The list of sponsors is impressive – Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Blackberry, Panda, F-Secure, not to mention the official ‘friends’ of the event such as Kim Dotcom and the Chaos Computer Club.

HITBSecConf2012 promised to bring back some of the most popular speakers of the last 10 years including John ‘Captain Crunch’ Draper the ‘phone phreak‘ who became a legend in the hacking community.

Also due to appear were Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij and former site spokesman Peter Sunde. They were due to give a speech titled “Data is Political”.

However, their 3:00pm speech slot came and went leaving conference attendees wondering what had happened to the duo.

Then came a worrying Tweet from F-Secure’s Chief Security Officer Mikko H. Hypponen.

“The Pirate Bay founders Peter ‘brokep’ Sunde and Fredrik ‘tiamo’ Neij were stopped in Bangkok on their way to #HITB2012KUL. Talk canceled,” he wrote.

The use of the word “stopped” suggested that something untoward may have happened and perhaps understandably news articles started to appear questioning Fredrik and Peter’s whereabouts and circumstances.

“All we know is they didn’t show up,” said Mei Ling Foo, a Hack in the Box coordinator, quoted by ComputerWorld.

However, a little while ago TorrentFreak managed to speak with both Fredrik and Peter. Were they lost, or in trouble? Both? Not exactly.

“I just couldn’t show since I’m home sick puking my ass off after picking up a bad stomach virus a few days ago,” Peter told us, adding that he’s been “totally out of it” since his last plane ride home (he was recently in Lebanon) which “was a mess.”

We also managed to speak to Fredrik who confirmed that neither he nor Peter had been anywhere near Bangkok and had not been “stopped” or otherwise. His no-show was due to concern over travel documents.

A few months ago the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok revoked Fredrik’s passport, a decision the Pirate Bay co-founder appealed in August. Last week it was revealed that his appeal had been successful.

But with all this happening just a few days ago Fredrik just wasn’t confident enough to make the trip to his speech today at Hack in the Box, so decided to stay back at base until more time had passed.

Sickness and travel issues aside, considering the treatment received by Gottfrid Svartholm at the hands of Cambodian authorities recently, one can’t help but consider the potential risks of Peter and Fredrik turning up at a high-profile event such as Hack in the Box anyway.

An unexpected stomach churner and a “messy” flight is much preferable to the alternative whichever way you look at it, even if it does leave Captain Crunch with another 30 mins to fill and Lebanon airlines with extra cleaning duties.

Update: Mikko informed TorrentFreak that the information he tweeted came from HITB.

“I was just repeating what the HITB host announced to the roomful of people who were waiting for TPB talk to start.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

February this year the main verdict against Fredrik Neij and his co-defendants in the Pirate Bay trial was made final. However, Neij has not given up completely.

Together with former site spokesman Peter Sunde he filed appeals with the European Court of Human Rights in June.

While Neij awaits the Court’s decision he is residing in Asia with his family, where he and his wife are expecting their third child.

But a few months ago Neij suffered another setback when the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok revoked his passport, a decision the Pirate Bay co-founder decided to appeal in August.

The 34-year-old argued that the nature of his crime is not serious enough to warrant his passport being taken away and that by doing so the Swedish authorities will subject his family to unreasonable consequences.

Among other things, Neij and his Thai wife want to be able to travel to Thailand for the birth for medical reasons.

Fortunately for the family, the appeal was successful. Fredrik informs TorrentFreak that he has won the case and is free to travel again. According to him, the authorities were not able to give a proper reason for the revocation, or at least they refused to.

“I can only assume they didn’t have any reason, maybe they were just someone doing someone a favor,” he told TorrentFreak.

The good news for Neij comes in a week where one of his former companies, hosting company PRQ, was making headlines in the international press after a raid by the Swedish police.

Neij started the hosting company in 2004 with fellow Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm, but left the company around 2007. In a short clip from the upcoming documentary TPB AFK he explains that providing a hosting facility for controversial but legal sites was one of the main reasons to start PRQ.

Neij will now await the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, in a country of his own choosing.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Fredrik Neij, one of the original founders of The Pirate Bay, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and ordered to pay several million dollars in damages to various movie and music companies.

One of the companies is the Swedish film studio Yellow Bird. The movie company is entitled to nearly $1 million (6.6m Swedish Kroner) in damages but thus far they haven’t received a penny.

In an attempt to recoup what little they can, Yellow Bird filed a petition at the Stockholm District Court this week requesting that Neij be made bankrupt. If granted, Neij (known online as TiAMO) would be barred from running a business and his finances would be taken over by a trustee.

Under Swedish bankruptcy rules individuals remain in debt and can’t simply start over with a clean slate. But according to the 34-year-old Pirate Bay founder the request is not going to change much for him.

“It doesn’t really matter what they do, I still have no assets they can take,” he told TorrentFreak.

Yellow Bird’s motives for filing for Neij’s bankruptcy are unclear, but they wouldn’t be investing time and resources if there wasn’t something to be gained. Once Neij has discussed the issue with his lawyer he’ll decide on an appropriate response.

February this year the verdict against Neij and his co-defendants was made final when Sweden’s Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal. However, Neij has not given up completely. Together with Peter Sunde he filed appeals with the European Court of Human Rights in June.

While Neij and Sunde are no longer involved with The Pirate Bay, the two haven’t said farewell to the file-sharing business. Last year both Pirate Bay founders teamed up again to start a one-click file-hosting service called Bayfiles.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

While the site’s former spokesman has been active online promoting his Flattr micropayment service largely from locations around Europe, both Svartholm and Neij took the decision to move to Asia.

Following his illness and subsequent no-show during the appeals process, little to nothing has been heard from Svartholm from his presumed Cambodia base. Neij too has been going about his business quietly but now finds himself in another battle.

According to a document dated August 6, Neij is currently appealing a decision by the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok to revoke his passport.

The 34-year-old argues that the nature of his crime is not serious enough to warrant his passport being taken away and that by doing so the Swedish authorities will subject his family to unreasonable consequences.

Although it was long believed that Neij had been living in Thailand, according to embassy documents he actually lives with his wife and two children in neighboring Laos.

However, since Neij’s Thai wife is currently pregnant with their third child, the family want the freedom to go to Thailand for the birth. That means crossing the border which of course requires a passport.

“The children were born in the hospital on the Thai side of the border, where since birth they have received all necessary medical treatment,” Neij writes in his appeal.

“The reasons for this are primarily dictated by the standard of care and hygiene. As a result the family needs to occasionally cross the border for medical care and as a result of the pregnancy.”

Neij’s desire to have access to Thailand is understandable. Laos is one of the world’s few remaining communist states and is one of east Asia’s poorest countries. The country suffers from limited communications infrastructure and in rural areas electricity availability is poor. Aside from a short link across a bridge in the capital, Laos has no railways.

In June, the Stockholm District Court claimed that that despite an earlier ban, Neij – known online as TiAMO – had continued to have involvement in the operations of The Pirate Bay. As a result the Court handed him a 500,000 kronor fine ($74,400).

“There is no evidence, just the lack of evidence that I was not involved,” Neij told TorrentFreak.

“In civil cases it’s guilty until proven innocent and in a previous case I declined to give the details who I transfered the site to. They say if it’s not me, then I could easily say who it is.”

While Peter Sunde waits on the results of a public campaign for him to receive a pardon from Swedish authorities, the whereabouts of Gottfrid Svartholm remain unknown.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The founders of the site were hit with jail sentences and huge fines following a 2009 trial and subsequent appeals, and the site itself is banned or censored in growing numbers of countries around the world.

What is less well known perhaps is that two of the site’s founders are actually forbidden from having anything at all to do with running The Pirate Bay.

The legal restrictions date back to an order issued by the Stockholm District Court, which declared that Fredrik Neij (TiAMO) and Gottfrid Svatholm (Anakata) were forever banned from operating the site.

Breaching the ban would result in a hefty fine for the duo, but one was not expected to be handed down – until today.

The Stockholm District Court now says that Neij has continued to have involvement in the operations of The Pirate Bay. As a result it has handed down a 500,000 kronor fine ($70,690).

So what evidence does the Court have exactly? TorrentFreak tracked Fredrik down and asked.

“There is no evidence, just the lack of evidence that I was not involved,” he told us.

“In civil cases it’s guilty until proven innocent and in a previous case I declined to give the details who I transfered the site to. They say if it’s not me, then I could easily say who it is.”

Although the amount levied by the District Court is significant, Neij appears unfazed.

“I don’t mind civil cases,” he told us. “I don’t live in Sweden, and it’s not like an extra $71,000 would hurt the $10,606,000 I already owe.”

Along with the other founders of The Pirate Bay, Neij does indeed owe millions of dollars in damages and fines so his predicament and attitude is perhaps best summed up by paraphrasing the earlier words of fellow site founder Peter Sunde. “Why stay at just a few million dollars?” Sunde said. “Why not make it a billion dollars instead?”

In any event, it appears that no one is getting any money. Fredrik tells TorrentFreak that he’s already written to the court informing them of his intention never to pay any fines, now or in the future. Even if he did, however, there would be a bonus.

“[Any payment] would push the mafiaa from The Pirate Bay trial one step away from even getting any cash at all, as all this goes directly to the state, and stuff owed to the state will be taken before anything is sent to private cash I owe.

“Not that they will ever get any cash for either of the debts, but still.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This meant that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström would stand.

With Lundström’s and Svartholm’s fates settled and Sunde’s recent plea for clemency filed, only one person’s direction was left unclear – that of Fredrik Neij.

Through a statement penned by his lawyer Jonas Nilsson, today we learn that Neij intends to take his case to the European Court.

“According to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees citizens of Sweden the freedom to receive and impart information, we believe that Frederick Neij’s right to freedom of expression has been denied him,” says Nilsson.

“According to our complaint to the European Court, The Pirate Bay’s services – to transfer non-proprietary information among users through an automated process on the Internet – is protected under that article of the Convention.”

Nilsson says that The Pirate Bay never transferred or transmitted copyright information – that was the responsibility of the site’s users. The Pirate Bay’s function, he says, was “to allow the free dissemination of information via non-copyrighted torrent files.”

The lawyer also notes that since the torrent file information itself wasn’t illegal, the function should be covered by Article 10. He adds that he will also ask for further scrutiny as to whether it was indeed correct to hold Fredrik Neij responsible for what other people did when they used The Pirate Bay.

“In our opinion, it is like being held guilty in court because someone delivered a letter with illegal content. Another, and perhaps even more relevant analogy, would be if the founders of a buying and selling site were found guilty after someone sold a stolen bicycle after it was advertised on the site,” Nilsson explains.

Nilsson believes that it’s quite rightly not easy to get cases heard before Sweden’s Supreme Court, but by hearing certain pivotal cases valuable guidance can be gained for future rulings. Because a definitive ruling would provide much-need clarity in similar cases involving liability, the Supreme Court should have heard The Pirate Bay case, Nilsson says.

“In light of the Supreme Court decision [not to hear the case], we now see no alternative but to pursue this case through to the European Court. That clear legislation or legal precedent is missing in an area that affects us all – the Internet – represents a problem for the rule of law, today and tomorrow,” Nilsson concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“We do not accept the Appeal Court’s ruling,” Lundström’s lawyer Per E. Samuelsson told Swedish radio when confirming his client would take his case to the Supreme Court.

It is claimed that Lundström, who is the millionaire heir to the Wasabröd crispbread empire, provided computers, bandwidth and server rackspace for The Pirate Bay in its early days through his company Rix Telecom. He rejects the decision of the Appeal Court on a number of grounds.

Firstly, Lundström questions why The Pirate Bay should be held liable for promoting infringements when other Internet services, such as Google, can be viewed as doing the same.

Lundström also writes that the prosecutor has failed to prove that he operated “jointly and in concert” with others in respect of any crimes potentially carried out via The Pirate Bay.

According to Realtid, Lundström says the Court of Appeal’s conclusion, that he must’ve known that his company had provided equipment free of charge to The Pirate Bay, is wrong. He insists he had no knowledge of any such arrangement.

But above all, Lundström insists that since he was a provider of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, he must therefore have been their Internet service provider.

“Assessing the criminal responsibility of ISPs should be the target key precedent in this case,” he explains.

Lundström wants the Supreme Court to consider if an ISP should be held liable for assisting in crimes committed by their customers. His lawyer, Per E Samuelson, says that to his knowledge no one has ever been found guilty on this basis before.

The appeal lodged by Lundström also questions the huge damages awarded by the Appeal Court against him. As an ISP with no knowledge of the alleged infringements, he feels a share of $6.5 million in damages is excessive.

It is believed that Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde will also file appeals with the Supreme Court in due course.

The fourth defendant, Gottfrid Svartholm, is behind in the process due to illness. His case will be handled by the Appeal Court at a later date.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Despite this unfavorable verdict the site remains online, as it adapts to become a torrent portal that is less likely to be shut down.

In yet another attempt to close the site, two of the site’s founders were ordered by the Stockholm District Court to stop operating the site in October, facing fines of $71,000 each if they choose not to comply.

The two founders, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, both decided to appeal the verdict, and the Appeal Court has now announced that it will take on the case.

Gottfrid argued that the district court lacks the technical skills that are required, “…which is devastating to a case which is so technically complicated.” Fredrik further said that both he and Gottfrid have been living outside Sweden for a long time, adding that The Pirate Bay is no longer hosted in Sweden either.

Aside from the technical difficulties, the legal authorities may also find that it is pretty much impossible to prove that the two are actually working on the site, which is required to impose the fines. The Appeal Court will review these and other issues in the upcoming appeal.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.