ISP Launches in Sweden, aims to create safe haven for pirates

Sweden's copyright and telecommunications reform party, officially known as the Pirate Party, has been involved with a lot of drama in the last year, mostly surrounding its involvement with The Pirate Bay torrent tracking site and its related legal fallout.

Now, the Pirate Party is getting behind a startup ISP called, appropriately, PirateISP, which provides broadband Internet connections that are regulated according to the party's politics: private, secure connections where no logs are retained, and no user data is available to the Swedish Government.

The ISP's first beta tests reportedly began yesterday in 100 rental properties owned by development group LKF in the city of Lund. The ISP offers 10 Megabit, 100 Megabit or 1 Gigabit duplexed connections for prices between 243.75 SEK and 525 SEK per month (approximately $33-$70.)

The group is also looking to start delivering Internet service in Helsingborg as a part of the Open City Network there. PirateISP is accepting submissions to beta test their network as it grows, users can sign up here. Or if you feel like sticking to Pirate Party philosophy, you can send them a PGP encrypted email at [email protected] with their public PGP key, found here.