
After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost - iProject
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/after-prism-reports-swiss-data-bank-sees-boost/2013/07/08/cc8dfe14-e569-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html
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lawl
Swiss here. It's not really any better here. Right now they're trying to push
a law that would legalize it for them to save metadata for all connections up
to 12 months. And they could legaly install RAT's on phones and PC's. It's
called "BÜPF" but i can't find an english page right now. You might want to
use google translate on the petition site (by the local pirate party, CCC
switzerland etc.): [http://buepf.ch](http://buepf.ch) (and sign it if you can
be bothered)

//edit: direct gtranslate link:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=buepf.ch&act=url)

~~~
kimlelly
The good news is, Switzerland is a democracy that works really well. So just
vote against that new crap law.

~~~
lawl
I will, however, as I see it, the problem is no one seems to really care here.

Ask some random stranger here and pretty sure they have never even heard of
BÜPF. So I try to educate as many people as possible but all I hear is that I
should go wear my alu-hat and that we have good privacy protection laws and
they don't have anything to hide anyways.

And by the way, to be even able to vote against this crap, you need something
like 50'000 signatures (on paper!) within 100 days. Which might not be too
easy considering that the petition website only has 8k-ish as of now and it's
been on for quite a while. As I said, no one seems to care.

~~~
_k
The indifference is a worldwide phenomenon.

And it's problematic because indifference is what gave Hitler the chance to
become more powerful, indifference helped him identify minorities and it
helped him build 45 concentration camps, ... the list goes on and on. You all
know what happened next.

Would Hitler have been a problem if it wasn't for our indifference ? Would the
technology that build the internet have been used against us if it wasn't for
our indifference ?

Indifference is probably more dangerous than those who have "evil" intentions.
And I don't have a solution. I don't know what we can do about it, other than
educating people on it but it's clearly not working and it needs to happen now
because the problem is getting bigger by the day, imo.

It's our indifference that gets us into a lot of trouble. Time and time again.

~~~
sneak
> It's our indifference that gets us into a lot of trouble. Time and time
> again.

Actually, I think the inverse is true. If apathy wasn't the defining human
characteristic, we'd have had WW3 through WW9 by now, and people would be
killing each other in the streets with hammers.

"Fuck it" is a survival trait.

~~~
ivanca
Well, then the ones doying the spying are lacking a good dose of apathy? Your
logic just doesn't add up.

~~~
sneak
Sure, but who do you think signs up to be military intelligence in the first
place?

Remember, NSA is less than 50k out of 300M+.

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mtgx
Those poor souls must not have heard of this news:

"U.S. and Switzerland Reach Deal on Sharing of Financial Account Data"

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-
tax2...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-tax22.html)

This is also interesting:

> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11
> Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep
> uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

How many US banks has the Justice Department prosecuted yet?

~~~
zalew
> This is also interesting:

>> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11
Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep
uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

details in case somebody missed that:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359)

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-01-20/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-01-20/news/36432605_1_wegelin-
konrad-hummler-swiss-banks)

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/swiss-bank-
wegel...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/swiss-bank-wegelin-
close-tax-evasion)

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MichaelGG
"You’ve probably heard of the unique benefits of Swiss banks"

Yeah, I heard that's no longer true. There's few countries that have proper
banking secrecy anymore. Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US
helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Guatemala does have secrecy. It's built into the last constitution of the
country (in the 80s). Not even the Guatemalan revenue service is allowed to
review bank accounts. OTOH, it's probably not the most stable country to want
to park your money in.

~~~
jlmendezbonini
> Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last
> president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Any reference to back that up? I read some of the leaks from Bradley Manning
related to Panama and the U.S. clearly stated that it didn't favor Martinelli
(current president).

~~~
MichaelGG
Apparently I'm wrong. Wikileaks had some cables talking about how Martinelli
asked the US to spy for him, but they denied him[1]. He did however, end
banking secrecy for Panama/US in 2011(?), with a tax treaty. I probably
misunderstood after reading some expat sites and connecting lines that perhaps
are not connected.

[http://www.cato.org/blog/wikileaks-cable-martinelli-
threat-r...](http://www.cato.org/blog/wikileaks-cable-martinelli-threat-rule-
law-panama)

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Techpope
The saddest part about this whole PRISM scandal to me is that the tech
companies involved did not seem at all opposed to the idea - and even if they
were, why not give your customers a heads up? It's so sad. Nerds need to get
on the moral high ground pronto. Your technology is making the world so much
better so don't ruin it. Don't be evil and don't be a dick.

~~~
kimlelly
People need to remember/learn this:

If democracy is not strong enough (and I know a few countries...), you (also)
need to vote with your wallet. If they don't feel no pain, they won't react.

~~~
Techpope
Correct.

Regarding companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo; the answer is
not using their services at all since you don't pay them yourself but you do
by viewing ads.

~~~
blablabla123
A week ago I started to migrate my Google Docs data to a git repository. Right
now I use plain text files and Latex. Damn, I totally forgot how cool it is to
access your data when you don't have an Internet connection.

~~~
kimlelly
Agree, local storage should always be the default choice, whenever you can.

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tmuir
Isn't this equivalent to Edward Snowden's asylum dilemma? The offer of asylum
is pretty worthless if he can't get to that country. Heck, last week it was
proven that he would need favorable countries to form solid continuous path of
sovereign land between Moscow and the asylum granting country.

The offer of a secure location to store data in Switzerland is pretty
worthless if the data has to be transferred over compromised data lines that
have to run through at least one of the three surrounding countries, all
complicit in tapping the lines.

~~~
Spearchucker
Not if you encrypt. A lot of information is useful only for a short period of
time. For instance, if a company is planning a new product/strategy/IPO then
it doesn't matter if the data is maliciously decrypted within a month, 2 years
or 5 years.

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brown9-2
This article reminds me of
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
\- no concrete numbers are mentioned of the company's increased
usage/customers, and the only quotes presented are from this company's CEO,
who obviously have a lot to benefit from an article touting the benefits of a
Swiss data center.

~~~
UVB-76
I wouldn't consider this particular instance malicious; it's just lazy
journalism.

Journalist under pressure to churn out a quick, sanitized, topical piece meets
pro-active CEO of a hosting company with a knack for PR and a pre-packaged
story, quotes and all.

This article is from the same journalist who typo'd the headline of her
previous piece [1]

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/keyboard-app-
givers-u...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/keyboard-app-givers-users-
a-customized-feel/2013/07/06/d22cce54-df60-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html)

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scrumper
Off topic, but what is the name for the grammatical concept of the difference
between NY Times/Washington Post-style headlines like this one ("After PRISM
reports, Swiss data bank sees boost") and British-style newspaper headlines
which use a more active* voice, e.g. "Swiss data bank sees boost after PRISM
reports."

*I've probably got that term wrong.

~~~
abalashov
This is not a passive vs. active voice thing. The subject and object are the
same in both sentences. It's just slightly different word order.

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dfc
It would be interesting to compare the self reported boost in business after
PRISM revelations to the boost in business after being mentioned in a WaPo
article.

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Create
SWIFT

