Can Switzerland Become a Safe Haven For the World's Data? (dailydot.com) 103
An anonymous reader shares an interesting article on Daily Dot which lists a number of reasons why Switzerland should be deemed as the nation for storing all of your data. The article reads: As United States and European Union regulators debate a sweeping new data-privacy agreement, Switzerland is presenting itself as a viable neutral location for storing the world's data thanks to strict privacy laws and ideal infrastructure. The Swiss constitution guarantees data privacy under Article 13. The country's laws protecting privacy are similar to those enacted by the E.U. Swiss data protections are also, in some cases, much stricter than those of the E.U., according to Nicola Benz, attorney at Swiss law firm Froriep. And since Switzerland is not part of the E.U., data stored there remains outside the reach of the union's authorities. [...] The country's tight privacy laws could make the small nation more attractive to privacy-focused start-ups. And it already has that momentum. After the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden 2013 revelations about the National Security Agency's secret surveillance activities, Switzerland witnessed something of a boom in its data-center business. Phil Zimmermann, creator of the popular PGP encryption protocol and founder of Silent Circle, even left the U.S. for Switzerland last year, citing the overreach of American authorities. Andy Yen, CEO of Swiss-based encrypted email service Protonmail, said that the country has robust processes in how it carries out data requests from authorities. Data requests have to go through a court like in most countries, said Yen, but "the person that's having their data requested needs to be notified eventually about the request happening and there's an opportunity to fight it in an open court. This is quite different than the U.S., where things can go through a so-called FISA court."
Yes, that's why the Nazi's hid their wealth there (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes, that's why the Nazi's hid their wealth the (Score:5, Informative)
The Swiss dropped their pants a while back for the U.S. I.R.S. I'm pretty sure the NSA can use that precedent.
Re:Yes, that's why the Nazi's hid their wealth the (Score:4, Informative)
"Under the new treaty, U.S. authorities will be able to ask the Swiss to disclose names of U.S. taxpayers at a bank who exhibit certain "behavioral patterns" indicating tax evasion under U.S. law, such as trying to conceal the ownership of the account through a trust. The U.S. also will be able to request information even from small cantonal banks that, unlike UBS and Credit Suisse Group, don't do business in the U.S." WSJ 05 March 2012
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I'm sure we'll have a new treaty where the swiss will report any internet user exhibiting certain behavioral patterns on swiss servers to the USA. Funny how most of the governments of earth lube up their bungholes and bend and spread it for the U.S. of A-holes.
Re: Yes, that's why the Nazi's hid their wealth th (Score:2)
The Swiss dropped their pants a while back for the U.S. I.R.S.
Not to mention them buzzing the Russian Speaker's jet last fall; their "neutrality" is likely anything but.
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You are confusing swiss banks with "the swiss". These days, swiss banks are international corporations.
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Heh, yeah I loved the irony of that one too!
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You do realize Sweden and Switzerland are two different countries.
Re:but of course. (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously? Are you sure? That's the place where they wear wooden shoes, right?
Re: but of course. (Score:2)
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He was high on Swedish cheese.
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> Zimbabwe starts with an S? Put down the Swiss cheese bong, man...
Yes, as long as Sweden and Switzerland are the same, Zimbabwe is written with an 'S' ;-)
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Oh John, you sure screwed up that one. Your stunning geographical confusion casts doubt on your ability to accurately judge the situation.
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Well, those banks usually also had a presence in the US so they could use that to pressure them. Anyone with more than 2 brain cells won't put a legal presence of such a data-protecting company in the US or EU.
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To be fair, a lot of constitutions across a lot of countries "guarantee" their citizens many things.
The problem is that the government-of-the-day chooses to interpret the constitution however it wishes.
And it's our fault for not holding them accountable.
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You are confusing storing money in bank account that us managed by a bank and storing data in a data-center most decidedly not managed by a bank. Here is a hint: The bank operates internationally and hence is subject to pressure in the US, for example.
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Most data-center operators in Switzerland do _not_ operate internationally.
Like the Jewish assets during WW2? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Swiss didn't seem to have any issue turning over Jewish gold and bank accounts during their Nazi alliance. How sure can we be a "friendly state" doesn't secretly get the data anyway? The Swiss bankers didn't get rich by simply holding assets, they go with whatever the highest bidder wants.
Good encryption is the only way to keep your data safe, in Switzerland or elsewhere.
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What if good encryption is outlawed in places other than Switzerland? I wish I was being paranoid.
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Re: Like the Jewish assets during WW2? (Score:5, Informative)
There was no nazi alliance. Hitler hated Switzerland and took it as a personal offense that they wouldn't join the German-speaking alliance with Austria. Switzerland fully expected to be attacked by the Germany and developed a defense plan where the military and some of the population would retreat to the mountains (the redoubt) where they would provide arms to the rebels in the cities while also attacking in raids.
Both times the Germans realized it would be pointless to invade - even if they took the cities on the plains they would never take the mountains, and the Swiss population, highly armed, would constantly be attacking them.
And for the Swiss banks, they provided a much-needed service to the Jews in Germany to move their money out of Germany. If you're American you may think about the same, living in a corrupt country like you do. Unfortunately the Nazis killed most of the Swiss customers and they're still dealing with repatriating the money. Of course they can't just give it to anyone that claims it.
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Finally, some intelligent info.
Re: Like the Jewish assets during WW2? (Score:4, Informative)
Please look up recent investigations in portions of that history. The Swiss banks (not talking about the populace) were not quite the saints they portray themselves to be (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nazis/readings/sinister.html)
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- Accepting confiscated jewish assets (art, jewelry) in payment for goods even when the government had been informed that "legal" proceedings leading to those forfeitures didn't even have a semblance of fairness.
- Liquidating jewish bank accounts whose owners did not contact the bank anymore after the war without taking even very reasonable measures of trying to reach any heirs.
There are some common other urban legends going around like the Swiss
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"Didn't seem to have any issue" - that might have applied to a bunch of Nazi-leaning bankers, I guess? But the swiss government and a lot of other people -including bankers- clearly saw a lot of issues even prior to the war. For example, seeing the Nazis suppressing their political enemies was why banking secrecy laws was passed in 1934, prior to the war.
Now, ultimately, adherence to banking secrecy was not good during WW2. Switzerland made concessions to the Nazis, and people suffered for it. But you shoul
Shades of Gibson's future... (Score:2)
Neuromancer for the win; we now just need an orbiting, privately funded space station.
The Swiss do have a FISA-like court (Score:1)
The Swiss do have a FISA-like court and a robust intelligence capability. But, unlike the U.S. FISA court, which is spelled out in open legislation, the Swiss do not make public their system. In other words, it's worse, because the intelligence agencies have broader and less-scrutinized authorities, but only less advertised. If a foreigner hosts data on a Swiss system and Swiss intelligence wants access to it, then they have means of targeting that system, and are not accountable to their courts for thos
Swiss Bank Accounts (Score:2)
I'm not so sure. The Swiss also had strong protections and privacy laws regarding bank accounts but look what happened to those when the IRS wanted the data on US citizens.
Don't forget the Cayman Islands... (Score:2)
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Seriously? If it's really affecting your mental health, please read this article:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2012-07-15/the-secret-behind-romney-s-magical-ira
(TLDR: you can inflate your IRA by moving low-valued assets into it to get under the limits; Romney was essentially accused of undervaluing the assets he moved into his IRA)
You should also Go
Re:Don't forget the Cayman Islands... (Score:4, Informative)
If it's really affecting your mental health, please read this article:
Mitt Romney had an obligation as a presidential candidate to explain why he had an unusually large retirement account and release his tax returns. He didn't, danced around the issue and played the victim when the media ran stories.
You should also Google "SEP IRA limits" - that's the plan that small business owners use to contribute (and deduct) up to about $50K year.
Most business owners don't set up SEP IRAs in the Cayman Islands. Unless, of course, they have something to hide from the IRS or the general public.
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Arguments about gold and rules missing the point (Score:1)
I'm sure the Swizz will create an awesome bunch of rules explaining in precise detail how they will promise to maintain your data private.
Execution, however, is a different matter as it is not the swiss who have built our operating systems and neither is it likely they could even do it in a secure way.
So it's a non-starter.
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So you're saying they are very vulnerable to a social engineering attack?
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Depends on what you have arranged with them for this situation.
Absolutely (Score:2)
No. (Score:1)
Next question?
Store data on the cloud like RAID (Score:5, Interesting)
Any individual country's government can hack, install backdoors on, or confiscate your servers in that country, and it won't help them read your data. In order to get a readable copy of your data, they need to pull the data from at least 5 of your servers in different countries, and have your decryption key. There's no need to pick a single country and hope that it is/remains neutral and friendly to your data.
Re: Store data on the cloud like RAID (Score:1)
They don't need to confiscate your data. They only have to confiscate YOU. Then you either surrender the keys or go to prison. After 25 years they ask you again. Encryption is useless. Technology cannot prevail against the State once the gloves come off.
Stormy clouds (Score:1)
ProtonMail (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, ProtonMail sucks a lot. It's "security" is based on two passwords: one for login, one for decrypting the mailbox.
1. Both of the passwords were sent to their server upon registration. I have no guarantees that they were not stored in clear text.
2. I have no guarantees that the mailbox is even encrypted.
3. Even if the mailbox is encrypted and they haven't stored its password, a totalitarian government may force them to install a man-in-the-middle and have my messages the moment I access them (i.e. send the password).
4. No PKI. No interoperability with PGP/MIME or S/MIME. Totally proprietary. If I send an e-mail message to a non-ProtonMail address I must somehow communicate a password for it as well. How? Not ProtonMail's problem.
In short, ProtonMail provides something that is not an end-to-end e-mail encryption and thus not useful at all. You can do much better by using even GMail (via SMTP and IMAP/POP3) with ThunderBird and Enigmail (a PGP/MIME extension). Google will only ever see the encrypted messages. Only using a desktop client guarantees that your private key will never be sent to a man-in-the-middle (e.g. GMail, ProtonMail).
The trend has been going in this direction for yea (Score:1)
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Just to be safe... (Score:2)
The Same Problem (Score:2)
Iceland would be better (Score:3)
I was asked by the ex-CEO of Mega (not Dotcom) for suggestions for non-hostile data centres about a 18 month ago. :)
We'd met casually and he was talking about the risks of raids, neutrality etc and was soliciting ideas.
I suggested Iceland for a number of good reasons.
1) Geo-physical location. Right in the middle of the atlantic at the mid-point between Europe and N.America. Good latency to either continent.
2) Political neutrality. Iceland jails bankers and politicians. Not whistle blowers and has been a Wikileaks save haven.
3) Abundance, even surplus, of renewable energy. Cooling isn't a problem either
Mars (Score:1)