4 ms·

> I do think they'll try harder & more earnestly than the rest of the gang attempting it. Why, though? What do people base this assertion on, other than clever

> I do think they'll try harder & more earnestly than the rest of the gang attempting it. Why, though? What do people base this assertion on, other than clever marketing materials which extol virtually meaningless controls like "it's hosted abroad" (which is actually much worse for foreign nationals' privacy, for example)?

Havoc 4y ago
>Why, though? Not US based for starters - definitely willing to pay a premium for that. Nor five eyes or any of the other [0] eyes. > extol virtually meaningless controls like "it's hosted abroad" There is no value in abroad in itself, what matters is how trigger happy countries are with warrants etc. I'd like to be in a jurisdiction where it is possible for law enforcement to get to the data...but I'd like the logistically/legal hurdles to be rather high so that it is only done for serious concerns not trawler net catch all surveilance operations. Switzerland seems to tick those boxes [0] https://protonvpn.com/blog/5-eyes-global-surveillance/ https://protonvpn.com/blog/5-eyes-global-surveillance/
- 0daystock 4y ago
  A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards with their data hosted in the US than abroad, but unfortunately the widespread privacy anti-marketing has obscured this critical concept entirely in exchange for "Swiss are probably good at privacy stuff".
  - Havoc 4y ago
    >A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards Indeed. I'm part of the 96% of the world that is not though and I'm very wary of US tendencies to trawler net data collection. >"Swiss are probably good at privacy stuff". I think you missed my point if that is what you got from my post. I don't attribute any special merit to Switzerland in the Swiss banking sense...they just aren't in any of the major data sharing agreement from what I can tell. My data needs to be somewhere...so I'm just picking this on a lesser evil basis not perfect basis.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    >A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards with their data hosted in the US than abroad Citation needed. I get that, in theory, US state level actors shouldn't be spying on US citizens acting within the US but the vast majority of us are more likely to get caught up in bog standard law enforcement activities. A US based provider will be forced to comply with a lawful court order from a US court. A Swiss based company (for example) can safely ignore such requests.
    - kmeisthax 4y ago
      What happens is that the US spymasters ask the Swiss spymasters very nicely to spy on this foreigner using their countries' tech services. Legally, there's no real way to contest this, because most rights apply to "citizens" or "residents" and not "people". If you sue Switzerland for violating your right to privacy, Swiss courts won't do anything, because you're not a Swiss citizen. If you sue American courts for violating your right to privacy, American courts won't do anything, because the US constitution only binds the US[0] and not Switzerland. There is plenty of law, precedent, and/or jurisprudence[1] in both jurisdictions that restricts a country spying on their own citizens, but not a country spying on other countries' citizens. So yes, the Swiss company can technically ignore a US court order, but Switzerland can issue their own court orders that will have far few protections for you. That's also not to mention that the basis for jurisdiction is actually really broad. Like, some countries will actually use "speaking our language" as a jurisdictional basis. So the likelihood of a Swiss company being able to resist a court order is lower than you think - basically the company would have to cut all ties with the US and forego the entire US market to protect you. Of course, I'm writing all of the above assuming you are an innocent, privacy-conscious individual, where: 1. The balance of US law is in your favor 2. Swiss law is not 3. Stolen information can be laundered across jurisdictions If you are actually committing crimes, then both US and Swiss law are against your right to privacy, and adding more jurisdictions will absolutely help you in the sense that it makes it far harder to investigate your crimes. That's the sort of thing that the "Swiss privacy law" hype is trying to market off of. The spymasters generally don't like the idea of letting regular law enforcement agencies (LEAs) touch their tools, if only because the evidence they gathered probably isn't actually admissible. So LEAs have to go through official channels[2], which are actually slower and less efficient than things like Five Eyes. [0] State Actors doctrine notwithstanding [1] French for "precedent, but we're not doing that 'common law' thing the filthy English do" [2] CLOUD Act and parallel construction notwithstanding

Havoc 4y ago

>Why, though? Not US based for starters - definitely willing to pay a premium for that. Nor five eyes or any of the other [0] eyes. > extol virtually meaningless controls like "it's hosted abroad" There is no value in abroad in itself, what matters is how trigger happy countries are with warrants etc. I'd like to be in a jurisdiction where it is possible for law enforcement to get to the data...but I'd like the logistically/legal hurdles to be rather high so that it is only done for serious concerns not trawler net catch all surveilance operations. Switzerland seems to tick those boxes [0] https://protonvpn.com/blog/5-eyes-global-surveillance/ https://protonvpn.com/blog/5-eyes-global-surveillance/

0daystock 4y ago
A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards with their data hosted in the US than abroad, but unfortunately the widespread privacy anti-marketing has obscured this critical concept entirely in exchange for "Swiss are probably good at privacy stuff".
- Havoc 4y ago
  >A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards Indeed. I'm part of the 96% of the world that is not though and I'm very wary of US tendencies to trawler net data collection. >"Swiss are probably good at privacy stuff". I think you missed my point if that is what you got from my post. I don't attribute any special merit to Switzerland in the Swiss banking sense...they just aren't in any of the major data sharing agreement from what I can tell. My data needs to be somewhere...so I'm just picking this on a lesser evil basis not perfect basis.
- brewdad 4y ago
  >A US Citizen has more legal and practical safeguards with their data hosted in the US than abroad Citation needed. I get that, in theory, US state level actors shouldn't be spying on US citizens acting within the US but the vast majority of us are more likely to get caught up in bog standard law enforcement activities. A US based provider will be forced to comply with a lawful court order from a US court. A Swiss based company (for example) can safely ignore such requests.
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    What happens is that the US spymasters ask the Swiss spymasters very nicely to spy on this foreigner using their countries' tech services. Legally, there's no real way to contest this, because most rights apply to "citizens" or "residents" and not "people". If you sue Switzerland for violating your right to privacy, Swiss courts won't do anything, because you're not a Swiss citizen. If you sue American courts for violating your right to privacy, American courts won't do anything, because the US constitution only binds the US[0] and not Switzerland. There is plenty of law, precedent, and/or jurisprudence[1] in both jurisdictions that restricts a country spying on their own citizens, but not a country spying on other countries' citizens. So yes, the Swiss company can technically ignore a US court order, but Switzerland can issue their own court orders that will have far few protections for you. That's also not to mention that the basis for jurisdiction is actually really broad. Like, some countries will actually use "speaking our language" as a jurisdictional basis. So the likelihood of a Swiss company being able to resist a court order is lower than you think - basically the company would have to cut all ties with the US and forego the entire US market to protect you. Of course, I'm writing all of the above assuming you are an innocent, privacy-conscious individual, where: 1. The balance of US law is in your favor 2. Swiss law is not 3. Stolen information can be laundered across jurisdictions If you are actually committing crimes, then both US and Swiss law are against your right to privacy, and adding more jurisdictions will absolutely help you in the sense that it makes it far harder to investigate your crimes. That's the sort of thing that the "Swiss privacy law" hype is trying to market off of. The spymasters generally don't like the idea of letting regular law enforcement agencies (LEAs) touch their tools, if only because the evidence they gathered probably isn't actually admissible. So LEAs have to go through official channels[2], which are actually slower and less efficient than things like Five Eyes. [0] State Actors doctrine notwithstanding [1] French for "precedent, but we're not doing that 'common law' thing the filthy English do" [2] CLOUD Act and parallel construction notwithstanding