Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking and fraud

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22182112

by anons2011 • 13 years ago

100 66 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

anonozc• 13 years ago

One does not simply sue our hero

huhtenberg• 13 years ago

Your reddit is leaking. Mop it up.

sgt• 13 years ago

Yes, far too many people are joining us from 4chan/reddit.

publicfig• 13 years ago

He's not our hero, he's not being sued and the case is strong.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

>hacking into several Swedish companies and stealing personal data

Are these allegations true? If so, I don't think this man deserves sympathies. The punishment may be too harsh in my opinion for these type of crimes, but they are crimes nonetheless.

swinglock• 13 years ago

He's charged, not guilty. I don't think anyone here could answer if it's true.

coldtea2• 13 years ago

Not to mention that thousands of people have been found guilty, only to be proven innocent (sometimes after decades in jail).

Or that tons of people have been found guilty (and never could proved their innocence), with fabricated data by some corrupt government agency.

pathy5• 13 years ago

The indictment can be found here: http://www.aklagare.se/PageFiles/10239/AM_52124_12.pdf (Swedish. Save as, appears to be broken when viewed in browser)

A quick read-through seems to suggest that they have quite solid support for it. However, I haven't seen the investigation protocol (FUP) so I cannot say if the actual evidence is any good.

easytiger• 13 years ago

> quite solid support for it.

Constituting?

s_henry_paulson• 13 years ago

He deserves sympathy for the way this has been handled.

He has been held for something like 7 months without charges under a law that is supposed to allow holding someone while evidence is gathered. The person is not supposed to be held for more than 7 days, 14 at the most. So they've had to keep filing and getting a judge to approve extensions to keep holding him without charging him.

Now, one wonders if they needed 7+ months to gather evidence, if they ever had any evidence to begin with, to justify arresting him.

Who knows, but this is not off to a good start.

The likely answer:

Charges come, they are dropped or dismissed (they were possibly fabricated to begin with), since he is in the country now he is dealt with for Pirate Bay related stuff, credited with time served and is either released or imprisoned for a few more months, and then everyone forgets about it.

jlouis• 13 years ago

The judge giving extensions is key here. It is customary to operate like this in Scandinavian countries. The idea is that the police has to make a case to the judge that it is worthwhile to still hold him and that they are making progress in the case. Otherwise he would have been released long ago.

It is quite different from other countries, I know, but law is not handled the same way all over the world.

chenster• 13 years ago

> He has been held for something like 7 months without charges under a law that is supposed to allow holding someone while evidence is gathered.

Is this true? It sounds like no difference from totalitarian system such as Chinese government to legally detain a person for while gathering evidence.

white_devil7• 13 years ago

It's bullshit propaganda, and the charges are just as valid as Assange's rape charges, courtesy of the same corrupt government. The US entertainment industry wants to make an example of him.

>> He was also charged with hacking into the computer servers of Logica, a Swedish company that handles tax documents.

"Oh noes! Don't hack our taxes!!"

Logica is a big, bloated IT services company that makes (shitty) custom software for big customers, typically government agencies. They're in Finland too, but originally from England.

Kiro• 13 years ago

Corrupt government? Are we talking about Sweden or Somalia? Sweden is one of the least corrupt countries in the world so please stop with your ridiculous conspiracy theories.

freyr• 13 years ago

>> It's bullshit propaganda,

Source? Do you have ANY evidence of this whatsoever?

>> "Oh noes! Don't hack our taxes!!" Logica is a big, bloated IT services company that makes (shitty) custom software

Are you suggesting, because Logica is big, bloated, makes "shitty" software, or makes tax software, they should be open game to hackers? You are ridiculous.

johansch• 13 years ago

Logica is indeed shitty (they mostly employ second rate people in my experience; at least in Sweden), but in my mind that only makes it more likely that Gottfrid/anakata was able to hack into their systems.

trotsky3• 13 years ago

I think I'd remain skeptical until the specific details emerge. Let's not forget weeve is doing federal time for running a script to download email addresses from a public website.

I'm not saying it couldn't be legit, but I think we can all agree that TPB is well into the realm of "find me something that'll stick on these guys"

rayiner• 13 years ago

> Let's not forget weeve is doing federal time for running a script to download email addresses from a public website.

And claiming he was going to sell them. Why leave out the whole truth?

niggler• 13 years ago

> illegally transfer money from a bank.

What does it mean to illegally transfer money? Is this a euphemism for stealing?

pathy5• 13 years ago

They tried (and succeeded in one case) to transfer money between accounts, without authorization so illegally transferring money seems to be the correct wording?

Stealing does tend to be associated with physical theft?

dionyziz• 13 years ago

"Illegally transferring money" may mean the following, which would not be called "stealing":

* Transferring money between two bank accounts neither of which one owns. For example, I could transfer money from niggler's bank account to Obama's bank account, without personally benefiting from it, "for the lulz," or for trying to see if I actually have access to do that after having hacked into a bank's system.

* Transferring my own money from my bank account to another bank without having permission to do so. Maybe the money has been frozen in some way. In that case, it is my own money, so it isn't stealing.

Not sure what happened here, but the term is broader.

np4225• 13 years ago

There is a high probability that this is false accusations, just "because we can" from the prosecutors ...

I'm from Sweden and I'm very sad to say that I don't consider Sweden to fulfil all the requirements for rule of law and legal security.

Even if he is acquitted from the crimes in a trial he will have spent a few months arrested and we don't have a bail system here in Sweden.

Both European committee for the prevention of torture and Amnesty International frequently criticize Sweden for the conditions for arrestees ... Yepp, that's where Gotfried is being kept locked up...

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Out of interest, would you prefer to face Swedish justice or the US system?

draugadrotten5• 13 years ago

Penalties in the Swedish justice system are humane. Even serious crimes only renders 5-10 years of prison time. Conditions in prisons are far better than the US. Prisoners have private rooms, gym and better food than elderly citizens.

The US system have far too severe penalties. Sentences of 10-100 years are now common. Conditions in prisons are horrible with rampant drug abuse, violence and even murders.

However, the Swedish prosecutors and courts are banana republic quality. Look at the Assange parody for an example. A Swedish prosecutor may invent almost anything as evidence, even a photoshopped screenshot - because ANYTHING can be submitted as evidence in a Swedish court. There is even a recent drug case where the Swedish police illegaly put GPS surveillance on a suspected drug trafficker. The court recognizes the police did this illegaly, but the GPS data is still allowed as evidence. This is called "fri bevisföring" in Swedish. The courts are made up by politically chosen representatives, not a jury, which further contributes to the banana republic sentencing.

So - justice is more blind in Sweden, but she is slapping you on the wrist, instead of decapitating you.

np4225• 13 years ago

My knowledge of how the US systems works in practise is limited, but as draugadrotten says in another comment - the penal system of Sweden is in general preferable to US.

But when it comes to legal security it really is much harder choice but I think I would prefer to face the US justice system in all "normal" criminal cases.

If the word terrorism was anywhere near the case I'm not so sure any more.

pathy5• 13 years ago

Have you even read the indictment? A casual look seems to indicate that the investigation is very thorough. (See another post here for link)

And if anyone is a flight risk who would never be granted bail it is Gottfried, He has already fled a sentence once - that is not to say that being in a 'häkte' is fun or humane, depending on circumstances.

Finally:

>I'm from Sweden and I'm very sad to say that I don't consider Sweden to fulfil all the requirements for rule of law and legal security. [Citation Neeeded]

white_devil7• 13 years ago

>> I'm from Sweden and I'm very sad to say that I don't consider Sweden to fulfil all the requirements for rule of law and legal security. [Citation Neeeded]

What kind of "citation" would you expect? The Swedish government to tell you they're dirty?

subsystem• 13 years ago

Since he was already sentanced there was little need from a security perspective to keep him in 'häkte' for three months. Instead they could have just transfered him to the prison where he was to serve his previous sentence (as they eventually did).

draugadrotten5• 13 years ago

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/sweden/report-2012

np4225• 13 years ago

I really envy you naive notion on Swedish legal security.

Take a look at our modern history. Confiscation of not yet published newspapers during world war II. The German troop transports, the extradition of Baltic citizens, the IB-matter, forced sterilization. We really have a history of throwing out all legal principles whenever public authorities want to.

In recent times, Thomas Quick, the extradition of two Egyptian citizen without any due process, REVA, perhaps you remember "#gategate" where LEO got acquitted, the "lilac envelopes" our minister of justice wanted to use spread shame to suspects, treatment of acquitted persons in the da Costa case.. I could go on for quite some time with this, there are a lot of examples to choose from.

Just the fact that we have politicians appointing jury members ("nämndemän") is a hint to where Swedish legal security stands. Jury members that in the majority of cases fails to answer basic legal questions correct. The entire chain of courts "förvaltningsrätt" is a very troublesome construction to say the least ...

FireBeyond2• 13 years ago

"Amnesty International frequently criticize Sweden for the conditions for arrestees ... Yepp, that's where Gotfried is being kept locked up..."

Apropos of anything else, and without discounting the positives of the work they do, this is one of Amnesty's raison d'etre's - there is not a country on Earth that they do not criticize in this regard.

aus_• 13 years ago

PCWorld reports he "hacked IBM mainframes". [1] I would be interested in knowing the details of this. I am a sysprog for z/OS for a financial institution by day, and I have never heard of any sort of intrusion like this. Not that these systems are completely bulletproof, but I expect there is some fabrication in these statements. These systems are usually deep in the backend and obscurely buried in archaic and proprietary architectures. Unless Warg had any experience with this platform or some sort of inside help, I highly doubt this allegation.

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034733/pirate-bay-cofounder-...

belorn3• 13 years ago

The prosecutor document describe the "hack" as Gottfrid testing a bunch of default password at an wireless route, and from there, using the internal networks "automated processes" (ie, I assume they mean that the system lacks any security against the internal network).

lawnchair_larry2• 13 years ago

As someone who works in security, I can tell you that your trust in these is misplaced. Archaic proprietary systems, once examined, are far worse in terms of security, not better. It isn't difficult to learn z/OS if that is your goal.

holmb• 13 years ago

> Unless Warg had any experience with this platform or some sort of inside help, I highly doubt this allegation.

He has knowledge and experience with z/OS.

And in the general case, I totally agree with lawnchair_larry. Also, if there is a big enough incentive to find security flaws they will be found, even in rather obscure systems.

Though that doesn't make him guilty until proven otherwise.

belorn3• 13 years ago

This thing doesn't surprise me too much. The pirate movement has for a long time said that if you constantly call people criminals, the risk that they later actually will commit crimes goes up. I can understand if a person going through the circus called the pirate bay trial is slightly resentful of the Swedish state, and might not feel too respectful of its law.

Still a crime of course, and still wrong.

technonono• 13 years ago

tpb is great. But its founders? may not be so.

Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking and fraud

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