Swedish ISPs To Thwart EU Data Retention Law

aaardwark writes "After a leaked document from the department of justice showed police will be able to demand extensive private information for minor offenses, some Swedish ISPs have decided to fight back (translated article). By routing all traffic through VPN, they plan to make the gathered data pointless. ISP Bahnhof says they will give you the option to opt out of VPN, but giving up your privacy will cost extra."

Comments

Wrong motive

[MrQuacker]

It would be nice if their motive really was righteous. They seem to be doing it just because it would cost them a lot to comply with every request the police made.

Re:Wrong motive

[guruevi]

Either way it's good for the customers. Google likewise decides to be notsoevil because otherwise it would cost them too much. Data retention is the wet dream of every mainstream politician these days, it allows for unlimited powers of coercion. The fact that storage is expensive and our governments are too broke to pay for it themselves is a blessing albeit a temporary one.

Re:Wrong motive

[dcollins]

"Google likewise decides to be notsoevil because otherwise it would cost them too much."

I'm pretty convinced that Brin & Page have some specific political-philosophical motivations for what they do (partly based on Brin's upbringing in the Soviet Union), and not exclusively a profit motive.

Re:Wrong motive

[Kjella]

Bahnhof has fought for their customer at every step of the way, even when there's been no direct economic gain. They probably don't want to officially go out as some sort of "referee" saying who they think is right and who they think is wrong, but they've really done everything you could ask for. I don't know what it is you want, to announce themselves as the lawless ISP or the pirate ISP or anything like that would only be foolish in so many ways.

Re:Wrong motive

[Sique]

But if it's your ISP who does the hiding routinely and you have to pay extra to get clear text, which in turn means that everyone is doing it, what probable cause is it then?

Re:Wrong motive

[horza]

Google is not a good example, as they have more cash in the bank than they know what to do with. I don't want to take anything away from Brin and Page, they have done a sterling job so far, but a small ISP in a competitive market with razor thin margins trying to take a stand is more impressive.

Phillip.

Re:Wrong motive

[vegiVamp]

It's not nust about splitting log events. It's also about adding a lot more logging (you don't routinely log every connection from every customer, let alone the contents of them); but also the keeping of records for seven years. Given the amount of traffic ISPs push, that requires ungodly amounts of storage, which in turn requires ungodly amounts of power.

Re:Wrong motive

[smallfries]

As a Brit living in Sweden I can answer some of your question. People over here do care a lot more about internet access than in the UK - they want it to be fast, reliable and work as transparently as possible. You could say that internet access has become much more of a basic commodity over here. It is also used a lot more heavily. Unlike the UK market an unlimited connection means unlimited. There are huge untapped amounts of bandwidth in the backbone because the provisioning model used for building networks over here is very different. They assume that people will use bandwidth that is available to them and don't over-provision to the same level.

Privacy is a slightly different issue and it is much harder to see where the Swedish stand on it. On the one hand everyone over here is in many public government databases and nobody cares about it. There is even a website devoted to looking up peoples addresses and birthdays (and of course being Swedish it gets used to send flowers). On the other hand when people decide that they have a right to privacy on anything it is considered to be absolute. If the media over here is told not to publish a name to avoid compromising someone's privacy then it stays private.

There was a huge backlash over the IPred laws over the same issues (retention of IP traffic and linking it to real world identities). Many Swedish ISPs have already announced similar plans with respect to that law - ways of avoiding compliance to protect people's privacy. This new law is in effect the next salvo in the ongoing fight against the IPred laws and as such there is widespread support for avoiding compliance as much as possible.

Re:Wrong motive

[Reality Master 301]

This is possibly the dumbest comment I've ever read on slashdot. Are you saying I should never ever say anything bad about something, if it slightly benefits me personally? For instance, if someone cut your head off and gave me a small part of the money in your wallet? Or if a popular politican was killed, because he/she didn't share my opinion on tax levels? Or if a mod decided to lock your account, because of your stupid ideas?

Re:Wrong motive

[AmiMoJo]

I was one of the people who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that "unlimited" in adverts actually means "limited" when you read the small print. Their response was that limits were a normal part of traffic management for ISPs so they are basically allowed to lie with impunity. No word on what constitutes a "normal" amount, e.g. T-Mobile used to advertise their mobile BB as unlimited when in fact there was a pathetic 3GB/month limit.

The attitude to provisioning sounds similar to Japan. If you build it, they will come. If your network is awesome you can offer lots of new services like reasonable quality video on demand and eat into other markets. If you network is shit you have to block BBC iPlayer in the evenings or only allow people to watch a postage stamp resolutions (e.g. BT, Virgin Media). Rather than seeing bandwidth as an opportunity they see it as a problem.

The privacy aspect is interesting. On the one hand we are the most watched country in the world, and on the other our internet access if fully recorded and available to the police. So we are pretty much screwed at this stage, and the much touted repealing of overreaching laws has yet to actually happen.

Original Link

[intellitech]

If you can read it:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1646&artikel=4311500

LE is not the real privacy enemy anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

The privacy violation and spying that Law Enforcement does is nothing compared to what google, facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc. are doing. I think the privacy advocates need to rethink who the real enemy is. With search, chat, mail, ads, analytics, like buttons, and other embedded icons/code spread throughout the web, these big web companies can gather more intelligence than anyone. LE has the goal of eliminating crime, big-web has the goal of raking in cash. Who is your real privacy enemy?

Re:LE is not the real privacy enemy anymore

[boarder8925]

Both are our "real privacy enem[ies]." Google et al make money off all the information they index and archive about us, and the law-enforcement agencies can turn around and demand that data to intimidate, harass, and persecute us. We're getting royally screwed no matter how you look at it, but at least Google can't send you to pound-you-in-the-ass prison, or beat the shit out of you on the way there.

Viking Heritage

[andersh]

Well, English is a close cousin of all the Scandinavian languages, but more to the point Old Norse.

The original Old English language was influenced by two waves of invasion: the first by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language family, who conquered and colonized parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second by the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman.

However it was the Danish and Norwegian Vikings that attacked and settled in Britain. Have you heard of the Danelaw? So it would be more precise to say English has a closer relationship with Danish/Norwegian than Swedish.

In fact some dialects still exist in the northwest of England that sounds like modern Norwegian (BBC, 2008). Indeed, modern genetic sampling and research reveals a lot of Viking blood heritage in England, Ireland and Scotland.

The influence of this period of Scandinavian settlement can still be seen, and is particularly evident in place-names: name endings such as -howe, -by ("village") or "thorp" ("hamlet").

Furthermore many British island groups, including the Isle of Man(n) and Shetland, belonged to Norwegian Kings for hundreds of years. Indeed York was once known by its original name Jorvik. Dublin (Dubh Linn) and other Irish cities were Viking settlements.

Then later the descendants of Norwegian/Danish settlers in Normandy, France, decided to invade and conquer England. Of course by that time William the Conqueror and his men spoke French. His father again was the well known [Norwegain/Danish] Rollo, or Hrólfr, who forced the French king to sign a treaty ceding part of the province to him, from which it took the name of Normandy, the country of the Northmen.

Ironically it was the attack of the invading Norwegian Viking army under King Harald Hardråda and Tostig Godwinson, brother of the English King, that led to the fall of England to the Normans. King Harold managed to beat the Norwegian invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, near York, but was not strong enough to withstand a second attack by the Norman army. In 1066 at the time of the Battle of Hastings the languages were mutually intelligible.

Swedish Vikings moved east and played a major role in the development of Russia. These Vikings are know as the Rus and it is from this name that the name of Russia has been derived. Actually the Rus were Swedish Vikings meaning the northern Germanic tribes which setteled in Sweden. The Term Rus was not what they called themselves, but the name given them by the Finns. Today Sweden is Ruotsia in Finnish.

English, the three Scandinavian languages, Icelandic, Dutch and German all belong to the Germanic language family.