The sessions this week, on October 7 and 10, were used for summing up by the prosecution and defense. Danish language publication DR.dk, which has provided good coverage of the whole trial, reports that deputy prosecutor Anders Riisager used an analogy to describe their position on Gottfrid.

Prosecution: Hands in the cookie jar

“If there is a cookie jar on the table with the lid removed, and your son is sitting on the sofa with cookie crumbs on his mouth, it is only reasonable to assume that it is he who has had his paws in the cookie jar,” he said.

“This, even though he claims it is four of his friends who have put the cookies into his mouth. And especially when the son will not reveal who his friends are, or how it happened.”

Riisager was referring to the evidence presented by the prosecution that Gottfrid and his co-defendant were the people behind hacker attacks on IT company CSC which began in 2012.

The Swede insists that while the attack may have been carried out from his computer, the computer itself was used remotely by other individuals, any of whom could have carried out the attacks. Leads and names provided by Gottfrid apparently led the investigation nowhere useful.

Remote access unlikely

That third-parties accessed Gottfrid’s computer without his knowledge is a notion rejected by the prosecution. Noting that the Pirate Bay founder is a computer genius, senior prosecutor Maria Cingari said that maintaining secret access to his machine over extended periods would not have been possible.

“It is not likely that others have used [Gottfrid's] computer to hack CSC without him discovering something. At the same time the hack occurred over such a long time that remote control is unlikely,” she said.

And, Cingari noted, it was no coincidence that chatlogs found on Gottfrid’s computer related to so-called “zero-day” vulnerabilities and the type of computer systems used by CSC.

Dane and Swede working together

In respect of Gottfrid’s co-defendant, the prosecution said that the 21-year-old Dane knew that when he was speaking online with a user known as My Evil Twin (allegedly Gottfrid), the plan was a hacker attack on CSC.

Supporting their allegations of collusion, the prosecution noted that the Dane had been living in Cambodia when the attacks on CSC began and while a hacker attack against Logica, a crime for which Gottfrid was previously sentenced, was also underway. The Dane spent time in a café situated directly under Gottfrid’s apartment, the prosecution said.

Why not hand over the encryption keys?

When police raided the Dane they obtained a laptop, the contents of which still remain a secret due to the presence of heavy encryption. The police found a hollowed-out chess piece containing the computer’s SDcard key, but that didn’t help them gain access. Despite several requests, the 21-year-old has refused to provide keys to unlock the data on the Qubes OS device, arguing there is nothing on there of significance. According to the prosecution, this is a sign of guilt.

“It is very striking that one chooses to sit in prison for a year and more, instead of just helping the police with access to the laptop so they can see that it contains nothing,” senior prosecutor Maria Cingari said.

Cingari also pointed the finger at the Dane for focusing Gottfrid’s attention on CSC.

“You can see that [the Dane] has very much helped [Gottfrid] with obtaining access to CSC’s mainframe. It is not even clear that he would have set his sights on CSC, if it had not been for [the Dane],” she said.

Defense: No objectivity

On Friday, defense lawyer Luise Høj began her closing arguments with fierce criticism of a Danish prosecution that uncritically accepted evidence provided by Swedish police and failed to conduct an objective inquiry.

“They took a plane to Stockholm and were given some material. It was placed in a bag and they took the plane back home. From there they went to CSC and asked them to look for clues. This shows a lack of an independent approach to the evidence,” she said.

Furthermore, the mere fact that CSC had been investigating itself under direction of the police was also problematic.

“The victim should not investigate itself. CSC is at risk of being fired as the state’s IT provider,” Høj noted.

Technical doubt

Computer technicians presented by both sides, including famous security expert Jacob Appelbaum, failed to agree on whether remote access had been a possibility, but this in itself should sway the court to acquit, Høj said.

“It must be really difficult for the court to decide whether the computer was controlled remotely or not, when even engineers disagree on what has happened,” she noted.

Why not take time to investigate properly?

Høj also took aim at the police who she said had failed to properly investigate the people Gottfrid had previously indicated might be responsible for the hacker attacks.

“My client has in good faith attempted to come up with some suggestions as to how his computer was remotely controlled. Of course he did not provide a complete explanation of how it happened, as he did not know what had happened and he has not had the opportunity to examine his computer,” she said.

Additionally, clues that could’ve led somewhere were overlooked, the defense lawyer argued. For instance, an IP address found in CSC’s logs was traced back to a famous Swedish hacker known as ‘MG’.

“The investigation was not objective. I do not understand why it’s not possible to investigate clues that don’t take much effort to be investigated,” Høj said. “The willingness to investigate clues that do not speak in favor of the police case has been minimal.”

A decision in the case is expected at the end of the month. If found guilty, Gottfrid faces up to four years in jail.

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

In what’s being described as the largest case of its kind ever seen in the Scandinavian country, both stand accused of hacking computer mainframes operated by US IT giant CSC. This week various IT experts have been taking the stand.

On Tuesday, IT investigator Flemming Grønnemose appeared for the third time and stated that during the summer and fall of 2012, Swedish police had tipped off Danish police about possible hacker attacks against CSC.

According to DR.dk, as part of Grønnemose’s questioning Gottfrid’s lawyer Luise Høj raised concerns over a number of changes that had taken place on her client’s computer since it had been taken into police custody.

Grønnemose admitted that when police installed programs of their own onto the device, security holes which could have been exploited for remote control access could have been closed. However, it appears police also have an exact copy of the machine in an unmodified state.

Further evidence centered around the IP addresses that were traced during the attacks. IP addresses from several countries were utilized by the attackers including those in Cambodia, Germany, Iran, Spain and the United States. German police apparently investigated the local IP address and found that it belonged to a hacked server in a hosting facility.

The server had not been rented out for long, but was still on and had been taken over by hackers, Grønnemose said. According to the prosecution, the same server also featured in last year’s Logica case in Sweden. Gottfrid was found guilty in that case and sentenced to a year in jail.

Another IT expert called to give evidence on the same day was Allan Lund Hansen who had examined the files found on Gottfrid’s computer. Those files, garnered from the CSC hack, contained thousands of names, addresses and social security numbers of Danish citizens. Since the files were in an encrypted folder along with data from earlier attacks on IT company Logica and the Nordea bank, the prosecution are linking the files to Gottfrid.

On Thursday, DR.dk reported that the debate over Gottfrid’s computer being remotely controlled continued. Previously Jacob Appelbaum argued that an outside attacker could have used the machine to carry out the attacks but defense experts from the Center for Cyber ​​Security disputed that.

This week Thomas Krismar from the Center said that Python scripts found on Gottfrid’s computer were able to carry out automated tasks but in this case remote control was unlikely to be one of them.

“There are two characteristics we always look for when we try to discover remote control features. The first is one that starts automatically when you turn on your computer since the attacker will always try to maintain their footing on the computer. The second is one that ‘phones home’ to indicate that it is ready to receive commands,” Krismar said.

The script in question on Gottfrid’s machine needed to be started manually and did not attempt to make contact with anything on the web, the expert said.

Also appearing Thursday were further witnesses including Joachim Persson of Stockholm police who investigated Gottfrid’s computers after his arrest in Cambodia.

Persson said he found a tool known as Hercules, a sophisticated piece of software that emulates the kind of systems that were hacked at CSC. Persson did note, however, that such tools have legitimate uses for those learning how to operate similar systems.

The trial continues.

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

The man, whose identity is being protected, told the Court that while he’s had no formal IT training, he is indeed a computer security expert who had been involved in testing computer systems to see how they hold up to external threats. He admitted working for American, Australian and Danish companies.

The 21-year-old Dane refused to say whether he knows Gottfrid on the grounds that he could be attacked in prison. He did admit to having previously heard about Gottfrid, however.

“Most people in the IT sector have heard of him,” he said.

The Dane also admitted to traveling to Cambodia to visit friends and smoke cannabis, but denied that he went there to meet Gottfrid at his apartment.

The prosecution also presented some emails in which the man said that CSC, the IT company involved in the hack, was owned by the CIA, but he dismissed that comment as a joke.

Discussion also returned to the IRC conversations referenced in the first week of the trial which reportedly took place between ‘My Evil Twin’ (allegedly Gottfrid) and ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat’ (allegedly the 21-year-old).

Much was made in week one of potentially altered Internet Relay Chat (IRC) logs presented by the prosecution. This week the Dane admitted that he had been involved in some conversations and had actually met ‘My Evil Twin’. That person was not Gottfrid, he said.

In respect of the content of some chats, the Dane said the topic had indeed centered around the security of IT systems but he insisted that there we no plans to hack CSC or any other companies’ computers. Usernames and passwords of CSC systems that were allegedly exchanged during the IRC chats had been found using Google, he added.

Also of note during the day’s proceedings was the Dane’s continued refusal to provide police with encryption keys to examine the contents of his laptop.

“There is no material on my computer. I can not see how it would make this a better situation,” he told the court.

However, DR.dk reported that during the day, due to the nature of the evidence being presented, it became clear that police had managed to retrieve some information without access to the keys.

After a day’s break in proceedings, on Friday renowned activist and security expert Jacob Appelbaum appeared as an expert witness for the defense. Appelbaum also appeared in Gottfrid’s Swedish trial, a case in which he was partly acquitted.

The prosecution previously complained that Appelbaum knows Gottfrid personally, so was unsuitable as an expert witness. The American denied that was the case.

“I’ve only talked a little with Gottfrid as he is not known as a sociable guy. He is not easy to approach and the times that I’ve seen him in social situations it has always been about computer security,” Appelbaum said.

Echoing his testimony in the Swedish case, Appelbaum told the Court that it certainly would have been possible for outsiders to have controlled Gottfrid’s computer to carry out the hack of CSC.

It’s unclear for how long the trial will continue but hearings have been allocated until the end of October.

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

Surprise

The trial began on Tuesday but after less than 25 minutes proceedings had to be halted after the prosecution submitted a 27-page document and 92 slides that the defense claimed not to have seen before. Michael Juul Eriksen, defending the 21-year-old, complained but deputy public prosecutor Anders Riisager said there was no obligation to provide all documents up front.

On top of the surprise documentation, the prosecution also provided a never-seen-before video recorded by police when Gottfrid was arrested in Cambodia during 2012. It reportedly showed the Swede’s apartment messy and turned upside down. Gottfrid’s defense lawyer Luise Høj branded the video as “irrelevant” and this start to proceedings didn’t impress Gottfrid’s mother Kristina either.

“Such efforts to disorder the defense and affect the jury are, in my opinion, unworthy of a civilized court process,” Kristina told TF.

“I guess I am very naive in this, but I think that representatives of the community should behave better than that – justice should be considered more important and be paid more respect to than in the way that the prosecutor behaved to begin with that first day. But maybe Denmark has its own ethics in this respect.”

Chat logs

In presenting the case, senior prosecutor Maria Cingali referred to chat logs that took place between two hackers – one allegedly Gottfrid (My Evil Twin) and the other the 21-year-old (Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat). A report in The Local said the logs not only contained chats discussing the hacking of CSC’s database, but also personal details that correspond with those of the 21-year-old.

Remote access

Speaking to the court on Wednesday, Gottfrid continued with the same defense strategy employed in his Swedish case – that third parties had access to his computer and carried out the hacking from there. The 29-year-old also revealed that he’d previously given the police four other nicknames of individuals who had access to his computer. Eraser, Nohyb, RBL and Ripley were reportedly known online as The Lattice Team but Anders Riisager wanted their real names – Gottfrid refused.

“I do not want be called a traitor or a snitch,” he said, going on to criticize the efforts of the prosecution in finding the potential culprits.

“The motivation to investigate has been equal to zero,” he added, pointing out that the Danish authorities had been in possession of these names since 2013.

“There has been every opportunity to find out their names. You have had more than a year to do so,” Gottfrid noted.

“Smear” campaign

In his cross-examination, Riisager invited Gottfrid to comment on an article published on Cambodian forum Khmer440 in 2012 which claimed that the Swede was “messed up on drugs” and “a total recluse” who made contact only with “his dealers and landlord.”

The Swede reacted unfavorably, accusing the prosecution of trying to “smear” him. Someone who shares opposition to these allegations is ‘John’, Gottfrid’s former business partner as revealed in our earlier article. He’s outraged that the prosecution has used information penned by someone with “a grudge” against Gottfrid.

“I should inform you that Khmer440 has accepted that many of the allegations posted about me and Gottfrid were false and defamatory. I have it in writing (the term they used was ‘scurrilous’,” John wrote in an email yesterday to Jens Jorgensen of the Danish police.

“The fact that you have quoted these libelous, provably false accusations written by a man who you know to have a grudge against Gottfrid (and I know that you know, because I personally told you about it during our meeting, and watched you take notes) is absolutely sickening. I can’t imagine what on earth possessed you to do such a thing.”

Did the prosecution edit evidence?

Something else bothering the defense is the authenticity of chat logs provided to the court. The names “Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat” and “My Evil Twin” were seen in chat logs provided by the prosecution yet on Internet Relay Chat, where the chats allegedly took place, names with spaces are truncated. This, the defense says, indicates the logs had been modified.

“The prosecution makes much of the two names. But if you log into this kind of IRC chat with the name ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat,’ you will just be called ‘Advanced,’ because you cannot include spaces. It simply cannot be done to be called ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat,’ so it’s been changed subsequently,” Michael Juul Eriksen argued.

Lost in translation

Speaking with TF yesterday, Kristina said that while Gottfrid is in good spirits, earlier in the week her son “lost his temper” with his interpreter over technical terms not being relayed correctly.

“Gottfrid and his lawyer have complained about this earlier in court, several months ago – and now this happens again,” Kristina said. “Denmark should use its best interpreters in a task like this – and the interpreters themselves should refrain from accepting to do the job it if they feel that they can’t do it well.”

By Friday morning, however, things had improved.

“I just saw a report that Gottfrid and [his new interpreter] smiled at each other when she tried to translate some technical terms,” a good sign, Kristina believes.

The week ends in more drama

The cross-examination of Gottfrid’s co-defendant had been due to begin Friday afternoon, a highly anticipated event since to date the 21-year-old has refused to give any comment to the police. But thanks to the prosecution producing yet more evidence that had not previously been shared with the defense, the court would have to wait.

Defending the 21-year-old, lawyer Michael Juul Eriksen said he couldn’t let the questioning go ahead until the information had been read by the defense.

The trial continues next week.

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

After being extradited to Denmark from Sweden in 2013, next month he will go to trial.

In recent weeks Danish authorities have been attempting to round up witnesses to ensure they attend the Frederiksberg court during September. It’s unclear how many there are, but TorrentFreak has learned at least one won’t be attending.

John, who has asked us not to use his real name, is a former colleague of Gottfrid who lives and works in Cambodia. TorrentFreak previously confirmed his identity and the fact that he and Gottfrid did business together. In April he received a surprise telephone call which led to an unsettling series of events involving Danish police.

Several months later and John is again being put under pressure. Following suspicions he was being watched, John received an anonymous tipoff that he had been placed on the prosecution’s witness list against Gottfrid. Sure enough, on Wednesday Jens Jorgensen from the Danish police, one of the people who traveled to Cambodia to question John, telephoned John to register him as a witness.

John and Jorgensen then exchanged emails in which the former expressed bemusement at why the prosecution would want to use his evidence when it actually supports the position of Gottfrid Svartholm.

“I fail to see how anything I previously said to you could be used in this case against [Gottfrid]. As I told you, lots of people had access to [Gottfrid's] computer,” John wrote.

“Why on earth would you want me to testify against him when you know full well that I don’t believe he committed this crime based on what little information I have?”

In his early days of detention Gottfrid was kept in solitary confinement, something which enraged Wikileaks’ Julian Assange and prompted complaints from Gottfrid’s mother Kristina to Amnesty. This treatment is also a big issue with John.

“Gottfrid’s previous prolonged, extrajudicial solitary confinement in your country very clearly meets the United Nations definition of torture, and I find it utterly troubling,” John told Jorgensen.

“With that in mind, I am deeply concerned about the prospect of being a part of something that is so clearly unethical if not outright illegal. Is there some sort of legal equivalent of being a conscientious objector to trials? If so, I would consider myself a conscientious objector to this one, the whole thing disgusts me whether he committed the crime or not.”

Clearly, traveling half way around the world to assist the prosecution in a high profile trial against someone you believe is innocent is problematic enough, but John also has serious concerns about the legal issues involved.

“Will I be offered access to a lawyer at any point during all of this? he asked Jorgensen.

“So far I’ve been threatened with force by a man claiming to be a Swedish policeman, made to answer a bunch of questions, and now I’m being asked to make a decision about legal matters. I’d really like access to a lawyer so I can make informed decisions about this, but I can’t afford one as I got fired from my job the day after you came to see me.”

In addition to visiting John, Danish police also visited John’s employer when they visited Cambodia earlier this year. He was fired less than 24 hours later but was fortunate to find new employment.

In his response, Jorgensen confirmed that attending the trial is a voluntary act and no one will force John to attend. He also informed John that if he needs legal advice, he’ll have to pay for it himself. Nevertheless, the summons was issued.

The summons states that traveling expenses will be reimbursed and if necessary John will be provided with a hotel room in Denmark. He is also offered DKK 40 for every two hours he’s away from home or work – that’s roughly $3.50 per hour. If that isn’t enough the police say that more money may be available, but in John’s case that probably won’t be needed.

“I respectfully refuse your invitation and can confirm that I have no intention of appearing in court, at least until you clarify your motives for requesting me to do so, and until you provide access to appropriate legal advice so that I can make an informed decision,” John concludes.

A copy of the summons can be found below – note that while Gottfrid Svartholm is accused of only “white collar” offenses, the contact address is the Public Prosecutor’s Department of Violent Crime.

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

At the start of this weekend the torrent site decided to feature something a little more personal. The site currently displays a banner asking visitors to send their support to two of the site’s original founders.

Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde are both in prison at the moment and could use an uplifting note or two, the message suggests.

“Show your support by sending them some encouraging mail! Gottfrid is only allowed to receive letters while Peter gladly received books, letter and vegan candy,” the TPB team writes.

Peter Sunde is serving the sentence he received for his involvement with The Pirate Bay. He’s being held in a high security prison in Västervik and recently requested a transfer to a lower safety class unit.

Gottfrid Svartholm has already served his Pirate Bay sentence but currently stands accused in Denmark of hacking into the mainframe computers of IT company CSC. He faces up to five years in prison and his trial will start in two months.

When Gottfrid served his Pirate Bay sentence in Sweden he also received numerous letters and cards. He later sent a video out to thank everyone for the support he received.

“I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in any way, very much, it has meant a lot to me,” Gottfrid said at the time.

“I don’t have the time or the possibility to answer many of the letters but you should know that I read each and every one of them and it has really helped me a lot.”

—

For those who can’t read the image above, the addresses for Gottfrid and Peter are as follows.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg
c/o Jens H. Jorgensen
Politigarden, 1567, Copenhagen
Denmark

Peter Sunde
Box 248
593 23 Västervik
Sweden

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

After several custody extensions Svartholm appeared in court again a few days ago. During the court session the court presented new evidence, backing up the theory that someone else used Svartholm’s computer to carry out the hacks.

The court released the results of an investigation into Svartholm’s computer, which was carried out in February. The released data cover the results of several antivirus scans and the identification of hundreds of suspicious files.

TorrentFreak spoke to Svartholm’s lawyer Luise Høj, who explained that the computer contained several threats, some dating back to 2011. The list includes trojans and exploits that could have allowed an outsider to take control over the machine.

“This is definite evidence that the computer has been compromised – and that the attacker has gained administrator privileges, no less,” Høj informs TorrentFreak.

Despite being aware of the evidence for several months the court maintains the position that Svartholm should remain in custody. His lawyer, however, is convinced that the investigation can plead the Pirate Bay founder free.

“For me this is a clear evidence that Gottfrid has been telling the truth all along – and in my opinion it shows that the Danish legal system has big difficulty handling cases which require a certain level of technical insight as regards computers,” Høj tells us.

Gottfrid’s mother Kristina Svartholm shares this opinion. She can’t understand why it took the court several months to present the evidence. According to her, this may not be just a simple mistake.

“Perhaps ‘malice’ is a more appropriate word,” Kristina Svartholm tells us. “Their methods leave me more and more worried.”

“Gottfrid’s own conclusion is that they have tried to hide them as long as possible just because everything points in his favor,” she adds.

The next hearing in Denmark is currently scheduled to take place at the end of this month. Both Svartholm’s lawyer and mother hope that he will be released, in part based on the new information. The hacking trial is expected to start in September.

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

The trial is expected to begin in the early days of September, more than four months from today and close to ten months since he was extradited to Denmark from Sweden in 2013. But while one might presume that the authorities already have everything they need to prosecute Svartholm, it appears that their investigation is still very much a work in progress.

It’s no secret that Gottfrid’s last days of freedom were spent in Cambodia, a country that he came to call home and where he’d built a life and found work. Now, some 20 months since he left the country, the police investigation into his activities there have been revived. And, according to one of their targets, the manner in which it’s being carried out is a cause for concern.

John, who has asked us not to use his full real name, is a former colleague of Gottfrid who lives and works in Cambodia. TorrentFreak has confirmed his identity and the fact that he and Gottfrid did business together. On April 2 he received an unexpected telephone call about someone he hasn’t seen for years.

Mysterious police threats

“The person who spoke to me on the phone was threatening and aggressive. He spoke with a thick European accent and initially said he was ‘with Nordic police’,” John explains.

“At that point I didn’t think I was speaking to an actual policeman because really, ‘Nordic police’ is about as evasive as an introduction can possibly be. After I repeatedly asked for more details, he only specified ‘Swedish police’. No name, no badge number.”

John was told he needed to go to a meeting to discuss Gottfrid but with such a mysterious introduction he was concerned at what might be waiting for him, including this not being genuine police business.

“I felt uncomfortable with the situation, and due to the way the call had been handled up to that point, I didn’t want to meet them. I had no idea whether I was even speaking to a real policeman,” John explains. “I asked if this meeting was voluntary, and he specifically said that they would ‘use local police to force’ me into meeting them.”

John was informed that the meeting would consist of him, the mystery Swedish policeman, a local Cambodian policeman, and a Danish policeman.

“They allowed me to choose the location, but said it had to be the same day. I chose a very public cafe for my own safety,” he says. Due to the apparent urgency of the situation, John had no time to arrange for a lawyer to be present.

Once the call had ended, John contacted his embassy but was informed that there was little they could do to help. Although apprehensive he decided to attend the meeting, set for the lobby bar in the Hotel Cambodiana.

Meeting in the hotel

“When I turned up to the meeting, the guy who threatened me on the phone wasn’t there, and instead there was Jens Jorgensen from the Danish police and Anders Riisager [pictured right, different occasion], who introduced himself as ‘Copenhagen Deputy District Attorney’,” John explains, adding that neither would reveal the identity of the person who made the earlier threats.

With the meeting underway, John reports that Anders was being “nice” and apologized for the earlier telephone threats while clarifying it was neither of them. Most of their questions were “unanswerable”, as they were “based on the type of thing that one wouldn’t remember from three years ago, such as what kind of computer Gottfrid used, etc.”

The million-dollar PC-access question

However, police also showed an interest in who had access to Gottfrid’s computer in Cambodia. This is of particular interest because it was on this point that Gottfrid had his Swedish ‘Logica’ conviction overturned after the Court of Appeal couldn’t rule out that someone else accessed his computer to commit crimes.

“I was threatened and bullied into attending this questioning, and yet they completely ignored the answers when it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. A good example is that they asked if anyone else had access to [Gottfrid's] computer. When I said yes, they didn’t even ask for a full detailed list of people, not that I’d have one though, it was years ago,” John explains.

“The simple fact is that there were 50+ people with direct physical access to [Gottfrid's] computer at the time that the police were asking about. They were visibly pissed off [when I told them that], and given the threats that had already been made, it was an uncomfortable situation for me to say the least.”

Why has it taken so long?

Considering how closely John worked with Gottfrid it seems extremely unlikely that the police had no interest in him before this month, especially in respect of providing information in the crucial days leading up to and after Gottfrid’s arrest in August/September 2012. Yet this was the first time police had asked him anything.

“The implication that this isn’t something they had already looked into earlier on is just bizarre. This was the first time I’ve ever been questioned by police in relation to anything concerning Gottfrid,” John says.

“The most shocking part of the whole thing was just how ridiculous their questions were. These people are traveling around to third world countries refusing to identify themselves, making threats that border on being criminal, all so they can ask about rumors and hearsay that dates back over three years.”

Desperate times?

“You can all say what you want about Gottfrid, but the fact is, the actions of the people investigating this case are clearly the actions of desperate people who are grasping at straws. If they had any evidence, they wouldn’t need to go around behaving the way they are,” he says.

Describing the whole episode as “shocking and outrageous”, John says that he hopes some good will come out of making his experiences public.

“Gottfrid isn’t someone I feel I owe anything to, but this whole investigation is clearly ridiculous and without merit. It could have been any one of a whole bunch of people [with access to Gottfrid's computer] and they know it. I don’t want to cause problems for myself, but I’d like to see Gottfrid get treated like a human being.”

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

The nature of the Pirate Bay founder’s detention has been highly controversial. His reputation as a master hacker led authorities to treat him with fear, placing him in solitary confinement, severely restricting his interaction with other inmates and limiting his access to books. Magazines sent in from outside were also off-limits, since prison authorities feared they may contain encrypted messages.

These extraordinary conditions prompted the creation of a petition by the Free Anakata Campaign. After a gentle start the protest gathered momentum hitting 50,000 and then 100,000 signatures. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina said that the petition had put tremendous pressure on the authorities, leading them to ease her son’s book restrictions and interactions with other inmates.

After exceeding 106,000 signatures the petition was delivered to the Danish government yesterday. The Danish Pirate Party had the honor of handing it over to Minister of Justice Karen Hækkerup.

The Internet petition, which reached 106,538 signatures, was printed out onto 2,600 sheets of paper and presented to the minister in a box covered in pirate wrapping paper.

“In my eyes he is in solitary confinement for no reason. I mean, he is being treated worse than a serial killer,” said Rolf Bjerre from the Pirate Party after the handover.

DR.DK legal correspondent Claus Buhr said that Svartholm’s adverse conditions are a product of the authorities’ lack of experience of dealing with someone with the Swede’s capabilities.

“If he was a killer or suspected of drug crime, they are accustomed to those kind of suspects and know what they’re capable of. However, a possible super-hacker is someone the Danish police very rarely have to deal with,” Buhr said.

“This is probably the reason why he is being held under the strictest lock and key, simply because it’s not fully understood what he can do, and whether he’s able to get information in and out of jail.”

Even though Gottfrid has been held in Denmark for more than five months, the investigation against him is still underway with no immediate end in sight. In the meantime he’s being allowed just one hour a day outside and a single controlled visit with his mother, who travels from Sweden to Denmark each week to see him.

The case is expected to go to trial in the early days of September 2014 and it’s hoped the petition will ease his conditions before then.

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

After several custody extensions Svartholm appeared in court again this week, and for the first time the hearing was open to the press and “Free Anakata” supporters.

During the court session new evidence was presented which allegedly links Svartholm to the CSC hack. The prosecution said that an encrypted file found on Svartholm’s computer contained the Swede’s personal information as well as documents related to the hacks.

According to the court this evidence warrants another custody extension of four weeks, which means that Svartholm will remain in detention until April 2nd.

“Our suspicion has been confirmed, because the personal data found on Svartholm’s computer comes from the same place where the CSC files were stored. It reinforces our belief that it is obviously not a random person remotely accessed the computer to do all these things,” senior prosecutor Maria Cingari told Politiken in a comment.

The prosecution believes that Svartholm was operating under the alias ‘My Evil Twin’ while his 20-year-old co-defendant used the handle ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat.’

Gottfrid’s lawyer Luise Høj

Svartholm’s lawyer Luise Høj, who posed with a “Free Anakata” poster outside court, points out that the evidence in the encrypted container is not new. The container also holds documents from the Nordea hack and was previously used in the Swedish trial.

“The same material was used in the Swedish case. In the encrypted container are CSC documents, Nordea material and personal information about my client. It is evidence that the Swedish High Court has considered and which they believed affected the case,” Høj said.

In the Swedish case the Pirate Bay founder was acquitted of hacking Nordea because it could not be proven that Svartholm carried out the hacks himself. Svartholm later pointed this out in an open letter to the Danish authorities last year, but his extradition went ahead nonetheless.

Svartholm’s lawyer hopes to use the same “remote access” argument in Denmark, but thus far the authorities aren’t being cooperative.

“We have asked for investigative measures that can help to make it probable that my client’s computer has been accessed remotely, but so far, police have not been willing to comply,” Høj said.

It is expected that the defense will get the opportunity to law out their argument in detail at a later stage. Svartholm is expected to remain in prison until then. The trial is currently scheduled to start on September 2nd.

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