My Favorite Hackers The short list for which aspiring hackers strive.

As a self-proclaimed hacker, who means you no harm, I stand on the shoulders of giants. The following people have set the standard for hacking and have given all of us newbies something to the strive for. These are some of the Great Ones, the ones we admire, emulate. These are my favs.

1. Kevin Mitnick

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. This guy was the top hacker in the world for a good part of the late 70s and early 80s. He was one of the first, and in his time, gave the pre-silicon valley tech bigwigs a good shakedown. He broke into systems owned by Sun Microsystems, IBM, DEC, Motorola, and even managed (allegedly) to wiretap FBI conversations. He did time for it, but now works as a security consultant. Though most hackers today consider his technical knowledge to be archaic, he has one of the sharpest minds in social engineering even today.

WATCH VIDEO: Darren Kitchen, hacker and host of tech show Hak5, says why hacking isn't the same thing as cyber crime.

2. Fyodor

Fyodor, aka Gordon Lyon, gave us hackers one of our greatest tools. NMAP. NMAP is a powerful piece of software that lets us analyze the topography of any given network. With a quick nmap session, we can tell what Operating System is running on a given machine or set of machines, we can tell what services are running on the network, and we can tell what IP Addresses are active or inactive within any given network, among an infinite number of other functions. NMAP is indispensible and hackers would be virtually shooting in the dark without it. Today, Fyodor is responsible for overseeing the Honeynet Project, a distributed computing project that uses false open access points in a network (honeypots), to gather data regarding intrusion attempts on networks all over the world.

3. Michal Zalewski

Michal is currently in the employ of Google as a security researcher, but has been active in the hacker community since the early 90s as someone known for finding vulnerabilities where no one else could. His knowledge of web browser security is unparalleled.

4. Eric Corley

Eric founded the H.O.P.E. hacker conference as well as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a quarterly magazine about hacker culture. He's been an active member in the community since the 80s.

5. Solar Designer

Solar, aka Alexander Peslyak, is a Russian hacker responsible for the Openwall GNU/Linux project. Openwall is a Security-hardened Linux distribution meant for servers. In addition to his responsibilities with Openwall, he has been responsible for some of the most influential exploits within the Open Source community.

6. Robin Wood

Robin may be new to the scene, but he's definitely been talked about. You might remember me mentioning man-in-the-middle attacks and a piece of firmware called Jasager? Well, that's his baby. He wrote it and designed it. The man is a genius with anything wireless. Jasager's popularity though, is owed largely to the next name on the list.

7. Darren Kitchen

Darren is the host of Hak5, a web show dedicated to information security and generally making electronic devices do things they weren't intended to do. The show is hosted by Darren, Shannon Morse (aka Snubs) and Matt Lestock. Darren is to our community what Flava Flav was to Public Enemy, only, with more talent and without the myriad drug addictions. He always has his ear to the ground and always knows what's going on in the scene.

The prestigious Wall Street Journal expose passwords in plaintext CEO members

Business News & Financial News – The Wall Street Journal is the place to Traffic Rank 88 in U.S., by Alexa.
“WSJ online coverage of breaking news and current headlines from the U.S. and around the world. Top stories, photos, videos, detailed analysis” …and a big SQL Injection. A secured bad parameter allows access to databases on the server.
In the first picture we can see MySQL server version, available databases, as well as a very serious mistake. Not only is the website vulnerable to SQL injection but it also allows load_file to be executed making it very dangerous because with a little patience, the writable directory can be found and injection of malicious code we get command line access with Which we can do virtualy anything we want with the website: Upload phpshells, redirects, infection PAGES WITH TROJAN DROPPERS, even deface the whole website.

In the second picture we see a more serious problem. One of the users (ffi2009uk) is % the host and NOTHING in the password. This means that from any IP we can connect to MySQL server on his account without any password. Unbelievable !!!

In the next picture we have personal data, address, phone number of the members of the press.

The penultimate picture we can see how CEO members passwords are stored in clear text !!! The list of members whose password has been exposed is diverse, starting from presidents and executives of corporations to the senators.

We are not surprised nor that even the Admin password, the chief account is stored in clear text !!!

Organisations still failing on IT innovations

IT innovation is becoming more central to organisations' growth plans, but many projects are still missing their targets, according to new research released today by global consultancy AT Kearney.
The study found that, although 84 per cent of C-level executives believe that innovative IT projects are key to a successful business strategy, they think that investment in these projects misses target levels by more than 75 per cent.
Farhan Mirza, principal at AT Kearney, argued that IT leaders need to free up extra money for IT innovation by outsourcing operational tasks, and giving more responsibility to end users for the day-to-day running of their systems.
"Everyone talks about innovation, but money is not being put aside for these projects because it gets used on operational fire-fighting," he said.
"IT departments need to pull back and think about automating and outsourcing more. The budget you're releasing will then allow you to do the interesting work everyone in IT really wants to do."
The AT Kearney study highlighted six areas crucial to successful IT innovation, including balancing IT leadership with business partnerships, integrating products and services with back-office IT and collaborating better with customers, employers and suppliers.
The firm also advised IT leaders to place IT initiatives and investment targets under a single umbrella to give innovation the investment it needs.

Finnish Emissions Dropped Below Kyoto Level in '08

And now for some good news: Finland's greenhouse gas emissions in 2008 dropped by 10 percent compared with the year before, reports Statistics Finland. That exceeds its Kyoto Protocol 'assigned amount' commitment by 1.2 percent.

Last year marked the beginning of the official five-year commitment period for industrialized countries that signed the pact, including most of Europe as well as North America and Japan.
By far Finland's biggest producer of greenhouse gases is the energy sector, which accounts for three-quarters of emissions. Its greenhouse gas output fell by 13 percent last year compared to 2007. The largest drop within this sector was the energy industry itself, which posted a dramatic 21 percent reduction. Emissions from energy production within the industrial and construction sectors were down by six percent.
Gasses produced by the Finnish energy sector fluctuate significantly from year to year, impacted by consumption and availability of hydroelectric power -- both of which are in turn affected by the weather -- as well as the level of electricity imports.
In Finland, agriculture and forestry act as a net sink, i.e. removals from atmosphere exceed emissions. Their ability to absorb carbon rose by 15 percent. The key factor in this was tree growth, as logging dropped significantly from the previous year.
The waste sector cut its emissions by seven percent. Compared with 1990, the benchmark year for the Kyoto treaty, it has slashed its greenhouse gas output by 45 percent. The most effective tool for doing this has been capturing landfill gases such as methane, which are being used to generate heating in some Finnish towns.
Transport emissions declined for the first time this century, edging down by four percent.
On the flipside, emissions from industrial processes grew by five percent.

Female Pastors often Harassed by Parishioners

Over half of the female pastors in the capital region say they have been recipients of offensive sexual advances, according to a survey by the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church’s news website, Pod.fi.

About one-fifth of the female pastors in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa responded to the survey in November.

The most common type of harassment was inappropriate conversations. However, some congregates have shown up unwanted at a female pastor's home, according to Marina Tolonen, the industrial safety officer of Parish Union of Helsinki.

She says this type of harassment is particularly distressing because pastors cannot fire their parishioners.

”You can’t really ban them from coming to church events. Of course, security can be amplified in situations. For instance, guards in civilian clothes could be there ready to help if need be,” Tolonen told YLE.

The Church Council says it is aware of the problem. Other church workers as well have experienced harassment, says Pekka Huokuna, a council member.

”Church employees work in very different types of situations. Quite often they are working with people who have all kinds of problems,” he says.

Huokuna says workers should confide in others about their experiences. He adds that older workers may have had similar experiences and could offer help.

Setting limits

Pastor Eeva-Liisa Hurmerinta of the Kallio Parish in Helsinki has worked as a pastor for 20 years. She says she’s been harassed just a few times.

She adds that if a parishioner wants to talk about sex, pastors must set up boundaries.

”I could imagine that a young pastor in a new area would be embarrassed by these types of parishioners. With experience, one learns how to handle these types of situations and how to direct the conversation,” she says.

Progress Reported in Airport Dispute; More Flights Cancelled

The Finnish Aviation Union and the staff services company Barona reported progress on Thursday evening in the dispute over luggage handling at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. However, Finnair is expected to cancel as many as 13 flights on Friday as the two sides continue to bargain.

On Thursday, the two sides said that nearly all of their disagreements had been ironed out. The remaining disagreement was over a dismissal clause in the contracts of employees who were suddenly transferred from Finnair to Barona on Monday. The latter insists they will be guaranteed the same rights and benefits as when they worked for Finnair. However employees are sceptical, fearing for their job security.
Meanwhile the backlog of unprocessed baggage at the airport has risen to around 10,000 pieces.
Since late Wednesday, some have been moved to a warehouse two kilometres from Finnair's Terminal 2. From there, they are to be delivered individually to their owners. Finnair estimates that it will take several days after the walkout ends before the suitcases are all returned.
Operations at Terminal 1 are reported to be normal. This terminal is used by Blue1, SAS, Lufthansa and other airlines.
The national air carrier -- which insists it is not a party to the dispute -- has been losing nearly five million euros a day due to cancelled flights and other problems.
As the walkout by baggage handlers continued into its fourth day on Thursday, the financially-strapped Finnair axed more than 20 flights, for a total of at least 80 this week.
Airport Walkout Day Four; 20 Flights Cancelled Thursday

Finnish prison cells violate human rights…

Recently appointed parliamentary ombudsman Petri Jääskeläinen says prisons cells without toilet facilities are shameful. Jääskeläinen, who starts his new job on January 1st, had harsh words about Finnish prisons.

Finnish prisons have some 400 dry cells, or cells without toilet facilities. Prisoners are forced to use a bucket to relieve themselves. Correctional facilities in Kuopio, Mikkeli, Konnunsuo, Hämeenlinna and Helsinki have dry cells. The Hämeenlinna women’s prison alone has 84 dry cells.
Violation of human rights
Jääskeläinen says prison cells without toile facilities are a violation of human rights.
”The European Court of Human Rights considers dry cells to be humiliating. It is especially deplorable when several prisoners share the same cell. They are forced to relieve themselves in front of one another,” he says.
Several other parliamentary ombudsmen and international monitoring bodies have criticised Finland’s prisons for years.
”Abolishing these types of cells would be in accordance with the international human rights standard for the treatment of prisoners. Finland must finally address this matter,” he says.
Compensation for suffering?
Because the issue of toilets is a question of human rights, prisoners could be paid some sort of compensation.
“We already compensate for some offences. For each day spent in prison without just cause, a prisoner is paid 100 euros,” he says.
”If the government would have to pay prisoners compensation of say 50 euros per night spent in a dry cell, I think that those types of cells would disappear quite quickly.”

Tiger Woods says he let family down…

Like a tricky downhill putt, the Tiger Woods story keeps rolling along, gaining momentum with each new turn.

The latest developments emerged Wednesday with an US Weekly report that linked him to yet another alleged mistress and the release of a voice mail that Woods allegedly left on her phone.

The megastar golfer -- known for zealously guarding his privacy -- posted a lengthy statement on his website, apologizing to fans for his "transgressions" and asking that he be allowed to deal with the situation "behind closed doors."

As the media frenzy surrounding him approaches the end of its first full week, a new question arises: When does it all end?

Or, as some media experts and ethicists are asking, when should it end?

"I think that people are starting to understand this is probably a decent guy and he's having trouble in his marriage," said David Rosen, an author and culture critic. "And it isn't anybody's business."

As a news story, Woods represents the perfect storm, an immensely successful athlete with a pretty blond wife who built himself into a marketing juggernaut, becoming the spokesman for cars, razors and clothing.

Then his squeaky-clean image bumped up against a tabloid story about an extramarital affair followed by an incident in which, leaving his home late at night, he ran his car over a fire hydrant and smashed into a neighbor's tree.

Woods has always controlled his image, deciding when and where to face reporters, rarely granting one-on-one interviews. Toward that end, he withdrew from a tournament he was supposed to host in Thousand Oaks this week.

But he has entered new territory, the world of 24-hour cable and Internet blogs that have been churning out speculation about indiscretions and an argument with his wife, allegations that have found their way into more traditional media.

As Thomas Cooper, a professor of media ethics at Emerson College in Boston, put it: "It does tend to be smotherage rather than coverage."

The latest report, from US Weekly, alleges that Woods conducted a 31-month affair with a Los Angeles cocktail waitress named Jaimee Grubbs. The voicemail was made available on the magazine's website.

"Hey, it's, uh, it's Tiger," a man's voice says. "I need you to do me a huge favor."

The caller says that his wife went through his phone. He asks Grubbs to switch to a generic answering message that lists only her number.

While the statement Woods posted does not address any specific allegations, it begins: "I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect."

Woods goes on to lament the "tabloid scrutiny" he and his family have suffered and reiterates that his wife, Elin Nordegren, had nothing to do with injuries he suffered the night of the accident.

With some experts saying Woods has damaged his marketability by refusing to answer questions publicly, the golfer adds: "Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions."

The expectation that celebrities should openly atone for private behavior dates at least to the Puritans, said Rosen, the author of "Sex Scandal America." He calls it "the ritual of public shaming."

Originally, this practice intended -- rightly or wrongly -- to preserve social convention, but Rosen believes any such trappings have fallen away.

"Now we're at the tail end of the morality tale," he said. "We're just watching it as entertainment. There's no moral grab."


Cooper, the media ethicist, does not buy into the argument that Woods has an obligation to face the media because he has previously used it to amass great personal wealth as a pitchman.

"The real story here is pretty small -- someone had an accident and there may have been dysfunctional behavior in a relationship," he said, adding: "That's not much of a case to build for invading someone's privacy."

But the story has caught fire, experts said, for at least two reasons.

There are more forms of media -- including bloggers -- to disseminate information more quickly. This rapid-fire environment has created new expectations.

"We, the consumers, have an insatiable appetite for stories like this," said Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communications. "We're hard-wired for wanting to follow a drama that involves sex and great talent and what looks like secret goings-on."

But the same forces that ignite the story might also cause it to burn out quickly, said L. Lin Wood, an Atlanta attorney who has counseled high-profile clients including the accuser in the civil portion of the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case.

Barring any new allegations, Wood sees coverage of the Woods story dying down in a few weeks, perhaps flaring briefly the next time Woods appears in public, then fading away. The attorney disagrees with marketers who say Woods needs to face reporters.

"To me, it would be undignified for someone like Tiger Woods," he said. "And if you start to feed the media frenzy, it's just going to get bigger and probably last longer."

At the Sherwood Country Club, where Woods was supposed to be playing in the Chevron World Challenge this week, fans supported his handling of the situation.

But a fellow pro golfer, Steve Stricker, wrestled with the issue.

"I'm on that line, I'm on that fence whether that's even our business or not," Stricker said. "Everybody likes to get into these celebrities' personal lives and it's all fascinating and everything but, deep down, what does it really matter?"

Policeman on Trial in Connection with College Massacre

A policeman who many believe could have prevented the college massacre in Kauhajoki last year goes on trial for negligent dereliction of duty.

The trial begins Thursday. The families of the people killed are seeking convictions in their civil suit for more serious crimes. They say the officer is guilty of dereliction of duty and ten counts of aggravated manslaughter.

The police officer says he is not guilty of the charges against him.
In addition, the families are demanding damages from the government to the tune of 860,000 euros.
"Obviously money can't replace a human life. This is symbolic compensation, which is reasonable given the indescribable suffering these people have had to go through," says the families' legal advisor Lasse Vuola.
The government says it is not culpable for the damages, because the tragedy was so completely unpredictable

The Tragic events of Kauhajoki
The officer visited the killer Matti Saari's home, after police were alerted to You Tube videos where Saari had filmed himself shooting a firearm and making general threats. The officer did not take the weapon away, as he felt no crime had been committed and the guns were perfectly legal.
The next day, Saari entered the Kauhajoki Vocational College and ran through the school shooting. He killed nine students and one teacher before turning the gun on himself.

Kauhajoki Factbox

- 19.09.2009: Accused's supervisor orders Saari's weapon to be confiscated.
- 20.09.2009: Officer interviews Saari over internet videos but does not confiscate gun.
- 21.09.2009: Saari opens fire at the college, killing ten and then himself.
- The Kauhajoki Vocational College is for youth over 16 years of age, and teaches institutional cooking, nursing, travel and hospitality.
- In 2005, the school had 150 students and 23 teachers.

NATO wants finland to send more troops to Afganistan…

NATO wants Finland to send more forces to Afghanistan. The Foreign Ministry says that NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen sent Finland a letter last week requesting that it consider sending more operative forces and trainers.

US President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that another 30,000 US troops would be deployed in Afghanistan. He also asked European countries to send between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers to the country.
Finland’s political leaders are to discuss the request in the near future. Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb suggested on Wednesday that Finland might be able to send about 15 more trainers. He added that there is a problem with recruitment, saying, "It's hard to get people to go there."
Finnish Expert: Capability Exists
A Finnish military expert interviewed by YLE TV's breakfast show on Wednesday says that Finland would be capable of sending forces to Afghanistan for tasks including helping those in difficulty and training local security forces.
Jarno Limnéll, who teaches strategy at the National Defence University, said that Finland has the capability, if the political leaders decide to send more forces there.
“The new strategy clearly aims at emphasizing the importance of civilian crisis management, and this might be an area in which the Finnish contribution in Afghanistan could be increased,” Limnéll says.
There are now about 120 Finnish peacekeepers at a joint Finnish-Swedish base at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Bags pile up as Helsinki airport walkout continues…

Thousands of pieces of luggage are piling up at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport as a walkout by baggage handlers is set to continue into Thursday.

The Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) has demanded that Finnair postpone the sale of baggage handling operations to an outsourcing company; Finnair says the deal is already done.
Finnair on Tuesday rejected a proposal by the IAU aimed at settling a dispute that led to a walkout by workers at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and the cancellation of 23 flights on Tuesday and 14 on Monday. Following the rejection of the union proposal, workers said they would stay off the job until at least noon on Wednesday. However the walkout appears likely to continue until Thursday at least.
The airline cancelled about 40 flights -- mostly domestic -- on Wednesday. It is trying to operate all long-haul foreign flights. Some European flights were cancelled, as well as one to Shanghai. Some 6,000 passengers have been affected.
The union organized the walkout to protest the sale of the baggage handling unit to Barona Handling, which was completed on Monday. The walkout was supposed to end at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Customer service personnel returned to work, but baggage handlers and loaders stayed away.
An estimated 6,000 -7,000 pieces of luggage were piled up at the airport as of Wednesday evening. About 1,000 of these are to be delivered to customers in the Helsinki area, and the rest abroad. Baggage handling is being done by management staff, who estimate that it will take until early next week to deliver all the baggage.
Finnair insists it is no longer a party to the labour dispute, because as of Monday, the striking employees now work for Barona.
The company also says the walkout is illegal and irresponsible.
Union proposal rejected as power play
The IAU proposed that Finnair postpone the transfer of operations to Barona and negotiate a buy-back. If Finnair had agreed, union members would have returned to work. At least 500 airport workers said they would not return until noon Wednesday at the earliest.
But Finnair says the demand is impossible, and the union knows it.
"The IAU is using this kind of blackmail to force the two sides in the sale to capitulate. This shows pretty well how little the IAU cares for Finnair customers and the rules of the labour market," seethes Finnair's CFO and Deputy CEO, Lasse Heinonen.
The union will now start negotiations on the situation directly with Barona.
"For the sake of the customers and Finnair, I hope they can quickly come to an agreement," adds Heinonen.

Baggage handling at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport has been badly delayed by the walkout. The latest industrial dispute comes less than two weeks after a two-day strike by pilots at the majority state-owned carrier.

Nokia Sees Return to Growth, Analysts Sceptical

Nokia predicts that the global mobile phone market will grow by 10 percent next year after falling some seven percent this year. But analysts say the firm must do more to compete with its rivals.

The world's biggest mobile phone maker cautioned that its own market share, currently at some 37 percent, would be "flat" next year. It added that it expects the value of its market share to be up "slightly."
Nokia executives made the comments during the company's Capital Markets Day, held in Espoo on Wednesday. The event attracted some 250 analysts and investors from around the world.
In October, Nokia reported its first loss in a decade amid rising competition in the smartphone market from the iPhone and the Blackberry, as well as problems with its Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture.
"We're waiting for more power from Nokia smartphones; for a product that can compete equally with more expensive phones," Martti Larjo, chief analyst at Nordea, told YLE. "We'd like to see Nokia produce something like an iPhone copy," he added.
Industry observers say Nokia's outdated Symbian operating system, which drives its smartphones, is one of the reasons why many consumers choose Apple's iPhone or RIM's Blackberry, which are easier to use.
Michael Schröder, chief analyst at the FIM investment bank, said, "The operating system for Nokia's smartphones is irreparably outdated. Nokia's competitors have come out with ones that offer better user experiences...Nokia will still face a few more difficult quarters."
CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo promised that Nokia will release "a new version of Symbian" in 2010. "Smartphone growth will be significantly higher," he said, adding: "I believe Nokia is in better shape than our competitors. I mean that our challenges are clear, but so is our direction."
Nokia's share price edged down by about one percent on the Helsinki Stock Exchange following the announcements.

WHAT TO STUDY NEXT???

I have been thinking a lot of that what i am going to study after this. I thought that i wanted to study Information Security in Luleå Technical University because it was available as online studies also, but now a friend of mine that is studying that and she told me that there's basically no hands-on work there. I mean WTF, how can any university train IT security consultants that does not have any idea of the technical issues in Information Security.
I really need to start thinking of some other schools to attend after this BC, perhaps if my wife agrees will all move to Stockholm or Göteborg. I want to study something that has a real meaning in the future, like computer science or similar.

Whyyyy does this also have to suck so badly???


Cr3sc0

Gary McKinnon

Gary McKinnon is the 43 year old man waiting to find out if he is to be extradited to the US on charges of hacking into military computers in the USA. On Friday, the next chapter in the story will open, or close, as we find out the results of a judicial review into his extradition to the US to face trial.
Mr McKinnon admits hacking into 97 US government computers, including those of Nasa and the Pentagon, during 2001 and 2002.
The judicial review focuses on whether Mr McKinnon should have been allowed to face trial in the UK and whether the decision to extradite him should have been reconsidered in light of a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome last year.
If found guilty, McKinnon could be facing a 70 year prison sentence.
It is said that his autism spectrum disorder will lead to him suffering acutely if removed from his own country, friends and family. Further, McKinnon and his supporters say he is not a malicious cyber criminal and that his hacking is a symptom of his neuro untypical behaviour and obsessions. One US prosecutor accused him of committing "the biggest military computer hack of all time" and it is felt that the US government is likely to be hard on him in order to deter others.
Mr McKinnon recently told BBC 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire that he was on a "moral crusade" to prove US intelligence had found an alien craft run on clean fuel.
A user called Knellerman posted the folllowing on Victoria's blog during the show:

How Asperger's works. My son has it. One day at end of school he pulled out a fence post and ran across the field. The head saw this and called it vandalism.
I asked him what he thought he was doing. He said he had spotted some dog poo and wanted to move it so younger children would not fall into it.
The head's heart melted. Welcome to Asperger's: Right motive, wrong action.
Gary was looking for UFOs, not hacking into military secrets. My son's behaviour was impulsive but that impulsive behavior can become obbsessive, as in Gary's case. What do I know? I was diagnosed with AS at the age of 50.

Video: BBC's Huw Edwards interviews Gary McKinnon - 30 July 2008
Interview with Gary who explains his motives. He talks to the BBC's Spencer Kelly about and antigravity and other technologies that are being hidden from us and which he was hoping to uncover. Also discussed is the lack of security in the US department of defence and details of his hacking exploits across two years

Swedish Cops raids HACKERSPACE and confiscates a lot of stuff… There is something seriously wrong with the swedes again…

At 20.45 on Saturday the 28th of November the police raided the social centre Utkanten in Malmö, where the hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen is housed. Twenty officers in full riot gear and ski masks broke into the space through the entrance and a backdoor, using crowbars. Shortly thereafter twenty to thirty more showed up, mostly dressed as civilians and some of them IT technicians from Länskriminalen (county police), who are suspected to be interested in the hackerspace. They stayed in the building for about six hours.

The official reason for the raid was to do a “pub check” because of the suspicion that there was illegal selling of alcohol going on. The allegedly illegal club activity was a punk concert, with about 40 guests at the time of the raid. After the raid the cops evacuated the building, searched through it and confiscated a lot of stuff. The police was indiscriminate as to whose effects were removed, taking a lot of equipment from Forskningsavdelningen and peoples personal computers, even though the hackerspace was unaffiliated with the group arranging the concert downstairs.

At the time of the raid there were about five people at Forskningsavdelningen. All of us were searched and photographed. Those who criticized the harrasment were threatened to be taken to the station for “drug tests”. Overall the police seemed hostile.

What did they take?

We have gone through our stuff and made a list of what is definitely missing, but since the cops havent given us a list of what they’ve taken we might have missed some stuff.

• 3 laptops

• 1 media computer, refurbished

• 2 office computers, refurbished

• 1 gaming computer, 6500 SEK

• 1 digital camera, Canon Powershot

• 1 external 2.5″ hard drive

• 2 key cutters
  

• lock-picking practice locks (cut-away)

• 1 network router (Linksys WRT-54G)

• 1 wlan dishes antenna

• 1 pocket calculator (casio)

• 5 bottles of rum (Bacardi)

• blank keys, to a value of 200 SEK (not more?)

• material for building metal lockpicks

• metal files

• 1 backpack

Swedes are starting to spy us all…

FRA law

Description how the Swedish Defence Radio Authority (FRA, Swedish Försvarets radioanstalt) collects and processes communication.

The FRA law (FRA-lagen in Swedish) is a Swedish legislative package that authorizes the state to warrantlessly wiretap all telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden's borders. It was passed by the Parliament of Sweden on June 18, 2008, by a vote of 143 to 138 (with one delegate abstaining and 67 delegates not present) and took effect on January 1, 2009.
In more detail, "FRA-law" is the common name for a new law as well as several modifications to existing laws, formally called Government proposal 2006/07:63 – Changes to defence intelligence activities 2006/07:63 –. It was introduced as anti-terrorism legislation, and gives the government agency Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA, Swedish Försvarets radioanstalt) the right to conduct signals intelligence on - to intercept - all internet exchange points that exchange traffic that crosses Swedish borders, though experts argue that it is impossible to differentiate between international traffic and traffic between Swedes.
News reports from Sweden's state broadcast network and other sources report that FRA have in fact been conducting eavesdropping on Swedish citizens for a decade. According to the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment's Director-General, Ingvar Åkesson, they destroy the data collected after eighteen months, but they confirm that they have, in fact, been collecting information not just on foreigners but also on Swedes as the presence of Swedish search terms used on the data would indicate.

Protests and criticism

Protest against the law in Stockholm.

The law has met protests and opposition all across the Swedish political landscape, with even the youth organisations of the parties in the ruling government coalition being against it. Practically all major newspapers have spoken out against the law, along with lobbying organisations such as the Swedish Union of Journalists and the Swedish Bar Association. Telecom and internet companies such as Google, Bahnhof and TeliaSonera shun the law, and there is concern that the law may repel foreign investment in Sweden. The law may result in Sweden being tried by European Court of Human Rights. Protests and rallies are regularly held in the capital Stockholm and in other major cities. The Danish National Church have stated they are worried about the law, and a politician of the Danish Socialist People's Party wants the Danish government to send an official protest to Fredrik Reinfeldt, prime minister of Sweden. The Finnish government has already done so.
Also quite recently, a group of right-wing politicians banded together to work against the law.
On August 8, 2008 Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that a recent poll suggests 51% of the Swedes are against the law, as compared to 47% in June 2008. It also claims that the trust in Sweden's prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, might be in danger.

check out that N00b

hheheheh cool video