7 ms·

The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

153 points by tomaac 10y ago

AndrewDucker 10y ago
The article is so much more than what the headline indicates. I wish more politicians were like this man.
- brunnsbe 10y ago
  Yeah, Mr. Ilves is even doing DJ-gigs: http://metropolitan.fi/entry/president-of-estonia-to-throw-a-dj-gig-in-helsinki http://metropolitan.fi/entry/president-of-estonia-to-throw-a...
- dang 10y ago
  We changed the title to a shortened version of the subtitle.
- gravypod 10y ago
  I started watching this video expecting for him to be like all of my politicians are. I am happy that I was wrong. He seems to actually understand the underlying technology that he is pushing, and it seems like it is working. Is anyone here from Estonia who could comment on these new systems?
  - dijit 10y ago
    My girlfriend is Estonian, and she finds life incredibly complicated in both the UK and Sweden- I just asked, she misses that there was never a need for a government office, no queuing and everything was centrally managed, as long as she has her ID card and her "pin". She is mentioning the arduous processes we have for validating identity in Sweden and looking up financial history. Part of me feels like this is a double edged sword, but she seems to genuinely miss it.
    - gravypod 10y ago
      Yea there are some privacy concerns and some social concerns but the way I see it is that our government already has all of the data they are looking at. In many cases, it's data they have generated about you. No matter how hard you try, I don't think that there is much of a way to hide prescriptions and taxes from any government. I'm just amazed that it "just works."
  - Strom 10y ago
    The digital systems work pretty well. The digital prescriptions are definitely convenient, especially as you can get them renewed via e-mail to your doctor and thus skip any visitation bills. I also still remember my amazement when it took me literally 5 minutes to register a new company online, 10 years ago. Not that much different from opening a Twitter account. An even older system is the tax one, where everything is automated and I don't have to even think about it. I can just annually review the automatically calculated data and press accept to get some money back.
    - gravypod 10y ago
      That's amazing. It seems like a polar opposite from the USA. I'd not trust my government to develop any software for me to use but it seems like your government has an idea of how to make that work. He mentioned it was all open source in the video. That's really cool and helps go the extra mile in my opinion to make it more acceptable to the end user.
trymas 10y ago
Great push for use of latest technologies, especially for government sector. I skimmed the article, and I do not see a mention of Estonia's e-voting. AFAIK, they are using (IMHO) flawed system, that they just believe it works (i.e. it was not breached). Estonia is very innovative in technological sector, but their e-voting system is a very risky play with their democracy.
- mpitt 10y ago
  I was watching this just yesterday, a thourough (it seems) review of the Estonian system. https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6344_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412281400_-_security_analysis_of_estonia_s_internet_voting_system_-_j_alex_halderman https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6344_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412281...
  - teddyh 10y ago
    I haven’t seen the video, by my feeling is that there’s no need to “review” any e-voting system, since the very concept is irredeemably flawed. If a person can in any way prove to a third party what they voted on, then the system is wide open to coercion of voters. If I can e-vote, then someone could force me at gunpoint to log in and e-vote to their liking instead of mine. If the system allows changing my vote later with some sort of password, they can simply take my password away from me. If changing one’s vote is hard, like having to actually going to a poll booth, then they could make sure that I am either watched or made unavoidably busy for the duration. I could easily see these techniques being deployed at scale towards more easily cowed sections of the citizenry, like the poor.
    - atirip 10y ago
      Oh nice, your technique could then be used succesfully against ANY voting. Right? Just watching the boots. Because keeping the poor or 30% of population watched at gunpoint 24/7 for 2 weeks in Europe so that nobody notices is perfectly easy.
      - mpitt 10y ago
imakesoft 10y ago
But the biggest problem is that iTunes itself is badly developed? Apple way is that each user has a Macbook which has an iTunes to which user can sync her/his iPhone. Syncing many mobile devices into one machine with one iTunes gets messy.
- terrywilcox 10y ago
  I'm guessing you didn't get past the headline.
dragandj 10y ago
Perhaps they do not like his money and are trying to convince him to torrent the music.
carlob 10y ago
But this has nothing to do with credit cards and everything to do with the media industry. It's the exact same thing as those braindead DVD regions, or youtube restrictions in Germany, or netflix national catalogues.
- sinatra 10y ago
  No, it's not just about the media industry. He also can't buy Angry Birds to gift to his wife either. Again, because she would have an iTunes account from another country. And not because Rovio asked Apple to block such a sale.
- marklit 10y ago
  It might not be mentioned in the article but a lot of online retailers, including with 50% of the purchases I try to make on Amazon.co.uk, refuse to ship to Estonia. Even digital good can often be difficult to purchase.
sickbeard 10y ago
Hrm I'm struggling to see how it is/was any difference from years ago when games/movies were region locked. Protectionism has always been the name of the game.
bergie 10y ago
There is a campaign collecting signatures to end geoblocking within EU: https://endgeoblocking.eu/ https://endgeoblocking.eu/
- gambiting 10y ago
  I'd like to add that geoblocking also exists for physical products, as unlikely as it seems. I recently wanted to buy a new car in one EU country, with my company from another EU country paying for it(it's complicated, but suffice to say I live in one country and run a business in another) - only to be told that the manufacturer forbids all dealerships from selling new cars to someone without an address in the same country, even if they are paying cash. It's ridiculous. Fortunately later on I found out that many dealerships found out how to get around it, they just order the new car for themselves and sell it to you as a "second hand" car the day it arrives from factory - and the manufacturer cannot stop them from selling used cars to whoever they please.
- laacz 10y ago
  Why is there no verification of email adress you submit? Sadly it's hard to take seriously such a petition.
  - throwaway7767 10y ago
    Would it be easier to take seriously if there were verification of email address? It's not like there's any requirement for identity verification before provisioning of an email account.
Symmetry 10y ago
That sounds like a wonderful idea in general but I wonder how the legal issues would play out? If a company offers music for cheaper than would be legal in France in Estonia then a French citizen buys it for themselves would the company be liable under French law? How about a video game that involves shooting Nazis and which has a swastika in it but some German citizen buys it? I'm not sure how this could work without integrating European legal systems more.
mk89 10y ago
I agree on further digitalization of public services and stuff - come on, ... here in Germany you must store every kind of receipt for tax declaration (I don't know how this works in other countries, I just find it ridiculous nowadays). However, what the president of Estonia is talking about is basically not applicable to most of the current European countries, where people/countries raise walls, other countries threaten to leave, or where national interests are way higher than European ones. In addition, I would also like to say that it's important to keep in mind that Estonia is a smaller country compared to others in Europe (it has ~ 1.5 million people, more or less the amount of people living/working in Cologne/Amsterdam/Milan). This means that they can be more focused and can invest more selectively. If you want to digitalize a country like Germany you need to change how many cities and towns? And ... how many laws that require still "paper" proof? It's not impossible, it just takes more time. That's it. I hope that the president will be able to convince European countries to improve their IT infrastructure. That's cool. However, bigger countries won't see that coming in the next 5-10 years at least.
- jamesblonde 10y ago
  Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. Here in Sweden, everything is digitalized and it makes life easy. I think of this externality of managing your taxes and stuff like that as "societal tax". Time is money, and countries like Germany and the US have ridiculously high levels of "societal tax" - you have to think so much to make simple decisions. Can i fix this problem with the govt in an afternoon, should I save this receipt for my tax declaration, to things like do I trust the taxi will turn up on time, will the train arrive on time?
  - gurkendoktor 10y ago
    > Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. I think you are missing the elephant in the room: our (German) complete and utter incompetence when it comes to software development. Declaring taxes for my business still involves mailing many dead trees around the country, and I hate it. But what's the alternative, sinking billions of euros into a public software project that might be as crappy as Toll Collect?
timonoko 10y ago
One must remember that Estonia started from zero, as regards to bureaucracy. I wish had a picture of Estonian coast guard 1991, schoolkids in wooden WII soviet gasboat. But very serious and with AK-47, so I do not have the picture.

153 points by tomaac 10y ago

AndrewDucker 10y ago

The article is so much more than what the headline indicates. I wish more politicians were like this man.

brunnsbe 10y ago
Yeah, Mr. Ilves is even doing DJ-gigs: http://metropolitan.fi/entry/president-of-estonia-to-throw-a-dj-gig-in-helsinki http://metropolitan.fi/entry/president-of-estonia-to-throw-a...
dang 10y ago
We changed the title to a shortened version of the subtitle.
gravypod 10y ago
I started watching this video expecting for him to be like all of my politicians are. I am happy that I was wrong. He seems to actually understand the underlying technology that he is pushing, and it seems like it is working. Is anyone here from Estonia who could comment on these new systems?
- dijit 10y ago
  My girlfriend is Estonian, and she finds life incredibly complicated in both the UK and Sweden- I just asked, she misses that there was never a need for a government office, no queuing and everything was centrally managed, as long as she has her ID card and her "pin". She is mentioning the arduous processes we have for validating identity in Sweden and looking up financial history. Part of me feels like this is a double edged sword, but she seems to genuinely miss it.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Yea there are some privacy concerns and some social concerns but the way I see it is that our government already has all of the data they are looking at. In many cases, it's data they have generated about you. No matter how hard you try, I don't think that there is much of a way to hide prescriptions and taxes from any government. I'm just amazed that it "just works."
- Strom 10y ago
  The digital systems work pretty well. The digital prescriptions are definitely convenient, especially as you can get them renewed via e-mail to your doctor and thus skip any visitation bills. I also still remember my amazement when it took me literally 5 minutes to register a new company online, 10 years ago. Not that much different from opening a Twitter account. An even older system is the tax one, where everything is automated and I don't have to even think about it. I can just annually review the automatically calculated data and press accept to get some money back.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    That's amazing. It seems like a polar opposite from the USA. I'd not trust my government to develop any software for me to use but it seems like your government has an idea of how to make that work. He mentioned it was all open source in the video. That's really cool and helps go the extra mile in my opinion to make it more acceptable to the end user.

trymas 10y ago

Great push for use of latest technologies, especially for government sector. I skimmed the article, and I do not see a mention of Estonia's e-voting. AFAIK, they are using (IMHO) flawed system, that they just believe it works (i.e. it was not breached). Estonia is very innovative in technological sector, but their e-voting system is a very risky play with their democracy.

mpitt 10y ago
I was watching this just yesterday, a thourough (it seems) review of the Estonian system. https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6344_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412281400_-_security_analysis_of_estonia_s_internet_voting_system_-_j_alex_halderman https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6344_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412281...
- teddyh 10y ago
  I haven’t seen the video, by my feeling is that there’s no need to “review” any e-voting system, since the very concept is irredeemably flawed. If a person can in any way prove to a third party what they voted on, then the system is wide open to coercion of voters. If I can e-vote, then someone could force me at gunpoint to log in and e-vote to their liking instead of mine. If the system allows changing my vote later with some sort of password, they can simply take my password away from me. If changing one’s vote is hard, like having to actually going to a poll booth, then they could make sure that I am either watched or made unavoidably busy for the duration. I could easily see these techniques being deployed at scale towards more easily cowed sections of the citizenry, like the poor.
  - atirip 10y ago
    Oh nice, your technique could then be used succesfully against ANY voting. Right? Just watching the boots. Because keeping the poor or 30% of population watched at gunpoint 24/7 for 2 weeks in Europe so that nobody notices is perfectly easy.
    - mpitt 10y ago

imakesoft 10y ago

But the biggest problem is that iTunes itself is badly developed? Apple way is that each user has a Macbook which has an iTunes to which user can sync her/his iPhone. Syncing many mobile devices into one machine with one iTunes gets messy.

terrywilcox 10y ago
I'm guessing you didn't get past the headline.

dragandj 10y ago

Perhaps they do not like his money and are trying to convince him to torrent the music.

carlob 10y ago

But this has nothing to do with credit cards and everything to do with the media industry. It's the exact same thing as those braindead DVD regions, or youtube restrictions in Germany, or netflix national catalogues.

sinatra 10y ago
No, it's not just about the media industry. He also can't buy Angry Birds to gift to his wife either. Again, because she would have an iTunes account from another country. And not because Rovio asked Apple to block such a sale.
marklit 10y ago
It might not be mentioned in the article but a lot of online retailers, including with 50% of the purchases I try to make on Amazon.co.uk, refuse to ship to Estonia. Even digital good can often be difficult to purchase.

sickbeard 10y ago

Hrm I'm struggling to see how it is/was any difference from years ago when games/movies were region locked. Protectionism has always been the name of the game.

bergie 10y ago

There is a campaign collecting signatures to end geoblocking within EU: https://endgeoblocking.eu/ https://endgeoblocking.eu/

gambiting 10y ago
I'd like to add that geoblocking also exists for physical products, as unlikely as it seems. I recently wanted to buy a new car in one EU country, with my company from another EU country paying for it(it's complicated, but suffice to say I live in one country and run a business in another) - only to be told that the manufacturer forbids all dealerships from selling new cars to someone without an address in the same country, even if they are paying cash. It's ridiculous. Fortunately later on I found out that many dealerships found out how to get around it, they just order the new car for themselves and sell it to you as a "second hand" car the day it arrives from factory - and the manufacturer cannot stop them from selling used cars to whoever they please.
laacz 10y ago
Why is there no verification of email adress you submit? Sadly it's hard to take seriously such a petition.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  Would it be easier to take seriously if there were verification of email address? It's not like there's any requirement for identity verification before provisioning of an email account.

Symmetry 10y ago

That sounds like a wonderful idea in general but I wonder how the legal issues would play out? If a company offers music for cheaper than would be legal in France in Estonia then a French citizen buys it for themselves would the company be liable under French law? How about a video game that involves shooting Nazis and which has a swastika in it but some German citizen buys it? I'm not sure how this could work without integrating European legal systems more.

mk89 10y ago

I agree on further digitalization of public services and stuff - come on, ... here in Germany you must store every kind of receipt for tax declaration (I don't know how this works in other countries, I just find it ridiculous nowadays). However, what the president of Estonia is talking about is basically not applicable to most of the current European countries, where people/countries raise walls, other countries threaten to leave, or where national interests are way higher than European ones. In addition, I would also like to say that it's important to keep in mind that Estonia is a smaller country compared to others in Europe (it has ~ 1.5 million people, more or less the amount of people living/working in Cologne/Amsterdam/Milan). This means that they can be more focused and can invest more selectively. If you want to digitalize a country like Germany you need to change how many cities and towns? And ... how many laws that require still "paper" proof? It's not impossible, it just takes more time. That's it. I hope that the president will be able to convince European countries to improve their IT infrastructure. That's cool. However, bigger countries won't see that coming in the next 5-10 years at least.

jamesblonde 10y ago
Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. Here in Sweden, everything is digitalized and it makes life easy. I think of this externality of managing your taxes and stuff like that as "societal tax". Time is money, and countries like Germany and the US have ridiculously high levels of "societal tax" - you have to think so much to make simple decisions. Can i fix this problem with the govt in an afternoon, should I save this receipt for my tax declaration, to things like do I trust the taxi will turn up on time, will the train arrive on time?
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  > Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. I think you are missing the elephant in the room: our (German) complete and utter incompetence when it comes to software development. Declaring taxes for my business still involves mailing many dead trees around the country, and I hate it. But what's the alternative, sinking billions of euros into a public software project that might be as crappy as Toll Collect?

timonoko 10y ago

One must remember that Estonia started from zero, as regards to bureaucracy. I wish had a picture of Estonian coast guard 1991, schoolkids in wooden WII soviet gasboat. But very serious and with AK-47, so I do not have the picture.