After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost | Hacker News Reader

After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost

washingtonpost.com

133 pointsiProject39 comments

Swiss here. It's not really any better here. Right now they're trying to push a law that would legalize it for them to save metadata for all connections up to 12 months. And they could legaly install RAT's on phones and PC's. It's called "BÜPF" but i can't find an english page right now. You might want to use google translate on the petition site (by the local pirate party, CCC switzerland etc.): http://buepf.ch (and sign it if you can be bothered)

//edit: direct gtranslate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

The good news is, Switzerland is a democracy that works really well. So just vote against that new crap law.

The bad new is, that many of the laws we deem evil are very popular with the general public.

The good news is, we can actually do something about it. So let's get to work.

EDIT: As an example - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6007688

The ordinary news is, it's a democracy that works similarily to just any other - there is a lot of indifference, propaganda, and the turnouts aren't that high.

Switzerland has a very direct democracy, unlike for example in the US.

EDIT - Nothing personal, but to all you nay sayers:

You are PART of the problem, you need to take a look in the mirror. (And yes, go ahead and downvote, I couldn't give less of a f#ck.)

I know how Switzerland works, referendums are cool, but that doesn't make anything I said less true.

Direct democracy isn't automatically good. Just look at California.

Yes, it also needs:

1. Analytical thinking skills (school/education is there for this)

2. Critical thinking skills (school/education is there for this)

3. Entirely free flowing information

EDIT: If anybody else wants to add anything destructive to the movement, just keep it coming...

I will, however, as I see it, the problem is no one seems to really care here.

Ask some random stranger here and pretty sure they have never even heard of BÜPF. So I try to educate as many people as possible but all I hear is that I should go wear my alu-hat and that we have good privacy protection laws and they don't have anything to hide anyways.

And by the way, to be even able to vote against this crap, you need something like 50'000 signatures (on paper!) within 100 days. Which might not be too easy considering that the petition website only has 8k-ish as of now and it's been on for quite a while. As I said, no one seems to care.

Good! Keep on educating people! More knowledge means more responsibility. Don't forget that we have the social network effect on our side, today. Things may suddenly go very fast. If people are unaware of the dangers, send them links to the recent news. There's enough to see that total surveillance and therefor manipulation of the People and corruption within government is about to become the new "normal".

EDIT: And if there's 1 law about democracy, it's this: "Every single vote counts!" There is no "my vote wouldn't change anything". If you ever only think that, then you can kiss democracy goodbye for real.

The indifference is a worldwide phenomenon.

And it's problematic because indifference is what gave Hitler the chance to become more powerful, indifference helped him identify minorities and it helped him build 45 concentration camps, ... the list goes on and on. You all know what happened next.

Would Hitler have been a problem if it wasn't for our indifference ? Would the technology that build the internet have been used against us if it wasn't for our indifference ?

Indifference is probably more dangerous than those who have "evil" intentions. And I don't have a solution. I don't know what we can do about it, other than educating people on it but it's clearly not working and it needs to happen now because the problem is getting bigger by the day, imo.

It's our indifference that gets us into a lot of trouble. Time and time again.

It's much more difficult to get people to react to a hypothetical problem than something immediately tangible. (See also: environmental issues). But once the problem has materialized, it's an order of magnitude more difficult to solve.

I wish I knew of a solution to this. Patient, steady education is about all we've got.

> It's our indifference that gets us into a lot of trouble. Time and time again.

Actually, I think the inverse is true. If apathy wasn't the defining human characteristic, we'd have had WW3 through WW9 by now, and people would be killing each other in the streets with hammers.

"Fuck it" is a survival trait.

Well, then the ones doying the spying are lacking a good dose of apathy? Your logic just doesn't add up.

Sure, but who do you think signs up to be military intelligence in the first place?

Remember, NSA is less than 50k out of 300M+.

The same thing is happening in Norway.

A law was just passed that allows private law firms to monitor IP addresses participating in file sharing networks (BitTorrent etc.). After gathering IP addresses a law firm can retrieve the name and address of any "suspects" from their respective ISPs, and then proceed with filing lawsuits.

The law firms usually act on behalf of the larger organizations such as MPAA, RIAA, BREIN and others.

Most people don't care though. Even the majority of younger people, who often pirate popular TV shows and movies, seem indifferent.

Thanks for the link and heads-up, it's shortly to gain 2 more Swiss-resident signatures. Going to post it about to a few other Swiss here too, to try and get some more signing up.

Those poor souls must not have heard of this news:

"U.S. and Switzerland Reach Deal on Sharing of Financial Account Data"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-tax2...

This is also interesting:

> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11 Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

How many US banks has the Justice Department prosecuted yet?

> This is also interesting:

>> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11 Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

details in case somebody missed that:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-01-20/news...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/swiss-bank-wegel...

"You’ve probably heard of the unique benefits of Swiss banks"

Yeah, I heard that's no longer true. There's few countries that have proper banking secrecy anymore. Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Guatemala does have secrecy. It's built into the last constitution of the country (in the 80s). Not even the Guatemalan revenue service is allowed to review bank accounts. OTOH, it's probably not the most stable country to want to park your money in.

> Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Any reference to back that up? I read some of the leaks from Bradley Manning related to Panama and the U.S. clearly stated that it didn't favor Martinelli (current president).

Apparently I'm wrong. Wikileaks had some cables talking about how Martinelli asked the US to spy for him, but they denied him[1]. He did however, end banking secrecy for Panama/US in 2011(?), with a tax treaty. I probably misunderstood after reading some expat sites and connecting lines that perhaps are not connected.

http://www.cato.org/blog/wikileaks-cable-martinelli-threat-r...

The saddest part about this whole PRISM scandal to me is that the tech companies involved did not seem at all opposed to the idea - and even if they were, why not give your customers a heads up? It's so sad. Nerds need to get on the moral high ground pronto. Your technology is making the world so much better so don't ruin it. Don't be evil and don't be a dick.

People need to remember/learn this:

If democracy is not strong enough (and I know a few countries...), you (also) need to vote with your wallet. If they don't feel no pain, they won't react.

Correct.

Regarding companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo; the answer is not using their services at all since you don't pay them yourself but you do by viewing ads.

And also by giving them your data.

Yes, the worst part I forgot :P

A week ago I started to migrate my Google Docs data to a git repository. Right now I use plain text files and Latex. Damn, I totally forgot how cool it is to access your data when you don't have an Internet connection.

Agree, local storage should always be the default choice, whenever you can.

Isn't this equivalent to Edward Snowden's asylum dilemma? The offer of asylum is pretty worthless if he can't get to that country. Heck, last week it was proven that he would need favorable countries to form solid continuous path of sovereign land between Moscow and the asylum granting country.

The offer of a secure location to store data in Switzerland is pretty worthless if the data has to be transferred over compromised data lines that have to run through at least one of the three surrounding countries, all complicit in tapping the lines.

Not if you encrypt. A lot of information is useful only for a short period of time. For instance, if a company is planning a new product/strategy/IPO then it doesn't matter if the data is maliciously decrypted within a month, 2 years or 5 years.

This article reminds me of http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html - no concrete numbers are mentioned of the company's increased usage/customers, and the only quotes presented are from this company's CEO, who obviously have a lot to benefit from an article touting the benefits of a Swiss data center.

I wouldn't consider this particular instance malicious; it's just lazy journalism.

Journalist under pressure to churn out a quick, sanitized, topical piece meets pro-active CEO of a hosting company with a knack for PR and a pre-packaged story, quotes and all.

This article is from the same journalist who typo'd the headline of her previous piece [1]

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/keyboard-app-givers-u...

Off topic, but what is the name for the grammatical concept of the difference between NY Times/Washington Post-style headlines like this one ("After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost") and British-style newspaper headlines which use a more active* voice, e.g. "Swiss data bank sees boost after PRISM reports."

*I've probably got that term wrong.

This is not a passive vs. active voice thing. The subject and object are the same in both sentences. It's just slightly different word order.

It would be interesting to compare the self reported boost in business after PRISM revelations to the boost in business after being mentioned in a WaPo article.

SWIFT

Reply on news.ycombinator.com