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Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

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Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#221

Post by freakynit »

picafrost wrote: post #72
wayfwdmachine wrote: post #62

Ok, some important context for non-Swedes. Anyone can get access to all Swedish (non-protected but those are a very VERY small subset) personal identification numbers by simply signing an agreement with SPAR[1] (the Swedish national people database). Identification numbers per se are not particularly useful or hard to get, they are effectively public information. Using SPAR you can also get the home (and any addition…

I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

Is this due to how high-trust societies work, or is it something else?

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#222

Post by romanhn »

SoftTalker wrote: post #212
picafrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

The US used to be more this way. Not brokerage accounts as far as I recall, but whether you own a house, how much you paid for it, your address, phone number, even your SSN didn't used to be considered very private, people had it printed on their personal checks, and schools used it as a student ID number. Newspapers used to publish hospital admissions and discharges, nothing medical but names and dates. Probably a l…

Let's not forget white pages, those door stopper telephone books containing everyone's name, phone and address that everyone had (along with yellow pages for business listings).

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#223

Post by jamesrr39 »

ivell wrote: post #106
picafrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

How do they have handle identity thefts, spams, etc.? There are so many ways to misuse these data. Are the residents not concerned about this?

Just knowing the personal number is not enough to do much with. To get access to services, verify who you are on when talking to companies there is a verification step, most commonly with the BankID app.

Visual example: https://images.ctfassets.net/b2dmfxhmyqno/1cD0YDHjd9DGZnWfjH...

Identity theft and spam still happens, just not through knowing the personal number.

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#224

Post by einr »

Saline9515 wrote: post #211
einr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot trivially get the whole database, no. But I kind of fail to see what a malicious actor would do with a large database of public information that they couldn’t otherwise do. The system is designed such that you can’t really do a lot of malicious stuff with just public data, and the stuff you can do (scam calls, etc) is probably not meaningfully more effective if you have the whole database than if you do manu…

Identity theft and scams are widespread in Sweden and the most increasing crime currently. https://ocindex.net/assets/downloads/2025/english/ocindex_pr...

I will say that the open and transparent design of Nordic society has some obvious issues when colliding with the hostile Internet we have today.

The issue here though was whether having a full database is materially worse than relying on existing public resources. I can do identity theft all day with public resources; I don’t need a full database dump.

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#225

Post by slim »

Saline9515 wrote: post #209
picafrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

What's the point of making public how much each person owns? Aside from making you a prime target for kidnappings and targeted advertising?

why would anyone kidnap you if they own as much as you ?

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#226

Post by [deleted] »

sandos wrote: post #149
wasmitnetzen wrote: post #40

Swedish news has some quotes from authorities that nothing of value has been leaked, and a quote from the service CGI that it only concerns test servers.[1][2] [1]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/uppgift-statlig-it-inform... [2]: https://www.cgi.com/se/sv/news/cybersakerhet/cgi-informerar-...

I dont know nothing about this particular leak, but I have worked at Skatteverket. Let me just say, the likelihood that CGI would have any _actual_ real personal data is close to 0%, at least on servers outside of Skatteverket. I had access to absolutely nothing even working inside. I have never worked in a more closed-down system, maybe excepting the swedish military "complex". No, actually that was less locked down…

[deleted]

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#227

Post by Epa095 »

Saline9515 wrote: post #209
picafrost wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

What's the point of making public how much each person owns? Aside from making you a prime target for kidnappings and targeted advertising?

Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden).

When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret.

It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people sneak out of their contribution, you can check. It also leads to yearly debates about the tax system as the list of the richest(usually inherited) is published together with what they pay in income tax vs wealth tax.

Previously you could check up anyone anonymous. These days you have to log inn, and they get a notification. But the list of the richest and their tax contribution gets published in the newspaper.

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#228

Post by Epa095 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #154
kivle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a lot more of that, but a system was put in place where you have to identify yourself with electronic ID to access the information, and the information is logged so the other party can see it. Nowadays I think mostly journalists use it to pull up information about politicians and other people that are in the public spotlight. There are of course the yearly "richest people in Norway" lists in various…

> There used to be a lot more of that, but a system was put in place where you have to identify yourself with electronic ID to access the information, and the information is logged so the other party can see it. Yeah, kind of a fake solution, request it via Ratsit or whatever and all they get to see is that someone used Ratsit, but not who actually requested it. Same goes for criminal cases, using Krimfup or whatever…

I don't think there's anything like ratsit in Norway which would let you do this query anonymously.

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#229

Post by Saline9515 »

Epa095 wrote: post #227
Saline9515 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of making public how much each person owns? Aside from making you a prime target for kidnappings and targeted advertising?

Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden). When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret. It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people…

This has also the effect of fueling envy, and allows employers to discriminate you if they see that you have side income (or if you don't). Why make all of this fuss about RGPD if private data is in the open?

And why not include medical data as well? The "tribe" has the right to know how much each one costs, right?

Re: Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

#230

Post by Saline9515 »

analyst74 wrote: post #218
Saline9515 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of making public how much each person owns? Aside from making you a prime target for kidnappings and targeted advertising?

People in safe countries generally do not worry about kidnappings.

People thought that in France until a public official started to sell tax data to the mafia. Now there is a kidnapping almost everyday. Things can change faster than what you can imagine, and Sweden is not a safe country anymore by the way.
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