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German Police Seize German Pirate Party Servers
fph il quozientatore writes "The German police have seized today the servers from the German Pirate Party after an attack on the French company EDF. Apparently they are looking for evidence of allegiance with the Anonymous group. In completely unrelated news, the website of the German police was down this afternoon."
Idiots on both sides.... But we can say: the police started it...
Taking down the central server of political party just 2 days ahead of elections is not nice.
CU, Martin
What a bunch of Nazis!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Police procure Pirate Party processors. Probably probing protester pact.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The official state apparatus being used to harass opposition parties? In Germany? Days before an election? No, I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
Point a finger at your competition/enemy and make some unfounded claims about 'crimes against the state', and the police come in and take care of the problem for you.
This remind anyone of something? Like Poland late 1939?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So when some group attacks some company we seize the property of a random pro-liberty group?
Is that your understanding of democracy?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not newsworthy?
The servers of a party that has online liberty as one of its core agendas have been seized, with an allegation of being involved in an attack against some French nuke power company (who, in turn, has been accused of rather questionable security and even more questionable garbage disposal). From what it looks now, ONLY this party's servers, despite being most likely nothing more than the equivalent of a TOR exit node that has been abused.
And all of that a few days before an election.
Sorry, if that's not newsworthy, I guess personal liberty and its limitation by certain "interest groups" really isn't an issue for nerds anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The summary is very uninformative. This needs to be mentioned:
- The reason for the seizure was topic of speculation all day long. It was very soon suspected that the reason was abuse of the "piratenpad", a publically available etherpad installation operated by the pirate party. Apparently this platform was used to coordinate a DDoS attack against the french energy and utility company (according to Wikipedia the largest of the world) EDF. Pirate party later stated that a SSH key for there webserver was posted on the piratenpad. See http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Polizei-kapert-Server-der-Piratenpartei-1246963.html (german).
- This service was only running on one of the servers but the police took all servers nethertheless which includes their mail and other important infrastructure.
- The seizure was not the result of some german investigation but rather a reaction to a judicial assistance request by the french police.
- As well-known german lawyer Udo Vetter points out (http://www.lawblog.de/index.php/archives/2011/05/20/ein-akt-der-deutschen-behrden/ - german) the german police was not required by law to react in this way. Furthermore political parties are somewhat protected by law and it is very arguable that the measures taken were adequate as required by law.
- There is a state election in the German state of Bremen on Sunday. The pirate party is running there. This seizure is of course very unfortunate in light of this. This has promptly caused conspiracy theories that the reason for the seizure might be political.
Pro-pirate is not pro-liberty. Look up the meaning of the word "pirate" that these guys are trying to emulate.
They are not trying to "emulate" the term Pirate -- The pro-copyright corporations began using the term as a derogatory label (hopefuly having negative connotaion), the term stuck, and so we throw it in their faces.
These are pro-liberty only in the sense that they wish to have more liberty to break the law and enable others to break the law.
The "law" is unjust. Copyright is not required, per constitution, it is allowed, solely for the betterment of society as a whole. It is an outdated and over-broad, in the time that it was first allowed the founding fathers thought thought it should last only around 10 to 14 years. Now, in an era when not only big businesses have copy machines (nearly any one has many), the laws have been twisted to harm society, and extended for TWO GENERATIONS. My lifetime +70 years -- Beyond the life expectancy of my children!
If they actually wish to change the law instead of merely breaking it, then they should boycott the media that is copy protected. That is do not steal the music/games/video but instead refuse to listen/play/watch.
Yes, we want "free" stuff, like our freedom of speech and freedom of expression back. We don't want the restriction of only being able to legally share information that is over 100 years old. Freedom to sing songs publicly and share knowledge and information with our neighbors. The black people of America, and their supporters, had to stand up for their rights when Jim Crow was the LAW. Occasionally this means breaking the fucking unjust, oppressive, ridiculous law -- you dolt! Rosa Parks; Ring any bells!?! (sorry, excuse the rage -- ignorance is abhorrent to me)
As long as they continue acting like common thieves they will get zero respect from the public but if they start a boycott that catches on then they'll start making headway. But this won't happen since the vast majority of pirate party supporters just want the free stuff.
When your civil rights are abused it is your duty to peacefully protest -- What a better way to protest peacefully than to participate in the free sharing of ideas and information with your friends. No one is "stealing" anything. The only thing that has been taken away is the freedom to sing, say, write, or copy anything you want. We allowed aurthors a limited monopoly over their works to keep the greedy publishers in check. Now, the publishers force contracts on the authors or else the work doesn't get published, and these contracts take the rights of the authors and give them to the publishers.
We've tried the civil protest route... Hell, it this case We Have A POLITICAL PARTY, and yet the pockets of the corporations are deeper still than our own. Not participating in the society we helped create is not an option. If you can think of any more peaceful a protest than having a network connection and two computers duplicating 1s and 0s, please, FUCKING LET ME KNOW!
If it weren't for free sharing of ideas human society and the very languages we use that enable us to be more than just emotional animals would not have formed. It is in our very nature to share knowledge and information, to outlaw such things is the very definition of a police state. (Now, there's a fucking term it would do you well to look up!)
In Heaven: The cooks are French, The policemen are English, The mechanics are German, The lovers are Italian, The bankers are Swiss.
In Hell: The cooks are English, The policemen are German, The mechanics are French, The lovers are Swiss, The bankers are Italian.
46137
You clearly have no clue what the Pirate Party is about. It is not pro-pirate, as defined by the MAFIAA; it is anti-IP. The concept of Intellectual Property is fundamentally abhorrant, and severely infringes on peoples intellectual liberties. This is about far more than the copying of movies, it is about the liberty to think freely. To invent or create freely, without being mired in lawsuits, where the parasites who "own" some idea demand rent for any and everything.
One may be the first to have an idea, but chances are nearly certain that they won't be the last. Granting the first-to-file or first-to-invent (which is more often not debatable), an unlimited monopoly is starkly in opposition to the public good. It puts a huge damper on what could otherwise be exponential progress, in order to enrich a select few.
Granting a monopoly on an idea is extremely detrimental to society.
Leaving the individual and your rather cheap ad hominem at him aside: The Pirate Party is one of the few smaller parties here in Germany with the potential to bring really disruptive change to the political landscape; Not so much through their own share of votes, they do not usually fare all that well in elections, but because they almost single-handedly brought matters formerly at the fringe of public interest - freedom of information and expression in the digital age, a sensible approach to compensating artists, governmental transparency and accountability - to the centre of attention for all parties. And by now they have left the initial image of an anarcho-nerdy kindergarten behind. People above the age of twenty are beginning to recognise them as a serious political movement.
And now, two days prior to a state election (that in and of itself is not really important considering it is "only" about a rather small city-state but that is closely watched as a barometer of public opinion for the next federal elections) police take their whole infrastructure offline under very questionable circumstances. I am biased as I am both German and a Pirate Party supporter, but I do consider such an act newsworthy even for such a diverse audience as slashdot's.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.