5 ms·

The only reason you may use these EU version of services is that you are in Europe. Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy. UK (while not officially in Euro

by aborsy 2y ago

The only reason you may use these EU version of services is that you are in Europe. Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy. UK (while not officially in Europe) goes even beyond, requiring backdooor to iCloud and non-eu providers.

sschueller 2y ago
> Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy Please elaborate how the EU is worse (UK doesn't count). Worse than what other country and how?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - purerandomness 2y ago
    I'm curious, do you have a source for your claims? > German and UK citizens got canceled, fined or SWATTED for calling their elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media Being "canceled" isn't a defined term. Being SWATted has nothing to do with state censorship, it's people abusing emergency services. Getting a fine by the government for calling "elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media" would be the only thing you mentioned that would count as state censorship. Do you have a link to a case where this happened? > in Germany you get a fine for downloading a song/movie You don't get a fine for legally downloading movies. There's an industry of lawyers profiting off of IP and copyright laws, yes. Not being able to pirate movies isn't state censorship.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ivan_gammel 2y ago
        You answered the question about privacy by complaint about freedom of speech, i.e. injecting some offtopic in conversation, hence the downvotes.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        [flagged]
        ivan_gammel 2y ago
        If you want to argue in good faith, you should share some facts instead of sending people to Google. I am closely watching German politics and still have no idea what are you talking about. Maybe my search query is wrong, maybe you are just making this up.
        smiggels10 2y ago
        You can express your opinion about everything and everybody, including politicians, in public as much as you want in germany. But first paragraph in the german constitution is about human dignity ("Menschenwürde"), not freedom of speech. Which means, that when you insult somebody in public, it can happen that the affected person might sue you, and that a court might judge that you hurt the person's dignity. The consequence might be, that you have to pay a fee. Recently there were cases of police operations at the homes of people who where accused of insulting a politician. Those operations where heavily criticized in the german public and followed by a court rouling, that judged that the police overreacted in those cases. Somehow, in certain circles, this whole story gets shortened to "If you criticize the government in germany, your home gets raided by the police".
        ivan_gammel 2y ago
        > Somehow, in certain circles, this whole story gets shortened to "If you criticize the government in germany, your home gets raided by the police". If this is it, I couldn’t say better, thank you. I heard about those cases, but apparently do not belong to those circles to connect the dots.
      - Apocryphon 2y ago
        If you think you truly are up against an echo chamber then it’s in your best interest not to make a big show of martyrdom, claiming to be persecuted by it. Most posts that mention being downvoted become targets for further downvoting. Don’t break the fourth wall.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        So the echo chamber's reaction when called an echo chamber is to.... behave even more like an echo chamber? And I'm the one in the wrong for it?
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        It’s not about what’s right or wrong, it’s just trying to appeal to a place’s sense of shame when you’ve failed to secure any local support just makes you look bad, and like you’re grandstanding.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        I'm not trying to secure support, I don't give a shit about that since I'm not running for president, I'm trying to speak my mind. If people don't want to hear it it's their loss, not mine. The only reason I was pointing it out the downvotes is that I'm baffled about the amount of ignorance and groupthink on a website of people who see themselves as free and critical thinkers, yet display the same pre-programmed NPC behavior as bots. If a comment doesn't match their world view, they downvote without giving a second thought to look deeper into the claim.
      - lentil_soup 2y ago
        > There's no point in me putting the effort to dig them up and share them here for the hundredth time again Went looking through your comments to find those mysterious sources and couldn't find the hundred times you've posted them. Mind doing it once more?
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642
      - purerandomness 2y ago
        That's not how any of this works. Those who make bold claims, need to back them up with evidence. From following your other comments, you seem to be confused by Germany's version of what in the USA is known as Defamation lawsuits, and you're mixing it up with what is commonly known as "free speech", or the restriction of it.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642
  - Iulioh 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - cookiemonsieur 2y ago
      > Enforcing Defamation laws is censhorship This is up to the regime's definition of "defamation". > You can use LLMs to search for events that happened Depends on the "events" that have happened and the questions you ask. I'll leave it at that.
    - genewitch 2y ago
      Elon is going to fire me? At least I can put that on a resume.
- aborsy 2y ago
  I already provided an example with UK, which is terrible. UK is racing ahead of other countries requiring backdoors. France has had similar proposals floating in their parliament. The latest iteration has been rejected https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/france-rejects-controversial-encryption-backdoor-provision https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/france-re... But the fact that such proposal is drafted and periodically brought up to this level, isn’t good, and it might be approved in the future. Example of data collection by the German government https://privacysniffs.com/data-retention-law/germany/ https://privacysniffs.com/data-retention-law/germany/ Australia's Encryption-Busting Law https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-impact/ https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-... What makes you think that EU governments don’t collect data from companies such as Hetzner or OVH, the same way that US collects from Microsoft or Google?
lifestyleguru 2y ago
"Privacy" went down the drain long time ago. It's good to be aware of the worst offending policies of specific countries and providers. UK and Germany take inglorious lead. Is it worth considering the alternative is consolidated abuse by oligopoly of US providers? Your choice.
janmo 2y ago
Thank you for pointing that out! I would add that intelligence agencies and law enforcement are almost completely exempt from all those fancy GDPR requirements. Furthermore, in the EU, there is no such a strong equivalent to the 4th Amendment. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies can access your cloud data without needing a warrant—unless the data is stored in the US in which case a US judge would have to approve it. This is one of the reasons they are so eager to keep it "home". The craziest thing is what happened with Encrochat and SkyECC. These two services made the critical mistake of trusting OVH to host their servers, and then OVH literally placed law enforcement and intelligence agency backdoors on them. Eventually, they even used these backdoors to send malware to users' devices, not caring whether they were located in the EU or not. While all this was happening, the founder of OVH appeared on a popular YouTube tech channel and proudly explained that, unlike Amazon and Google, they weren’t sniffing their customers’ data. What a liar!
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Furthermore, in the EU there is not something such as the 4th amendment, Law Enforcement and Intelligence agencies can grab your cloud data without requiring a warrant. Unless the data is stored in the US, which is one of the reasons they are so eager to keep it "home You're commenting under an article that explicitly says how US intelligence agencies and police get around the need for warrants. Many rights in the US are more theoretical than practical if someone in power decides so. Also, there are strong expectations of privacy in the EU, as well as due process, warrants, etc. There are of course abuses, and especially "terrorism" can enable some shortcuts (to be fair, often for very good reason multiple EU countries have had tens to hundreds of dead from terrorist attacks that could and should have been prevented), but I don't have the impression it's in any way even close to as bad as the US. Do you have any information/sources to the contrary?
  - janmo 2y ago
    Look at the technique they used with Silk Road: "Because the SR Server was located outside the United States, the Fourth Amendment would not have required a warrant to search the server, whether for its IP address or otherwise." - Assistant US Attorney Serrin Turner
jamesblonde 2y ago
Many on here don't seem to understand this has nothing to do with privacy. It's about sovereignty - if DJT can turn off your digital infrastructure on a whim, you are in a very precarious position. That's why both Canada and Europe are in panic mode and looking for alternatives.
lentil_soup 2y ago
> UK (while not officially in Europe) You mean the EU. The UK is definitely in Europe
aa-jv 2y ago
Yeah, I can hear the laughter all the way to Pine Gap.

by aborsy 2y ago

sschueller 2y ago

> Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy Please elaborate how the EU is worse (UK doesn't count). Worse than what other country and how?

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
[flagged]
- purerandomness 2y ago
  I'm curious, do you have a source for your claims? > German and UK citizens got canceled, fined or SWATTED for calling their elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media Being "canceled" isn't a defined term. Being SWATted has nothing to do with state censorship, it's people abusing emergency services. Getting a fine by the government for calling "elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media" would be the only thing you mentioned that would count as state censorship. Do you have a link to a case where this happened? > in Germany you get a fine for downloading a song/movie You don't get a fine for legally downloading movies. There's an industry of lawyers profiting off of IP and copyright laws, yes. Not being able to pirate movies isn't state censorship.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ivan_gammel 2y ago
      You answered the question about privacy by complaint about freedom of speech, i.e. injecting some offtopic in conversation, hence the downvotes.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        [flagged]
        ivan_gammel 2y ago
        If you want to argue in good faith, you should share some facts instead of sending people to Google. I am closely watching German politics and still have no idea what are you talking about. Maybe my search query is wrong, maybe you are just making this up.
        smiggels10 2y ago
        You can express your opinion about everything and everybody, including politicians, in public as much as you want in germany. But first paragraph in the german constitution is about human dignity ("Menschenwürde"), not freedom of speech. Which means, that when you insult somebody in public, it can happen that the affected person might sue you, and that a court might judge that you hurt the person's dignity. The consequence might be, that you have to pay a fee. Recently there were cases of police operations at the homes of people who where accused of insulting a politician. Those operations where heavily criticized in the german public and followed by a court rouling, that judged that the police overreacted in those cases. Somehow, in certain circles, this whole story gets shortened to "If you criticize the government in germany, your home gets raided by the police".
        ivan_gammel 2y ago
        > Somehow, in certain circles, this whole story gets shortened to "If you criticize the government in germany, your home gets raided by the police". If this is it, I couldn’t say better, thank you. I heard about those cases, but apparently do not belong to those circles to connect the dots.
    - Apocryphon 2y ago
      If you think you truly are up against an echo chamber then it’s in your best interest not to make a big show of martyrdom, claiming to be persecuted by it. Most posts that mention being downvoted become targets for further downvoting. Don’t break the fourth wall.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        So the echo chamber's reaction when called an echo chamber is to.... behave even more like an echo chamber? And I'm the one in the wrong for it?
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        It’s not about what’s right or wrong, it’s just trying to appeal to a place’s sense of shame when you’ve failed to secure any local support just makes you look bad, and like you’re grandstanding.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        I'm not trying to secure support, I don't give a shit about that since I'm not running for president, I'm trying to speak my mind. If people don't want to hear it it's their loss, not mine. The only reason I was pointing it out the downvotes is that I'm baffled about the amount of ignorance and groupthink on a website of people who see themselves as free and critical thinkers, yet display the same pre-programmed NPC behavior as bots. If a comment doesn't match their world view, they downvote without giving a second thought to look deeper into the claim.
    - lentil_soup 2y ago
      > There's no point in me putting the effort to dig them up and share them here for the hundredth time again Went looking through your comments to find those mysterious sources and couldn't find the hundred times you've posted them. Mind doing it once more?
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642
    - purerandomness 2y ago
      That's not how any of this works. Those who make bold claims, need to back them up with evidence. From following your other comments, you seem to be confused by Germany's version of what in the USA is known as Defamation lawsuits, and you're mixing it up with what is commonly known as "free speech", or the restriction of it.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461642
- Iulioh 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - cookiemonsieur 2y ago
    > Enforcing Defamation laws is censhorship This is up to the regime's definition of "defamation". > You can use LLMs to search for events that happened Depends on the "events" that have happened and the questions you ask. I'll leave it at that.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    Elon is going to fire me? At least I can put that on a resume.
aborsy 2y ago
I already provided an example with UK, which is terrible. UK is racing ahead of other countries requiring backdoors. France has had similar proposals floating in their parliament. The latest iteration has been rejected https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/france-rejects-controversial-encryption-backdoor-provision https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/france-re... But the fact that such proposal is drafted and periodically brought up to this level, isn’t good, and it might be approved in the future. Example of data collection by the German government https://privacysniffs.com/data-retention-law/germany/ https://privacysniffs.com/data-retention-law/germany/ Australia's Encryption-Busting Law https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-impact/ https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-... What makes you think that EU governments don’t collect data from companies such as Hetzner or OVH, the same way that US collects from Microsoft or Google?

lifestyleguru 2y ago

"Privacy" went down the drain long time ago. It's good to be aware of the worst offending policies of specific countries and providers. UK and Germany take inglorious lead. Is it worth considering the alternative is consolidated abuse by oligopoly of US providers? Your choice.

janmo 2y ago

Thank you for pointing that out! I would add that intelligence agencies and law enforcement are almost completely exempt from all those fancy GDPR requirements. Furthermore, in the EU, there is no such a strong equivalent to the 4th Amendment. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies can access your cloud data without needing a warrant—unless the data is stored in the US in which case a US judge would have to approve it. This is one of the reasons they are so eager to keep it "home". The craziest thing is what happened with Encrochat and SkyECC. These two services made the critical mistake of trusting OVH to host their servers, and then OVH literally placed law enforcement and intelligence agency backdoors on them. Eventually, they even used these backdoors to send malware to users' devices, not caring whether they were located in the EU or not. While all this was happening, the founder of OVH appeared on a popular YouTube tech channel and proudly explained that, unlike Amazon and Google, they weren’t sniffing their customers’ data. What a liar!

sofixa 2y ago
> Furthermore, in the EU there is not something such as the 4th amendment, Law Enforcement and Intelligence agencies can grab your cloud data without requiring a warrant. Unless the data is stored in the US, which is one of the reasons they are so eager to keep it "home You're commenting under an article that explicitly says how US intelligence agencies and police get around the need for warrants. Many rights in the US are more theoretical than practical if someone in power decides so. Also, there are strong expectations of privacy in the EU, as well as due process, warrants, etc. There are of course abuses, and especially "terrorism" can enable some shortcuts (to be fair, often for very good reason multiple EU countries have had tens to hundreds of dead from terrorist attacks that could and should have been prevented), but I don't have the impression it's in any way even close to as bad as the US. Do you have any information/sources to the contrary?
- janmo 2y ago
  Look at the technique they used with Silk Road: "Because the SR Server was located outside the United States, the Fourth Amendment would not have required a warrant to search the server, whether for its IP address or otherwise." - Assistant US Attorney Serrin Turner

jamesblonde 2y ago

Many on here don't seem to understand this has nothing to do with privacy. It's about sovereignty - if DJT can turn off your digital infrastructure on a whim, you are in a very precarious position. That's why both Canada and Europe are in panic mode and looking for alternatives.

lentil_soup 2y ago

> UK (while not officially in Europe) You mean the EU. The UK is definitely in Europe

aa-jv 2y ago

Yeah, I can hear the laughter all the way to Pine Gap.