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The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

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Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#201

Post by impossiblefork »

renewiltord wrote: post #145
impossiblefork wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe 35-40 years ago. My grandmother never locked her door when she was at home, for example, even in 2020, because she'd lived so long in society as it was that she literally couldn't believe that it could end up as it had; and this wasn't due to stupidity. It was actually safe and normal once.

I used to think this about Sweden but literature of that time does not describe a society like that. Literature is often reflective of the world it is in. Not like 2001 : A Space Odyssey is about what the world is like in 2001 but it sort of reflects the assumptions of the world at that time. For instance, there are no smartphones in that world. Anyway, Swedish contemporary literature of that time doesn't tell such a…

As someone who lived partially in this era and had parents who very ḿuch lived in this era, you're wrong.

Take one of the Agaton Sax books, a detective story. It's completely inconceivable in our present society.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#202

Post by DavidVoid »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #108

One upside of everyone's name, date of birth, address and personal ID number being public knowledge in Sweden is that organisations don't treat knowing any of those as proof of your identity. It's absurd how that's not the case in other places.

Everything here requires BankID and that seems a hell of a lot safer and much more convenient than what I hear is used in many other countries (although I don't think BankID should be privately owned like it is now).

Another upside that wasn't mentioned in the post is that all this legally required information really simplifies a lot of bureaucracy. It could be done without the info being public I guess, but the law requiring that you register your place of residence makes voting and paying taxes really easy. The state already knows what municipality you live in, so you don't need to register to vote yourself and you don't have to figure out what taxes you need to pay (unless you're self-employed).

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#203

Post by kridsdale2 »

bjornsing wrote: post #110
jacooper wrote: post #86

I feel this weirdly common in Scandinavian countries for some reason. Maybe their society lived in this "everything is peaceful and we have no corruption so nothing bad happens" long enough to have such an absurd level of trust in the government?

That’s the positive angle. But I think you could argue that the real reason is that we never had any popular uprising against absolute monarchy. So the Nordic countries are stuck in a pre-Magna Carta (or French revolution or American revolution) culture.

I'm presently nearly done reading (fiction) The Long Ships about this region 1022 years ago. I'm enjoying seeing how cultural attitudes that took root in the transition from a bunch of guys doing whatever they wanted, and everyone can be a king as long as they can murder would-be-murderers well enough, to accepting a (supposed) life of peace as followers of Christ.

It makes me want to understand the subsequent 1000 years of history to see how they became as they are now.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#204

Post by erikrothoff »

Xylakant wrote: post #106
cinntaile wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the acquisition cost is lower, the value will be lower because you don't need to factor in the acquisition cost.

No, the value is what you can do with it. Now, if you want to sell the data, then having a competitor that offers it for free is reducing the value, but if you want to use the data, the value is independent of the cost.

Yes, and if the data isn’t secret the number of things you can do with this data is limited. It’s like security by obscurity in reverse.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#205

Post by DavidVoid »

onetimeusename wrote: post #154
rockbruno wrote: post #16

One of the "pranks" we play on expats moving to Sweden is to look them up on hitta.se, take a screenshot and send it back to them saying "this you?". They always freak out and with reason, these sites contain an obscene amount of personal information about you. Some of them even give you people's salary history, which is slightly harder to obtain but also totally legal. The weirdest thing I thought is that most Swede…

Do you get a lot of scam calls? In the US this is a problem, I think most of the calls just use telephony software to automate and brute force every possible number. They spoof the originating phone number but they 99.9% likelihood are coming from another country with call centers like India or the Philippines. If you can access every Swedish citizen's data, this could be attractive for scammers especially if you wan…

I don't think I've ever gotten a spam call. I used to get the occasional telemarketer call, but I added my number to the NIX-registry (Do Not Call Registry) a few years ago and I've only gotten one marketing call since then.

Regulations around telemarketing are pretty strict here. I did report the one call I got and I got a follow-up email a few weeks later explaining what had happened (the company doing the marketing had experienced a technical glitch [1]).

[1] https://nixnamnden.se/2020/10/20-196-20-197-20-198-20-199-20...

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#206

Post by Bakary »

kridsdale2 wrote: post #203
bjornsing wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the positive angle. But I think you could argue that the real reason is that we never had any popular uprising against absolute monarchy. So the Nordic countries are stuck in a pre-Magna Carta (or French revolution or American revolution) culture.

I'm presently nearly done reading (fiction) The Long Ships about this region 1022 years ago. I'm enjoying seeing how cultural attitudes that took root in the transition from a bunch of guys doing whatever they wanted, and everyone can be a king as long as they can murder would-be-murderers well enough, to accepting a (supposed) life of peace as followers of Christ. It makes me want to understand the subsequent 1000 y…

What I enjoyed about the Long Ships is how the author avoided moral handholding and let the reader make their own appreciation of it.

Interestingly, the contrast highlights the concept of master vs. slave morality pretty well. The Vikings see strength as the ultimate determinator and servitude as the appropriate result of weakness. Insofar as they have rules surrounding honor or other meta/legal considerations, these are there to facilitate the resolution of power struggles through duels or other such concepts. They nonetheless have a fairly stable civilization. And of course Christianity is the canonical (no pun intended) example of slave morality as identified by Nietzsche.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#207

Post by curiousguy »

flakeoil wrote: post #51
yrgulation wrote: post #27

I knew a software engineer who used to live in sweden. One day he had a payraise. Out of the blue his landlord raised his rent. Apparently she somehow found out about his payraise and now i know how. She even told him that she knows he can afford more. He left sweden for this reason and racism. Before you believe all them nice stories about scandinavia, be sure to talk to people that lived in any of those countries a…

A landlord in Sweden cannot increase the rent out of the blue. If there is a rental contract in place at least. If renting without a contract for some weird reason, well, you better be sure you rent from someone you trust. Like in most other countries I would expect.

I once read that Sweden has a “huge” subletting blackmarket because of the strict rent control, maybe OP friend was subletting?

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#208

Post by dosshell »

drakonka wrote: post #196
dosshell wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for this? There are several sites (upplysning.se for example) that show full length of the personal ID. How does that work if it is not public information?

When I search for any name on that website, I see numbers as follows: "YYYYMMDD-XXXX" (with the "XXXX" parts being obfuscated). Do you mean it shows the full ID if you sign up for their service? I would be surprised if so, but have never tried that before so I suppose it's possible (that's also generally how these services provide tax information - behind a registration and usually paywall, even though you can reques…

Yes, you need to sign in (the account is free).

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#209

Post by cassianoleal »

adventured wrote: post #168
ClassyJacket wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swatting doesn't work in any other country than America because in any other country than America, the police won't immediately murder someone based on a phone call.

Swatting rarely results in murder in the US, and obviously it makes the news when it does. It's largely an effective harrassment, terrorization (fear) tactic. Congressperson Marjorie Greene (yes she's terrible, not the point) being an on-going example of that.

> Swatting rarely results in murder in the US, and obviously it makes the news when it does.

I don't think this is as much of a counter-argument as you seem to think.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#210

Post by swooni »

gazonk wrote: post #190
Mankaninen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is not correct on salaries being public: What is public are your tax reports and those are done a year later. To my knowledge you cannot see all details either, only totals that the tax is based on. Thus I think your statement is wrong or at least it is not related to the public databases mentioned in the article.

The full social security number for a person is not easily obtained and not published by the free websites.

It is, on mrkoll for example. You could also ask the government. Your full social security number isn't a secret.
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