German police raid German Pirate Party's servers two days before election

The German police raided the German Pirate Party's servers; they claimed that the GPP was running an EtherPad instance that was being used by Anonymous activists to plan an attack on French energy giant EDF*. The German Bremen elections are coming up soon, and the German police seizure went well beyond taking the EtherPad instance for forensic purposes; the GPP (who had a member in the last German Parliament) have been severely put out at a critical juncture.

Rick Falkvinge, who heads the Swedish Pirate Party, came to the defense of his piratical brethren today, writing, "Doing this to a democratic party--Germany's sixth largest, actually--two days before an election is nothing short of a democratic sabotage. This shows why we must introduce understanding of information policy into the justice system all across Europe. A computer is not just something you can carry away; doing so has consequences. It is not a wrench, and yet the law (and police) treat it like any tool, just like a wrench."

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."

But the German Pirate Party called the attacks inappropriate. "We condemn the totally inappropriate actions by investigators," said Sebastian Mink, chair of the Chairman Pirate Party, "but these actions are not a reason to attack other websites and we distance ourselves from such attacks."

German police seize Pirate Party servers, looking at Anon's toolkit

*If they were, I wouldn't shed a tear. EDF provides the power to our flat here in London. Last year, during the "big freeze" (when temperatures plummeted to subzero levels), our power went out. My wife and daughter were in Toronto, but I was home -- and freezing. I called EDF to report the outage, and they explained because my wife's name was on the bill, the Data Protection Act prohibited them from accepting a report of a power-outage. This is, of course, complete bullshit -- and the fact that they were prepared to let me freeze rather than take note of my service outage has left me pretty unsympathetic to their woes.

• [Pantograph]

  To sum up BB opinion as I perceive it:

  - French opposition politician gets arrested = Dirty priviliged rapist.
  - German opposition party gets inconvenienced = Dirty trick by establishment.
  - Australian hacker gets arrested = Opinion split down the middle.

  Without more facts I cannot decide in either of the three cases, even though many wiser than me seem to be able to.

  • [Gulliver]

    French opposition politician gets arrested = Dirty priviliged rapist.

    Things look bad, but I’m reserving judgement until more facts surface.

    German opposition party gets inconvenienced = Dirty trick by establishment.

    Inconvenienced is an interesting way to describe arbitrary theft.

    Australian hacker gets arrested = Opinion split down the middle.

    What you might be missing is that, contingent on the apparent facts proving accurate, the opinions hinge on the nature of the actions. The nationalities are incidental. It’s neigh impossible for most rational individuals to imagine rape being justified. It’s hard for many rational individuals to imagine a justification of mass theft of private property on the theory that a separate group may be planning to use the owner’s networks to attack a foreign company, particularly when the group the property was stolen from is a substantial minority political party. Whether a released of confidential diplomatic cables is justified depends largely on the value-set of the evaluator.

    Without more facts I cannot decide in either of the three cases, even though many wiser than me seem to be able to.

    Then you have no provisional opinion on any of these three cases?

    • [Stooge]

      What’s this “mass theft” you speak of?
      How many servers constitute a mass, and how can they have been stolen if they haven’t been moved?

      • [Gulliver]

        What’s this “mass theft” you speak of?
        How many servers constitute a mass, and how can they have been stolen if they haven’t been moved?

        I meant theft from many people. The quantity of property seems immaterial to the justifiability of its seizure. And I took confiscated to mean they moved the servers from the GPP’s possession and into the police’s possession. Perhaps I was mistaken on that.

        But wild fantasies about how this is exactly like 1930 and the German police being essentially the SA sell better, I suppose.

        That is most certainly not what I was implying. Unjust seizure of private property is not equal to Nazi jackboot tactics. Let’s be crystal clear on that because I really hate it when people make light of the Jewish Holocaust (or any other genocide) and I will NOT respond kindly to being purposely misconstrued as having compared something this trivial to one of the worst crimes in human history. ‘k?

        And anybody who seriously thinks the “establishment” (whoever that is) did this to keep the Pirate Party down needs his head examined. At the last elections in southern Germany they got 2,1%, way below the 5% threshold. They were a relevant force two years ago, but they have gone awful quiet since then.

        No, I said that it was in the coalition government’s interests to make their oppo look like criminals not because the GPP will sweep the Bremische Bürgerschaft but because it makes the party in power look capable and proactive in stamping out piracy. In other words, write or wrong, it would be naive to think it was not a serious possibility this was politically motivated.

    • [Ugly Canuck]

      “provisional opinion”?

      That’s another way of saying “pre-judice”, is it not?

      Is it just, or judicious, to have a provisional opinion?

      Must be nice to be able to make up one’s mind and to be able form an opinion before you have any evidence other than what very large media companies tell you!

      I lack your certitude, and I admire your defense of the principles of prejudice, passing judgment “provisionally” – that is, before all the facts are either known or have been tested by trial.

      Just as invading Iraq was justifiable, provisionally…but the provision was in deep error there, eh? But…who cares, as there wasn’t any skin off your nose, eh?

      Perhaps you will be happy to learn that I have made a provisional judgment as to the value of your comments.

    • [Ugly Canuck]

      Maybe I’m being too harsh, but judicial epistemology, which deals wo ith the fates of living people, has differing standards than engineering or scientific epistemology….provisional opinions in a judicial context is called “prejudice”.

      No decisions until all the evidence is considered. These are people’s lives and liberty that are at stake, and not a scientific or engineering model’s parameters.

      You have missed a moral difference between the two su ituatioins, (ie those of engineering/science knowledge. and judicial knowledge by which a person’s future is determined) – the laws of evidence and of procedures to establish the truth of that evidence, differs between these disciplines.
      That is turn conditions any one’s ability to make a just judgment as to people brought into Court – it is questions of justice which are here at stake, and not some seeking to add further accuracy in the models used in the prediction of future events.

      Provisional judgments may be at the heart of science and engineering, but they are poisonous at worst, and dangerous at best, in any quest to achieve justice.

      • [Gulliver]

        I lack your certitude, and I admire your defense of the principles of prejudice, passing judgment “provisionally” – that is, before all the facts are either known or have been tested by trial.

        A provisional opinion, not a certain judgment. Meaning that that is my opinion based on the facts I know at the time and is subject to change if, as new facts come to light, they warrant it and – and this is the really really important part of provisional – Is. Not. CERTAIN!

        So tell me at what time, precisely, is it okay to start forming an opinion?

        Just as invading Iraq was justifiable, provisionally…but the provision was in deep error there, eh? But…who cares, as there wasn’t any skin off your nose, eh?

        The Iraq War was never justified, it was a direct consequence of the Gulf War which, along with the whole fucking dominoes of the last 65 fucking years of U.S. foreign policy also was not justified. That Bush and the Moron League fabricated some other excuse for what was already happening is simply icing on the cake.

        Perhaps you will be happy to learn that I have made a provisional judgment as to the value of your comments.

        I don’t doubt it. You come across as exactly the sort of individual who would jump to conclusions in lieu of seeking clarity.

      • [Gulliver]

        It’s too bad too. You seemed like such a nice thoughtful person in all your other posts I’ve seen so far.

        And yes, if I was on a jury I would make my best effort to hold off on forming even a provisional opinion. But BB threads are not juries and I am not deciding their fate.

      • [AnthonyC]

        Certainty is an illusion. No finite amount of evidence can give you enough confidence to believe any statement with probability 1. Arbitrarily close, but not actually one. This is a consequence of Bayes’ theorem, which tells us how to update probabilities in the face of new options. You can never get to 1. If you start at 1, you can never get away from 1.

        In a rational world, an opinion would be defined as a probability distribution over the possible options. You would start with maximum entropy opinions, and update the probability distributions as you incorporate additional evidence. Of course, human psychology is not rational. Once we hold an opinion, we cling to it more than the evidence justifies. So it’s bad for a system of justice, I agree, but not unreasonable in principle. But if we could behave rationally, we could give a *numerical* definition to “beyond reasonable doubt.” That would be convenient, no?

    • [Pantograph]

      Provisional opinions?

      I have an immediate reaction based on my own prejudices and alliances, but nothing well founded. In fact the more I read about it the less of an opinion I have.

      The conspiracy theorist in me likes the idea that Sarkozy, Merkel and the Pentagon are Machiavellian puppet masters who employ all kinds of dirty tricks to bring about the downfall of their foes, but the realist in me sees that incompetence and human stupidity are much more likely explanations.

      Let’s face it, the Pirate Party isn’t much of a political force outside of Sweden. If they really wanted to hit the opposition they would target the Greens, who are riding high in the polls on the back of the Fukushima disaster.

      • [Gulliver]

        If they really wanted to hit the opposition they would target the Greens, who are riding high in the polls on the back of the Fukushima disaster.

        If they were primarily concerned with preventing the opposition from gaining more seats that would make sense. But if they’re concerned with boslerting their own imagine, it makes more sense to crack down on the Pirate Party. As you said, the Greens have a surge of support. But with Germans worried they’ll be bailing out Greece and Portugal for the next decade, it makes some sense to hit the Party that could be presented as a direct threat to the economy. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s politics – slimy yes, but not some shadowy cabal.

        • [jacobian]

          But with Germans worried they’ll be bailing out Greece and Portugal for the next decade, it makes some sense to hit the Party that could be presented as a direct threat to the economy. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s politics – slimy yes, but not some shadowy cabal.

          First, the German, UK, Irish Portuguese and Greek *public* will be bailing out UK German and French banks. Let’s remember not to let them reframing it as lazy nationalities stealing from hard working ones. The only ones doing the stealing here are the bankers.

          http://rsreal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/piigs_web_of_debt_b.jpg

          In addition, the appropriate response to dodgy politics is indignation, followed by action. A failure to do so is pretty much a guarantee of ever increasing levels of dodgy politics.

        • [Gulliver]

          First, the German, UK, Irish Portuguese and Greek *public* will be bailing out UK German and French banks. Let’s remember not to let them reframing it as lazy nationalities stealing from hard working ones.

          I didn’t mean to imply it was a valid worry – and my apologies if that’s how it came across – only that nationalism and xenophobia are used to much effect in politics. Sadly, people respond to fear readily and, all too often, politicians get skilled at feeding that fear and harvesting it or they get outmaneuvered.

• [YourMessageHere]

  I worry about the German police, to be honest. I’ve never been to Germany, but everything I hear about them makes them sound like the very definition of authoritarianism for it’s own sake. My sympathy to the GPP.

  The best thing to do about EDF and their data protection bullshitting is to just claim that you *are* your wife. Assuming that you know and can correctly supply on request all her relevant details and numbers and mother’s maiden names and so on, they can’t very well call out their paying customers for being uncharacteristically masculine-sounding women, can they? A friend of mine from uni did this all the time, with apparent success.

• [LennStar]

  That the election is only a small one was already said.

  But the real problem here is, that a mere planning (if it was a real planning) of an economic crime (no people in danger) has led to a french prosecutor to ask a german one to to something. The german one got a judge to sign the needed documents and police switched off the whole IT (They wanted data from one virtual server. ) – for information that is most likely not there (IPs aren’t logged and such).

  This is, in my eyes, a clear break of the principle of proportionality. Especially if you consider that partys are specially protected from the executive in article 21 Grundgesetz (Basic constitutional law).

  That not only damaged efforts in one election and preparations of at least one other, it also affected people in other countries. The “Real Democracy Now!” movement in Spain for example. People from there also used the Etherpad for planning and coordination.

• [Anonymous]

  Perhaps stating the obvious, as a group with special IT knowledge did they not have backups?

• [Anonymous]

  Experiment #5:
  Substitute “anonymous” in all newsitems about the happenings with “al-quaida”, “Red Army Front”, “PETA”, “antiabortionists” or any other organization that doesn’t exactly use democratic means to push their agenda.

  Tell me how you feel about it.

  Jens Seeger

  P.S.:
  I see a lawsuit from the GPP coming, and rightly so (IMHO). German Government/lawmaking/Law enforcement is clearly not “state of the art” when it comes to teh intertubes and it shows in many ways.

  P.P.S.:
  Extremely curious for the outcome of the election (I live in northern germany), this may even help the GPP – more media coverage and such…

• [zeta]

  So the French police investigate alleged hacker attempts against a French company. The French prosecutor asks his German colleague for help because the trail leads to Germany. This German prosecutor then presents this request to a German judge who signs the necessary papers. The police then does exactly as it is told and confiscates a server. So far, so boring. But wild fantasies about how this is exactly like 1930 and the German police being essentially the SA sell better, I suppose.

  And anybody who seriously thinks the “establishment” (whoever that is) did this to keep the Pirate Party down needs his head examined. At the last elections in southern Germany they got 2,1%, way below the 5% threshold. They were a relevant force two years ago, but they have gone awful quiet since then.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Pirate party servers are the pirate party’s private pirate property. ( Provisionally?)

  • [Stooge]

    Pirate party servers are the pirate party’s private pirate property. ( Provisionally?)

    Provisionally, indeed. Does anyone know if these servers actually belong to the German Pirate Party, and not their ISP?

    Furthermore, all this wailing about how much damage has been done to their campaign is distinctly unimpressive. Any Pirate Party worth the name would have had everything up and running again from remote back-ups and servers in minutes, so they’re either dishonestly milking this for all it’s worth or clueless.

    • [Anonymous]

      or they arrested everyone with access to the backups

      • [Stooge]

        In which case we haven’t heard about any arrests because:
        a) The GPP didn’t think mentioning arrests would garner any more publicity than saying their servers had been sequestered.
        b) The police put a gun to the GPP spokesperson’s head and said “don’t mention the arrests, but otherwise you can make us look bad in any way you like”.
        c) There were no arrests.

• [YarbroughFair]

  “The Public Utilities Commission said Tuesday [September 17, 2002] that those companies deliberately produced an average of 40 percent less energy than they could have. Without those cuts, the PUC said, most of the almost three dozen blackouts and brownouts of 2000-2001—including the black traffic signals, the stopped air conditioning, the dim classrooms—could have been avoided.”

  http://www.capitalism.net/articles/News%20Report%20California's%20Blackouts%20Caused%20by%20Demons.html

• [Anonymous]

  I also wouldn’t discard the possibility that the police officers tasked with seizing servers operated well over their threshold of computer competence (which isn’t exactly unheard of when it comes to police and IT matters). What they were looking for ran on the Pirate Party servers, so they seized all Pirate Party servers in sight, as they were ordered. I very much doubt that they truly understood the matter, or even what “EtherPad” is to begin with. They’re not expert enough to explicitely sort things out there and then, nor would that be practical. There’s absolutely nothing “1930s” or “Nazi” or otherwise worrisome about this, or about German police in general. It’s simply a criminal investigation (originating in France, mind you).

  Secondly, as has been pointed out, that’s not “THE German election” coming up. It’s a city council election in Bremen, one of Germany’s independent city states (dwarf federal states, if you will). In other words, a really really small state election of only regional significance. (Bremen has a population of under 550.000.) I can’t see how seizing servers elsewhere would have a negative impact on such an election. If anything, it would rather boost support for the party especially with people who are undecided but inclined to vote for them (bearing in mind that the voting age has been lowered from 18 to 16 in Bremen).

  Thirdly, the fact that the Pirate Party used to have a sitting member in parliament for a few months should be put in context. No German election has ever put a Pirate Party representative into any parliament beyond a few cases at a minor communal council level. One member of parliament (Jörg Tauss) switched his party membership from SPD (i.e. social democrats) to Pirate Party, that’s how they got it. (He did in reaction to getting into legal trouble for the possession of child pornography, which he (pretty unplausibly and to the very least naively) claimed he had in order to conduct personal investigations of the child porn underground scene (which, as a politician, is neither his job nor his authority). After he was found guilty and got sentenced, he quit the Pirate Party again.)

• [Effsix]

  That sucks! I mean the shitty service from EDF (the political content of the blog post is also unjust) but if you really wanna show them who’s boss, play Red Faction Guerilla. The brutal EDF (Earth Defence Force) are responsible for mistreating the miners on Mars and you can delight in rising against them.

  *This may not actually show them who’s boss, but it’ll make you feel better. You could take a screenshot of one of their boxes being smashed and email it to them I suppose.

• [Gulliver]

  This is, of course, complete bullshit — and the fact that they were prepared to let me freeze rather than take note of my service outage has left me pretty unsympathetic to their woes.

  That sounds like your typical regional monopoly. Sympathies.

  But, as I’m sure you realize, the EDF bait is just an excuse for a little pre-election oppo roundup. Here in the States they call it being tough on crime. The CDU and the SPD know they’re going to take a drubbing on Sunday in Bremen and they want to appear to be protecting economic interests while embarrassing their political enemies.

  While the geek solidarity is touching, I can’t see how all these DDoS attacks really help the Pirate Party’s cause.

  BTW, I don’t want to sound rude, but y’all’s spelling is getting worse than mine, and that saying something.

• [sigdrifa]

  Being German, I really hope the Pirate Party will go to court over this; this is scary.

  Btw, “the German elections” sounds bigger than it actually is — there’s a state election in one of the city states (Bremen) coming up on Sunday, and it’s not one of the most important elections we had this year.

  • [Anonymous]

    On the other hand, the Bremen state elections are the first where minimum voting age was reduced from 18 to 16. We’ll see how that helps – in inofficial “test elections” in schools, the Pirate Party received around 10% of the ballots.

• [Gulliver]

  and that saying something.

  See, that wasn’t even on purpose. I just fail at teh grammar.

• [Anonymous]

  *sigh* German elections? There are no federal elections in 2011. Elections for the Bundestag (federal german parliament) are in 2013.

  Germany is a federal parliamentary republic of sixteen states. The elections tomorrow are just in Bremen.

  Sixth largest party seems right …. but get a perspective – their elections result was 2%! The electoral threshold for parliamentary representation is 5%!

• [Anonymous]

  This is outrageous. You should do as we are doing in Spain. Right now. Restart the System.