The mafia declares war on open source software

This sounds too ridiculous to be true, but nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to the "intellectual property" dinosaurs of the world:

According to the International Intellectual Property Mafia Alliance, an umbrella group for the infamous criminals over at MPAA and RIAA, the use of, hell even encouragement to start using, open source software is equal to software piracy, or even anti-capitalism or possibly terrorism.

A joke you say? Unfortunately not. It's the copyright mafia doing what they do best.

I can't stress this enough: Don't feed the monsters. Stop the cashflow.

Corrupt cop comeback

The infamous corrupt cop Jim Keyzer, bought and later employed by the entertainment mafia is back in business, this time looking for employees to battle computer crimes. You know, dangerous stuff like 14 year old kids sharing their music with other 14 year old kids. How this buffoon can still be employed by the police is beyond me, and it just contributes to the extremely bad image this institution is very rightfully struggling with at the moment.

Anyway, Keyzer is looking for people who can identify with the "police values", presumably taking bribes from large corporations. So if you feel like taking bribes and hunting down kids, go for it.


Thanks to futuriteter and Full Mental Straightjacket for the link.

More Google evil

As if deleting blogs due to a claim of copyright infringement and censorship in China isn't enough, Google are now even censoring critics of the US government.

Seriously, Google, that "don't be evil" motto just seems out of date. Why don't you just change it to something more believable, like "don't be free" or "be censored"?

Moderaterna party election campaign: More surveillance and higher taxes

Apparently Moderaterna, the Moderate party in Sweden, are prepared to throw their single selling point down the drain, with minister of finance Anders Borg being prepared to raise taxes:

"Det finns starka skäl att överväga skattehöjningar", säger finansministern.

And my personal favorite:

Höjda skatter är avgörande för att behålla en stabil ekonomi i framtiden, framhöll Borg. Och att ett normalt skattetryck för Sverige bör ligga på 35-45 procent av BNP.

In other words, being the most heavily taxed country in the world is the recipe for a stable financial growth. That's certainly new coming from Moderaterna.

Areas that will be affected if Moderaterna get their way is, among others, a "green" tax on CO2 emission (like we don't have enough of these already), even higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol, and certainly no further tax relief on the unfair housing tax (better known as the "Stockholm tax"). The common denominator for all these taxes are that they are not in any way related to your actual income or wealth, meaning they strike people with lesser money much harder than those with more money. Very nice, Borg, that's gonna win you the Östermalm and Djursholm votes, at least.

So my question is quite simply, how exactly do Moderaterna expect to win the elections when they're throwing away the only political issue that separates them from the red and green coalition: A healthy and manageable tax level for people as well as businesses? The way things are looking today they might as well join this red and green coalition, making it a rainbow coalition and front it with the following slogan:

The rainbow coalition: More surveillance and higher taxer - for a safer and healthier society.

Go get some new clothes. And a life.

"Stockholm's finest", the two moronic police officers who abused Jesper Nilsson in the subway last week, have finally become properly identified - names and pictures. Good, now we know who to avoid. We also know that they're all too happy to blatantly lie in order to punish troublesome citizens. Unfortunately this time they were caught on tape, and their nonsense lies are easily revealed.

A quick google search also revealed that one of these police officers, Carl Larsson, was featured on Swedish television a little while back. While I have no reason to believe anything coming from his mouth at this point, I did find it funny that he's wearing the exact same clothes as he did when abusing Nilsson in the subway. Way to go getting into that hobo character, Larsson.



Get a life and a set of new clothes, please.

Can I be an Internet expert too, please?

DN published a letter on what was supposedly freedom and Internet today by a guy called Peter Strömbäck. This wouldn't be a problem if they didn't go ahead and wrongfully call him an "Internet expert", something he's clearly not. His CV suggests he's rather an intellectual property expert and/or a lobbyist, anything really but an Internet expert. And that shows clearly in his letter, where he promotes more regulations and intellectual property protection on the Internet. Because clearly more rules and regulations means freedom. Also the argument on Telia's dividend is a pathetic, classic lobby argument. "Bohoo, the ISP's make billions aiding their customers in commiting copyright infringements and stealing our money". Yeah, right.

Why is it so hard for lobbyists like Strömbäck to acknowledge that the same rules and laws that apply in the "analog" world should also apply on the Internet? It's really as simple as that. The mailman doesn't open your mail every day just in case you happen to engage in any criminal activity per mail. Why should your ISP do that? You are able to walk around freely and anonymously in the "analog" world. No one is registering your every step, asking you for "papieren, bitte!!!" at every crossroad. Why should you have to be traced every step of the way on the Internet? Why do lobbyists and politicians want to uphold a DDR set of rules on the Internet and a Western set of rules in the "analog" world?

- Annoyed Citizen, an Internet expert.

Technological meltdown

This post could also be called "Why you should avoid any triple play solution out there".
Unfortunately I'm one of those poor bastards stuck with a triple play solution, through my bostadsrättsförening, homeowners association. Sure, it usually works pretty well, the problem is this is a classic single point of failure solution, where if there's anything wrong with the fiber lan you lose not only your internet connection, you lose your home phone and tv as well, which can be extremely annoying. Especially when the service provider is unable to locate the problem.

Basically I'm in my second day of a complete technological meltdown at the moment. Makes it a bit harder to work from home, watch the Olympics, and communicating with friends and family abroad. To say the least.

So, mark my words, you do not want this kind of solution if you can avoid it. Phone through copper wire, tv through satellite and Internet through fiber lan is your best bet.

Original graphics

More Swedish police embarrassments

Two morons who also happen to be police officers (yes, the standard of these guys seems to be declining by the day, what are the requirements to become one of these trained monkeys anyway?) bully and threaten a defenseless civilian taking a photo of them.

The victim publishes the photo and the story of the abuse on his blog.

These two apes, Martin Bergström and Carl Larsson, then have the nerve to press charges against him.

- Man får fotografera, men det finns gränser för hur man fotograferar och vad man använder bilderna till. Det kan bli brottsligt i slutändan, att det blir ett ofredande av det, säger BT Olsson.

I see, so documenting a case of police abuse of power is a crime, but actually performing the abuse of power is perfectly fine? I'm amazed. Living in Sweden for only 4 years has completely erased my confidence in the police. Seriously. I have yet to read anything positive about this pitiful bunch of rejects. Instead the newspapers are full of stories on abusive, arrogant, ignorant and just plain stupid policemen wasting their time and taxpayer's money doing one ridiculous thing after the other, all in a massive effort to lose the public's trust.

The Swedish police: A complete embarassment

Well, it's official, not only are single policemen bought by the entertainment mafia, the entire Swedish police system seems to become a division of EMI/Universal/Sony/Warner, doing their dirty work extorting and bullying simple file-sharers in an organized way instead of prioritizing crimes that actually involve victims. Crimes that actually matter.

As a first step, nine police officers will be taken out of meaningful duty (and by meaningful I certainly don't mean the kind of appalling abuse of power displayed by these two pitiful clowns) and enrolled in the entertainment mafia division of the police, where they will knock down doors, seize computer equipment and threaten youngsters who are simply sharing their music or movies with friends or others.

In other words, it's some sort of reverse Ipred. In addition to outsourcing police work to private companies with financial interest in the work, the private companies are now also getting police staff working for them. And the police's excuse for this is probably the most pathetic thing I've heard:

Brott mot immaterialrätten är enligt Polismyndigheten ofta gränsöverskridande och beräknas omsätta stora belopp. Det nationella samarbetet är ett sätt att komma åt problemet.

Right. Non-commercial file-sharing generates a lot of profit.

This is a complete and utter disgrace for the Swedish police.

Original photo: Kike@

"Don't be evil" my ass

Do you own a blog hosted by blogger or blogspot? I do. And if I weren't too lazy I would move it away from these Googled-owned services asap, since these days they seem to be arbitrary deleting (yes, actually deleting all content, not just suspending the accounts!) blogs that they claim infringe on copyright. You know, if you happen to publish the lyrics to the chorus of your favorite song, or a picture you took at a concert. Those kinds of nasty crimes.

If you're like me, too lazy to actually move your blog, at least do a proper backup in case Google decides to go ahead and just delete it.

First the censorship scandal in China, and now this? "Don't be evil" my ass.

The basic functionality of a modern cell phone

ZoomMediaPlus have released a card reader, ZoomIt, for the iPhone and iPod Touch, making it possible to view files from a memory card, and interact with them, directly on the iPhone/iPod. I can't that it should take a 3rd party vendor to see this ridiculous design flaw or limitation in the product and come up with this functionality on their own. After all, it's pretty much standard in most other phones these days.

Except in most phones you don't have to have an extra gadget plugged in on the side of it for this to work. It's called a memory card slot, and you just insert your memory card into it, and voila, all the files you've transferred from your computer and onto the card are there. Usually these phones also let you copy or save files onto the memory card so you can easily transfer all music, photos and other stuff onto your computer.

But no, that would be giving the customers way to much freedom and ease of use, if you ask Apple.

Photo: ZoomIt website

German government does business with criminals

Who would believe a government would actually be buying stolen merchandise on a regular basis? Well, those crazy krauts are at it again. Only a couple of years after the previous scandal when they bought stolen data from a Liechtenstein bank, German officials are looking to buy even more stolen data, this time from a Swiss bank - all to be used as evidence against its own citizens.

Most people would call this a crime. Most courts of law wouldn't even call it evidence. Not in Germany, though.

The empire strikes back

Yes, the evil empire, in conspiracy with the Swedish police, has once again struck against a bunch of regular Joes, knocking down their doors, invading their privacy and seizing their computer equipment, which they will probably never see again. Why? Apparently because they were aiding in committing copyright infringement. The exact same and highly questionable "crime" the Pirate Bay guys were charged with: Providing the infrastructure that enables people to commit copyright infringement. They're not even suspected of committing the actual copyright infringement, a petty crime in itself.

One can't help but wonder when the 13% of all Swedes with an unsecured wireless router will be targeted by this utterly despicable mafia organization. If providing bandwidth through an insecure wireless connection isn't providing the infrastructure that enables people to commit copyright infringement, I don't know what is...

This is nothing but an embarrassment to the Swedish police conspiring with the criminals at Ifpi, and another dark day for the Internet freedom in Sweden. Shame on you.