If you feel you're being compelled to act immorally, remember non-compliance — whatever the immediate consequences to yourself — is the only acceptable course of action. When we decide to spend our days building powerful tools, we enter into an implicit agreement not to let them fall into the wrong hands. If the government comes knocking, BURN IT DOWN. Make good on your debt to humanity.
Seriously, can we get away from these fine-sounding (but otherwise utterly useless) slogans and clarion calls? There has to be a better response than a scorched-earth policy.
I'm a software developer based in the UK currently working on an app which will probably be affected by this bill. Apart from destroying the product and/or risking jail-time, are there any sensible options? Can I incorporate somewhere else in the EU and run everything from overseas? What if I am not a UK company but a DE company and everything happens from there?
I realise it's early days, but I'd hope HN could come up with some informed suggestions.
1) Shut the company down, lay off 50 employees, leave 100 clients without revenue, damage the UK economy to the tune of £300M/yr.
2) Go public, go to jail, and (1) will then happen anyway.
So frankly throwing the towel in looks like the only sane course of action, unless you have a magic wand to affect government policy.
The govt will still probably try to find a way around it but at least you've made it very difficult for them.
>The govt wouldn't give a squat about what contractual agreements
Setting yourself up in that manner would mean more challenges and making it difficult for the UK govt to win in court.
>Setting yourself up in that manner would mean if it needed to be taken to court, it would be difficult for the UK govt to win.
I don't think you understand how the legal system in the UK works, or anywhere else for that matter. You can't have contractual agreements that go against the law as it would constitute an illegal contract.
If you have a clause in the contract that requires you to either break the law outright or not to comply with it it will not be enforceable and will be considered void.
You then get to fire yourself; it is definitely a burn it to the ground strategy, but this type of strategy has happened before and no doubt will happen again even if infrequently.
But would it, really? This fails the same logical test as the warrant canary - it sounds comforting, but is absolutely useless in the real world.
You still have the same choices - you can follow the request, or ignore it. You can tell the world, or keep it secret.
In every scenario I can think of, this idea of "affirming you have not been compelled" provides absolutely no protection.
Are you able to provide an example that demonstrates how this off-shore/contractor setup would protect you from the UK equivalent of a NSL with a non-disclosure clause?
Another person posted a somewhat insightful excerpt from the draft which covers this situation:
Also, isn't the government bound by the Computer Misuse Act (and it's European and other foreign equivalents). That would make the coercion an illegal act.
Dare say there would be amendments intra UK but we'd need pan-European changes to be able to lawfully compel someone to access a [foreign] computer without authority
In case you want "Europe, but without EU law and surveillance", there is Switzerland.
I also met a friendly Lord over it last year who already opposed it loudly, and ensuingly had his political career murdered for his trouble.
This may be true for now, but I have seen far too many laws beeing used in other contexts than what they were intended for.
For now it maybe used in cases of 'terrorism'. In three years your products will get compromised because the state wants to catch a drug dealer. In 8 years, they also want to catch regular burglars, and in 10 years these laws may be used against you, because you forgot to mention a $100 bill on your tax declaration...
Only thing is its a bit more expensive than a typical Ltd.
I can not think of any way other than leaving, that will not compromise either your product, your customers or your integrity.
This is 'scrorched earth' if you will, without 'fine-sounding, useless slogans'. Consider this: If this crap becomes law, you certainly won't be alone when leaving. And when a critical amount of developers and entrepeneurs leave the UK permanently, the economy will suffer... greatly I think. And that, sad as it may sound, might be the only argument politicians would consider, when it comes to signing this bill.
Sorry to be this guy, but you do realize you're talking about UK, right??
IF you have pay attention to anything that comes out of UK politicians and being actually implemented in the law, you would have a hard time believing that UK citizens' disobedience, not matter how loud, will change ANYTHING AT ALL!
Sadly, they're doomed and I cannot find a friend who left years ago and never looked back.
I'm British, and recently left. I've met about 6-7 British people in my new country (I haven't been seeking them) and none have any intention of returning. Of course, they visit family and so on, but at present there's no reason not to.
I'm in the UK and weighing up options.
I wasn't particularly looking to move here, though it was a country I'd thought about. Then someone forwarded a job advert to me, and I ended up with an offer I couldn't refuse :-)
Anywhere in the EU is easy to move to, and easy to move away from if you don't like it. The big differences are probably the ease of getting a job, speaking the language (or not needing to) and meeting local people.
I get the sense that reincorporating in Bermuda, Gibraltar, or one of the Channel islands might help in some way, but I can't quite figure out just where in my brain that idea came from. Maybe it was one of those foil hat ideas that I had to discard because it only worked for Commonwealth citizens.
It would take a careful reading of the law to discover the most appropriate loophole. In the U.S., that often takes the form of having no meaningful penalty or enforcement for breaking a law. So, basically, companies just ignore it. But UK law works differently, so I can't say for certain whether that means a judge could invent an appropriate penalty or not.
Frankly it seems like a very good solution if the problem is laws in the UK. This program was launched specifically to attract entrepreneurs and offer them the means to launch tech businesses from anywhere in the world in Estonia.
That is an informed suggestion, informed by the reality that participation in the political process does not work, at all.
There is money to be made. When it comes down to making money by putting in backdoors or shutting it down and making none, the backdoor will be put in every time.
When London fails to become the "Fintech capital of the world" like it wants to be, because any fintech moving there has to main its own security and every potential customer knows it.
When UK companies are continually hacked and ripped off because the bad guys KNOW there's backdoors in every one of them, all they have to do is find them.
When the UK economy has taken enough of a beating. Then they might change their minds. Maybe.
In your opinion, perhaps, but my gut is that most people would comply rather than spend several years in an 8x10 cell.
https://twitter.com/nixgeek/status/708267763089989632
I'd be interested to see how the numbers turn out on that!
The problem is that the most likely reality is that you will go to jail, your business will be shut down, you will never find another job again, your whole family will be added on all the government shit lists and nobody except your friends will know what happened.
There is a star system to martyrdom too. For 1 Snowden, there are probably thousands jailed and forgotten.
No right minded person in the world would rather go to jail than comply with this, the few that would really have an existential dilemma about this issue would most likely opt out to preemptively avoiding it than be the ones who sit at their desk with a gun in their hand and a bulletproof vest.
Evil prevails because good men do nothing. And this generation seem to be the masters at doing nothing.
A truly gutsy CEO would say screw you to an oppressive law or government. They'd be willing to die in prison for their beliefs, and shut the whole company down in the process. Take the story to media and watch the government's stupidity get them publically humiliated by the press and social media.
Things like this will only stop if they become political suicide for any party or politician that tries to implement them.