
Biggest Data Leak in Sweden's History Punished with Half a Month's Paycheck - ColinWright
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/biggest-data-leak-in-swedens-history-punished-with-half-a-months-paycheck/
======
stareatgoats
This so called "scandal" was an incident that was milked to it's maximum
potential by the political opposition as an attempt to discredit the
government with the aim to provoke a vote of no confidence in the parliament.
The attempt failed, not because the government made any serious attempt at
defending itself, like tracing the mishap back to the previous government, but
because the government ceded defeat and sacrificed a few of it's ministers
rather than go on the counteroffensive.

It did however reveal a pattern of "siloed" decision making with the Swedish
government under the present prime minister, a leadership style that puts
emphasis on strict division of responsibilities and where the prime ministers
office is kept unaware of everything except the really major events in the
various ministries (in part in order to maintain credible deniability no
doubt, but in part also because this is a long standing Swedish tradition and
in part enshrined in law).

The same pattern reveals itself under the present pandemic, where the
government (and the opposition initially) argued for letting the public health
agency (FHM) take the full responsibility of the Swedish strategy, with no
interference from the politicians, in spite the soon glaring fact that the
strategy was hijacked by a minority position within the scientific community
(the "herd immunity" believers), and that the strategy has put Sweden in an
(for the Swedes) unfamiliar pariah state position visavis neighboring
countries.

Admitting failure is still a long way off, in spite of the virus still running
rampant in the society. In part because of the above mentioned long standing
Swedish tradition which has close to full support across all party-lines. But
also because of the almost endearing trust that Swedes put in their
authorities. The people that are protesting are almost always foreigners or
from communities with some distance from Swedish traditions for other reasons,
like Sweden's Jewish intellectuals who have (with close to one voice)
criticized the strategy from day one.

------
axlee
I don't see why we would want a public official to be financially ruined for a
mistake in which she did not benefit financially. Vengeance is a fool's game,
and it's not like she's going to repeat that mistake.

~~~
magicalhippo
I think such gross negligence should lead to much more severe consequences for
the person in charge. Either way this case sets an example. The current
sentence says that gross negligence in handling sensitive data and loss of
state secrets doesn't really matter much.

At least here in Norway we have the concept of conditional imprisonment, which
is not entirely unlike being on probation. I'm pretty sure our Swedish
neighbors have something similar.

For a case such as this, a conditional jail sentence of a year or two would
not be inappropriate. After all, the data included highly sensitive state
secrets.

------
lifeisstillgood
And a couple of weeks ago I was wondering why on earth anyone would want fully
homomorphic encryption (FHE)?

So I am wondering if it is possible to do an operation like "add this new
address to the record"?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Of course if I don't trust you with the original record i don't trust you with
the new address.

But I am going round to the idea there is something real opening up with FHE.
Wish I knew what :-)

------
T-A
(2017)

