
Why Clipperz is moving out of the US - rdl
https://www.clipperz.com/blog/2013/12/27/leaving-the-US/
======
gamblor956
Brief synopsis: an _Italian_ -based startup with some of its technology
infrastructure hosted with US companies was the subject of massive fraud in
Italy due to its recent decision to accept (only) Bitcoins. Completely
misunderstanding how the law works, they assumed that a US company would
comply with an Italian court order because of an EU directive. Their solution?
Move to Iceland, a member of the _European Economic Area_.

EU and US law doesn't work the way they think it does. For starters, FISC
isn't relevant law here. But more importantly--simply relocating their servers
to Iceland does nothing for them since _the company physically remains in
Italy._

They (Clipperz) remain subject to Italian laws, meaning that they are still
subject to Italian _subpoenas_ and discovery requests. Civil law countries
like Italy don't have the same evidentiary protections that the US has.
Italian prosecutors can simply use their refusal to provide access to those
servers against them in court. (The same is generally true in the US for
civil, i.e., tort, cases but not for criminal cases.)

However, since their servers are no longer hosted in the US or the EU, they're
no longer protected by US or EU laws! So congratulations, Clipperz! You've
accomplished the double whammy of not improving your legal situation at home
while simultaneously _increasing_ the threat to your servers! Now the NSA,
British Intelligence, and various other US and EU government agencies can
_legally_ hack your servers, and the data they recover can _legally_ be used
in any US or EU court even without a warrant and despite the illegal means by
which the data was obtained. Congratulations!

Here's a suggestion guys: next time, consult a lawyer. You clearly need one.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Sorry to disagree with you, but I think that Iceland is a good place to host
if you want data protection. Being inside the USA does nothing to stop the NSA
from sweeping up all your data: didn't they break into Google and Yahoo
private property to plant equipment to intercept private fiber communications
(on private Property! no warrant!).

I expect some small tax jurisdictions (i.e., countries) to try to get more IT
business by disassociating with the USA and EU. More power to them.

~~~
objclxt
> _Sorry to disagree with you, but I think that Iceland is a good place to
> host if you want data protection_

You've missed the point: they are not incorporated in Iceland. They are
incorporated in Italy. Move their servers does them no good, and doesn't do
anything to reduce their exposure.

An analogy: a company can move all its money offshore to reduce its tax
liability, but only if _at the same time_ it sets up a offshore limited
liability subsidiary to handle that. Just moving all your money one day to the
Cayman Islands without any of the legal and corporate work associated with it
doesn't reduce your tax bill.

Similarly, it doesn't matter if Clipperz servers are hosted in Iceland unless
said servers are owned and managed by a Clipperz subsidiary based in Iceland
and not subject to Italian law. It sounds like they think they've figured out
a clever wheeze, but they haven't at all:

> _Clipperz was born as an Italian company subject to Italian laws and so it
> will remain. We are not planning to move people or assets out of Italy, we
> just moved the tech infrastructure to a place where our fundamental rights
> enjoy better protection._

Moving the tech whilst keeping the entire company in Italy and subject to
Italian laws doesn't give their fundamental rights any better protection.

~~~
toyg
Their worry is about servers being confiscated. They believe there's less
chance of this happening in Iceland than with a US provider _obeying EU-US
safeharbor treaties_. Of course their own exposure as a company and as
individuals remain the same (under Italian law), but they believe the physical
threat to servers has diminished - should they get arrested, they could "eat
their ssh keys" and authorities could not just stop the service.

I'm pretty sure they do have a lawyer already (ever tried to do business in
Italy? You'll need _a lot_ of lawyers). I do hope these attacks are from
"usual" bad agents (i.e. organised crime, people interested in laundering
BTC), rather than some dirty-trick Italian agency, but who knows, the country
is crazy atm...

------
oscargrouch
When dealing with bitcoin, be prepared to have big bankers and powerful
countries as enemies..

They will use all dirty tatics available.. these are the guys ruling the world
right now.. and bitcoin is a threat to their power..

The hope is that some of them will see bitcoin as a oportunity, or that the
new emerging ruler class (the technology geeks) will create the new clash of
the titans..

The NSA scandal already started the fire.. lets see what happens in the next
chapters :)

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ucpete
[https://www.clipperz.com/pricing/financial_statement/](https://www.clipperz.com/pricing/financial_statement/)

"Fiat currencies" = Italian autocorrect?

The whole thing sounds crazy -- I wonder if it's a competitor trying to sink
them. Or an even crazier twist would be a competitor trying to sink them while
simultaneously leveraging their open code base...

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joshuaheard
Someone obviously obtained their bank account wiring details. Why don't they
switch accounts and/or banks? Leaving the U.S. won't seem to affect their
situation.

~~~
parrotdoxical
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. It looks like the problem and solution don't
exactly agree -- if your problem is someone having access to wire details for
your bank account who should not, the solution should be fixing that
compromise ASAP. Sure, moving your servers could help fix another problem, but
it doesn't solve THIS one.

------
midas007
This smells fishy. Why would this matter since they supposedly know nothing
about who stores what? Is their zero-knowledge service not ZK? Are they
logging IPs?

