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Ask Slashdot: Best Country To Avoid Government Surveillance?
simpz writes: Which country is best to choose for hosting Internet services and locating VMs to avoid government surveillance (both NSA and local)? It should be a country with good connectivity to the US and Europe, but have strong legal protections from mass surveillance. People talk about Switzerland, Norway and Iceland (even Spain). Anyone worked through the pros and cons of each of these? I'm not concerned about legitimate (with court order) surveillance, just the un-targeted mass surveillance most governments seem to do. I don't believe this bad behavior should be rewarded or made easy.
"but have strong legal protections from mass surveillance"
Both the US and the EU have strong legal protections from mass surveillance. The problem is those protections get ignored or subverted.
If you want to avoid omnipresent surveillance, you need a time machine. Otherwise expect to be spied on by several different governments and corporations. At best, maybe the government you're living in will have less surveillance on you than corporations and foreign governments.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
... doesn't exist. It just doesn't. No matter how many privacy walls a country throws up, a properly motivated rival country WILL find a way over them. Want to avoid surveillance? Learn about end-to-end encryption. Stop storing crap in the cloud. Be mindful of your choices in operating systems and mobile devices. And, even then. realize that a five dollar wrench is ultimately all it will take to defeat you.
The French state is notorious for extreme hypocrisy. If the French State decides that violating it's rules will protect it from future terror attacks the rules will be violated.
Most of Europe is actually entirely dependent on the US Defense-Industrial complex for protection from Putin, that's the reason the Germans insist on creating investigations of NSA surveillance and then six months later announcing "gee, it's kinda hard to charge US Government employees, who live and work in Virginia, in a Court system in a different country on a different continent." No shit, it did not take you six months to figure that out; you're just stalling and hoping the issue will go away because there's bugger-all you can do to fix the problem. Until countries like Germany start spending their money on expensive materiel like aircraft capable of transporting tanks, they are de facto vassals of the US in all matters relating to the military, and therefore totally reliant on the NSA regardless of what their local laws say.
Try Switzerland. "Neutrals" closer to Putin's Russia are actually worse bets then non-nuetrals, because the Greek capital isn't a day's boat ride from the Russian capital. Also avoid countries near active political conflicts. Ireland not only has extremely close historical links with both the US and UK, it also has a strong interest in creating it's own database of it's own people because of that little conflict in Northern Ireland; which is heating up after Robinson resigned in a dispute over IRA weapons decommissioning.
Your thinking about this the wrong way around.
If you're concerned with surveillance, you shouldn't be thinking in terms of "which country", you should be thinking in terms of "which software".
There's no guarantee that *any* data will be safe *anywhere*. Your best choice, and in fact the only choice with any chance of success, is with a technical solution.
Use strong encryption end-to-end, encrypt any data on the servers, give your clients/customers their keys, and make certain you don't have a back door.
That's the only way to avoid it. Hire some really capable security people to implement a strong system, and employ a security maintenance team to keep you current with known security issues.
For all the bad you can say about Julian Assange, he's an expert in this sort of thing and even *he* wasn't able to choose a good country.
Security through technology, it's the only way.
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
Why is Snark Required?
It's easy to find, it's an old Channel gun battery three miles off the coast of Essex. Last I heard they were trading server room space for a little cash and supplies.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Most countries fall into one of four categories here: Five Eyes (shares surveillance data with U.S.), 'The West' (same, probably with implicit economic threats involved), Laizzes-faire governments (trivially bribed in order to share surveillance data with U.S.), and totalitarian (keeps the info to themselves but surveils everything openly).
Reporters Without Borders maintains a nice ranking here of countries based on their histories of surveillance and censorship; however, sometimes it turns out that a country high on the list will be revealed to have been engaged in a mass-surveillance scheme all along or has major corruption problems that weren't factored in.
In practical terms, it has always been advised that anything unencrypted sent over the Internet should be assumed to be snooped upon, and now we merely know how true that assumption always was. Your efforts should be put into ensuring everything is encrypted and hashed using secure algorithms that haven't been broken. Even if your server is physically located in Utopia, whose government never does any surveillance, censorship or takedowns, hackers (government or otherwise) from other countries can compromise your server and take all the data or install backdoors to your encryption efforts, so security is more important than location. Of course, a country that doesn't have a history of raiding datacenters hosting certain materials is still a good idea, but don't forget that your upstream hosting providers are one bribe/threat away from pulling your plug unilaterally, so choose them well too.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Instead of asking
"Best Country To Avoid Government Surveillance? "
a question better representing the reality we live in could be
"Least hypocritical country which neither pretends that it is democratic, nor that it never spies on its own citizens"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If you are smart enough to ask this question and understand why you should want to do so then the only answer is a frontal lobotomy that turns you into one of the ignorant mass of people that generated this state of affairs in the first place. It applies to all western countries however America's Benjamin Franklin summed it up best (to paraphrase) when he said that 'ultimately the demise of *any* democracy comes from the corruption of the people'.
One only has to look at the TV to see that serious democracy no longer exists, that we have moved from a covert to an overt surveillance state and that you are asking for a way out of the new world order.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Wrong: Somalia. When there is no functioning government there is no chance of government surveillance.
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
I've never seen a serious, credible libertarian advocate pure absolute 100% anarchy, just like I've never seen a serious, credible businessperson advocate 100% unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism. What I have seen is such people making arguments for a step closer to those things, an alteration or rethinking of the current balance or list of priorities. The state not spying on you without a damned good, demonstrable-in-court reason and not otherwise looking for ways to fuck with your life does not mean you must abandon all criminal justice and national defense.
These "baby with the bathwater" excuses for argumentation really get tiresome. They don't remotely represent what any thinking person actually believes. Thus, they are strawmen.
here - the answer is most of Central and South America, most of Africa, most of Europe except for France and Great Britain, Canada, Japan and Philippines
I am afraid there is no general answer, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Snowden found safe haven in Russia, the country not known for freedom or privacy, because Putin is not interested in protecting western powers. You may well find a totalitarian king who is not interesting in enforcing copyrights. Now imagine your perfect pro-privacy, anti-surveillance country under attack from NSA? Don't you think they would do some surveillance to catch the spooks?
If you just want to avoid mass surveillance, just locate in any poor country that doesn't have the resources. Syria sounds about right. If you actually want respect for your rights, you have to look for people who share your values.
is that they have NOT signed CAFTA. as a direct result of this they are still a sovereign nation.
Costa Rica has a defense agreement with the US. They are totally dependent. I'm not sure you can consider them completely sovereign.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually, I'm pretty sure that North Korea IS hiding the fact that they are corrupt and only working for the elite.
It's just that we outside of N.K. don't get to hear much of their propaganda and instead a lot of the commentary from third parties. Ask a North Korean who only has access to the official N.K. news what he thinks about his country and the world and you might realize how dishonest N.K. is.
Mod here. Alas, there's no -1, Full of Intellectual Dishonesty.
Exercising *some* discretion and wanting to keep things *somewhat* on-topic is not being "Ned Flanders".
And I was very likely reading Cracked before you were born. You may now get off my lawn and go find some traffic to play in.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Luxembourg! First, nobody is interested in spying on them. They have a Navy of half a ship (shared with Belgium) and also one of the US Awacs planes is flying under their flag, that's about their air force.
They also have 2 old cannons to fire for state celebrations.
They have 100% cellphone coverage, 100% DSL coverage and in about 3 years also 100% glass fiber coverage.
And if Paypal ever blocks your account, you can _walk_ to their office with a big stick and demand explanations.
Disclaimer: I'm from Luxembourg. :-)
There are countries known for there spying, then they are countries that didn't get caught yet.
Besides if your communication is secure it doesn't mean the other end or the route to get there is.
Basic rules. Encrypt everything & don't try to send compromising info.
Think of the Internet as communication at a public square. You may be talking to a friend but others may be listing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Corporations are people....
Legally corporations are entitled to the same redress in the civil courts as the individual, they are treated "LIKE PEOPLE" in terms of civil law, this does not make them "people" in the eyes of the law. All this means is that they are governed by the same rules in civil courts as people. People can sue each other and defend themselves in the courts, corporations have all the same privileges in terms of civil law.
However, corporations are NOT people in many important legal ways. They cannot vote, they cannot serve on a jury, sign a petition, they cannot run for office or serve in the military. They do not have citizenship and don't have inalienable God given rights like the people who own the corporation. These rights are reserved for actual people.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Damn... you beat me to it.
At least in N.Korea they don't try to hide the fact that this is a corrupt dictatorial government which acts solely in its own best interests.
Hardly.... To those OUTSIDE North Korea it is obvious that they are a corrupt government run by a despot dictator... But INSIDE North Korea the perception is generally totally different.... The Un's are billed and accepted as the deliverer of the people, the savior of man kind and the eventual ruler of the WORLD at large. Yes they are starving and oppressed but in their world view the rest of the world is in much worse shape, both economically and morally.
To the western world view this mindset is extremely hard to understand, but one has to remember that to the North Korean, who is feed a steady diet of carefully crafted PR with never an opposing view allowed in, what they believe makes sense. They don't realize how things they are allowed to see are so skewed, or if they do realize it, they are too afraid to speak up because anybody who even hints that they know the truth will be severely punished along with their extended families.
This should cause all of us pause... Because it shows that otherwise intelligent people are controllable if you have proper control of the media they can see. A fact that was not lost on the framers of our constitution's Bill of Rights and why the 1st amendment is so very important.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101