Earlier this week the Swedish stasi-government decided – against the peoples wishes – to wiretap all internet and telephone traffic in order to protect Sweden against threats. As you all know, being a neutral country makes Sweden a target for all the terrorists of the world, apparantly.
The wiretap law has been intensely discussed in the blogosphere and it’s very nice to see that people care about the subject. Interesting is also that Belgium decided to take Sweden to the Strasbourg court which I hope more countries will follow.
Many people have asked me what we’re planning to do – and the answer is “A lot!”. We’re going to help out in any way we can with fighting the law. This week we’re going to add SSL to The Pirate Bay. We’re also going to help out making a website about easy encryption – both for your harddrives and your net traffic. As some people know, we’re running a system for VPN-tunnels already and we’re going to lower the price for that as well and open it up for international users as well.
More stuff is planned – together with other people that work against the law we’ve talked about asking the international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden. Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs need to block Sweden in order to protect their own customers integrity since everything they do on Swedish ISPs networks will be logged and searched.
One of the most interesting questions about all of this is that FRA bought the 5th fastest super computer in the world in order to handle the wiretap. But they bought it two years ago! It smells a bit rotten in my world to have that much confidence to buy a system like that without even a law passed that makes it legal to use it. Nobody discusses this issue, but I think we should dig a bit about it.
89 comments ↓
Maybe you could supply us with a list of things they’re actually allowed to watch?
If they’re allowed to watch our email-stop using email.
If they’re allowed to watch our cellphones-start using VoIP.
As with many laws, the people do *not* get the information they want. Maybe you should think about a website that analyzes the law, so that people will know what it’s all about.
I’m keeping my eye on your blog.
Did you have to add cryptographic extension cards to your servers to handle the load? Or are you offloading the crypto stuff to your normal CPUs?
I sincerely hope you will provide some insight into this after you have implemented this, since SSL on high traffic sites is not something done very often.
Tack. Att lägga til SSL på tpb är välkommet. Nu behövs bara att vi som folk och nation kräver detsamma av alla stora sajter: google, wikipedia, facebook, de stora nyhetssajterna etc. Hur mycket tyngre blir det egentligen för en stor sajt att erbjuda krypterat? Skulle de inte kunna erbjuda det endast för svenskar?
Ett enat upprop om tillhandahållande av krypterade anslutningar skulle kanske t.o.m. kunna nå internationell press?
[...] The Pirate Bay contraataca a la Lex Orwell sueca ofreciendo SSL, e intentará banear a Suecia de int…blog.brokep.com/2008/06/22/fra/ por DZPM hace pocos segundos [...]
I hope you do, tho i think banning the whole of sweeden might just not be the right thing to do.
it is totally unfair, i hope people get to know what this law is really about (instead of just ignoring it due to the fact that most people don’t really give a fuck).
4sure this is a completely fucked up law.
Privacy should be an elemental right in the Internet for everyone.
Thanks, you’re our modern day freedom fighters and we need you!
Please, if you’re going to do this to prevent interception, enable EDH/DHE modes in your SSL and make sure people use them. Otherwise all you need to decrypt an intercept is a copy of the server’s RSA private key.
The computer is actually the eleventh fastest nowadays. That’s probably why they asked for money for another one
[...] against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs [...]
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
– George Orwell
[...] response to this law, the infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay announced they’ll be adding a secure connection option for its users, and will also set up a page explaining how to set up basic encryption for your home and [...]
The first think i most admire in Sweden are the girls, second its TPB and u do an awsome work in defending a lot of people rights.
Cheers, from portuguese guy.
[...] wiretap of all incoming and outgoing transmissions to monitor for national security threats, The Pirate Bay will soon do things SSL [...]
[...] work against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,’ Peter writes on his blog. ‘Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs need [...]
[...] wiretap of all incoming and outgoing transmissions to monitor for national security threats, The Pirate Bay will soon do things SSL [...]
A major issue for anyone sending e-mail to Sweden is the Swedish stasi is reading mail from other countries. I would think this would make the International Court on Human Rights’ hair stand on end (at least for European senders.)
Having spent some time I Sweden, I have been underwhelmed by the government’s support for human rights. However, a few years ago the socialist government gave cows human rights (such as they were.)
–rj
[...] response to this law, the infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay announced they’ll be adding a secure connection option for its users, and will also set up a page explaining how to set up basic encryption for your home and [...]
[...] vocero de la entidad. Es de esperar que otros pa?ses se sumen a la protesta. fuentes: Zeropaid, Blog de Brokep , Slick addthis_pub = [...]
[...] and roll out a new VPN service. Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, has written about this issue on his blog. Sunde points out that Belgium has taken Sweden to the Strasbourg court and hopes more countries [...]
[...] integrity since everything they do on Swedish ISPs networks will be logged and searched.” bloggar [...]
[...] recently passed a new law that allowed Swedish government to eavesdrop on Internet traffic as they see [...]
[...] wiretap of all incoming and outgoing transmissions to monitor for national security threats, The Pirate Bay will soon do things SSL [...]
[...] Orginalpost: FRA — Copy me happy [...]
[...] » noticia original [...]
[...] recently passed a new law that allowed Swedish government to eavesdrop on Internet traffic as they see [...]
Nice to see you in action Peder, my nice friend from Bergen and klosteret…
Interesting how this law was passed just before midsummer. Nobody I talked to cared about it at all. They knew it was B.S. – but like a lot of swedes, that’s just the way it is. Keep up the good work!
I used to be quite proud of Sweden – funny how that’s changed since Sweden became ‘Moderate’.
I”m sorry to hear that Sweden joins the USA in terms of surveillance. I had once great respect for Sweden (for example because you guys had a save haven here). But since the Swedish police raided you because the MPAA etc. pushed a little and now this “Lex Orwell” i must rethink my picture of Sweden.
Good luck to you – I hope the best but expect the worst!
In a few weeks i think Sweden will sit inn a meeting discussing wether this law is gonna stay or not.
And since this law makes other countries damaged by it, by logging each guy connected to an Swedish hosted website,tracker etc, there will be noway sweden can continue having this law.
I bet one beer about that this law is reconsidered or gone before the date is 01.08.08.
Sad to see this come to Sweden. I was making plans on moving there too!
How things can change so quickly, from a free and democratic society, to this!
I hope you Swedes can keep up the pressure to get rid of this terrible law. The talk of a DNA register is just scary. What is the driving force behind all this?
[...] Source. [...]
[...] against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs [...]
If this is really true it sounds REALLY SCARY
Everyone is saying it’s the 5th-fastest, but that was at the end of 2007. Currently it’s #11
http://www.top500.org/list/2008/06/100
Now this is digged at:
http://digg.com/tech_news/FRA_by_brokep_of_the_Pirate_Bay
Regards, Urban
It’s interesting that FRA bought it 2 years ago.
Wonder what it has been used, for in the spear time?
Can we guess they have been doing some “testing” and “research” on their tiny project all ready? in the name of “science” ?
Well I’m just guessing..
As if we look in the history book and declassify documents around, we can only make absorptions about what is going on now days…
Wonder if any of these guys can help out TPB?
http://www.eff.org/about/staff
Keep kicking. As soon it will just hurt to much for them.
Cheers from Norway
mm, good article;)
[...] Youpi ! [...]
Good read, but the irony here though is that the IP to your blog is Swedish.
How are your words of truth going to reach outside of Sweden if your blog is being blocked to show support to your cause?
I Love You guys. Let’s give the goverment a fight they will never forget.
Jag blir så förbannad så jag vill betala till någon som straff!
This is very sad. Sweden has again fallen foul of American politics. I feel sick because of this. Really sick.
I’m very glad to here TPB team are doing something about this deplorable situation. It seems you are the only people upholding freedom etc in the world. Well done.
If I had money, I would donate it to you. Too bad you pissed off Bill Gates.
[...] Kilde: http://blog.brokep.com/2008/06/22/fra/ [...]
Great job, guys!
You’re the best!
[...] à Suécia. Ontem, um dos fundadores do site, que se apresenta simplesmente como Peter, escreveu em seu blog que vai adicionar SSL (Secure Sockets Layer – sistema de encriptação que bloqueia acesso às [...]
[...] Blog (en) : FRA [...]
One more reason to protect yourself. I see no reason to rely on the privacy laws in the first place. What do you do when you send a message to someone at the other end of the globe? Do you rely on the privacy protection of the foreign government or a foreign ISP? There are a lot of tools available to encrypt your email and data. This entire trend can be made irrelevant if just a little bit of common sense it applied. How about investigating how to encrypt your email for starters? There are even online services that make it as easy as using traditional, open to snooping email. CryptoHeaven is one of such service that I use, but I am sure there are others. Look for end to end encryption and not just SSL.
[...] – to wiretap all internet and telephone traffic in order to protect Sweden against threats,” wrote Peter Sunde, founder of The Pirate Bay on his blog. “As you all know, being a neutral country makes [...]
Excellent, keep up the good work and discussion!
Truecrypt is your best friend
yo, guys of the Pirate Bay!
we’ll all fight with you, you know!
under the Pirate Vessel, against web-prevarications!
long live the Pirates!
du er go du petter
trenger flere sånne som deg..
You Swedes have become too complacent. You need to gather a lot of people, and go kick those politicians out of Riksdagen. Otherwise, the next law is just going to be even worse.
For those who are holding out till the next election:
What if there’s a terrorist attack just before the election?
Are you going to be scared, and elect whoever promises you security through more control and draconian laws like this one?
All our support, Brokep! This was a very close vote and your efforts did make a difference. This hopefully will be overturned in the human rights challenge of the EU. Disgusting how anyone could vote to have universal wiretapping! How can they not be shamed!
Let us say IPSs start to block Swedish IPs. How will I be able to read your blog as it has a Swedish IP?
Just a thought that is worth thinking about.
You know.
I was considering putting a new company in Sweden because we protected and emphazised security and the integrity of people’s information. But now I will most likely take my hardware to a different country that do support their users personal information. Living in the USA, I was hoping to find haven in Sweden for the company, but not any more as long as this law is in place. I think it is time to replace the swedish law makers with people who believe in freedom from oppressive government.
Wtf my country, Belgium, is actually going to do something about it! I can’t believe it!
( It’s weird because Belgium is hell of a lot behind in terms of internet and stuff: we still have download limits! (12gig/month…) )
We love you, TPB!
SSL and VPN should keep us all save!!
Dig it, im totally w/ u
psychos who think they can control everything they see..
Im confident that this will work!
GL!
[...] Source. [...]
Anonymous believes that as long as you have your internet encrypted ( proxy, VPN ) then you have nothing to worry about.
[...] Pirate bay försöker påverka internationella ISPer Expressen, Tech World, brokeps blogg [...]
Agreed! Basically with the plethora of New Wiretapping legislation coming down from on high to reinforce sense of ’security’ amongst the unenlightened… It seems we must encrypt everything. My worry… And i have been thinking of this for quite some time; is when they get the masses afraid enough to penalize, jail, etc. those who simply utilize encryption.
It may seem far fetched… However, imagine requiring a license and the use of certain ’state supported’ encryption schemes to utilize encryption without ones person and property being subject to search and seizure.
The sad part here is that in many so called democracies, the masses are that stupid… and can be made that scared.
DsP
Sweden…home of Ikea and now home of Iseeya, too funny.
Monitoring has been around for years and the funny thing is you can invent 10 billion dollar spy computers with staff and all it takes is two individuals to take a hike in the park to disperse their shit and all the puter magic can rot. What criminal in their right mind is gonna send their garbage over the net? and any decoders here? please interpret this… “it’s a sunny day today” and all the computers in the world are gonna buy sunscreen but there could be many “connotations”. It just all gets too stupid.
[...] “Anfang der Woche hat die schwedische Stasi Regierung entschieden…. “ [...]
I seriously doubt you’ll be able to block Swedish Internet, but that IS a very nice publicity stunt; even if just a few providers follow suit.
I found the Danish laws on this to be invasive and wildly out of touch with the problems they are supposed to adress, but this law in Sweden SUXX much more.
Keep Rocking, you’re doing good guys.
21st Century Privacy Statement
I support every person’s right to communicate whatever, whenever and however he or she wants.
I support every person’s full ownership of all data and information regarding themselves. I support every person’s right to grant or deny others the use of their data, in any way, shape or form on their own recognizance.
I believe in full and default disclosure by all companies, organizations, governments and institutions as long as the data does not violate people’s full ownership of their data.
Sten Blank, Copenhagen, June, 2008
I think that what Sweden did is an infringement of human rights and in doing so they should be banned world wide.
What’s next, fitting everyone with a chip, so they know where everyone one is at all time.
What cipher and keylength will you use for your SSL?
AES-256 would be awesome
Thank you!
[...] this week. “Many people have asked me what we’re planning to do,” Peter writes in his blog “- and the answer is “A lot!”. We’re going to help out in any way we can with fighting [...]
[...] law, which allows government agencies to oversea all phone and internet traffic. Writing on his blog, Pirate Bay Admin ‘Brokep’ said that in response to the legislation – which he views as [...]
This is our answer / solution to the current “Citizen-Spy” controversy:
WisperWall “Anti-FRA” Firewall Bundle: http://www.wisper.se/shop2/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=267
FRA=Fredrik Reinfelt Alliansen
[...] work against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs need [...]
En liten fråga bara till dig som skrivit detta om att blockera all internet-trafik till sverige. Hur har du tänkt egentligen? du kan inte ha tänkt så mycket va? Vet du vad som skulle hända med det svenska samhället om man gjorde en sång grej?
Jo alla små och medelstora företag (smb) som är beroende av import och export skulle få minskade intäkter, ni skulle få minskad trafik, och större företag som har internationella sidor och företag ute i världen skulle bli avskilda från varandra. Förstår du vilket stort problem. Måste nog säga att det var det sämsta uttalandet hittills när det gäller FRA-lagen.
Ni på The Pirate Bay ska hålla på med fildelning och inget annat. Enligt det där uttalandet är det ett klart bevis på att ni inte har nån som helst aning om hur svenskt näringsliv fungerar.
Gör något vettigt istället. Gör en ordentlig Motion och skicka den till riksdagen där ni har förslag på ändringar i grundlagen mot FRA-Lagen eller som jag tror så tror jag att den kommer vara kvar oavsett vad och då är det bättre att göra en ordentlig och vettig motion som förhindrar FRA att knyta ip-adress till privatpersoner och mycket mycket mer.
[...] against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs [...]
[...] against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs [...]
[...] write some short guides on how to protect your communication, starting this time with e-mail. The PirateBay (much more than just a torrent site, one of the most important fighters for privacy!) is working on [...]
[...] against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs [...]
The most people here says, yeah sure just dont ignore the due to what this is ABOUT.
The only question is; Does Sweden have any real “terrorist” or actually, any, threat against it?
The answer is simpel: No.
Sweden is a completely neutral country, with extremely low threat, like any other country in Scandinavia.
So there is really no use at all to watch the swedish networks, like what you are doing etc.
Because this doesn’t only affect Sweden, it affects countries around Sweden, like Finland, Norway, Denmark etc.
Banning Sweden from the internet is maybe a bit extreme, but rules like this should not happend. Im not comfterable with someone watching my activities.
But it has been going on for years through FBI and CIA. The bad part about it; They are watching the wrong people.
As has been made cleary, the privacy concerns here are huge and applicable to every internet user, piratebay user or otherwise. You should take greater advantage of this in organizing a system that makes it easy for users to contact their ISP’s and make the request in person, similar to how political activists campaigning for a particular issue make it easy for you to contact your representative. They providing contact information, a list of arguments to be made, etc. I don’t advocate the list of arguments (because then the ISP ends up getting a bunch of suspiciously similar requests and it’s not as effective as personalized requests) but presenting us with a table of appropriate contact info for major and even minor ISP’s would do a lot for this cause. It’s the most effective way to influence the ISP’s decisions, because there’s nobody they’re more receptive to than their client base that keeps the ISP’s in business with their monthly payments.
I would even be willing to compile this list myself (or rather contribute significantly to it’s compilation, because the list would be huge, and region specific, but we need to get it up soon otherwise the issue will grow stale) I just don’t have any of the infrastructure for publicising the list in an effective way once it’s finished. So, if you like the idea but don’t have time for it or something, don’t hesitate to contact me (jhallward@yahoo.com), and I’ll lend you a hand.
I wish every country in the world would block internet traffic to us swedes. I don’t see how they could not.
For heavy internet users this is like saying to people who travel a lot that, whenever you travel outside sweden, we will insert a bugging device in your body. So that we can listen to all your conversations with everyone, and also register who the other person is when you are outside swedish borders.
I don’t think anyone would let us in to their country, even if they did, noone would want to talk to us.
[...] BitTorrent index site, to announce that it was adding SSL encryption to their website as well as VPN solutions for native Swedes who wanted to avoid the possibility of having their network traffic surveyed. [...]
[...] » noticia original [...]
[...] últimas semanas, muitos utilizadores de BitTorrent ficaram bastante entusiasmados quando primeiro o Pirate Bay depois o IsoHunt anunciaram que iam passar a oferecer um modo de navegação segura através dos [...]
Jeez, and I thought America wuz Bad. Dang, I thought that Sweden was one of the most free states in this planet. Evidently I am wrong. Well, are you gonna take this sittin’ down? Nyet!
How ’bout all the Swedes take up a petition of some kind to your Govt and tell them that your gonna whup their behind so hard at the next election that they ain’t gonna sit back down in a hurry.
Best of luck Sweden. Up and at ‘em Piratbyran.
There’s been numerous and massive protestings and demonstrations from the Swedish citizens about this law. Is hould know I aprticipated in one demonstration. This law sucks but I find it very funny that a lot fo Americans say things like “fucked up law” and that the US-based company Google was giving a lot of critique to Sweden and comparing us to North Korea or Saudi Arabia when USA has probably even worse wire tapping laws than those which were passed in sweden recently. It’s even more funny becuase of the fact that if USA hadn’t started the wars and passed thorugh the laws and given all those “either you’re with us or against us”-bullshit-speeches this law probably wouldn’t even have been proposed, and certainly not passed though.
Åt helvete med FRA!
I agree to some degree with Pissed off Swede, I attended the demonstrations aswell.
We, the public, have not been asked to pass this law, which is something rare, if not groundbreaking, here.
The government-people have released statements saying that this law was passed particularly, to an extent exclusively, to get information coming from certain parts of Russia to certain Swedish people.
I could give a fuck, this is embarrassing. You can call a spade a heart but it’d still be a fucking spade, wouldn’t it? This is a massive intrusion of privacy and I am deeply(once again) dissapointed in the current government.
Anyway you can use something public VPN service to prevent traffic monitoring and bypass all network restrictions…