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The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

commit.pizza

221–230 of 261 posts

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

#221
post #216
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Standard practice for right wing parties to blame immigrants (or refugees, etc.). On the flip side, standard practice for left wing parties is to deny that immigration causes any problems at all and call you racist for even trying to discuss it. However, as we are seeing in Sweden, sometimes the problems become too big to ignore.

People aren't just "trying to discuss it". Plenty of outright racism in Sweden.

I do not deny that some who oppose lax immigration policies are racist, but just because some people who have certain concerns are racist does not mean that everyone who shares those concerns is also racist, or that those concerns are invalid.

Some people have in fact been trying to have discussions about immigration policies, but for quite a while proponents of lax immigration policies have dismissed any pushback against such policies as racist/xenophobic fear mongering.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I haven't read those. What about those books are inconceivable?

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

#223
post #221
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't just "trying to discuss it". Plenty of outright racism in Sweden.

I do not deny that some who oppose lax immigration policies are racist, but just because some people who have certain concerns are racist does not mean that everyone who shares those concerns is also racist, or that those concerns are invalid. Some people have in fact been trying to have discussions about immigration policies, but for quite a while proponents of lax immigration policies have dismissed any pushback ag…

To your point, rape statistics in Sweden seemed to be the major talking point on this issue, and would generally trigger the response you describe.

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that was literally front page news and was an incredibly unusual event. My point wasn't about the specific case (obviously multiple horrific murders are not a common occurrence), I meant the general milieu of drug addiction, law-breaking, prostitution; the disgustingly dirty slum conditions that people lived in - all of which was accompanied by police corruption and brutality. Naturally none of this is popular to b…

Citing statistics would be a lot more convincing than basing an argument around a single news story. I was under the impression that crime statistics show a deterioration. Is that not the case? (not a downvoter, btw, but maybe that's what they're objecting to)

Yes, there's absolutely a deterioration.

[Here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Sweden-c... a graph from Wikipedia showing some violent crimes increasing, but the change is more than just the numbers, and the numbers could now be underestimates because trust in police etc. has dropped.

The social trust that existed even with strangers and for which there was good reason is largely gone.

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

#225
post #23

Freedom of expression is a big deal in Sweden. Tryckfrihetsförordningen (the other constitutional part besides Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen) dates back to 1766. It's the oldest law ensuring freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Heja Sverige!

Freedom of expression is actually relatively limited in Sweden, but freedom of the press is almost absurdly well protected. It's more about ensuring the dynamics between institutions than the liberties of individuals.

Absolutely! Freedom of expression in Sweden doesn't come close to the protection that first amendment to the US constitution provides. It's just that Sweden was first at introducing FOI-friendly tryckfrihetsförordningen.

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how you don't revolt against this to be honest. And in terms of 'safe', didn't the extreme right just win big because the mainstream parties totally ignore the uptick in organized violent crime? At least that's what they said in the news here, perhaps it's not fully accurate. I understand state agencies might want to see personal data, though I often don't agree. Having it available for anyone to s…

Organized violent crime is mostly gang wars so ordinary people aren't directly affected. Although you could have bad luck and be mistaken for one of these gang members I guess.

Not true, identity theft is common in Sweden, many regular Svensson are suffering from frauds and even burglaries because of these policies.

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

#227

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.

They most certainly treat knowing your personal ID as proof of your identity in plenty of cases. One example... People can change other people's addresses without any real proof, you need to opt-in at the tax agency so that you need an eID to do this. The tax agency explicitly mentions this on their website. https://skatteverket.se/servicelankar/otherlanguages/inengli...

> plenty of cases

If so, can you mention just a few more?

The address change fraud is a real problem, but the personnummer is used for identification and not authentication in that case as well.

The government cannot mandate all citizens to have e-IDs, so other alternatives to change your address must be provided. Since having an up to date address is mandatory, this alternative process must also be accessible (e.g. the closest tax office might be far away, so requiring the alternative process to be in-person would be impractical).

So the alternative process is that you fill in a form, sign it, and send it to the tax agency. To specify whose address is being changed, the form asks for your personnummer (it also asks for your name, but neither is intended to authenticate you). As verification, the tax agency sends a letter to your current address.

If the fraudster is able to intercept your mail, or if you do not notice the verification letter, the fraud is successful.

The e-ID alternative cannot be easily made opt-out, because the people who need the manual process also would be unable to opt out electronically. So as it stands, it’s opt-in, and almost everyone should opt into it.

Is this a mess, and a consequence of having a mandatory public address registry? Yes. But the personnummer isn’t used for authentication anywhere in this mess.

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

#228
post #135
post #63

Initial reaction: WTF?! The more I think about it though, the more I'm aligned with the idea — except the home address part, that's just mental and dangerous. So all your details like salary, social security number, etc. are public. What's the end result? For me, nothing. I _could_ care less, but not by much. I know people get all worked up about things like their social security number being exposed, "because fraud!…

A strange comment to be coming from a pseudonymous account with no contact info. Why are you hiding your identity on HN if that's how you feel?

[deleted]

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

#229
post #23

Freedom of expression is a big deal in Sweden. Tryckfrihetsförordningen (the other constitutional part besides Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen) dates back to 1766. It's the oldest law ensuring freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Heja Sverige!

"We" have freedom of speech, sure. There is however a high degree of self-censurship in my humble opinion.

Sweden is not the type of country that I would dare voicing my opinion in. It's simply not worth it.

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

#230

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.

Yes, exactly. In the US the financial institutions and the credit reporting and collection agencies have used rather insidious language like "stolen identity" to describe the situation where fraud was perpetrated on one of those agencies by an unknown 3rd party who presumably bore the ID credentials of the person in question thereby passing through the institution's identity checks. The fraud in these cases is not th…

It always reminds me of this comedy routine https://youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E
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