German Police Seize Pirate Party Servers Days Before The Election... Because Anonymous Was Chatting?
from the oh-come-on dept
Early this morning, news started breaking that the German police had seized the German Pirate Party's servers. The timing was interesting, in that it happened just two days before an election, which certainly seems questionable. The details, so far, suggest that the action wasn't against the party, but due to a French complaint, because Anonymous was using the Etherpad installation on the server, PiratenPad, to communicate and plan. If you're unfamiliar with Etherpad, it's a pretty popular online collaboration tool. I've used it for other things, including preparing notes for conferences. It's ridiculous overkill to seize an entire server because of the way some people were using Etherpad. It makes no sense, and shows (once again) how law enforcement seems to overreact to things they just don't understand.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anonymous, etherpad, france, germany, pirate party, seizure
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not Hard to Understand
I think you're making the assumption that the stated reason was the real reason.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Not Hard to Understand
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Not Hard to Understand
What if the 'Pirate Party' has already been secretly subverted, and whoever gets elected as a Pirate Party representative will tow the line and do the same science-damned thing every other politician does--which is "screw the public"?
Then, these "stupid" actions from the government serve the interest of those really in power and get their hand-picked puppets elected as Pirate Party reps.
(Set and natch.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Not Hard to Understand
or
What if the government knows that you will think the 'Pirate Party' has already been secrectly subverted by doing this act, so they didn't subvert it knowing that you won't won't vote for the pirate party because you don't trust it-- thus lowering turnout, manipulating elections, and continuing to screw the public.
If all we're going to do is throw what-if's and hypotheticals around I think this discussion would be better suited for alex jones' website instead.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Not Hard to Understand
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Conspiracy of Conpsiracies
[found late 1990's and I repost every so often]
CONSPIRACY: Cliques Of Normals Secretly Performing Insidious Rituals Aimed at Controlling You!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I think the most important point here is that if this were any mainstream party, this likely wouldn't have happened. The government may have reacted, but not the way it did here.
But, either way, it's still good publicity for the pirate party. You can't buy this sort of publicity, this sort of publicity is very valuable. Things often have unintended consequence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
"In response to the takeover of its servers, the German Pirate Party has been tweeting up some sturm und drang today, and its "#servergate" hashtag is the second highest "trending" tag in Germany.
Not surprisingly, the main German police website is now down, as is the website of federal investigators (the BKA). As one Anon put it in a tweet, "#Anonymous to german police: 'Let me introduce myself...' #servergate #PoliceMeetsCocks." "
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/german-police-seize-pirate-party-servers-lookin g-at-anons-toolkit.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
The first time I clicked on the Twitter link just now I got the message that the Twitter servers were too flooded to render the website (forgot the exact message). Only upon refreshing did the rendition show up.
Not only did the government fail at preventing Anonymous from attacking (they still conducted their attacks, though I disapprove of their activity), they actively brought more attention and publicity to the pirate party and further advanced their popularity. Their intent may have been to retard the efforts of the pirate party, but the result was that it only enhanced their efforts. The pirate party actually used this to their advantage to campaign for better laws and due process and to advertise themselves as the party to deliver such. Expect the pirate party to receive even more votes. It's called the Streisand effect.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yeah... sure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Election ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Election ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
missed me now ya gots to kiss my....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]