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Comment by m0nty | Hacker News Reader

> remember non-compliance — whatever the immediate consequences to yourself — is the only acceptable course of action

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.

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I think the only viable option would be to leave the UK. Not just you physically, all bank accounts and insurances too. When you have set up the company somewhere else (maybe netherlands, germany or sweden) you would have to renegotiate all contracts with all your clients, have new laywers, new accountants, etc...

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.

> 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.

> Sadly, they're doomed and I cannot find a friend who left years ago and never looked back. Is your double negative the right way round there? That means your British emigrant friends are looking to [move back to?] the UK.

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.

Where did you go, out of interest?

I'm in the UK and weighing up options.

Denmark.

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'd suggest that everyone come join the party in the U.S., but then I realize that we have equally stupid politicians trying to run everything, too.

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.

I feel Scotland would do well to start hinting that tech startups may want to start there, given the likelihood of a successful referendum to leave the UK when it happens.

As someone who lives in Scotland, that would be utterly fantastic.

No. My response will be one of two things:

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.

I wonder if you can set up the company as an international entity or something like this, and have yourself as employee?

Or better still, set up a foreign company, the sole shareholder of which is a trust of which you are a non executive beneficiary. Then make yourself a contractor to said company with an explicit contractual requirement that you must affirm that you have not been compelled (legally or otherwise) to author anything (code or otherwise) that may materially effect said company.

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 you have made they can still compel you. By your logic I can make the same deal with an explicit contractual requirement that I cannot be detained by the police and then go on a murder spree and say sorry I got a contract that says you can't arrest me...

It would make a difference. Circumventing this law will be possible even if it means setting up company in a different country.

>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.

As long as any entity related to the company has a UK address they'll get pinched the only way to "circumvent" the law is not to have any business in the UK.

>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.

Not necessarily, what would happen in this case is that once you are compelled your contract to work on the code is terminated. Nothing illegal about such a contract.

You can't proclaim that you were compelled and if you employer finds out it's an illegal dismissal.

You effectively are your employer (via a contract for services rather than employment per se). So by them giving you the notice they are also informing your employer.

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.

> Setting yourself up in that manner would mean more challenges and making it difficult for the UK govt to win in court.

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?

If you physically move to Germany, perhaps, but it appears you would need to discontinue all operations in this country. Nobody employed here, no bank accounts, etc.

Another person posted a somewhat insightful excerpt from the draft which covers this situation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11265963

Supposed you work for a company in DE and UK gov try to compel you, just have someone outside the country revert changes.

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

Well since this is only a proposed law, writing to your MP would be a good start.

I agree, but it's likely to change nothing. I'm not being defeatist per se, but I went through all this with the RIP Act in 2000 and it was futile, even though the Conservatives went through some posturing in defence of civil liberties. But now they are introducing worse legislation and Labour can hardly say "this is unprecedented" or whatever, since they were so gung-ho about it fifteen years ago. I wrote many letters and got no decent responses, just boiler-plate reiterations of why it was "necessary."

Well from the theme of this thread an open letter in the Times signed by a large proportion of the CTOs of Silicon Roundabout saying "we'll go to jail or leave the country if this goes into effect" will probably at least get some face time with a minister over this.

I met my mp over it, he told me to "talk to the hand". He's a tory boy, never worked, doesn't care.

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.

Funny you mention the Lords ... I wrote a position paper for the Conservative front-bench spokesman for Trade and Industry about the RIP Act 2000. Worked better than letter-writing and meeting my MP. All this because I happened to play cricket with him occasionally.

The threat of a scorched earth policy needs to be strong enough for governments to either not consider these types of actions or suffer the consequences. I can understand it not being practical for the people involved though, and I sympathize.

Make a Societas Europaea instead of Limited company (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/european-companie...).

Only thing is its a bit more expensive than a typical Ltd.

Can't you get a digital citizenship in Estonia and perhaps transfer you company to there?

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.

You need to leave the UK. No amount of corporate charter red tape or offshore server hosting will let you get away with developing a secure product if Theresa May doesn't want you to.

but I'd hope HN could come up with some informed suggestions.

That is an informed suggestion, informed by the reality that participation in the political process does not work, at all.

> Can I incorporate somewhere else in the EU

In case you want "Europe, but without EU law and surveillance", there is Switzerland.

The thing is, the actual probability of being asked to comply with this for a small company is fairly small: it's aimed at Facebook and Apple. And perhaps privacy-orientated services like Lavabit. Your best option is to retain a really good ECHR lawyer, because that's where the fight is going to be.

> being asked to comply with this for a small company is fairly small

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...

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