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Sweden's Watergate

Posted by kdawson on Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:15 PM
from the all's-fair-in-politics? dept.
Security Government Politics
An anonymous reader writes, "Sweden's ruling Social Democratic Party's internal network has been illegally accessed several hundred times over a period of several months. Party treasurer Tommy Ohlstroem describes the incident as "wide-scale and systematic." Computer security company Sentor's investigation has revealed intrusions originating from computers belonging to Sweden's Liberal Party, and with the upcoming election in only two weeks many commentators are already describing this as Sweden's Watergate (Swedish only). An employee of the Young Liberals has admitted to unauthorized access, but a series of mysterious coincidences in the form of exceptionally well timed public announcements by the Liberal Party suggests the involvement of more than one person."
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[+] Bad Password Allowed Swedish Watergate 248 comments
fredr1k writes "The Swedish Watergate reported earlier this week was possible because of the usage of terrible weak passwords (Swedish) and a not functional IT policy. The Swedish newspaper Göterborgs-Posten reports the source of the password was a partymember who's account was "sigge" with password "sigge" and was "stolen" in march this year. Seasoned Slashdot readers would call it "a-not-so-hard-to-crack-password". "
Offsite: Mysterious Coincidences (in Swedish)
Offsite: Sweden's Social Democratic Party
Offsite: Sweden's Liberal Partty
Offsite: Sentor
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  • saying 'Liberal' in Sweden is not the same as saying 'liberal' in the USA. Of the two major Swedish political parties, the liberals are the more right leaning. In the US however, both swedish parties however would be generally considered to be left of the Democrats.

    (Generally, I don't find terms like 'left' or 'right' helpful for a serious political discussion, but it will do for slashdot)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by grimJester (890090)
      To elaborate, in Sweden both 'conservative' and 'liberal' are considered right wing, with liberal = economy liberal = market forces know best and conservative = social conservative = think of the children.

      Right = anti-immigration, being tough on crime, corporate interests etc. Racism to keep the rabble happy while the rich suck them dry.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Per Wigren (5315)

        Right = anti-immigration, being tough on crime, corporate interests etc. Racism to keep the rabble happy while the rich suck them dry.

        I'm Swedish and I'm pretty leftist, but that is plain FUD.

        Anti-immigration and racism:
        It holds true to the extreme right-wing parties that are not in the Swedish Riksdag, such as Nationaldemokraterna (openly racist, pseudo-nazi party), Sverigedemokraterna (ultra-nationalists) and such, but not the etablished right-wing parties. If you count HBQT-intolerance (homo/bi/queer/tra

    • Well, that is not exactly true... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mindjiver (71) on Monday September 04 2006, @12:59PM (#16038856)
      The largest party in sweden would be the social democrats, the second largest party are Moderaterna, the liberal party would be the third largest. And your placement of the parties on an american left-right-scale is not entirely true either.

      - Social Democrates, pragmatic power party with an emphasis on a large welfare state and a regulated labour market.
      - Moderates, previously somewhat conservative that now have triangulated the social democrates more or less totally.
      - Peoples Party - Liberals, Social-liberal party that now could be placed to the right of the moderates.

      Since there are seven major parties in sweden instead of two large coalitions like in the United States I find it hard to compare them to either the democrats or the republicans. For example it is hard to find any great amount protectionism in any of the parties platforms, but all favour a welfare state with socialized medicine for example. So you are over-simplifying things a bit too much! :)
      • The reason why you cannot compare the parties in Sweden with the Democrats and the Republicans is that the social democrats is a party of the workers movement (their name is actually "the workers party social democrats"). The basis of the social democratic party is in the peoples movements (tennants associations, tradeunions, cooperative enterprises, temperance movement, student unions, the peoples education movement, etc.), which consists of millions of people and are controlled by the social democrats (th

      • My fellow parent swede is obviously correct, there is no direct correlation to the Rep's and the Dem's of the United States, mostly because the entire swedish political spectrum is shifted very much to the left. However, to clarify for our american friends, there are indeed two political "blocks", the red parties (the lefties) and the blue parties (the righties, that is the colours are reversed compared to in the states). The left consists of the Social Democrats, the Left-party and the Environmental (gree

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by SirBruce (679714)
          The association of Red=Republican and Blue=Democrat in the states is actually a rather recent development. In the past, different media organizations used red and blue as they saw fit; quite often, they were swapped. Only with the Bush/Gore race in 2000 and the phrase "Red State America" has the color association become standardized.

          Bruce

    • Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Opie812 (582663) on Monday September 04 2006, @01:28PM (#16039010)
      saying 'Liberal' in Sweden is not the same as saying 'liberal' in the USA.

      I'm no expert, but I'd suggest that the United States is the only country in the world where 'liberal' is a derogatory term.
    • To be fair are they any true leftist parties anywhere in western democracy? And I'm talking powerfull parties either in government or opposition. There are many that claim to be but as soon as they get in power the ideals that got them elected seem to dissapear and they follow exactly the same policy as a 'right wing' party.
      • There's plenty of leftist parties in western democracy, and some right wing ones. The leftist ones might not enforce personal freedoms as well as they should, but the same is true of the right wing parties and reduced spending/free market. So, they both stick to regulating more in their area (economical/personal), but they begin regulating the other area too.
        • That's just plain wrong. Neither the Left party nor the Environmental party have communist ideals, and both of them believe in private companies. Just because they believe in higher taxes and a generous welfare state does not make them communist. It's a complete lie, there is not an ounce of truth in what you are saying.
    • It depends what you mean... for example, G. W. Bush proposed a plan to allow people in the U.S. to invest some of their social security deductions... this was characterized as some sort of Right Wing Plot to Impoverish Our Seniors by the left in the U.S. ... At the same time, Bush's plan was largely based on a plan in Sweden that had support from the Social Democrats (which should supposedly be left of U.S. Democrats).

      So you have the left wing in the United States, accusing the right wing of the United Stat
      • Bush's social security reform was shot down mearly because it was "Bush's social security reform" It was nothing but good for a broken system. You even see Democrats cheering that they shot it down. Not that they fixed anything just that they were able to make it not pass out of pure spite for GWB. With all the crap that GWB does, he has one decent plan and the Dems shot it down. No I'm not bitter.

    • "Liberal" really means essentially "of/for/from/with freedom", the reason "liberal" and "liberty" sound so similar. It usually is in reference to some existing/previous condition of constraint. "Trade liberalism" means unregulated trade. "Liberal" as in socialism or just America's government mediation of economics or society means freedom from oppression generally. Ironically many people think that kind of freedom is produced by less freedom to oppress, which often translates to just less freedom when the b
    • ...a Swedish Liberal is more like a Canadian Liberal, which is to say that a Liberal doesn't really have any concrete principles except to say and do whatever might help them achieve and maintain power ;-)

      As others have observerd here, politics outside the US is far more complicated than "left and right" (hell, even US politics has more dimension than that, though the fact that only two parties have power simplifies things). Even the Canadian landscape is far different politically and in some ways mirrors
      • You are correct. Folkpartiet liberalerna are not one of the two major parties. My bad, Feel free to mod down my GP post :-)

        • Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Interesting)

          by DaveRexel (887813) on Monday September 04 2006, @02:45PM (#16039367) Homepage Journal
          No need for downmodding, the "Folkpartiet liberalerna are not one of the two major parties" as it's true that they belong very firmly to a grouped entity that forms the right-wing coalition in Swedish politics.

          The largest party in the opposing coalition, that is "Socialdemokraterna" is the hackee and this smaller party in the other block is the hacker, but, living in Sweden, my suspicions run deeper than this:

          *- A focus on hacking so the governors can impose higher surveillance.
                Remember the ruling Swedish coalition, with the Socialdemokraterna in the leadership;
                Taking orders from Hollywood and confiscating the Pirate Bay servers...

          *- A very Swedish joke, i.e. an easily exposed attempt
                - that shows the oppositions lack of IT-skills
                    (That's a head-shot in the pre-election posturing IMHO)

          *- This breach is old news, why expose it now?

          *- Profit!! [Sorry, can't ever make a list without Profit! at the end ;-) ]

      • ... center-right and has a "strong ideological commitment to a free-market economy combined with support for comprehensive social welfare programs." That sounds pretty much like the Dem's in the US ...


        The *centrist* Democrats. The left "liberal" wing of the Democratic party was against NAFTA and FTAA.

          • Adults realize that there are shades of gray in life and you can disagree without being "against" anyone.

            Wait, wouldn't that brand all of the GOP-supporter GWBush backers "immature whinny little fuckheads"?

      • Richard Nixon isn't nearly as scary as Bush. I guess when someone compares some political abuse to Bush you'll claim the same about Bush. Do you complain the same way when people bring up Hoover?
        • The reference to Richard Nixon was because of the Watergate reference. Nixon will always hold a special place in the American political psyche as the first president to resign from the office. As for Bush, he'll be another forgotten president just like Hoover.
          • Heh, you wish. I saw a really funny bumper sticker on a recent-model Volvo sedan when driving through the Seattle area recently. It said:

            I miss Nixon.

            P.S. Being in Canada, so far, I miss Joe Clarke and Trudeau. The Conservatives should worry about me thinking that I miss Mulroney.
      • George Bush(es), Thatcher, Reagan all espouse(d) a classicly liberal economics - belief in unfettered the free market economy.

        The current US Government (ie: George Bush) is about as protectionist as they come...

  • As always, Germany is just a step ahead... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DoktorTomoe (643004) on Monday September 04 2006, @12:34PM (#16038727)
    ... over here, not members of opposing parties are opening the respective other boxes, but email is illegaly read by members of the own conservative party CDU without consent... See http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/77680 [heise.de] for further information (or Googlelated [google.com])

  • Seems like a borrowed idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by A beautiful mind (821714) on Monday September 04 2006, @12:35PM (#16038732)
    Just before 2006's Hungarian Parliamentary Election, the Hungarian Socialist Party accused the Alliance of Young Democrats with accessing the private server of theirs. The "proof" was a screenshot from a Win2003 server log showing the host belonging to the party. The accused party countered by showing proof that their internal site was systematically accessed by the other party, also showing logs.

    The internal server of the Socialist Party turned out to be a password protected http server containing some upcoming promotional campaign pictures, with some trivial password like hsp:redflower. The pass somehow leaked and thousands of other people viewed it, myself included, before it became a "scandal" and "proof of hacking" and "ServerGate".

    I hope the swedish parties are more grown up than to play stupid games like that and I hope the swedish public is more educated than the hungarian, so that they can tell if nothing extraordinarily happened, just some PR hype..
    • Addendum: The Hungarian Socialist Party is used to be called the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (the state party before the fall of the iron curtain), before it got "unfashionable". They are socialist only in their name, in reality they lean towards serving the interests of corporations and the wealthy.

      The Alliance of Young Democrats is just a name, the party started in 1988 in a college. They have been the main government party before and they are the main opposition party now. They cannot said to be

    • I hope the swedish parties are more grown up than to play stupid games like that and I hope the swedish public is more educated than the hungarian, so that they can tell if nothing extraordinarily happened, just some PR hype.

      A little from column A and a little from column B, the username and password used to illegally access the site were much too simple, but the site does contain extremely sensitive information such as classified reports from the security police. Overall I think it is fair to say that

    • The person from the liberal youth party has already come forward with this so it's known it happened.

      He claims in turn that he got the user credentials (well, just really needed a user name because the password was the same :-p) from this targetted socialist party's youth party, SSU. This was flat out denied by them. So right now it's pretty much impossible who of them is lying, but one of them are anyway. If SSU indeed handed out this info (sounds strange given it's for their own party, but who knows, it c
      • Of course not. But the order of the offense is even below viewing a porn site with borrowed passwords, on the level of viewing a link to a misconfigured site showing not-to-be-public-but-still-out-there material.

        It is not a hack attack and most certainly not a -gate scandal.

  • Many misleading statements (Score:5, Informative)

    by a_n_d_e_r_s (136412) on Monday September 04 2006, @12:41PM (#16038760) Homepage Journal
    1, 84 times not hundred of times.

    2. If was done by ONE member of the LUF - not the Liberal Party - LUF is the youth organisations associated with the Liberal Party.

    3. He did it by trying to login using the same password as the username and other simple methods - and cracked 3 accounts. Socialist party had not a very secure system.

    4. The journalist claims ha was approached by a member of the liberal party who showed him how to accces the webbsite on a cyber cafe. That member claimed that many within the Liberal party know about it. Even though as far is known only 1(one) person did know about it.

    5. The journalist was/is a active member of the Socialist party youth section.

    6. The socialist party has know about this break-in for some time.

    7. The disclosure was made the same night as the major candidate to take over as prime minister was on TV being questioned - the leader of the Moderate party. (swedish right wing - but more like US democrats)

    9. The Socialistic party has before had an politician send emails pretending to be the Moderate party leader to journalists - trying to make it sound like the party leader was an idiot - and the socialist party member got fired in a scandal.

    There is an election this month in Sweden. The alleged crime was committed last year and until mars this year but not publicly known until now just before the election.

    You take your pick of who has done most to use this to win the election.

    • 3. He did it by trying to login using the same password as the username and other simple methods - and cracked 3 accounts. Socialist party had not a very secure system.

      Indeed. But how is that relevant? Is breaking and entering less of a crime if the key was found under the door mat?

    • 9. The Socialistic party has before had an politician send emails pretending to be the Moderate party leader to journalists

      I believe this information is incorrect. The emailer in question did not impersonate the moderate party leader. He emailed anonymous slander to journalists.

      Not that I care too much, but since you titled your post "Many misleading statements" and did get "5 Informative" for it...

  • I saw this thread's title "Sweden's Watergate" right after reading "Debian Kicks Jörg Schilling"; so I naturally assumed it was a dupe.

  • Bad Joke Thread (Score:4, Funny)

    by ettlz (639203) on Monday September 04 2006, @01:17PM (#16038941) Homepage Journal

    Hee bor shteer, bom bor shteer doo,
    A dish-pi-doo.
    Bor bor shteer, lum bor shteer doo,
    Bork! Bork! Bork!

    Shteer!

    Sheeba shleeba goo, dish mooga hacken PC. Ung gish libo hacken PC, mish gee looder bouffer ooverfloo. Gee pish der bouffer ooverfloo mish der leety scripty in der shellcode mik joo inken Intel assoumbler. Fish, ung gish leeber scannen porten mooga funky nmap, bish der open port shif lish der foorwoll. Dish skel loder mish der leety scripty, spur gifor der bouffer ooverfloo, ung desh ooger morgen der stackenschmoosher! Ung gesh, mooga dish spur lorger hacken PC!

  • A bit OT, but since we're on the Swedish elections (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zarhan (415465) on Monday September 04 2006, @03:00PM (#16039452)
    ...how is the Pirate Party (www.piratpartiet.se) coming out in the polls recently? Any swedes who could tell us?

    • While I haven't seen any recent polls on them specifically, they will almost certainly have no impact whatsoever. To get a seat in parliament, you need atleast 4% of the popular vote (this is to weed out small, very fringe parties, such as nazis and pirates ;) and in the last election, around 5.3 million people voted. 4% of 5.3 million is 212000 votes. They have no chance in hell of getting that many.

      Much more interesting are two other tiny parties, FI (feministic initiative) and a party that's called the

  • CBS News report on Watergate from 1972-06-19.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=I28mQEVJQso [youtube.com]
  • What's scary isn't that someone now identified managed to enter their internal network containing very sensitive information from the Swedish security police about politican protection, but that said network had a user with maximum privilegies with his password the same as his username... :-p And it was not changed at a minimum for a half year period. The socialist party shouldn't just worry about this now -- at least the liberal youth party has come forward with this and the person is now identified -- but
    • Ikea [jolt.co.uk] is the source of mistrust of sweden for me.
      • [blockquote]Ikea is the source of mistrust of sweden for me.[/blockquote] And vikings! They don't get nearly as much attention as pirates and ninjas, but they are pretty sneeky!

    • yeah except that in the case "liberals" are the most right-wing, they'd be equivalent to US' GOP, except that Sweden's politics (and all of Europe's politics in fact) have a gravity center much farther "left" than the US'.

      Oh wait, maybe that was your point?

    • I think the issue here is not the dirty tricks per se, but trying to cover those up. Nixon and Clinton suffered the consequences of their lies, while Reagan was forgiven since he admitted the deed and said he was sorry before the coverup grew big enough to bite him in the arse.

    • Re:It's probably not close to Watergate (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! (33014) on Monday September 04 2006, @01:58PM (#16039154) Homepage Journal
      The enemies list and the dirty tricks were an offense against the spirit of democracy, but as you say that wasn't Watergate.

      The break in at the Watergate was not most of the Watergate story, although it was the germ from which the scandal of Watergate grew. It was, as you say, just dirty tricks.

      What Watergate was about was about the Nixon administration trying to cover up the Watergate break in, and in the course of doing so using the powers of the Presidency to undermine the law. Every American has been taught: the powers of the President are granted to uphold the law and defend the nation. It is obvious to all but the most partisan Americans that when a President uses his powers to undermine the law, it is an abomination that strikes at the foundation of our nation's identity.

      The single act that fatally poisoned the Nixon presidency was when he fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, for getting too close to the truth. When he was fired, he said this: "Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." It was a ringing endorsement of the American people, and a throwing down of the guantlet in the court of public opinion. My mother-in-law was a Harvard Law School secretary for many years, and Archibald Cox was one of "her" professors. During the Iran Contra scandal, he remarked to her that it was unlikely that much would come of it, because when a President decides to break the law, there is really no practical way to stop him, unless the American people rise up against him. In Watergate, American public opinion rose up agains the President. In Iran Contra, it may have disagreed with him, but it did not rise up as a whole.

      Over the many years I've been following politics, one thing has become very clear: democracy doesn't ensure that politicians pursue wise or virtuous policies. Vietnam, the Watergate coverup, Iran-Contra, the second Iraw War; no practical democratic system can prevent such misadventures from starting.

      The great virtue of democracy lies not in preventing folly, but in the inevitability of people doing collectively what individuals who have identified themselves with a disasterous plan seldom can: they change their mind.

      I like to remember this when prospects for my country look bleak, so that I can never be totally discouraged. Over time, there are truths that are too large and connected to too many lives to be hidden. Inevitably, the scales fall from the people's eyes, and when that day comes it is a day of reckoning for politicians who pursue the Big Lie. It does not prevent untold harm from befalling; indeed it is only great harm that brings this about. But as long as there is any memory of democracy, any shred of the democratic spirit left in us, we will exercise the greatest democratic right of all: throwing the bums out.
    • And to be quite frank. I don't consider "Expressen" a newspaper. They represent the "Fox News" of Swedish papers, although without the political bias. (They are not so much biased as fucking stupid.)

      They are more concerned about which wannabe star got drunk in a pub for other sad wannabes than actual news. It's sad really, it used to be a world-class photojournalism paper.

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