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Comment by bragh | Hacker News Reader

Brave guy to publish this, hopefully it won't end up similar to the Dreyfus affair — depends on which the media will roll due to it being "pickled cucumber season" (everybody is on vacation, nothing much happening during summer in Estonia). The flaws of the ID-card is a very politically charged topic to discuss in Estonia, having any doubts about the ID-card or e-voting will make you a persona non grata.

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Regarding your last point, I have a hard time seeing what you mean. The system is audited both internally and externally fairly regularly, the latest report being released just December last year [0]. There is also frequent news coverage, both supporting and criticizing the system [1][2]. One of the current government parties [3] is an active critic of the system. So it seems like a fair stretch to say that discussing or criticizing the system isn't common or somehow not welcome.

None of this is to say that the system doesn't have flaws, as every other IT system, it does. It is however publicly discussed as you would expect in a democracy.

[0] https://www.mkm.ee/sites/default/files/e-valimiste_tooruhma_...

[1] https://www.err.ee/keyword/15389

[2] https://www.postimees.ee/term/15008/id-kaart

[3] https://www.valitsus.ee/et/peaminister-ministrid/valitsuse-k...

Being spammed with reviews after mentioning that there might be a disagreement about electronic id data collection drives the original point a bit.

While I try to sympathize, I'm not entirely sure I see what you mean. Neither the research linked in the submission nor anything that I linked to discusses data collection, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding you.

As for the things I linked, none of them are reviews. The first link is a ministry report from last year that outlines 25 shortcomings of the system and how to address them — a clear example that there's open discussion about any problems the current system has. The second and third links are national news coverage that clearly show articles from both pro and con sides. The last link is about the current government in general.

> The system is audited both internally and externally fairly regularly, the latest report being released just December last year

Can you please clarify the 'fairly regularly' part? One of the members of that commission said that this is the first time that this kind of audit has been undertaken: https://digi.geenius.ee/rubriik/uudis/e-valimiste-tooruhma-l... To be fair, there are lots of other reviews having taken place, but none of them are regular with the exception of the OECD ones happening during elections: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektrooniline_h%C3%A4%C3%A4le...

> There is also frequent news coverage, both supporting and criticizing the system

ERR is government-funded and seems to me quite neutral, not sure how it is relevant here. But it still seems to me that mainstream media is supportive and you have to go to "alternative" news sources to find any true criticism.

> One of the current government parties [3] is an active critic of the system.

Actually 2, if you count both KE and EKRE. And this is one of the major criticisms against those parties and has been so for years.

A good example of the prevailing attitude can be seen in this thread from 2017 about the security hole back then from Hinnavaatlus, probably biggest IT-related forum in Estonia: https://foorum.hinnavaatlus.ee/viewtopic.php?t=715076&postda... The general tonality in the beginning was that this is a tinfoil problem and somehow brought up by KE and EKRE before elections until the reality of the situation sunk in.

There have been no code audits.

> "pickled cucumber season"

Funny, it's called "cucumber time" (agurketid) in Danish. I wonder if it's a related term in Nordic countries + Estonia.

We also call it "agurktid"/"agurknyheter" in Norwegian, and I know the Germans use "Sauregurkenzeit".

I've never heard any similar expression in English, nor in any Romance languages. The Brits use "silly season" for the same concept in journalism/news.

Ha, I'm an American who lived in Estonia for a bit, I'm not familiar with any related US term. Maybe we just don't have this as much as Europe - I know I was shocked at how slow business got in the EU in summer, there's for sure a dip in the US with people going on vacation but nothing like Europe in July/August

> I was shocked at how slow business got in the EU in summer, there's for sure a dip in the US with people going on vacation but nothing like Europe in July/August

Reminds me of back when I worked for a company that exported machines to the US and my boss told an American customer that we couldn't get a shipment sent in June which meant it couldn't be sent before somewhere in August since key personell was on holiday in July.

They then asked if he couldn't just tell us we had to work anyway, which -luckily for us- wasn't an option.

Yeah that sounds like a classic American move - who cares if they're on vacation, just make them work! Glad your employer stood up for you all (or that the law forced him/her to)!

One time here in the US I had to work late hours and weekends to hit an ambitious deadline for a French customer who wanted to review our work before they all went on their vacations.

Oh, that was a nice thank you from us pampered Europeans! /s

Sorry, hope you got some nice overtime bonus (but I fear not.)

Overtime? Ha. Almost all salaried jobs in the US are exempt from overtime laws.

Most people in Europe have at least 5 weeks paid leave a year guaranteed by law.

The US does not sent a mandatory minimum, and consequently many employers don't offer anywhere near as much time off.

It’s also called “komkommertijd” (“cucumber time”) in Dutch. Not pickled, because we call pickles “augurken”.

Yeah, we also use 'time of pickled cucumbers' in Slovenia. So not just a nordic thing ;)

and "sezon ogórkowy" (cucumber time) also in Poland :)

Okurková sezóna in Czech

He is a well-known researcher in Estonia, with his scope of work both known as well as appreciated (at least by the non-politicians). Of course some have the "too big to fail", thus "you don't talk about Vo..." attitude, but those want to turn technical argumentation into political "agreement" and it is hard to debate a 0 to become 1. You can't argue with computers, "lets agree this 0 is as good as 1, even better and greater!"

Having worked for the Estonian government for a bit, I'm not sure that it'll exactly make you a persona non grata but definitely you'll get a ton of pushback if you make any claims about e-ID and e-voting as people have very strong feelings about it.

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