14 DAY TRIAL // Pirate Bay is a torrent tracker from Sweden that is very much concerned with the issues of security and privacy. They should be, since in Sweden the Government can at any time access all international e-mail messages, telephone calls and Internet traffic. Fredrick Neij, co-founder of Pirate Bay, is proposing the implementation of a new encryption tool named IPETEE (short for Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets). This technology is still in project phase and it remains to be seen if the technical difficulties are surmounted so that the encryption can be widely used.
Fredrick Neij comments: "I wanted to come up with something to make it harder for data retention. Even applications that don't supporting encryption will be encrypted where possible."
According to Fredrick, the idea of developing such a technology came to him a few years back. That was when EU politicians were becoming more and more interested in passing copyright enforcement laws. Since in June the Swedish legislators passed a law that allows them the eavesdrop on all phone and Internet communication that comes in or goes out of the country, the need for such technology became a necessity. Fredrick hopes that by January, when the law comes in effect, IPETEE will be up and running with no glitches at all.
IPETEE works by encrypting data on a network level, not an application level. People using Microsoft's Windows OS or Apple's Mac OS X will both be able to implement this technology that will most likely come in the form of an add-on. The user will go on with business as usual while IPETEE works silently in the background. All the data leaving your machine will be automatically encrypted, while all the data coming in will be automatically decrypted; this way any application on your system will work as usual.
Although there are still a few bugs to be fixed, Frederick is working hard with crypto and network specialists so that the technology is ready as soon as possible. However, there are already some who claim the technology is not practical at all because there are numerous implementation problems.