Swedish Pirate "Party" Launches Untraceable Internet Service

Ronald Bailey | August 15, 2006

RealTechNews is reporting:

Today, the Swedish Pirate Party launched a new Internet service that lets anybody send and receive files and information over the Internet without fear of being monitored or logged. In technical terms, such a network is called a "darknet". The service allows people to use an untraceable address in the darknet, where they cannot be personally identified.

"There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet," says Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate Party. "If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check. The right to exchange information in private is fundamental to the democratic society. Without a safe and convenient way of accessing the Internet anonymously, this right is rendered null and void."

Sounds pretty good to me.

Whole article here.

Comments

|8.15.06 @ 3:26PM|#

And who said that Pirates and Islamofascists would never work together? This sounds like an al Qaeda wet dream.

|8.15.06 @ 3:29PM|#

As if AQ didn't already have one set up.

Handsome Dan|8.15.06 @ 3:34PM|#

"If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check. The right to exchange information in private is fundamental to the democratic society. Without a safe and convenient way of accessing the Internet anonymously, this right is rendered null and void."

Isn't it great that we live in a world where this guy has to spell it all out like its some kind of bizarre, out-there idea? Privacy? Free exchange of information? What next - cats laying down with dogs!?!?!?!???

|8.15.06 @ 4:00PM|#

"Privacy? Free exchange of information?"

These things are too scary for the fragile post 9/11 America. ooooooohhhhh, the bad guys may use it.

Yeah, they have used and desire to continue using aircraft as a weapon. Should we stop making aircraft so the terrorist can't use them too? Hey, they took a car to the airport, maybe ban cars too. Wait, they wore clothes to conceal their evil tools, let's ban clothes!!!

If freedom is too risky for you, whoever you are then go live a place without it.

|8.15.06 @ 4:27PM|#

If freedom is too risky for you, whoever you are then go live a place without it.

That raises an interesting thought. Yeah, we Americans and Westerners in general are pretty risk adverse these days. But if certain people keep blowing us up and making us scared to, well, leave the house, the inevitable will occur. We will adapt.

Just a word of wisdom. Making the United States (and Europe, for that matter) less risk adverse and more willing to go on killing rampages is a bad idea. We may be decadent right now, but we can become a nation of Clint Eastwoods in a matter of hours. And Europe could go all Jean Reno and Sean Bean on you. Yeah.

|8.15.06 @ 4:27PM|#

Sure everyone wants free exchange of ideas and privacy, but can't it wait until after the War on Terror? I think once terror is safely eliminated, then we can enjoy our rights.

|8.15.06 @ 4:35PM|#

Is there anything not hilarious about the statment "once terror is safely eliminated"?

|8.15.06 @ 4:37PM|#

Is there anything not hilarious about the statment "once terror is safely eliminated"?

|8.15.06 @ 4:40PM|#

Sure everyone wants free exchange of ideas and privacy, but can't it wait until after the War on Terror? I think once terror is safely eliminated, then we can enjoy our rights.

What? You think the government is going to willingly give us our rights back after the "war on terror"?

Garth|8.15.06 @ 4:41PM|#

well, actually,

I will assume that you are being entirely tongue in cheek. If you are not, just remember: Oceana will always be at war with Eurasia.

|8.15.06 @ 4:41PM|#

well, actually,

Same goes for the government. Don't push us around. We're not feeble just yet. Though we may be short of breath during the revolution :)

|8.15.06 @ 4:41PM|#

"I think once terror is safely eliminated, then we can enjoy our rights."

The greatest fallacy of them all. Terror will never be eliminated. The evil doers have always existed. You must always be on guard, that will not change.

If the Bush administration claimed victory over terrorism he will want to keep all his little goodies in the name of preventing future attacks. Do you think that the NSA, law enforcement, and the such, will put away all the wiretapping equipment and domestic surveillance protocols when the war on terror is over?

If your willing to give up your freedom now, you may be doing it forever.

|8.15.06 @ 4:43PM|#

The whole thing is too good to be true. You get the following message when you go to the site:

Hi There!
We have been completely overwhelmed by the interest in our services. Whilst we are extremely happy about this, our vpn-servers aren't. Neither is our banking partner. Both are having an extremely hard time keeping up with the interest. This manifests itself in two ways:

Payments are denied for no apparent reason.
Performance on the vpn-servers isn't good enough.
We are working with our partners to solve these matters, but in the meantime we can only ask you to not loose faith - we'll fix the problems.

Thanks for your patience!

Relakks


I don't have a lot of faith that they will get their acts together.

|8.15.06 @ 4:44PM|#

Reading through Relakks' FAQs however, shows that under some circumstances, information can be revealed. Customer information such as account signup information can be handed over to authorities if necessary requirements are met such as if a user is convicted of jail time. Relakks also says that it will hand of traffic information if a customer is convicted of two years minimal jail time. According to the Pirate Party however "File sharing of music, films, and other forms of culture is where the surveillance of Internet addresses has attracted the most attention, largely because the entertainment industry has been so aggressive in suing Internet users for copyright infringement, suing college students and single mothers alike without concern."

|8.15.06 @ 5:17PM|#

You have to pay for the service? And they claim it's anonymous, guaranteed? Bullshit! If money changes hands, it can be traced.
Generally speaking, sending data across the Internet in a manner that nobody can decipher it, is no big problem and no big secret either. The best way to do this has so far been the Electronic Frontier Foundation's TOR.
With any other Darknet I've ever seen, the Achilles heel is between the requester and the entry point to the Net, i.e. the ISP can easily log connections and data. That's why our AG is busy hyping threats to the country and the children in order to get legislation passed to force the ISPs to log. Won't do much against terrorism, because some Middle Eastern ISP has no interest in turning over their logs to the FBI. After all, there have been web sites hosting vids of murder in progress with impunity.

|8.15.06 @ 5:20PM|#

If freedom is too risky for you, whoever you are then go live a place without it.

No, wait, don't get up. We'll deliver!

|8.15.06 @ 5:57PM|#

Clean Hands:
Brilliant how you blended spooging in your underpants and Al Qaeda. I suspected the righties have always had a strong sexual attraction to bin Laden. I wish dumbasses would exit the net altogether.

|8.15.06 @ 6:12PM|#

I'm going to wait for the ninjas to set up their service.

Pirates are good folks to have around in a scrap, but I've heard they will turn on each other for a bigger slice of the booty. Plus, they're plenty loud.

Something like this calls for a sneaky, sneaky ninja. From somewhere like, oh, let's say, Iceland.

|8.15.06 @ 6:18PM|#

If this darknet thing works, I'd sure like to send them a big sack of untraceable cash.

|8.15.06 @ 7:19PM|#

I'm surprised you're for this, Bailey. I'd assumed you'd be calling for us to bomb Sweden by now. And why not? If so much as one person uses this service to launch an attack on the US, then the average Swede will be more responsible for terrorism on US soil than the average Iraqi ever was.

|8.15.06 @ 9:41PM|#

This won't work. Much as I think privacy is important, we're always going to have someone patrolling the tubes.

Why? Because I think big business willl not get behind it. They need to be able to track their customers so to better launch ads at them.

Another reason: the children. If child molestors can surf in privacy there would be an explosion of anger directed to whomever was "greasing the tubes." That is to say, making the internet continue to function.

|8.15.06 @ 9:41PM|#

Yeah and let's take out where ever those traitors at nyt live!

|8.15.06 @ 10:25PM|#

The good part is that once a few governments have cracked dark networks for security reasons, they can't go and fuck it up by using the knowledge for something as petty as RIAA lawsuits.

Oh shit, I better throw in a few insincere platitudes about my wholehearted belief in the need to protect intellectual property, etc;)

(got a 55 gig download going right now...uh, just kidding!)

Ron Hardin|8.16.06 @ 7:07AM|#

I was reading about anonymizer services a decade ago, a string that ended when somebody subpoened their records, which for unknown reasons they kept.

Keeping records seems to be an irresistable urge in humans.

|8.16.06 @ 8:33AM|#

"...they can't go and fuck it up by using the knowledge for something as petty as RIAA lawsuits."
Wanna bet this is exactly what happens? Not only has the RIAA turned music from a handcrafted product into a mass produced widget, they've also dicked around so much with the laws of the US and, to a certain extent, the policies of WIPO, to turn ripped off CDs into a security issue.

|8.16.06 @ 10:56AM|#

I wonder how many people who are in favor of strong 2nd amendment rights based on the argument that we need guns to protect us from a tyrannical government would be against a "darknet" because it keeps the government from tracking terrorists, criminals, etc. I'm not saying there is anyone like that, but it's an interesting hypocrisy meter.

(for the record I support strong 2nd amendment rights and greater anonymity in internet use)