Sweden's Watergate 179
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."
Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Insightful)
(Generally, I don't find terms like 'left' or 'right' helpful for a serious political discussion, but it will do for slashdot)
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Right = anti-immigration, being tough on crime, corporate interests etc. Racism to keep the rabble happy while the rich suck them dry.
Re: (Score:1)
I'll actually vote for a left wing party september 17, but I can not stand see such nonsen
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re: (Score:1)
Well, that is not exactly true... (Score:5, Informative)
- 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!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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)
Bruce
Re: (Score:1)
George Bush(es), Thatcher, Reagan all espouse(d) a classicly liberal economics - belief in unfettered the free market economy. Socially they may be highly conservative...
Chec out http://www.politicalcompass.org/ [politicalcompass.org] for a new way of looking at ideas of left/right/liberal/conservative.Re: (Score:2)
The current US Government (ie: George Bush) is about as protectionist as they come...
Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Funny)
*sigh*
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
While small 'l' liberal relates to liberal and free thinkers, people who are far more likely to believe in social democracy (again ignore political party labelling abuses), that is, responsible government is about striving to achie
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I did know that, because as it happends, I am not an idiot. The left party changed their name for a reason, they stopped advocating communist ideas. The fact thay you think someone is communist because they want public schools, hospitals and healthcare shows that you have no idea whatsoever what communism is. Having a large welfare state is not communism. Making sure that everyone can recieve the most basic needs from the government, an education, healthcare from the best healthcare system in the world
Re: (Score:2)
Not true. They stopped calling themselves communists because they found that doing that would allow them to gain a large chunk of the leftmost votes from the Social Democrats. They were indeed correct about that. When they called themselves communists, they just barely got 4% of the vote (the level required to stay in parliament). Since the change, they have more or less doubled in size.
Just last year, the party lea
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So you have the left wing in the United States, accusing the right wing of the United Stat
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, from what the article suggests... (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re: (Score:2)
So, in other words you reckon they're like the British "New Labour"...
Re: (Score:2)
I see nothing wrong with that, considering it wasn't even there until 1979 or so. We had a perfectly decent secular national anthem, and some idiots had to ruin it.
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously are ignorant of Canadian history. "O Canada", our current official national anthem, was originally written in French, and no less tha FOUR different English versions were in common use (dubbed the Richardson, McCulloh, Buchan and the Weir versions--named after the author of the lyrics for each). ALL but one--the popular Weir version--mentioned "God" at least once in the first verse, and even the Weir version men
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Explanation of 'swedish liberal' (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re: (Score:1)
Th is not applicable as I think they are even more malleable by corporate powers than the Socialdemokraterna who have long abandoned their duties to the workers.
As a guesture of extreme dissatisfatction with the present political lineup in Sweden my vote would probablt go to the Pirate Party as a big FU to the ptitful array of parties and policies that is apparent just now.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The *centrist* Democrats. The left "liberal" wing of the Democratic party was against NAFTA and FTAA.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, wouldn't that brand all of the GOP-supporter GWBush backers "immature whinny little fuckheads"?
As always, Germany is just a step ahead... (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like a borrowed idea (Score:5, Interesting)
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..
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
He claims in turn that he got the user credentials (well, just really needed a user name because the password was the same
Re: (Score:2)
It is not a hack attack and most certainly not a -gate scandal.
Many misleading statements (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
The "break in" was basically the use of a username and password they had gotten from one of the Socialist Democrat employees... Not the 1337-ass hacking one might expect!
Re: (Score:1)
> the Socialist Democrat employees... Not the 1337-ass hacking one might expect!
Social engineering is a very well known way to hack into a system. Of course, this
type of attack is beyond the average script kiddie that barely is able to download
a script they don't understand.
Social engineering is the best way to hack... (Score:1)
Warning to the feeble-minded : "Do not attempt this on your bored and lonely office worker of indiscriminate sex"
Thank you for your kind attention, please complete the following form to confirm your intelligence is above average.
http://www.click.here.to.assert/your.intelligence [here.to.assert]
Re: (Score:1)
There are two people who have confessed, so far.
Both of them belong to the youth organization, one of them is press secretary on the national level. In Sweden the youth organizations play an important role in the election campaign, and "youth" is anyone under 40. This guy works close to the party leader, and even closer to other minister wannabies.
The logins were made from one IP, which can be tied to this guy, 84 times until March. They continued after that, but not from tracable IPs (so the guy
Re: (Score:1)
The fact is that an _employee_ of a party (Folkpartiet) hacked into their
_political opponents_ networks to spy upon them, and that was done many times
over several months.
Your comments about "misleading statements" are nothing but a deception to draw
the attention away from the above fact and start slandering the reporter.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But how is that relevant? Is breaking and entering less of a crime if the key was found under the door mat?
Re: (Score:2)
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...
New editor! (Score:2)
Oops, sorry - NOT a dupe (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
And you did this when "Jörg Schilling" isn't even a Swedish name. What the hell they are all the same right?
oblig (Score:1)
Noone cares (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Bad Joke Thread (Score:4, Funny)
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!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
I'm laughing so the tears flood the keyboard here..!
"Fish, ung gish leeber scannen porten mooga funky nmap, bish der open port shif lish der foorwoll."
A fresh mix between a drunk dutch, the swedish chef and Jar-Jar.
Re: (Score:2)
That's fightin' talk!
Translation of story (Score:1)
According to today's industry willed Baylan placed forward a report about the school during the weekend as gone. Last Saturday the done party leader Lars Leijonborg and Minister for Schools and Adult Education challenging clean Jan Björk
Has to be said... (Score:1)
Sweden's Watergate? Then we can expect... (Score:1, Flamebait)
A bit OT, but since we're on the Swedish elections (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A bit OT, but since we're on the Swedish electi (Score:3, Informative)
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
Yet another (Score:1)
hands up!
CBS News video report on Watergate (Score:2)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=I28mQEVJQso [youtube.com]
What's scary... (Score:2)
Trivial Password (Score:2)
protected by username/password. In this case one of the persons with
access to sensitive information had choosen password exactly equal to
his username.
In the corporate world this kind of passwords is a big no no and would
be considerd reckless. The Swedish Social Democrats is now making a big
deal out of an allmost criminal negligance by their own people.
Could this be due to their unfavourable opinion polls close to the
election on the 17th th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
If you think the blonde race has it tough, try being a bald-American.
Re: (Score:2)
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?
Re: (Score:1)
> GOP, except that Sweden's politics (and all of Europe's politics in fact) have a gravity
> center much farther "left" than the US'.
In USA, anything to the left of Atila the Hun is a raving liberal
Re: (Score:1)
Oh BTW (if anyone still reads) who are liberal-conservatives then?
-------Attila the Late
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's probably not close to Watergate (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:1)
when republicans broke in to democratic computers to read strategy documents.
'broke in' == 'accessed unsecured server'
Also note the files downloaded were embarrassing to the democrates, revealing the depths of their cynicism to the press. Calling it hacking was a distraction which the partisanly liberal elements of the American press were happy to latch onto (and hence ignore the content the democrates had 'chosen to share').
The whole story makes an excellent litmus test for your media sources. Biase
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, wait, just another case of keyboard before brain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
100% Offtopic
TrollMods think repeating Watergate in DC is offtopic to repeating it in Sweden.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There were no WMD. And those inspectors you have the gall to mention also said there were no WMD.
But "morality" is your virgin priest's business. The legal penalty for lying about a blowjob is... acquittal in the Senate. The legal penalty for lying us into invading Iraq is... nothing, when Republicans run Congress.
You people are disgus
Re: (Score:2)
And don't give me any of that crap about "Bush had bad intelligence" (unless you mean "Bush is stupid"). No on
Re: (Score:2)
My charge was that Bush lied us into invading Iraq. Spin that however you want, your boy lied us into Iraq.
Where's the WMD?
And as long as you're going to fly all over the map with your strawmen and lies, WHERE'S OSAMA?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm secular all right.
And YOU ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO HELL. You can argue about it with Saddam forever.
Re: (Score:2)