Pirate Activist Shows Politicians What Digital Surveillance Looks Like

An anonymous reader writes How to make politicians really understand the dangers of mass digital surveillance and the importance of information security? Gustav Nipe, the 26-year old president of the Swedish Pirate Party's youth wing, tried to do it by setting up an open Wi-Fi network at the Society and Defence National Conference held in Sälen, Sweden, and collecting and analyzing the metadata of conference attendees who connected to it. Nipe set up an open wireless Internet access point named "Open Guest" and over 100 delegates used this particular unsecured Wi-Fi network to go online. The collected metadata showed that, among other sites, they visited those of daily Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Swedish private ads website Blocket, eBay, and tourism sites. "This was during the day when I suppose they were being paid to be at the conference working," Nipe noted for The Local.

Comments

People forget about people.

[jellomizer]

The problem with these laws is the idea that THEIR Organization is the good guys they figure they will not misuse the information...
However they forgot that their organization is full of people and every person has a slightly different agenda in life. So the gray area between good guy and bad guy will be at different spots.
For some vegans they equate dairy as rape, so they will see they guy who wants a real cheese pizza as some sort of monster who must be stopped.

Re:People forget about people.

[gstoddart]

For some vegans they equate dairy as rape

And, as a long term vegetarian .. this is why I view PETA and most vegans with some contempt. The rhetoric and crazy gets dialed up to 11 straight out of the gate.

Slightly more on topic, I'm glad someone is demonstrating what "just the metadata" really translates into. People have been hoodwinked into thinking this isn't as severe as it really is.

Re:People forget about people.

[pr0fessor]

Not to mention made them second guess who was controlling every other conference wi-fi labeled "Open Guest" that they had connected to over the years. These were not just politicians some were supposed security experts.

Re:People forget about people.

[theshowmecanuck]

The rhetoric and crazy gets dialed up to 11 straight out of the gate.

Same reason I stay away from churches and religion in general. Each have their own agenda, whether the people who belong realize it or not.

Re:People forget about people.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

That's what I always point out in these threads -- it is trivial for a political operative, a G. Gordon Liddy type, to listen in on conversations of political opponents of his boss, to say nothing of using metadata to track who they call -- knowing donors or supporters is valuable info and the government can target them.

It has nothing to do with the other 999 agents. You cannot build a panopticon.

We need to carry forward out protections into our virual life, instead of letting the government get away with loopholes that it's electronics where "you have no expectation of privacy", they baldly assert as they slide their hands into our pants.

Well, guess what? You're wrong, and not in the spirit of why these constitutional protections were created.

Re:People forget about people.

[TWX]

Or perhaps they decided that since they weren't doing anything untoward and were visiting unencrypted magazine and newspaper websites, that there wasn't really much of a problem if someone listened in?

If you want to freak them out, based on to whom they're connecting to alone, publish a list of what politicians use what banks. All you need to do is to figure out the identity of the user based on their surfing habits, then disclose the name of the bank whose website the visited. Don't need to know anything besides that the connection was established either. That should freak them out sufficiently.

Re:People forget about people.

[loufoque]

It would have been more severe if he did the experiment in the evening, where porn might have been involved.

Re:People forget about people.

[bondsbw]

Same reason I stay away from churches and religion in general. Each have their own agenda, whether the people who belong realize it or not.

What a silly thing to say. Of course they have agendas. Every person on the planet has an agenda. My 1 month old has an agenda to eat and poop.

Just because people have some kind of agenda doesn't mean you should avoid everybody. Use your brain. Find out what the agenda is before you dismiss it.

Re:People forget about people.

[Immerman]

Only if made on Vega.

I think you may have found a loophole though - next up vegan steaks and bacon.

Re:People forget about people.

[jellomizer]

Religions are a group of people with a similar (but perhaps not identical) agenda as you.
Each religion/sect may be working off a particular translation.
Avoiding them because they misaligned with yours means you are closing your mind off to alternative ideas.
Religions had people thinking nearly about issues that are common to the human condition for thousands of year. Most of us, can only think about these things in part time. So going to church to listen to these ideas are enlightening.

Now you don't need to agree with them, but to say I avoid these places because these people think differently than you, is really stupid. You should skip school as well, especially if you don't like your teacher.

Re:People forget about people.

[bondsbw]

Um, the justification was to avoid churches/religion because they have an agenda . Avoiding them for some other reason (preconceived notion, don't believe in their views, etc.) is a different justification and is not what we are talking about here.

Re:People forget about people.

[g0bshiTe]

The larger question is, what is their definition of metadata? The way three letter orgs and governments in general reclassify things to suite them worries me.

Re:People forget about people.

[topology]

It is the nature of skeptical inquiry to erode the belief system. It can hardly be called a "religion" if there is no belief system being promoted and no dogma being encouraged to be bought into. In this case apriori definitions are sufficient and complete empirical investigation is unnecessary.

Can you think of any organization which would be accurately described as a "religion" which encouraged each person be skeptical of all beliefs, to challenge them and erode them? This would include challenging and skeptically investigating whatever tenets were the foundation of forming the organization.

Even if you could only reduce the idea of a religion to a family of resemblances such an organization (assuming it lived up to its own ideals) would hardly resemble any cluster of things which we could label "religion".

Re:People forget about people.

[topology]

The "benevolent" aspects of the agendas are the vector by which the other memetic ideas infect the host attendants. Most will kick you out if you start challenging the other ideas that are included alongside of the "benevolent" ones.

besides, I would hardly call the ideas "benevolent" if I first have to believe I've committed mortal sins and require saving from those sins. In essence it attacks the self-esteem in order to get you to buy into the idea of being redeemed.

Re:People forget about people.

[Coren22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Much of the scientific method was pioneered first by ancient civilizations such as the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, and Sumerians. Later during the middle ages the Catholic church was responsible for saving much of the scientific knowledge from these civilizations, thus allowing the scientific method to develop in Europe during and after the Renaissance and through the enlightenment period.

Researched historical information can be funny, but many times it is true. If you don't like WP, feel free to click any of the citations at the bottom.

Re:People forget about people.

[JonathanR]

It never occurred to you that they might have invented these fanciful consequences in order to sell memberships to their political association?

Work at a conference - heh!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> be at the conference working

No one goes to a conference to do work. You're generally only doing work if you get called into an issue from home base.

Re:Work at a conference - heh!

[Rinikusu]

Just don't crack a joke about a dongle.

Shiver me timbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Thar be politians sailing on the WiFi seas!!! Man the harpoons!!!! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrr!!!!!!

Views of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many people think everyone sees the world as they do. This won't get the politicians to do anything about mass surveillance. What it'll do is push them more towards making hosting your own network illegal. Anything not coming from an approved ISP is untrusted and thus for the safety of all should be banned.

It gives more teeth to hotels and other companies that say they need to actively block and ban unknown networks.

Re:Views of the World

[Mr Krinkle]

Too many people think everyone sees the world as they do. This won't get the politicians to do anything about mass surveillance. What it'll do is push them more towards making hosting your own network illegal. Anything not coming from an approved ISP is untrusted and thus for the safety of all should be banned.

It gives more teeth to hotels and other companies that say they need to actively block and ban unknown networks.

Old saying, "never try to embarrass the people that make laws. They'll just make you illegal" (also applies to never make the people with guns look stupid)