Pirate Bay Founder Arrest Followed By $59m Swedish Aid Package For Cambodia

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-arrest-followed-by-59m-swedish-aid-package-for-cambodia-120905/

by subsystem • 14 years ago

270 79 14 years ago

cpach7• 14 years ago

Here's hoping that some real, investigative journalist (i.e. not someone from Torrentfreak) will start digging into these events. Currently it's just an unfounded insinuation.

mistercow2• 14 years ago

It doesn't matter who does the investigation, so long as the evidence they find is reasonably easy to validate.

cpach7• 14 years ago

Agreed. It will however take original research, which costs time and money. I reckon that's a bit of an issue for most blog writers (and of course that applies for lots of people that write for traditional publications as well).

gavinlynch• 14 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised one single bit if it's true.

But my question is: So what?

mtgx• 14 years ago

I knew this had to be about "foreign aid" somehow.

norswap• 14 years ago

Well at least he was not sold cheaply.

revelation• 14 years ago

An aid package of 60 million dollars would be three times the amount they spent yearly on Cambodia in the last decade (with little variance). See [1].

[1] http://www.openaid.se/en/countries/kambodja?year=2012

mongol3• 14 years ago

Except the 60 million dollars are for two years, as described in the article linked from Torrentfreak.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-09/05/c_1318292...

guelo2• 14 years ago

So it is a 50% increase from 20 to 30 million.

reinhardt4• 14 years ago

So "only" 150% of the average yearly state expenses instead of 300%. Was there a point you were trying to make or you're just being pedantic?

lolcraft• 14 years ago

Coincidentally, it would be thirty hundred thousand times the amount I would pay to a local Cambodian corrupt cop to get that dude's ass on jail. With little variance. Point is, Swedish readers, you should vote me for chief prosecutor of your country.

No, seriously. TorrentFreak here wants us to believe that Cambodia got 40G$ for arresting someone who is not precisely Pablo Escobar reincarnate. Do they seriously want us to believe that the Swedish Minister of Justice is that incompetent? I mean, some calls, an Interpol red notice... I could get it done for less than a million, my fees included. So vote me.

Uchikoma3• 14 years ago

You have experience paying money to corrupt cops in Cambodia? Are most cops in Cambodia corrupt? Did you already do that? Sounds interesting so could you elaborate?

Or have you never been to Cambodia and use HN to throw around racist comments about corruption in Asia?

mcantelon3• 14 years ago

Ah, so the folks who were inexplicably sure that it had nothing to do with his Pirate Bay association were completely wrong.

The good news, I guess, is that Swedish prison will likely be a less heinous experience.

chollida12• 14 years ago

> Ah, so the folks who were inexplicably sure that it had nothing to do with his Pirate Bay association were completely wrong.

I know that was probably an emotional response and the phrase "correlation does not imply causation" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus... ) gets thrown around here alot more than it should but that's a very strong statement to make.

Is it possible that it's true, yes. Is there evidence that makes it appear likely, not that I've seen. Maybe there will be more evidence coming up to help prove the swedes bribed the Cambodians to arrest him, but so far it looks like its way to soon to say this is definitely what happened.

mcantelon3• 14 years ago

Yes, plausible deniability is present... the Swedish may have a soft spot for Cambodia's challenges. A list of Swedish foreign aid amounts and recipients would be interesting to compare this $59M with.

tomjen3• 14 years ago

That phrase is total and utter bullshit. Correlation does not prove correlation but it does make it significantly more likely.

vannevar3• 14 years ago

A more interesting question is, who is paying the Swedes, and how? They really don't have a dog in this fight, so whatever motivation they have, it hasn't been made public. Yet.

cpach7• 14 years ago

Uhm, we do pay taxes here you know :)

As for the motives... IF the arrest of Anakata was a paid job, what other reasons than keeping good relations with the U.S. do we (or rather, the Swedish state) need?

vannevar3• 14 years ago

A fair statement, but I'm not sure that nebulous 'good relations' are enough to explain the amount of time and money the Swedish government is pouring into what would seem, at least from a Swedish perspective, to be petty crime at best. I suspect there are much more specific gains being had, maybe officially through some kind of US concessions or accommodations, or unofficially. Certainly the RIAA and MPAA can open (and close) lucrative doors to Swedish media, for example.

evo_9• 14 years ago

Hollywood - who else stands the most to gain?

mhurron• 14 years ago

> They really don't have a dog in this fight

Really?

"The Pirate Bay (commonly abbreviated TPB) is a Swedish file-sharing website founded in 2003..." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay

There are media companies in other parts of the world too you know. The world is a big place, it even exists outside the US.

vannevar3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the enlightening observation, but I'm already quite aware that TPB is in Sweden; nonetheless, the Swedish government has gone to what would seem to be extraordinary lengths to punish an offense that has had a minimal impact on its citizens, and rather disproportionate impact on outsiders. I ask again, what are the Swedes getting out of this?

tnuc• 14 years ago

Maybe he will get bail and make it to the Ecuador embassy.

jrockway• 14 years ago

In this case, he's actually been convicted of a crime. (Though one significantly less serious than rape.)

noarchy• 14 years ago

I wonder which would actually net more jail time?

Peer2• 14 years ago

Am I the only one tired over how TorrentFreak will say anything, related or not, to try to confirm their bias? This aid was decided on for over 5 months ago, in march 2012 (http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/94013), and it is obviously not the result of Sweden trying to get at Svartholm. But if you want to be believe it then please do...

cpach7• 14 years ago

Thanks for the reference!

See page 8, section 3: »The funds available for the period covered by the strategy amount to approximately SEK 400 million«.

Can we end the speculation now, please?

mongol3• 14 years ago

Yes, but before that maybe we should throw the ball back in Torrentfreak's court. They tried to mislead us?

cpach7• 14 years ago

Oh, and by the way: If Torrentfreak would like to be considered a venue of serious journalism, they ought to learn how to find sources like the one Peer linked to. It's not even written in Swedish, for the love of ${DEITY}, so I do think it can be considered low-hanging fruit.

wccrawford• 14 years ago

I'm not saying they did, but it's possible that they threatened to withhold this aid if they didn't get him.

We currently don't know, and saying either way at this point doesn't mean much. We need some actual proof.

itcmcgrath2• 14 years ago

I'm not saying they did, but it is possible thay they threatened to bomb them with buckets of blue paint if they didn't get him.

We currently don't know, and saying either way at this point doesn't mean much. We need some actual proof.

Or, in other words, you can pretty much make up anything and flag it as a possible reason. A common ploy in propaganda which causes the same affect, if you if add a disclaimer that 'we just don't know'

adgar• 14 years ago

You're right. We're just asking questions. There's nothing wrong about asking questions when there's no proof one way or the other.

That's why I think Barack Obama is from Kenya and Karl Rove personally blew up the twin towers.

guelo2• 14 years ago

I didn't know Sweeden gave money to Cambodia and I am glad that TorrentFreak informed me of this. Foreign aid from rich to poor countries is used in general to keep diplomatic cooperation flowing smoothly in matters of interest to the giver country.

nixy• 14 years ago

It's "Sweden," not "Sweeden." I see a lot of people making that mistake on HN[1].

[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+swe...

Zirro• 14 years ago

Sweden is one of few countries that reach the United Nations goal stating that countries should give one percent of their GNP as foreign aid. According to the reports I could find it is currently the largest giver of foreign aid in the world, with regards to it's economy and population.

This wasn't spontaneous. It happens every year although the amounts changes as we see here.

reinhardt4• 14 years ago

Nobody is claiming that Svartholm alone was worth $60M to Sweden. Still, is it equally "obvious" to you that not even a tiny fraction of the lump amount was allocated to "strengthen the relationships between the immigration departments" of the two countries? If you want to believe it then please do...

Peer2• 14 years ago

I thought that was exactly what the article tried to imply.

From the article: "But today, in another one of those unusual political coincidences, Cambodian officials announced the “strengthening of bilateral ties” with Sweden – along with a $59 million aid package sweetener."

kmfrk• 14 years ago

Oh yeah. It's basically only good for learning about when a tracker gets shut down.

DigitalSea• 14 years ago

Svartholm has been in Cambodia for more than 5 months, hasn't he? Not to mention it's a known fact he's been there many times before. So wouldn't it make sense that the Swedish government made this look like it wasn't related by pre-planning in advance the all of a sudden generous and higher than usual aide payment in exchange for Svartholm being deported?

sandstrom2• 14 years ago

Here is a historical breakdown of previous Swedish aid to Cambodia (data from 1975 and onwards):

http://www.openaid.se/en/countries/kambodja?year=2011

rcfox• 14 years ago

Is there actually a scandal here? An extradition treaty would allow Sweden to remove criminals from Cambodia. Just because there is no treaty, that doesn't mean that Cambodia can't hand criminals over, does it?

benologist4• 14 years ago

It's honestly a shame that TF's propaganda has found a home here on HN.

Karunamon3• 14 years ago

That's an interesting use of the word "propaganda".

benologist4• 14 years ago

It's quite literally exactly what propaganda is, according to dictionaries, wikipedia, etc... it doesn't stop being propaganda just because you like what they have to say, that just makes it successful propaganda. Also in the literal sense.

staffan• 14 years ago

This is not a story.

Sweden have in the past (since 1979) sent aid to Cambodia.

In 2011 we sent 168 million SEK and in 2012 and 2013 we will send 200 million (a total of 400 million for 2 years) and this was decided a long time ago.

Do you really think Sweden will pay 400 million to get one person back and have him serve ONE year in prison?

http://www.swedenabroad.com/sv-SE/Ambassader/Phnom-Penh/Utve...

Uchikoma3• 14 years ago

For sure not. But if I'd pay 400M SEK and had a little wish, I'm sure I'd let the other side know about my wishes.

It's not my argument, but the interesting argument is not that Sweden paid 400M SEK to get a prisoner - that cause and effect are working this way. But it's interesting that he is arrested after quite some time in Cambodia and Sweden is paying 400M SEK aid.

goggles99• 14 years ago

Don't aid in the transportation/distribution of stolen goods and you won't be arrested for it!!!

alter8• 14 years ago

It seems these guys running shady businesses on internet have never heard about Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_Robbery_%281963%29#...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Battisti_%28born_1954%29

aaron695• 14 years ago

It’s sad the trolls seem to have gotten hold of this.

Torrent Freak has not even gone close to saying Sweden has bought him.

When countries give foreign aid, it is often, at least in part, for power plays.

Japan regularly does this in the pacific islands and uses their support to continue whaling. To argue the amount of money they give (quite large) is so they can continue whaling is also ridiculous. In fact most Japanese don’t even eat whale or care about the issue. It’s mostly political.

Sweden is owed a few favours and it seems they have called one in. The story here is why they have chosen this as one of them.

tripzilch2• 14 years ago

> The story here is why they have chosen this as one of them.

I suppose they would have preferred to obtain Assange, but he wasn't in Cambodia? ;-)

nl2• 14 years ago

This is nonsense.

It is easy to make up a conspiricy, and very hard to disprove it. Nevertheless...

Sweden's foreign aid policies are well respected internationally[1].

For TorrentFreak to try and imply that aid to Cambodia - one of the poorest countries in the world - was in any way linked to their coincidental arrest of a person with an international warrant out for his arrest is shameful.

If nothing else, the foreign aid was announced prior to his arrest[2] and is part of a long running aid program[3].

Not only is it entirely made up, but it puts an unnecessary taint of corruption on a program that saves lives. As anyone scanning thread can attest, the last thing a foreign aid program needs is any kind of association with corruption - especially one that is made up.

It is well known that shoddy journalists can use their pulpit to smear anything they want and there is little that the target can do (eg, questions like "Tell me when you stopped beating your wife"). That is what is going on here, and people who are falling for it should be ashamed of themselves.

[1] http://www.thelocal.se/16158/20081205/

[2] http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/94013

[3] http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Phnom-Penh/Devel...

mistercow2• 14 years ago

Viewed through Bayesian lens, the problem with this article is pretty obvious. You could almost define "speculative" as "giving an observation for which the priors are unclear and only vaguely gestured at".

Here, we have the observation that Sweden gave $60 million foreign aid to Cambodia, but we are given no clear idea of the prior probability that Sweden would give this much and at this time (but we are given the implication that the evidence is significant). We don't need a hard probability estimate (few of us are actually going to rigorously apply Bayes' rule), but we do need enough information to come to a basic idea of the probability on our own. What does Sweden usually give to Cambodia? When is this usually announced? If this is an unusual amount of money, are there other good explanations for this besides corruption?

The problem is that the data in the article leaves us to use a relatively uninformed prior. $60 million is not that much money for a nation with Sweden's economy. It seems fairly likely that some kind of diplomatic news mention would happen regarding Sweden and Cambodia within any given two week period (close enough to appear associated with any given event), and since Sweden and Cambodia are on friendly terms, that mention is likely to be positive. Supposing that this is an unusually large amount of aid, there are plenty of possible reasons that Cambodia, often plagued with both droughts and floods, might have been hit particularly hard in the last year and needed more, so even if this is an unusual amount of aid. This all puts the prior for the observation pretty high, which cuts its evidential weight down very very low. As you illustrated, that prior gets higher as we add information, further weakening the evidence.

Kiro• 14 years ago

I'm surprised people assume the arrest has anything to do with TPB at all. It's anakata we're talking about.

_of• 14 years ago

Since this is such a serious claim, it would be good with an original source. This site (torrentfreak) is not unbiased.

tripzilch2• 14 years ago

It would have been nice if TorrentFreak would've quoted a few of the references made in the discussion here, namely:

1) how much of an increase this is compared to the regular yearly foreign aid of Sweden to Cambodia (I understand it's 150%, so "just" 20M extra, and that the yearly foreign aid to Cambodia has very little variance.

2) when this increase was decided upon.

3) since when Svartholm was wanted, and known/expected to flee to Cambodia.

Those answers still don't quite rule out the two events are connected, but it would definitely make TorrentFreak's article quite a lot more balanced. Besides, it's easy enough to expose the big entertainment lobbies and their copyright watchdogs without making things up.

It also shows that HN is better at doing proper journalistic research ;-)

Pirate Bay Founder Arrest Followed By $59m Swedish Aid Package For Cambodia

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