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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."
What a bunch of Nazis!
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 ----
The German pirate party was probably not involved in anything. They host an etherpad service (piratenpad.de) that was working well and provided anonymity. Some attackers probably used it to share data without the PP's knowledge.
Also many sources say that shutting down all servers of the political party was really exaggerated and that there will likely be legal consequences. It might sound like a joke, but Germans are a bit sensitive when seeing the police raid a political party. I think that this accident will, rightfully, help the pirate party.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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.
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