Facebook's Swedish data centre will be subject to Snoop Law The icy location is a big advantage for the new data centre that Facebook is planning in the northern Swedish town of Lulea. But while the frigid Arctic winds will fan the servers, it's the legal climate that could get hot. A controversial Swedish internet surveillance law passed in 2008 allows the government there to …
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Presumably this is just a simple wire tap type of filter so any comms can be intercepted without having to talk to anyone. In which case running facebook under SSL (which everyone should be doing anyway) will stop it.
If on the other hand facebook have to provide the Swedish authorities access to any data on request then it's a different matter.
It's a filter on top of cables. Which, given a court-agreed permission and various paperwork, can be used to do a search for keywords (approved keywords, hey-ho). So you're right.
Some days I think El Reg need to stay off news from countries with languages their staff can't read for themselves. Yes, FRA (actually, it's a civilian organisation) ain't a walk in the park, but there are several levels of courts and monitoring agencies that keep one or two eyes on the filters.
So, no, the government can't simply pop in and look at everything. Well. No more so than they can pop in and kill you in your bed. Technically they surely could, but there's a fine line between normal, healthy paranoia and, well, blazing insanity.
PS: Because of human nature, I am reluctantly forced to add: I do not support the Swedish Parliament in enacting this. There. That ought to take out one, or perhaps two, of the screaming hysterics.
The Swedes snooping your personal data, hardly anything to worry about. What they checking for?
How many Abba songs you liked on Facebook? Or whether you might buy a Saab next time. So sinister..
Now if it was the Americans, Russians, Chinese or British then I'd be worried
the question isn't: "will you hand over data to a legal authority should they have the legal power to get it?"
the question is: "What do you think of the fact that the government will have a _copy_ of everything your users post of or read from your servers that are located in Sweden?"
When does it become a crime for various individuals and groups who ARE NOT YET criminals to just create tantalizing circuitous BS on their profiles. Not specifically using bellringer keywords, not falsely creating attack or mayhem plans, but just doing borderline resource-eroding stuff that compels scrutiny that ultimately wastes time because it's factually, ultimately harmless?
Example, one way to do this is to just keep endlessly posting text and photo information. At some point, even the investigators/snoops and othe... umm, criminals will become paranoid if properly carried out.
TeliaSonera, which was formed from the Finnish Sonera and the Swedish Telia, is one of the biggest teleoperators here in Finland. They also offer e-mail services and because of the Swedish telesnooping law they had to make a public promise to never house emails of their Finnish customers on the Swedish servers. The whole telesnooping law was a pretty bad disaster for the reputation of Swedish democracy, but of course in a way the law is understandable.
The problem I see about it is that there's been some talk here up north how Sweden practically gives all their spy intel to CIA, so if that's true Facebook users can expect to have their correspondance be scanned by the Americans. Although possibly the different spy agencies do it worldwide all the time already. It's hard to trust anything to remain secret on the net anyway.
"I think the biggest danger of putting things on Facebook is Facebook. Facebook knows all of your stuff, and they sell it. It's like handing your money to a thief who says 'Nobody else will get your money.' If you want Facebook security, don't be on Facebook."
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=39001
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