?

Re:Democracy == mob rule

[dangitman]

Is freedom of expression likewise "a fairly coherent, holistic philosophy"?

Mostly, but that's not what the Pirate Party's position is. Even if it were, I don't think it's enough, as it doesn't provide any guidance on things like expenditure and infrastructure.

Re:Democracy == mob rule

[mhelander]

The plan was to explicitly not have any opinions on everything else so as to be able to negotiate credibly with the two blocks and then support the agenda of one block in all those things, the block that would agree to the terms in the pirate agenda on privacy. The idea was furthermore that this would allow unhappy voters from both blocks to vote pirate.

Re:For those who are European

[mikael_j]

You probably shouldn't tell any finns that they "may as well be Russians", that's the kind of thing that will earn you a swift stabbing in Finland...

Re:For those who are European

[Antisyzygy]

I was just kidding. Im sure the Finnish make fun of Americans too.

Florida Has Them Beat

[b4upoo]

In Florida, like most US states, we have a few votes from convicted felons and a few votes from graveyards. Apparently convicted felons are five times more likely to vote than the dead. It is a shock that nobody has complained about the strong odors the dead must cast off while in the voting booths.

Re: Florida Has Them Beat

[Anonymous Coward]

In sweden we have tons of votes from convicted felons aswell, this isn't odd at all. (All citizens are allowed to vote) , dead people arent that common though. (Swedish prisoners have been allowed to vote since 1937 and it is in my opinion essential in a democracy that not only those who follow the laws have a say in what laws we should have).

Re:For those who are European

[HornWumpus]

I'm betting the Finns make sure the Americans aren't onry drunk as skunks rednecks with attitude problems and puke on their boots before they make fun of them (to their faces).

With Finns it's a safe bet they are all of the above.

Tread lightly.

Don't call them Ruskys to their faces.

They have a history.

When they fight the Russians winter is on _their_ side.

Slow news day

[Pigskin-Referee]

This has got to be one of the stupider stories, assuming you discard Anonymous Coward's posts, that I have seen on Slashdot in quite awhile.

Re:For those who are European

[Kvasio]

Yes, Finnish are well known for being funny - it is even recognised in Janne Ahonen's wikipedia entry:

One of Ahonen's trademark features is his apparent lack of emotion when competing, as he is rarely seen smiling, even when celebrating on the podium. This has prompted the German press to conceive him nickname "The Mask".