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If a politically stable nation with a good international reputation were to guarantee government respect for data privacy for data centres housed on its soil an

by beloch 4mo ago

If a politically stable nation with a good international reputation were to guarantee government respect for data privacy for data centres housed on its soil and run by its companies, that nation could become the Swiss bankers of data. Rolling your own "digital sovereignty" is not going to be cheap for most nations, and many other nations simply won't be trusted by anyone, least of all their own citizens. It's a bit flabbergasting that U.S. tech companies didn't see this coming years ago and lobby hard for the U.S. to repeal anti-privacy legislation like the CLOUD act. Their lunch is sitting out in the open, completely unwatched, waiting to be eaten by somebody else and it's far too late to do anything about it.

kubb 4mo ago
You could take your analogy further, and consider why the Swiss banking isn’t so opaque anymore. Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore.
- beloch 4mo ago
  The Swiss didn't vet their clients. If Vladimir Putin wants to contract a data centre on your soil for the privacy, you can always have regulations that say, "No.".
  - AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
    The entire premise of "other countries can trust your companies to protect their privacy" is that you can't. "US reads Dutch emails" is the thing you have to not do.
    - dmurray 4mo ago
      You can be strict about who you do business with while still respecting their privacy once they are set up. The respectable, politically popular country setting this up would simply say yes to the International Criminal Court, but no to Putin. This doesn't work well as a blacklist of "everyone's allowed unless they turn out to be sanctioned", because some shell company or reseller could register and actually be a front for Russia or whatever other bogeyman. But just serving enormous respectable organisations is a big niche in itself.
      - AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
        But now you're proposing something that doesn't solve the problem for the vast majority of people, since nearly everyone is neither the International Criminal Court nor Vladimir Putin.
        dmurray 4mo ago
        It might solve it for the majority of people by compute use, though. Charge $100,000 one time auditing fee to get approved for it. For a Fortune 500 company or EU government agency or a big NGO that's nothing.
        AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
        One-time anything doesn't work for security, not least because if they're trying to betray you they can change whatever they want as soon as your auditors leave the premises. Notice also that you're only handling the entities large enough to do things in-house to begin with. Meanwhile one of the biggest problems here is industrial espionage, which is to say startups with interesting new technology.
  - petre 4mo ago
    If the payments go through SWIFT, the problem is solved if either party is sanctioned.
- remus 4mo ago
  > ...decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore. And of course the external pressure to loosen banking secrecy laws has been huge, particularly from the US e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_tax_evasion_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_tax_evasion_controversies
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
    But ultimately the Swiss decides what Switzerland does, and the population deciding they didn't want that, was the deciding factor. Been pressure on Switzerland about that for a long time, from many countries, and in fact still there is, as many still think they're not doing enough. Not everything in the world happens because of the US :)
    - throwwwll 4mo ago
      You are naiive and/or stupid. And/or gaslighting. Most likely the latter since you have to sugarcoat your message with trailing emoji. UBS tried to hold for as long as they could, and the choice the US given them is "pay a fine (accrues daily) or be cut from world financial system run by dollar". UBS ultimately paid a 780 million fine. The rest of Swiss banks followed suit immediately. Many things in the world happen, and most of the dumb bullshit that happens is imposed by US. This naiivete has to stop, the times have changed, and you, you spefically are part of the problem.
      - jschveibinz 4mo ago
        Please maintain proper decorum. Ad hominem attacks aren't beneficial to the discussion on HN. Thank you.
    - rich_sasha 4mo ago
      The US department requests that all foreign financial institutions share all their US clients details. Wanna refuse? No problem. Of course you can. You're outside the US jurisdiction. But every USD transaction you do is subject to, IIRC, 30% tax. Unless the US decides to block it altogether.
- throwwwll 4mo ago
  > Swiss society decided Nice attempt at whitewashing and gaslighting, but the only entity here that decided that is the fucking US of A.
- fransje26 4mo ago
  > Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore. That's a nice re-write of history. What actually happened is that the US said: cut the crap and leave the opaque banking to us, else...
  - fakedang 4mo ago
    Exactly. Post that pressure, the US, specifically Wyoming, is a much better tax haven than any Swiss canton.
lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago
It is not as simple as banking - people tend to want low-latency and high-speed connection which necessitate the data center to be in close proximity. Which basically means that founding a country with strong data protection laws somewhere in Antarctic won't get you many clients in Europe.
- Chris2048 4mo ago
  > people tend to want low-latency and high-speed that might change is privacy is an option. The real problem is the cost of building in the middle of nowhere, even if you use spare Starlink capacity, where do you get power & personnel from?
  - lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago
    > where do you get power Wind, hydro, sun? This is 2026 after all. > personnel Depends on what that theoretical country would offer. Some kind of strong constitutionally-enshrined protections for privacy and perhaps from tyranny-of-the-majority exploiting upper-middle class like all other western countries and with strong IT jobs market? Are you kidding, sign me up!
    - Chris2048 4mo ago
      The original post was "somewhere in Antarctic", what does that offer?
      - lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago
        I chose Antarctic as an example because it is one of few places on Earth with significant uninhabited land where one could theoretically establish a new sovereign state. Are you implying that all popular green energy technologies are somehow unfeasible there?
        Chris2048 4mo ago
        Yes, the "somehow" is that no one want to live there, and the associated expense of building there probably outweighs the benefits. I'm also sceptical you could establish a new sovereign state there.
AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
The more astonishing thing is that people regularly talk about this in the context of hosting providers when by far the more significant threat is mobile platforms. There are a zillion hosting companies, many of them outside the US. Now which mobile platform are you going to use that doesn't give one of two US companies root on your population's phones?
- noir_lord 4mo ago
  I have a sliding scale of devices I trust more or less (I trust nothing completely). At the top of the trust scale is a self built desktop running fedora then way further down is my apple devices (iPads) and then even further down is my android phone. Open source on hardware you control is the least worst option but since the hardware comes from abroad/countries I don’t trust much (including the US) not perfect.
  - EdiX 4mo ago
    Soon thanks to Digital ID all your important business will have to go through the devices you trust the least.
    - noir_lord 4mo ago
      Probably but I’ll just end up with a separate device just for that.
    - Avamander 4mo ago
      There's nothing about a digital ID system that would inherently require the use of a pre-approved OS. Some countries went with SmartCards that you can use on any platform that can communicate with a card reader basically.
      - sam_lowry_ 4mo ago
        Hah, you wish. See how maintainers of a reference implementation resist removing Google dependency here: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-android-wallet-ui/issues/287 https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-andro...
hinata08 4mo ago
> Rolling your own "digital sovereignty" is not going to be cheap for most nations neither are Microsoft 365 subscriptions at governmental scales No offence, but I do believe a few Dutch ppl could run email servers for cheaper
zrn900 4mo ago
> It's a bit flabbergasting that U.S. tech companies didn't see this coming years ago and lobby hard for the U.S. to repeal anti-privacy legislation like the CLOUD act The US big tech has been in bed with the US establishment since eternity.

by beloch 4mo ago

kubb 4mo ago

You could take your analogy further, and consider why the Swiss banking isn’t so opaque anymore. Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore.

beloch 4mo ago
The Swiss didn't vet their clients. If Vladimir Putin wants to contract a data centre on your soil for the privacy, you can always have regulations that say, "No.".
- AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
  The entire premise of "other countries can trust your companies to protect their privacy" is that you can't. "US reads Dutch emails" is the thing you have to not do.
  - dmurray 4mo ago
    You can be strict about who you do business with while still respecting their privacy once they are set up. The respectable, politically popular country setting this up would simply say yes to the International Criminal Court, but no to Putin. This doesn't work well as a blacklist of "everyone's allowed unless they turn out to be sanctioned", because some shell company or reseller could register and actually be a front for Russia or whatever other bogeyman. But just serving enormous respectable organisations is a big niche in itself.
    - AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
      But now you're proposing something that doesn't solve the problem for the vast majority of people, since nearly everyone is neither the International Criminal Court nor Vladimir Putin.
      - dmurray 4mo ago
        It might solve it for the majority of people by compute use, though. Charge $100,000 one time auditing fee to get approved for it. For a Fortune 500 company or EU government agency or a big NGO that's nothing.
        AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
        One-time anything doesn't work for security, not least because if they're trying to betray you they can change whatever they want as soon as your auditors leave the premises. Notice also that you're only handling the entities large enough to do things in-house to begin with. Meanwhile one of the biggest problems here is industrial espionage, which is to say startups with interesting new technology.
- petre 4mo ago
  If the payments go through SWIFT, the problem is solved if either party is sanctioned.
remus 4mo ago
> ...decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore. And of course the external pressure to loosen banking secrecy laws has been huge, particularly from the US e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_tax_evasion_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_tax_evasion_controversies
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  But ultimately the Swiss decides what Switzerland does, and the population deciding they didn't want that, was the deciding factor. Been pressure on Switzerland about that for a long time, from many countries, and in fact still there is, as many still think they're not doing enough. Not everything in the world happens because of the US :)
  - throwwwll 4mo ago
    You are naiive and/or stupid. And/or gaslighting. Most likely the latter since you have to sugarcoat your message with trailing emoji. UBS tried to hold for as long as they could, and the choice the US given them is "pay a fine (accrues daily) or be cut from world financial system run by dollar". UBS ultimately paid a 780 million fine. The rest of Swiss banks followed suit immediately. Many things in the world happen, and most of the dumb bullshit that happens is imposed by US. This naiivete has to stop, the times have changed, and you, you spefically are part of the problem.
    - jschveibinz 4mo ago
      Please maintain proper decorum. Ad hominem attacks aren't beneficial to the discussion on HN. Thank you.
  - rich_sasha 4mo ago
    The US department requests that all foreign financial institutions share all their US clients details. Wanna refuse? No problem. Of course you can. You're outside the US jurisdiction. But every USD transaction you do is subject to, IIRC, 30% tax. Unless the US decides to block it altogether.
throwwwll 4mo ago
> Swiss society decided Nice attempt at whitewashing and gaslighting, but the only entity here that decided that is the fucking US of A.
fransje26 4mo ago
> Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore. That's a nice re-write of history. What actually happened is that the US said: cut the crap and leave the opaque banking to us, else...
- fakedang 4mo ago
  Exactly. Post that pressure, the US, specifically Wyoming, is a much better tax haven than any Swiss canton.

lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago

It is not as simple as banking - people tend to want low-latency and high-speed connection which necessitate the data center to be in close proximity. Which basically means that founding a country with strong data protection laws somewhere in Antarctic won't get you many clients in Europe.

Chris2048 4mo ago
> people tend to want low-latency and high-speed that might change is privacy is an option. The real problem is the cost of building in the middle of nowhere, even if you use spare Starlink capacity, where do you get power & personnel from?
- lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago
  > where do you get power Wind, hydro, sun? This is 2026 after all. > personnel Depends on what that theoretical country would offer. Some kind of strong constitutionally-enshrined protections for privacy and perhaps from tyranny-of-the-majority exploiting upper-middle class like all other western countries and with strong IT jobs market? Are you kidding, sign me up!
  - Chris2048 4mo ago
    The original post was "somewhere in Antarctic", what does that offer?
    - lII1lIlI11ll 4mo ago
      I chose Antarctic as an example because it is one of few places on Earth with significant uninhabited land where one could theoretically establish a new sovereign state. Are you implying that all popular green energy technologies are somehow unfeasible there?
      - Chris2048 4mo ago
        Yes, the "somehow" is that no one want to live there, and the associated expense of building there probably outweighs the benefits. I'm also sceptical you could establish a new sovereign state there.

AnthonyMouse 4mo ago

The more astonishing thing is that people regularly talk about this in the context of hosting providers when by far the more significant threat is mobile platforms. There are a zillion hosting companies, many of them outside the US. Now which mobile platform are you going to use that doesn't give one of two US companies root on your population's phones?

noir_lord 4mo ago
I have a sliding scale of devices I trust more or less (I trust nothing completely). At the top of the trust scale is a self built desktop running fedora then way further down is my apple devices (iPads) and then even further down is my android phone. Open source on hardware you control is the least worst option but since the hardware comes from abroad/countries I don’t trust much (including the US) not perfect.
- EdiX 4mo ago
  Soon thanks to Digital ID all your important business will have to go through the devices you trust the least.
  - noir_lord 4mo ago
    Probably but I’ll just end up with a separate device just for that.
  - Avamander 4mo ago
    There's nothing about a digital ID system that would inherently require the use of a pre-approved OS. Some countries went with SmartCards that you can use on any platform that can communicate with a card reader basically.
    - sam_lowry_ 4mo ago
      Hah, you wish. See how maintainers of a reference implementation resist removing Google dependency here: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-android-wallet-ui/issues/287 https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-app-andro...

hinata08 4mo ago

> Rolling your own "digital sovereignty" is not going to be cheap for most nations neither are Microsoft 365 subscriptions at governmental scales No offence, but I do believe a few Dutch ppl could run email servers for cheaper

zrn900 4mo ago

> It's a bit flabbergasting that U.S. tech companies didn't see this coming years ago and lobby hard for the U.S. to repeal anti-privacy legislation like the CLOUD act The US big tech has been in bed with the US establishment since eternity.