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Swiss Government Backs Privacy Oriented ISP

Posted by samzenpus on from the eyes-on-your-own-screen dept.

judgecorp writes "The Swiss government owned telco Swisscom is pitching a "Swiss Cloud" operator which promises to keep customers' credentials private in the wake of the NSA spying scandal. Switzerland has strict privacy laws, with which the Swisscom cloud complies, and the operator now wants to offer that more widely."

76 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. strict privacy laws my ass! by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They used to have strict banking secrecy laws, too.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This. I am a dual citizen, USA and Switzerland, I live in the US. I had a bank account in Switzerland with less than $2k in it. Last year the Swiss bank closed out my account and sent me the funds. The Swiss government caved in to pressure from the US and changed it's banking laws. They will do the same thing with internet privacy.

    2. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Wasn't one of Snowden's 'triggers' to his document releases the blatant rights violations of the Swiss at the behest of the NSA?

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    3. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Few in EU like Swiss banking any more than US does. It's a known tax fraud heaven, and with EU has been shaken by the crisis pretty badly, tolerance for Swiss "give us your money, we'll help you not pay your fair share" policy is growing thin.

    4. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by bsolar · · Score: 5, Informative

      Strict bank secrecy laws were not amended: to do that the government would actually need to change the constitution, since that's where this protection is defined. Every change to the constitution needs to be approved by popular vote, so even if the government caves in to the US requests, it has to actually convince the majority of Swiss voters to approve the amendments in the mandatory vote. What actually happened is that many Swiss banks got threatened with lawsuits in the US and decided that US customers were more hassle than they were worth it.

    5. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and we saw how that turned out.

      FYI. The Peoples Republic of China has financial institution which say they will NEVER share your personal information with any western government or corporation without your explicit written permission.

    6. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Yes, we know. "Tax is for the poor" and all that jazz.

    7. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Maybe if taxes were on consumption rather than production, productive people wouldn't have to shelter their funds.

    8. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Most of the taxes sheltered by people are on profits.

      Companies are the ones who shelter money from production and consumption.

    9. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2

      Actually it was the CIA. He witnessed a Swiss banker be turned into a CIA asset through someone getting him drunk and making him drive. So not only was this an immoral entrapment scheme, but it also sounds quite dangerous (what if he had crashed?). Of course, he should have not driven when drunk, but who knows how persuasive the CIA can get. For all we know they spiked his drink.

    10. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "Most of the taxes sheltered by people are on profits."

      Profits are the result of production. Income taxes, capital gains taxes, and the like are taxes on production. They are therefore, by definition, counter-productive.

    11. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      All human actions result in death. Therefore by definition, all human action are counter-productive.

      Hey, that works for everything!

    12. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      What actually happened is that many Swiss banks got threatened with lawsuits in the US and decided that US customers were more hassle than they were worth it.

      Small steps, but vitally important. If only others would follow this example.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    13. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      ??? Huh? Are you trying to imply that all human action results in taxes???

      Seriously... where did you learn basic logic? Sesame Street? This doesn't even remotely follow from what I wrote.

    14. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I just tried applying your version of logic. It's called sarcasm.

    15. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "I just tried applying your version of logic. It's called sarcasm."

      I know what you were trying. The point was that you did not succeed.

    16. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I see you have no sense of self-criticism when it comes to your beliefs. Even when they are absurd, like claiming that taxes on profits equal taxes on production.

    17. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "I see you have no sense of self-criticism when it comes to your beliefs. Even when they are absurd, like claiming that taxes on profits equal taxes on production."

      It has nothing to do with "belief". It has to do with whether your comment made any logical sense.

      You can debate all day about belief. But I do know logic, and that wasn't it.

      Don't bother to reply. I won't feed any more trolls today.

    18. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      1. Unable to argue logically about his points: check.
      2. Unable to grasp the difference between profit and production: check.
      3. Calling those who point these two fact to him trolls: check.

      Who is trolling here again?

    19. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "1. Unable to argue logically about his points: check. 2. Unable to grasp the difference between profit and production: check. 3. Calling those who point these two fact to him trolls: check."

      I know I stated I wouldn't reply, but you have amazed me with your depth of misunderstanding. I am truly impressed. It's really more like this: 1. Unable to understand logic. Period. Check.
      2. Unable to grasp that profit is the result of production. Check, check, and check again.
      3. Calling repeated failures to understand item 2 "pointing out facts". Check.

      You're a real piece of work.

    20. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      And death is the result of human actions. Above comparison applies directly, showing the absurdity of claiming that something being result of something else is the same as something being something else.

    21. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1
      Sorry, it won't wash. Let's refer back to the original comments, shall we?

      Maybe if taxes were on consumption rather than production, productive people wouldn't have to shelter their funds.

      ---

      Most of the taxes sheltered by people are on profits.

      Companies are the ones who shelter money from production and consumption.

      What you missed is that taxing profits is taxing production. I did NOT write "production and profits are the same things". But when you tax the benefits of production (profits), you are in effect taxing production... you are taxing the very incentive for which most people engage in production in the first place.

      Profits are the result of production. Income taxes, capital gains taxes, and the like are taxes on production. They are therefore, by definition, counter-productive.

      ---

      All human actions result in death. Therefore by definition, all human action are counter-productive.

      Hey, that works for everything!

      No, it doesn't, and there are numerous reasons why. But first and foremost, the very first sentence is false. Not "all human action" results in death. In fact the vast majority of human action does not result in death. You are conflating an eventuality with a consequence, but they are not the same things. Death eventually occurs, in all recorded cases so far. But most human actions do not cause it. Therefore death is not the "result" of that action. Action can sometimes result in death, but usually it does not. So "all human action results in death" is just plain false.

      If anything, the opposite is true: most human action supports life or quality of life, in defiance of death.

      Then you go on to claim that the same logic -- which was NOT my logic, it was your feeble attempt at logic -- works for everything. But it doesn't. It didn't even work for the original case on which you tried to apply it.

      Your argument just didn't fly, and not matter how many times you try to repeat it or explain it, it still doesn't. It was simply wrong.

      And I have nothing further to say. You can blather on all you like about my failure to understand, but the failure most certainly was not mine.

    22. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Excellent. Let's continue to apply your logic to both statements to see if we can find a sizable difference:
      Not "all human action" results in death. In fact the vast majority of human action does not result in death.
      Not all production results in profit - correct. In fact the vast majority of production does not result in profit - also correct.

      I'm sorry, you'll have to continue trying to twist the logic to break the obvious similarity. So far, your every attempt appears to match up perfectly between the two, because both are equally illogical and absurd.

    23. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "Not all production results in profit - correct. In fact the vast majority of production does not result in profit - also correct."

      It still won't wash. The CONTEXT was economic production.

      The vast majority of economic production does in fact product profit.

      You can twist this as many ways as you like. You were still wrong.

      And I am completely done. You're either an idiot or trolling. I really don't care which; I won't waste more of my time.

    24. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I love you how spin and spin, and it still ends up at the starting line - that your logic is utterly absurd. You're simply incapable of understanding that taxation is not a bad thing, and that profit does not equal production, any more that profit does not equal "economic production" (listing a specific subset isn't going to change the whole).

      Sorry, but pointing out your obvious doublethink that you're trying to pass as logic is not trolling. It's stating a fact. It's a shame you're apparently utterly incapable of seeing it.

      I'll just restate the facts one more time:

      Taxation on profit does not equal taxation on production.

    25. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Taxation on profit does not equal taxation on production.

      Ah... now you are saying something different. Earlier, you were saying production does not equal profit.

      But either way, you're still trolling, and I caught you at it. For all practical purposes, yes taxing profits is a tax on production. Even if it isn't technically, it still has the same economic effect: discouraging production.

      So you can continue trolling or spinning or nitpicking or whatever it is you think you're doing: it's still just trolling. You've had nothing genuine to add to the conversation.

    26. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      So in other words, you admit you're wrong, but since you don't want to admit you're wrong, you don't actually admit you're wrong.

      You doublethinkers are confusing. But nope, we're still talking about the exact same post of yours: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4409259&cid=45331133

    27. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      No, I don't admit that I am wrong. The only thing I admit is that you're being an asshole.

      What I stated was: even if there is some stretch of the imagination by which you could be considered correct, it's so thin that calling it "nitpicking" would be a complement.

      What is wrong with you, anyway? Because something is.

      Ah, never mind. I've already been feeding the troll too much, methinks.

    28. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      I like how in almost every post you seem to:
      1. Admit to something.
      2. Deny you admitted to something else in your previous post.
      3. Argue that claiming "production does not equal profit" is anything from "illogical" to "nitpicking".
      4. Make a personal attack against me, ranging from calling me a troll to asking what's wrong with me.
      5. Promise to "stop feeding the troll".

      To answer your question: I'm just tired of apologists who like to pretend that all taxes are bad because they believe in it. And they will use any doublethink necessary to argue so. So I like to shove their faces into the absurdity of their doublethink in hopes of eventually getting their own bullshit meters to tilt enough to see through their own doublethink. I call it a good deed of the day.

    29. Re:strict privacy laws my ass! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "To answer your question: I'm just tired of apologists who like to pretend that all taxes are bad because they believe in it. And they will use any doublethink necessary to argue so.

      HAHAHAHAHAHA!

      That is so far from anything I've ever written on Slashdot! It's good to have a good laugh once in a while.

      "So I like to shove their faces into the absurdity of their doublethink in hopes of eventually getting their own bullshit meters to tilt enough to see through their own doublethink. I call it a good deed of the day."

      I might actually agree with you, if (A) it were justified, and (B) what you were actually doing really resembled that in some significant way.

      But as it stands, I think you're delusional.

  2. doesn't matter by Moblaster · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's clear this is merely some darknet to protect the black market for Swiss chocolate smuggling. But at last my secret Toblerone stash will be untraceable. So I got that going for me.

  3. the Swiss don't need you by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The nice thing about this is that short of invading, there's no way to pressure the Swiss to do anything that they don't want to do. They produce their own energy, they make a crapload of money, and every adult male owns an assault rifle (security of a free state, keep and bear arms, etc. etc.). They can afford to give the NSA the finger.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:the Swiss don't need you by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 2

      short of invading

      There's the issue.

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

    2. Re:the Swiss don't need you by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's the issue.

      What issue?

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      As a swiss guy (born and living here): you have some good point, unfortunately and sadly they are wrong.

      * Guns: Adult males (which are required to do military service) have a gun, but no ammo at home. No self-defence for us.
      * Energy: we produce some energy and sell it during the day to other countries. During night, we buy it back at a far lower price to fill up the dams. There is give and take, and economic mostly us as winners.
      * Crapload of money: yes there are some, like banks/etc. The common rabble doesn't. Life is very expensive here in Switzerland, except the iPhones.
      * Finger to the NSA: I'd wish, but but our ministers do *always* what the USA is asking, often in advance.

      So: no. We are USAs bitch like many, many others.

      (unfortunately I forgot my password, therefore: anonymous swiss coward)

    4. Re:the Swiss don't need you by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's a pretty hard sell. They're white, they don't have natural resources, and they are known for neutrality. In fact, that's one of the reasons that nobody tries to fuck with Switzerland. The value of having a neutral territory far outweighs the value of pursuing a particular agenda.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    5. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The nice thing about this is that short of invading, there's no way to pressure the Swiss to do anything that they don't want to do. They produce their own energy, they make a crapload of money, and every adult male owns an assault rifle (security of a free state, keep and bear arms, etc. etc.). They can afford to give the NSA the finger.

      Wrong, economic coercion works as well if not better than military invasion. Switzerland is a prosperous country because of the EU it trades with. EU has a lot of clout in Switzerland. That's how the EU managed to break the Swiss's famouse bank secrecy laws.

    6. Re:the Swiss don't need you by cold+fjord · · Score: 3, Funny

      The value of having a neutral territory far outweighs the value of pursuing a particular agenda.

      The value of capturing a series of heavily defended localities adjacent to and in a mountain range tends to be outweighed by the cost of doing so. Rubble and ruin is a poor exchange for blood and treasure.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    7. Re:the Swiss don't need you by mlts · · Score: 2

      What can be done is to use the Swiss data center as a passthrough for encryption.

      That way, you have your site -> intermediate storage provider -> destination cloud provider, with both your site and the intermediate provider doing passthrough encryption. This can be changed with public key encryption to the intermediate providers only stepping in to decrypt data with their private key [1]. Encrypted data would just go directly from the client to the end cloud provider.

      That way, for data to be accessed without authorization, it would take the destination cloud provider, the intermediate providers with their keys, and the client to all be compromised.

      [1]: Or more technically using a symmetric algorithm with the key protected by a public key algorithm a la OpenPGP.

    8. Re:the Swiss don't need you by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's a pretty hard sell. They're white...

      The US has fought repeatedly against nations populated primarily by white people when there was cause. That includes Britain (1776, 1812), Germany (1917, 1941), Italy (1941), Spain (1898), France (1798), and the whites and white government of the Confederate States of America (1861). The US was ready to go to war for 50 years (1947-1991) against the largely white Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania) in Eastern Europe, and intervened in the Russian civil war (1918). There appears to be a problem with your race based theory. Too many people here have "brown on the brain." (We'll pass in silence over the wars in Asia.) The issue is the behavior of the nation in question, not the color of its population.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    9. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Buy ammunition, get arrested, go to jail.

      Many people don't know that beyond the weird NRA-based claims of "armed nation", swiss men have assault rifles at home disassembled and with no ammunition. Assembling the rifle and taking it out of your home without special permission is a crime. Having ammunition for it without special permission is also a crime. They brought down their mainly assault rifle based gun crime down hard with that policy.

      That said, their army has excellent plans on how to distribute ammo in event of threat of war.

    10. Re:the Swiss don't need you by bsolar · · Score: 2

      Bank secrecy is not absolute, it merely means you need to get a warrant if you want to inspect someone's bank data, and if you actually have good reasons to believe that someone is doing something fishy the warrant is not an issue. What many foreign states want is actually unlimited access to any and all customers data without the need for probable cause, which is against the Swiss constitution.

    11. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, I'm aware of the changing sentiment towards the USA. Some of the policital caste has lost touch with its cows^w^w^w^w population, as in many other countries arround the globe.

      I'm not saying, everything is wrong in Switzerland. But please, let's stop pretending it is heaven. There is much room for improvement.

    12. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      The nice thing about this is that short of invading, there's no way to pressure the Swiss to do anything that they don't want to do. They produce their own energy, they make a crapload of money, and every adult male owns an assault rifle (security of a free state, keep and bear arms, etc. etc.). They can afford to give the NSA the finger.

      Actually, there is a way to pressure them. Have foreign banks stop doing business with their banks. It's actually a very effective tool; one that is used on the North Koreans very effectively. It essentially cuts off access to their money which results in their rethinking what they are doing. We'd never do that to Switzerland but it is a little know but effective weapon.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    13. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think it's mostly just Americans who think Switzerland is pure heaven (they tend to have a very black & white view of "foreign" countries)... The point I was trying to make is that in most democratic countries, expect "protection from NSA and America" to be a major issue in the next election and the one after that. Of course it's partly up to us to make that happen. We need to repeatedly ask the candidates and the media "what do you plan to do against mass surveillance by other governments and our own?"

    14. Re:the Swiss don't need you by nbauman · · Score: 1

      What many foreign states want is actually unlimited access to any and all customers data without the need for probable cause, which is against the Swiss constitution.

      Not us. Access without probable cause is against the U.S. constitution too.

    15. Re:the Swiss don't need you by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      This used to be the case, but it changed a few years ago. Ammo for the issue rifle is only made available at the ranges now.

    16. Re:the Swiss don't need you by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      They brought down their mainly assault rifle based gun crime down hard with that policy.

      Can you cite some examples of that "mainly assault rifle based gun crime"? I am only aware of a single case, where the guy shot up the canton (?) parliament with his Stgw. This was back when ammo was still issued for storage alongside with the rifle.

    17. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      This "Oclahoma pig fucker" actually comes from the only other nation in Europe with universal conscription - Finland.

      As far as I know, you have rules for ammunition that are fairly similar to ours. Have a permit or you're breaking the law. The only difference is that you choose to keep your reservist guns at homes, while we keep them buried in the ground or stored in army storage all over the country..

    18. Re:the Swiss don't need you by Luckyo · · Score: 2, Informative

      As far as I remember they had similar pattern of domestic violence that Kosovo has. I.e. instead of knives, or small arms most wounds were high energy ballistic (caused by high power assault rifles), which are far more serious in nature.

      It's not that they had a lot of it. It's that the pattern of this particular form of crime, which usually takes form of "most accessible weapon" was significantly more fatal than that in neighboring countries. By removing easy access to ammo, domestic violence cases went to more traditional "knives, flying pans and small arms" that gives victims a much higher chance of survival.

    19. Re:the Swiss don't need you by bsolar · · Score: 1

      The fact is that the army-issued rifle is not a private weapon and you are allowed to use it only "on duty". You cannot even use it for personal defense in your own home. Said that, getting a private weapon and ammunition is very easy, you just need a permit which is not granted only in very specific cases (mentally ill, with a criminal record...).

    20. Re:the Swiss don't need you by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

      (unfortunately I forgot my password, therefore: anonymous swiss coward)

      Your password is 228ghx!@.

      Kind regards,
      Swiss Federal Intelligence Service.

  4. Horrible pun ahead. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Swisscom? I hear their privacy is...full of holes.

    1. Re:Horrible pun ahead. by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

      Cheesy joke.

  5. Re:Speed of...light. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What is slower latency?

  6. Re:Speed of...light. by fred911 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What is slower latency?

        Duplicate redundancy.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  7. Why did Swisscom exec commit suicide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I notice there's a lot of suicides connected to telecoms.

    Kostas Tsalikidis, shortly after the Vodafone bugging of the Greek government was discovered.,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostas_Tsalikidis

    Adamo Bove, committed suicide by throwing himself onto a freeway after finding out about 'Radar' (like an Italian Tempora):
    http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.15/italy

    Just out of interest, I noticed a senior Swisscom exec killed himself in July this year, shortly after the Snowden leaks, it could be unrelated and maybe it was related to his marriage breakup 4 years earlier, but worth digging in light of the other two deaths and the timing.

    I recall Snowden mentioned CIA's activities in Geneva from his days there, (getting bankers on drunk driving charges to gain leverage). Which puts a question mark in my mind about a Swisscom cloud:
    http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-describes-cia-tricks-2013-6

  8. Swisscom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Swisscom is the last company you would want to do this - I was working for one of the large banks here and to VPN from home to the office on Swisscom you had to have a static IP otherwise it was routed through Germany which wasn't good for Swiss banking secrecy.

  9. This is going to be huge by comrade1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live in Switzerland. I was never quite happy with the european cloud computing providers I found because they were based in places like the uk, france, etc. Eventually I did find a swiss company but they were small and not feature-rich (compared to aws). I've worked with swisscom in the past on tech projects and they are extremely competent. I look forward to see what they come up with. And related to this, I've been looking into investments that will take advantage of europeans moving their data back to europe and requirements/laws for purchasing non-u.s. networking equipment. I found some good investments for companies on the hardware side, and I think this might be a good investment on the computing side.

  10. Is it just my cynicism.... by argStyopa · · Score: 2

    ...or are all these proposals for 'new' 'secure' cloud and email systems probably doing nothing more than waking up the NSA that they can't just doze through bulk downloads of foreign-traffic data any longer?

    I mean seriously, the tyros in the NSA are probably *welcoming* the new challenge of some serious crypto to crack...and most of these new programs are going to be hacked and downloading again almost unhindered by lunchtime of launch day.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:Is it just my cynicism.... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      Even if the company can be trusted, still got to get the data through NSA-tapped pipes each way. NSA with their ability to easily coerce certificate signing by any of the US-based CAs, and a policy of getting companies to insert backdoors in products. And if they really want what's in the cloud, they can just have a deniable operative use the classic bribery or extortion techniques to get access.

    2. Re:Is it just my cynicism.... by kermidge · · Score: 1

      "the tyros in the NSA"

      N.B. I don't think tyro means what you think it means, i.e., tyro is a beginner.

      As for the rest? Who knows? You could well be right.

  11. Re: We see how the Swiss bank secrecy thing worked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They haven't. Not yet at least. It keeps getting voted down.

  12. And how can they guarantee that by mark_reh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the NSA and other spy agencies aren't able to get at their traffic? Swiss privacy laws protect against legal attacks, not NSA attacks.

    1. Re:And how can they guarantee that by spikesahead · · Score: 1

      So far the most effective NSA attack has been the $3 wrench; they put people in a room and tell them they need to comply or a man with a gun will put them in a metal box forever. Secret laws, secret courts, gag orders preventing you from even talking to a lawyer? These are fundamentally incompatible with the legitimate rule of law.

      --
      bend like the reed
    2. Re:And how can they guarantee that by kermidge · · Score: 1

      Or just as easily, invite a crusading congressman for a tour and while there show him what they have on him; he comes out being quite supportive of agency's programs. We had one example just a few months back, for those following the news.

  13. Re:Speed of...light. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

    'Help stamp out repetitive redundancy, completely and totally.'

    That was making the rounds in the mid-70's, around the same time that T-shirts with "THINK" printed on them.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  14. Re:Speed of...light. by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

    I hate typos - T-shirts with 'THIMK' printed on them.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  15. Crypto AG was Swiss, wasn't it? by JPMH · · Score: 1

    Crypto AG

  16. And then you realize that by spacefight · · Score: 3, Funny

    - the swiss had their fair share of privacy desasters - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal
    - the swiss also have their intelligence services
    - the swiss also have lawful interception
    - you still need to encrypt everything as your data in transit to Switzerland might be intercepted elsewhere

    Go dark. Now.

    Regards from Switzerland

  17. Problem with Switzerland though by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 2

    ... is that it has so much foreign soil.

  18. Re:Speed of...light. by liamevo · · Score: 1

    It's not. Especially with CDN's.

  19. there is a cost by museumpeace · · Score: 1

    It costs, yes, real money, to keep your information private.
    witness the positive and contrapositve:
    1. the slow but steady growth of app.net, a paid subscription social web SERVICE/platform [handily the equal or better of /. IMO] that takes a bit of your money instead of of selling your ID-related data [no f**king ads for those of you who can read but not connect dots]
    2. the way all the "free" web services provided by Google, Farcebook, (and god knows what Twitter will suck out of you for the stockholder's benefit and turn over to random hustlers)
    3. yahoo, amazon, etc...what service have you used for free and then NOT seen strangely appropriate adverts in the side bar?
    4. Swiss bank accounts are synonymous with "privacy means not having to pay my share of the social contract"

    so, how will the Swiss pay for this service??? or will YOU pay for it in their stead, as a very few of you pay for their banking services?

    --
    SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
  20. Tax fraud heaven? by einar2 · · Score: 1

    I am surprised how many bought the simple "tax fraud heaven" formula their leaders were feeding them. Imagine, there is a country where the tax authority does not automatically know how much you make and how much you own. You have to declare it. And with in some limits, the tax authority must trust you. There are checks to make sure everybody plays fair. However, per default, the state does not assume that you are a cheating liar. Can you say the same about your country?

    And although this system can be abused, the business model is not primarily to attract money from foreigners. The natives have sufficient control over the government to create a comfortable system for themselves. We are extending this luxury to foreigners as well.

    And believe it or not. There were instances in the past when foreigners were glad to be able to hide their money from a dictatorship...


    (declaration of bias: Swiss, working at a Swiss bank, actually a bit proud to live in a democracy)

  21. Re:Speed of...light. by superdave80 · · Score: 1

    In this case, wasn't it the lack of a typo that you hated?

  22. Re:Speed of...light. by master5o1 · · Score: 1

    Is it a typo if it is spelled correctly but not according to what it is referring to?

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    signature is pants