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One of Estonia's First 'e-Residents' Explains What It Means To Have Digital Citizenship
An anonymous reader shares a report from Quartz, written by Estonian e-Resident April Rinne: In 2014, Estonia, a country previously known as much for its national singing revolution as anything else, became the first country in the world to launch an e-Residency program. Once admitted, e-Residents can conduct business worldwide as if they were from Estonia, which is a member of the EU. They are given government-issued digital IDs, can open Estonian bank and securities accounts, form and register Estonian companies, and have a front-row seat as nascent concepts of digital and virtual citizenship evolve. There is no requirement to have a physical presence in Estonia. [...] Three years in, what I find most incredible about e-Residency is that it actually works.
E-Residency was appealing to me for several reasons (none of which include dodging the law, taxes, or other civic responsibilities). I have Finnish heritage and for many years was intrigued by Finland's "smaller neighbor." And, I'd just joined an Estonian startup as an advisor. Becoming an e-Resident would allow me to receive payment from clients in Euros from any company without worrying about currency fluctuations, and to own shares in the company (previously this would have required various administrative work-arounds). [...] At a basic level, e-Residency makes working overall simpler and, ideally, more streamlined. This plays out in many ways, depending on the type of worker or organization. For example, many bona fide small- and mid-sized companies in other regions simply could not get access to European markets. The costs of entry and other requirements made it prohibitively cumbersome. E-Residency gives them a new avenue to do this; they still have to prove their merits, but the playing field is more level. For independent entrepreneurs, especially those working in different countries, Estonia makes the entire process of establishing and maintaining a small business easier, faster and more affordable. In my case, I'm able to transact, bank, and sign documents easily. I still maintain my U.S. presence -- because a non-trivial amount of my portfolio is in the U.S., and I maintain a range of local commitments and community -- but many of my fellow e-Residents have shifted their entire enterprise to Estonia. In conclusion, Rinne notes the imperfections of the residency: "multiple times I had to disable firewalls to get digital services to work, and the e-Residency team discovered a potential bug in late 2017 which led them to deactivate all ID cards until they could be updated through the internet." All in all the experience has been "useful beyond measure," Rinne writes. "It has enabled me to re-think not only how I work, but also the many ways in which the world of work itself is changing and emerging opportunities for the future."
E-Residency was appealing to me for several reasons (none of which include dodging the law, taxes, or other civic responsibilities). I have Finnish heritage and for many years was intrigued by Finland's "smaller neighbor." And, I'd just joined an Estonian startup as an advisor. Becoming an e-Resident would allow me to receive payment from clients in Euros from any company without worrying about currency fluctuations, and to own shares in the company (previously this would have required various administrative work-arounds). [...] At a basic level, e-Residency makes working overall simpler and, ideally, more streamlined. This plays out in many ways, depending on the type of worker or organization. For example, many bona fide small- and mid-sized companies in other regions simply could not get access to European markets. The costs of entry and other requirements made it prohibitively cumbersome. E-Residency gives them a new avenue to do this; they still have to prove their merits, but the playing field is more level. For independent entrepreneurs, especially those working in different countries, Estonia makes the entire process of establishing and maintaining a small business easier, faster and more affordable. In my case, I'm able to transact, bank, and sign documents easily. I still maintain my U.S. presence -- because a non-trivial amount of my portfolio is in the U.S., and I maintain a range of local commitments and community -- but many of my fellow e-Residents have shifted their entire enterprise to Estonia. In conclusion, Rinne notes the imperfections of the residency: "multiple times I had to disable firewalls to get digital services to work, and the e-Residency team discovered a potential bug in late 2017 which led them to deactivate all ID cards until they could be updated through the internet." All in all the experience has been "useful beyond measure," Rinne writes. "It has enabled me to re-think not only how I work, but also the many ways in which the world of work itself is changing and emerging opportunities for the future."
No. "NB! Please be aware that e-Residency does not confer citizenship, tax residency, residence or right of entry to Estonia or to the European Union. It is not a visa or residence permit. The e-Resident digi-ID card is not a physical identification or a travel document, and does not display a photo." https://apply.gov.ee/
Inner-city neighborhoods crammed with illegal e-aliens running cheap PCs, chattering away in Visual Basic ("Build the firewall!"). Coal-fueled mob servers churning out Bitcoin. Dismal landfills overflowing with the world's discarded ones and zeros. Homeless burned-out developers wearing bubble wrap against the winter chill, huddled around flaming barrels of obsolete O'Reilly Manual editions.
For every digital heaven, there's a digital hell.
India's breeches are dhoti!
By now, the whole country has basically been forced to get a 2FA Token (which you can only use for banking or state stuff, it's not as if I can couple it to auth to my ssh servers). Technically they call it a signing server token, so - if I understand it correctly - a server signs on your behalf if you authenticate right. It is also immensely funny when their service is down.
At least that thing works with non-Microsoft systems, so that's good.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Russia won't invade Estonia - the country is simply not important enough. But there has been a political pissing contest between Estonia and Russia for over two decades, so Russia hacking Estonian systems for the sole purpose of annoying the Estonian government is a perfectly realistic scenario.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Russia has invaded Georgia and split off part of it, invaded Ukraine and annexed a large part of it, and there is also Transistria, a charming military nostalgia self-proclaimed republic that split off from Moldavia and is directly subsidized and indirectly administered by Russia. So yeah, Russia could invade Estonia any time if they weren't in the NATO. You'd need to be blind on both eyes to not see that.
Russia won't invade Estonia - the country is simply not important enough.
I speak Russian really well (not fluent, but really good nonetheless) and I spent a good deal of time in Ukraine in the previous decade. I definitely understand the region more than most here. While they may not invade Estonia, it will have nothing at all to do with how important it is or isn't. That's not a consideration. Putin simply wants to reacquire as much of the former USSR as he reasonably can or turn those nations into something like tributary states (ie. Belarus) or anti-Western allies (more or less all the so-called "Stan" countries). Trump is extremely unpredictable, mostly by design, and he's shown a willingness to kill Russians already in Syria. Early in the presidency Putin was feeling him out to see if he might really and truly leave the European NATO countries hanging in the wind like he threatened to do, but Putin has to know that there is a big chance now that any invasion of a Baltic NATO member would result in a war that isn't going to end with Putin winning, so it won't happen, but yes, Russians will continue to try to undermine the Baltic countries as much as possible.
Well, gee, I speak Russian really well, too (and I am actually fluent, my Russian is not much worse than my English) and I have spent some time in the Ukraine as well, exactly three years ago, as it is.
Why exactly do you think that your understanding of the region is better than mine? Especially since I do realise that the main thing that broke up the USSR were the numerous ethnic conflicts, hence it would not make any sense whatsoever to reacquire as much of the former USSR as possible, but you, on the other hand, seem to consider Putin a some kind of a comic book villain.
And as for any undermining - like I said, it is more like a pissing contest, or like unpleasant neighbours annoying each other at every opportunity. All four sides are equally guilty of being dicks, with one dick naturally being much larger, but the other three trying really hard to compensate.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap