The proposed update to Switzerland’s Ordinance on the Surveillance of Postal and Telecommunications Traffic (VÜPF: Verordnung über die Überwachung des Post- und Fernmeldeverkehrs) represents a significant expansion of state surveillance powers, worse than the surveillance powers of the USA. If enacted, it would have serious consequences for encrypted services such as Threema, an encrypted WhatsApp alternative and Proton Mail as well as VPN providers based in Switzerland.
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This is the first thing I’ve ever disliked about Switzerland (not that I know a lot about the country).
You’ve not heard of shady banking, Nazi gold, reluctance to stop dealing with Russia, women not being able to vote until the 70s, and Nestle?
Switzerland gets aggressively simped for online, and there’s certainly some nice things about them, but there’s also some pretty awful things.
Yeah, the whole “private banking” history thing the EFF seems to lionize in the article was 100% just for serving lucrative international robber barrons and other criminals. It was never about protecting regular citizens privacy.
I meant current times, not in the past. Sorry, I assumed that would be obvious. There are also some things I like about Germany, though they have a pretty terrible past.
The Nazi gold is still very much a thing. And the descendants of Jewish people who died in concentration camps are often unsuccessful in reclaiming any wealth that was stored in Swiss banks, because they don’t have death certificates and what not. Switzerland is incredibly stubborn and selfish when it comes to anything that would tarnish their neutral stance in banking and politics.
Nazi gold didn’t disappear after the Nazis fell. They still pocketed it all, despite knowing where all that wealth came from, and did fuck all to help rebuild Europe.
Other things like their appeasing attitude towards Russia, reluctance to allow weapons exports to Ukraine, and willingness to export weapons to awful regimes are all unambiguously current.
Huh. On the surface, they don’t sound very neutral on the weapons stuff 😕. TIL. I wonder what their underlying reasoning for this is
Money, it’s always money…
I think someone like you, Grand Nagus, would admire the Swiss over most of that ;)
Strong means attractive. Not getting pummeled in WWII and making some profits, being complicit in some crimes (turning back Jews), and in general being on top for many decades make you look strong.
Reluctance to stop dealing with Russia is a single positive in the list.
Oh look, one of Lemmy’s many resident tankies.
Oh look, another one who’s brain has been melted by propaganda.
There’s a reason every billionair has a bank account in Switzerland.
And it’s not to pay more taxes. Or to launder less money.
What this says is billionaires are entitled to privacy to hoard their $$$ but nobody else is for everyday life.
Ah, yes. The country that formerly let you have anonymous secret bank accounts.
You account is anonymous only if you have over a billion.
This would be catastrophic to Proton AG
In their AI announcement yesterday they mentioned that they are moving to the EU because of legal protections.
Link?
https://proton.me/blog/lumo-ai
Read the Building EuroStack for the Future section
The region that repeatedly insists on backdoors in any encrypted communications?
Not really many second bests out there, Sweden bent over and wants to join the EU and the Netherlands has had a rocky history of seizing data-centres.
Switzerland is the last stand for true neutrality.
I mean to my knowledge the US hasn’t tried to force encryption backdoors recently?
No but they’re still apart of the Five Eyes Alliance which regulates companies on how data is processed and handled.
If I’m not mistaken user data must be retained for 7 years under the five eyes alliance, I’ll try to find a source to this.
Edit - I think this describes the different alliances pretty well: https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/guide-to-the-5-9-14-eyes-alliances/
Which has nothing to do with encryption?
Which has nothing to do with encryption?
You’re right it doesn’t dive into encryption however, given that the data is still accessible a government agency can surely decrypt it if they truly wanted to, even if it take them years.
Considering that we might have a World War III or 2nd American Civil War in a decade or two, it would be foolish of Switzerland to not permit encrypted VPN. A stable neutrality is very profitable in a world of uncertainty.
If I have to fucking switch mail hosts again… what the hell is the point in using proton for privacy and now I’m sure that’s going to get ruined.
Switzerland never had solid privacy laws - and is known for intelligence service overreach for decades.
They had a Stasi like system of “who to imprison” when “the time comes”.
They listen to all IP traffic in and out the country - which is concerning in times of traffic pattern analysis. And they are known for their close cooperation with US intelligence services.
Protons (and Threemas) claim of “soo good swiss privacy laws” is nothing more than swiss-washing. And they know it.
Proton has already given away data of its customers (climate activists) to the swiss authorities. And only talked about it when the press got onto it.
No fucking way, but mah direct democracy …
So. Switzerland doesn’t really have fully direct democracy in the necessary sense. It’s still an old nation-state with laws made in the olden day when you had to compromise. There are many cases where the “direct” part is optional and requires interested people to assemble signatures yadda-yadda. Not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal. That aside, its system encourages it to have politicians as a thing. Which means that for some issues it will always drift shitward.
It also has separation of 3 kinds of government by degree of locality, but not separation of the “an entity ensuring food safety can’t regulate telecommunications” or “an entity regulating police labor safety can’t regulate riot police acceptable action” kinds.
(Which is why I usually refer to my preference for a kind of “direct democracy” as a revised one-level Soviet system with mandatory rotation, plenty of places and sortition to state worker roles, despite that not having very good connotations.)
Democracy is an infant still learning to walk. You plug the holes and add new institutions for oversight. You don’t shoot the damn baby and start over because you know how you’d force everyone to do it.
Kowloon wasn’t built in a day.
Democracy is an infant still learning to walk.
Bullshit. It’s older than gunpowder.
And this argument has been used for every political system in history. Even in USSR in materials approved by censors it was normal to joke about it.
You plug the holes and add new institutions for oversight.
Why don’t you do that with real-life mechanisms? A moving part of a machine has corroded enough to have a hole unintended by design. Go on, plug it. Oh, it’s better to replace the part.
That aside, I think you’ve missed my specific arguments, not providing any of your own. Those things about participation as wide as possible and rotation. This means that there should be as many political roles as possible (of a delegate or of a secretary or of anyone), often rotated, with the same person not being able to hold the same or similar post for longer than N months, and with sortition based on some pseudo-random mechanism (pseudo-random to be able to check the results for fraud). To reduce the power of any single delegate or bureaucrat and to make lobbying, bribing and blackmailing them harder. To simultaneously make the population more politically literate - by almost every citizen, ideally, participating in some kind of daily decision-making work. Not voting once a year (at best) from among choices given to them by someone else.
That’s what con artists do - provide the victim with an illusion of choice.
You don’t shoot the damn baby and start over because you know how you’d force everyone to do it.
That’s exactly what you do. One consistent system does one thing by design. Another consistent system does another thing by design. Something in-between organically evolved does neither. Evolution is the survival of the fittest - fittest for survival. So an organically evolved system is approximating the optimum of power. The status quo.
What it does not approximate over time is any idea of public good. That would be nuts - so, metaphorically, you’ve built a wooden bridge, do you think it’ll become more or less reliable over time under snow and rain and sun? Is a 100 years old bridge better than a bridge just built and tested?
And the optimum of power is formed by the existing system among other things.
Which means that it becomes more and more static and degenerate.
Bullshit. It’s older than gunpowder.
Compared to how long humanity lived in absolutistic systems (dawn of civilization).
Con artists are also known for seeding bits of truth in with their turgid morass.
There are parts of your monologue I’d agree with, but I suspect what your ultimate intent is.
It’s still an old nation-state with laws made in the olden day when you had to compromise.
What democracy does not rely on compromise?
None. I’m using “compromise” here in the sense of compromising between democracy and elites, with the world order normal 200 years ago. Today those compromises don’t work because of technological progress and different makeup of societies.
Just like those in the USA.
Why is this world and timeline so hell bent on recreating dystopian sci fi novels from the 80s?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Everything goes to shit.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton Switch to Proton
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Its always the next thing, and the next thing and the next thing. What’s the new proton everyone will annoy the fuck out of us with?
This is why I stopped giving a shit. Actually. I do give a shit. I will let them surveil all of my shits, and garbage, and vomit.
Powers that would make the US blush!? Give me a fucking break. The US spies on all communication in the entire world.
Proton is a joke and their CEO is an obvious fascist. It was stupid to think a corporation is the answer to privacy anyways. They obey all countries rules and turn over your information the moment they are asked by governments.
The future of privacy in Switzerland is in the hands of the citizens. Let’s hope they make the right decisions and encourage them to do so.
If these corporations really cared about privacy they would be promoting laws to make it enshrined in our constitutions. The reality is privacy is just another way to market to the masses who don’t know better.
My cynical side says these “privacy” focused corporations not wanting privacy to be enshrined in law is because then every business would be privacy minded and their marketing advantage would quickly disappear.
