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This has been awhile in coming. They incorporated in the Netherlands a few years ago: https://sourcehut.org/blog/2022-10-31-tos-update-cryptocurrency/ https://s

This has been awhile in coming. They incorporated in the Netherlands a few years ago: https://sourcehut.org/blog/2022-10-31-tos-update-cryptocurrency/ https://sourcehut.org/blog/2022-10-31-tos-update-cryptocurre...

bgwalter 1y ago
The Netherlands is one of the most surveilled societies on earth. This is from 2016 and it has only gotten worse: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/sweeping-surveillance-powers-planned-by-dutch-government-1.2615109 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/sweeping-survei...
- f_devd 1y ago
  This seems demonstrably false, e.g. GFW of China, and similar cases of effectively the entire country being under surveillance: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290708/top-surveilled-countries-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290708/top-surveilled-c...
  - thedevilslawyer 1y ago
    I mean if you have to give that as the only example, then GP's point stands very strong.
    - f_devd 1y ago
      It's really not worth my time finding the research for every single fallacious claim made; the Netherlands is not in the top 10 for physical or digital surveillance[0], nor is it likely get close to China or USA even if they wanted[1] [0]: https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/the-worlds-most-surveilled-countries/ https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/the-worlds-most-surveille... [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2020/10/06/eu-court-limits-government-bulk-surveillance/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2020/10/06/eu-co...
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    The Netherlands essentially has pre-crime units: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart-cities-data-privacy-eindhoven-utrecht https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart-cities-... The city also keeps track of the number of young people hanging out in the streets, their age group, whether they know each other, the atmosphere and whether or not they cause a nuisance. Special enforcement officers keep track of this information through mobile devices. It calls this process “targeted and innovative supervision”. Other council documents mention the prediction of school drop-outs, the prediction of poverty and the monitoring of “the health of certain groups” with the aim of “intervening faster”.
    - f_devd 1y ago
      Except it's not actually being used anymore [0] with the original operations, scope and data all being documented publicly. That's the downside of referencing 7 year old articles. [0]: https://algoritmes.overheid.nl/en/algoritme/gm0344/78136377/hotspot-tackling-petty-crime https://algoritmes.overheid.nl/en/algoritme/gm0344/78136377/...
- amiga386 1y ago
  SourceHut isn't under Dutch law because it's the best legal jurisdiction to run a code hosting service from. It's because the sole trader who runs this particular code hosting service personally moved to the Netherlands, so that's the easiest place for him to run his business from. Also, this diff does not say his business has left US jurisdiction: - before: "You must obey all local, US, and Dutch laws" - after: "You must obey all local, US, European, and Dutch laws and regulations"
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Also, this diff does not say his business has left US jurisdiction: That is true, but the commit message also says: > v2: rollback the premature removal of compliance with US law - Will defer this until we finish shutting down the US business entity entirely. So it seems leaving US jurisdiction is planned, it was just a bit premature so they temporarily rolled that particular change back.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  The country with the most surveillance laws in the books and the most documented phone taps is probably not the most surveilled country on earth (at least, for the worst countries I expect law enforcement to just do whatever they want and not leave a paper trial because… why would they bother? Nobody is going to scrutinize them anyway). Of course, this puts the conversation in a tricky spot. The less-bad actors (no country is great in this context) should have the most well documented abuses, the worst will just do it without bookkeeping. So it is, unfortunately, a “prove a negative” sort of thing.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    I think the difference between the Netherlands and other countries is that the Netherlands is quite open about the amount of phone taps they place. You'd be crazy to think other countries don't tap phone lines at the same rate or worse. As bad as the surveillance situation here is, it's still better than the situation in the UK, of that I'm sure. Unfortunately, I can't find any very recent data about wiretaps in the UK. The 2023 report (https://ipco-wpmedia-prod-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E03270100-HC_603-IPCO-Annual-Report-2023-Web_Accessible.pdf https://ipco-wpmedia-prod-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E032...) shows a sharp rise in communications data applications (441,900 in 2023 alone) but those can range from single phone calls to months of data collection. The Dutch reports only claim 5397+1258 phone taps in 2024, but those don't say anything about their daily volume. If your government's wiretaps per capita is lower, double check that they're not using coded language to exclude most of their activities, and if the numbers are much lower, think twice before taking them for their word.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  This is about drafted, pending changes to legislation. Did these changes actually go through, and do so unmodified?

bgwalter 1y ago

The Netherlands is one of the most surveilled societies on earth. This is from 2016 and it has only gotten worse: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/sweeping-surveillance-powers-planned-by-dutch-government-1.2615109 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/sweeping-survei...

f_devd 1y ago
This seems demonstrably false, e.g. GFW of China, and similar cases of effectively the entire country being under surveillance: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290708/top-surveilled-countries-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290708/top-surveilled-c...
- thedevilslawyer 1y ago
  I mean if you have to give that as the only example, then GP's point stands very strong.
  - f_devd 1y ago
    It's really not worth my time finding the research for every single fallacious claim made; the Netherlands is not in the top 10 for physical or digital surveillance[0], nor is it likely get close to China or USA even if they wanted[1] [0]: https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/the-worlds-most-surveilled-countries/ https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/the-worlds-most-surveille... [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2020/10/06/eu-court-limits-government-bulk-surveillance/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2020/10/06/eu-co...
- bgwalter 1y ago
  The Netherlands essentially has pre-crime units: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart-cities-data-privacy-eindhoven-utrecht https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart-cities-... The city also keeps track of the number of young people hanging out in the streets, their age group, whether they know each other, the atmosphere and whether or not they cause a nuisance. Special enforcement officers keep track of this information through mobile devices. It calls this process “targeted and innovative supervision”. Other council documents mention the prediction of school drop-outs, the prediction of poverty and the monitoring of “the health of certain groups” with the aim of “intervening faster”.
  - f_devd 1y ago
    Except it's not actually being used anymore [0] with the original operations, scope and data all being documented publicly. That's the downside of referencing 7 year old articles. [0]: https://algoritmes.overheid.nl/en/algoritme/gm0344/78136377/hotspot-tackling-petty-crime https://algoritmes.overheid.nl/en/algoritme/gm0344/78136377/...
amiga386 1y ago
SourceHut isn't under Dutch law because it's the best legal jurisdiction to run a code hosting service from. It's because the sole trader who runs this particular code hosting service personally moved to the Netherlands, so that's the easiest place for him to run his business from. Also, this diff does not say his business has left US jurisdiction: - before: "You must obey all local, US, and Dutch laws" - after: "You must obey all local, US, European, and Dutch laws and regulations"
- diggan 1y ago
  > Also, this diff does not say his business has left US jurisdiction: That is true, but the commit message also says: > v2: rollback the premature removal of compliance with US law - Will defer this until we finish shutting down the US business entity entirely. So it seems leaving US jurisdiction is planned, it was just a bit premature so they temporarily rolled that particular change back.
bee_rider 1y ago
The country with the most surveillance laws in the books and the most documented phone taps is probably not the most surveilled country on earth (at least, for the worst countries I expect law enforcement to just do whatever they want and not leave a paper trial because… why would they bother? Nobody is going to scrutinize them anyway). Of course, this puts the conversation in a tricky spot. The less-bad actors (no country is great in this context) should have the most well documented abuses, the worst will just do it without bookkeeping. So it is, unfortunately, a “prove a negative” sort of thing.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  I think the difference between the Netherlands and other countries is that the Netherlands is quite open about the amount of phone taps they place. You'd be crazy to think other countries don't tap phone lines at the same rate or worse. As bad as the surveillance situation here is, it's still better than the situation in the UK, of that I'm sure. Unfortunately, I can't find any very recent data about wiretaps in the UK. The 2023 report (https://ipco-wpmedia-prod-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E03270100-HC_603-IPCO-Annual-Report-2023-Web_Accessible.pdf https://ipco-wpmedia-prod-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E032...) shows a sharp rise in communications data applications (441,900 in 2023 alone) but those can range from single phone calls to months of data collection. The Dutch reports only claim 5397+1258 phone taps in 2024, but those don't say anything about their daily volume. If your government's wiretaps per capita is lower, double check that they're not using coded language to exclude most of their activities, and if the numbers are much lower, think twice before taking them for their word.
perching_aix 1y ago
This is about drafted, pending changes to legislation. Did these changes actually go through, and do so unmodified?