Pirate Bay Founder Guilty of Hacking, Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-guilty-of-hacking-sentenced-to-two-years-in-prison-130620/

by Kiro • 13 years ago

117 40 13 years ago

jedanbik2• 13 years ago

I don't understand, why would he hack a company with tax info? I really cannot think of one good reason. Did he make any public statements about it? Did he do it from his apartment in Cambodia? Why does his apartment in Cambodia enter the story? I am perplexed.

jpkeisala• 13 years ago

It makes me thinking conspiracy theories...

pathy5• 13 years ago

He leaked (or someone else with access) some 10k personal identification numbers of people with hidden identities (cops, domestic abuse victims etc).

As far as I can remember form the investigation protocol, he hacked the company/ies when he was in Cambodia. He used one of his computers there if memory serves. He also talked on IRC about the hack when connecting from Cambodia if I recall correctly.

My memory is a bit hazy on where the logs were found, but I think it was on an encrypted partition on one of his computers, IRC logs and putty logs. Or something along those lines. The putty logs matched the connection logs from the hack.

The investigation protocol was 'leaked' on Wikileaks in the begin of the trial. It is in Swedish but the logs are, imo, pretty convincing, suggesting that he was the one/one of the people behind the hack.

This will with all likelihood get appealed to a higher instance.

notimetorelax2• 13 years ago

What were his reasons to do this? It seems to be a horrible idea to "leak" identities of domestic abuse victims.

curious34• 13 years ago

> but I think it was on an encrypted partition on one of his computers

Do you by any chance know how they found it on an _encrypted_ partition? Did he give them the password voluntarily or did they somehow break it?

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

>>The investigation protocol was 'leaked' on Wikileaks in the begin of the trial. It is in Swedish but the logs are, imo, pretty convincing, suggesting that he was the one/one of the people behind the hack.

Agreed on this point. When you consider he was a major meth addict at the time, being careful isn't something you consider when you're in a drug induced haze.

Not sure how jails in Sweden work, but why appeal it? He could probably be out in 18 months or less with good behavior.

mongol2• 13 years ago

He has not confessed so there is no explanation from his part.

I read the police investigation (it has been "leaked" to WikiLeaks but it is actually official)

Some of the evidence:

The IRC nick "tLt" brags about the intrusion. Svartholm acknowledges that he has used this nick in the past but not to make these statements. However, in conversations where the bragging has been done, other chat participants have asked something like "Anakata: Are you still in Cambodia" and tLt answers the question.

There are files on his computers that originated on the intruded computers.

There are files on the intruded computers that originates on his computers (build artifacts etc).

Svartholm acknowledges that his computer must have been used for the intrusion, but that he did not do it. He says that Remote Desktop or Powershell Server must have been used. However, forensic investigations of Windows logs etc show that no one has ever logged in with these services since the OS was installed.

One / some of the intrusions have by using the login credentials of Monique Wadsted, lawyer supporting the prosecution in the Pirate Bay trial.

driverdan• 13 years ago

Crackers gonna crack...

But seriously, anyone who has been a blackhat would understand this. A target with tax info would be a great hack, if only to say you did it.

cLeEOGPw• 13 years ago

Maybe he just hacked it "as a challenge". The evidence is there, so I find it quite believable that he could do it.

jontro• 13 years ago

He also got hold of a list with 10 000 persons with protected identity which later was published on the web. Not very nice.

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/svartholm-warg-domd-till-fa...

belorn3• 13 years ago

I'm not very surprised by this. If someone is accused and sentenced for a crime they honest and truly don't believe they committed, people get very jaded against the government.

This is why a large group of people pointed out that if you declare 2/3 of the population as criminals, the effect is very bad for society. It doesn't really matter if you are pro- file-sharing, or anti-piracy. If we loose the mutual respect between citizens and law creating government, everyone will loose.

Kiro• 13 years ago

Swedish article with more details: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article16997376.ab

ninjin• 13 years ago

Swedish non-tabloid article with more details: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/fangelse-for-svartholm-war...

MattiasE• 13 years ago

For those who have not seen it yet, the movie about Pirate Bay and its founders is a pretty interesting watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTOKXCEwo_8

sebcat2• 13 years ago

Interesting side track: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Sweden In district court, there's one judge and three lay judges appointed by politicians. I've always found this strange.

_delirium• 13 years ago

I found an interesting article on that here: http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RIDP_721_0313

runarb2• 13 years ago

What is strange with that? This setup are quite common in Civil law[0]. I believe it roughly works the same way at least in the other Scandinavian countries and Germany to.

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)

Uchikoma2• 13 years ago

"appointed by politicians"?

Not in the Germany I live in

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenamtlicher_Richter

sebcat2• 13 years ago

They're lay people and tend to follow the professional judge. They are often times more biased than professional judges when it comes to high-morals (I have no data supporting this claim, but remember that these people want to judge). There's two levels of indirection from the people (they are elected by elected politicians).

I don't like it. The law is immutable in a trial and should be interpreted by a professional judge. The control mechanism preventing the judge from unfair interpretation should not be amateur, social conservative, middle age men participating in police interest groups on their spare time ("jäv", happened more than once)

Of course, no system is perfect.

rdl2• 13 years ago

I strongly prefer common to civil law, which makes the "find a place in the world with the most freedom" challenge harder (it pretty much limits to ex-British colonies, which win on common law, but are also closely affiliated with the US and thus don't work as well as a hedge against the US military-industrial-intelligence complex.)

caycep• 13 years ago

hacking and not "infringement"? is this like nailing Capone for "tax evasion" instead of the dozens of brutal gangland murders?

pathy5• 13 years ago

Drop the tinfoil hat.

He was found guilty of hacking and spreading personal information. It has nothing to do with TPB case. He hacked into Logica and later leaked protected personal information.

After the PRISM scandal I thought HN would be happy that people who steals and publishes (and possibly uses, though that is not proven in any way) personal information gets put behind bars.

Or are you suggesting that leaking personal identification numbers (that are secret/hidden) of cops, domestic abuse victims etc. is a good thing?

jessriedel2• 13 years ago

Your first sentence is totally unnecessary and detracts from the discussion.

belorn3• 13 years ago

Has any of the reporting sites a copy of the courts decision? Would prefer reading the actually source rather than third-party reporting.

subsystem• 13 years ago

If you can read swedish: http://minfil.org/W1fccfbdb8/gottfrid.pdf

belorn3• 13 years ago

Thank you. If I could give you more up votes, I would.

Reading through it, I find some clear difference between what is actually said in media/commenters, and what the police actually found. For example, the 10k records was not a list of people with hidden identity. it was a record of 10k people where some had hidden identity.

As an interesting side note... They have quite few bad spelling errors. I particularly like the "postskanningar" that they found.

Pirate Bay Founder Guilty of Hacking, Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

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