5 ms·

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty rece

by petcat 4mo ago

A European digital ID system that is entirely dependent on 2 US companies. Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? Or was that just performative nonsense?

sneak 4mo ago
The US can call Austria in 5 minutes and with no burden of proof get the airspace permit for a head of sovereign state revoked and the plane swatted instantly upon landing, because someone might have been on board (he wasn’t) whose only real crime was embarrassing the USA by exposing their fundamentally unconstitutional lawbreaking. Same goes with the prosecutors in Sweden; a phone call and the US got, not charges (as that would actually be official misconduct in Sweden), but enough of an official statement from a prosecutor to get the words “Assange” and “rape” in headlines together around the world by that evening. European countries are, by and large, lapdogs of the USA. It’s sad. And then the US president turns around and stabs them in the back by threatening invasion and annexation, or complete disregard for the fundamental obligations of NATO members. I really don’t know what the fuck the Europeans are thinking by playing the US’s stupid games. As we see time and time again, it won’t be repaid in kind.
- veidelis 4mo ago
  Unfortunately the big game is opaque it's close to impossible to understand for the common folk. So many questions, so tough to grasp answers. Sickening. The enemy is hiding. One could say that paying the taxes in some form is a path toward a destruction. Phrases like "war economy" are lunatic. It all starts in your mind, and that's why it's the most important to protect your children from the propaganda. Take care!
- trollbridge 4mo ago
  What they're thinking is that they really don't want to be playing Russia's stupid games.
- psychoslave 4mo ago
  Neither US or EU are monoblocks though. Obviously, on both side (and beyond) they are nice people trying to plan good things without being too naive. But bragging all day through and destroy all that is in your power is both easier and more attention grabbing than discrete hard work at building better future for everybody.
- lyu07282 4mo ago
  > I really don’t know what the fuck the Europeans are thinking by playing the US’s stupid games. As we see time and time again, it won’t be repaid in kind. I feel like the European relationship with the US can really be summed up by the 30 permanent military bases and 84,000 military personnel stationed in their borders and the underlying faith that it's for their own protection, except we better never ask them to leave just in case. Everything else sort of follows from that point.
  - inglor_cz 4mo ago
    84 thousand personnel (of which maybe 20 per cent are actual combat troops, given the standard tooth-to-tail ratios of modern mechanized armies) could perhaps occupy Denmark on a good day. For a continent the size and population of Europe, this is not a dominant force by any means. Putin has about 700 000 personnel in Ukraine right now and isn't making any progress. Barbarossa took about 3 million personnel to start.
    - lyu07282 4mo ago
      Speaking of, my favourite Denmark story was probably Greenland when the US abandoned their cold-war era bases they just buried all their highly toxic trash in the ice. That ice is now melting and Denmark has to clean it all up. In the agreement with the US they excluded the US from any responsibility so they have to pay for it themselves. They also got really mad when the Greenlanders went behind the back of Denmark to complain at the UN about it. Then Trump threatened to invade Greenland. And now the US is in negotiation with NATO (yeah lol) to build 3 new bases there that would be designated as US territory (bwahaha). One thing I like about Trump he drags all the Europeans through the mud so publicly it makes the contradictions impossible to miss, that's why they all hate him but still have to kiss his feet it's awesome. Like Obama made their groveling seem less suspect. But yeah people are fucking clueless about everything. At least our media is free and not state controlled propaganda right?
- CRConrad 4mo ago
  I might have bought the stuff about Austria, if it weren't for the tinfoil-hattery about Sweden. The authorities there were investigating Assange not because of any American phone calls, but because some of his Swedish sex partners reported him to the police. But since that's your level of accuracy on Sweden, it's hard to see any reason to trust you on Austria either.
VWWHFSfQ 4mo ago
Europe will never have digital sovereignty from the US. It will take 100 years and an extremely expensive, government-mandated reimplementation of every critical US tech service and company. No EU country is putting up budget for this, and no private enterprise is going to do it because building a worse version of AWS just so that it is "European" makes no financial sense and would most likely just fail anyway.
- Escapado 4mo ago
  I agree with the premise but have the feeling that it’s less about the money. People here in Germany use WhatsApp and Instagram and Gmail and MS Office and Windows not because there are no alternatives but because they either don’t know or don’t care to switch. People are notoriously difficult to convince to switch platforms even if they‘d get more benefits on the other side. My mom does not want to touch any email client besides outlook and she does nothing but read and very occasionally reply to singular emails and she requires only the barest functionality of an email client. Half of my family gets a panic attack when the windows interface changes again. The idea of switching messengers recently in my rather tech sawy circle of friends has resulted in a multi day discussion with no real outcome mainly because some just don’t want to deal with two messengers while their friends and family remain unconvinced. We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. People just don’t want to switch.
  - mft_ 4mo ago
    Eh, it's less fixed than you describe. If there is a higher level mandate or incentive to switch, people absolutely will - for example, if a government decides en masse to switch away from one OS or platform. [0]. This will likely be hugely influential, as then everyone who wants to communicate effectively with that government needs to make sure that they are compatible - which will likely drive adoption of the alternate technologies over time. However, IMO the big challenge is MS Office - as much as people like to mention the FOSS Office alternatives, there's still a huge gap to cross before mainstream companies will adopt them. (To paraphrase, no-one gets fired for choosing Microsoft Office.) Beyond this, on the more 'personal' level you discuss, the picture is more varied than you describe. Some people's elderly parents absolutely can and do switch to different email clients or browsers. Some groups of friends can and do switch messenger platforms - my personal comms are now split roughly 80:20 between Whatsapp (the default) and Signal. (It just took a determined minority deciding to switch, and the others followed.) > We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. Yes, but they aren't really competitive, as they currently aren't the easy/free/well-marketed/popular options that everyone defaults to when they first get a computer, or that their friends are already using. It's just network effect and inertia. This can and will change if the need for a reduced dependence on the US continues to be front and center of people's minds. (Note this is mostly driven by the Trump administration's behaviour; the next president could probably heal many of these wounds and our European politicians will move one to caring about something else.) [0] https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo...
clarionbell 4mo ago
Not really. EU is actually trying to decouple. But in many cases there are not any homegrown alternatives to support. There is not a single company in EU that could replace, even a considerable part, of software stack provided by Google and Apple. And, unless the regulatory environment changes., there probably never will be.
- lpcvoid 4mo ago
  [dead]
- Chu4eeno 4mo ago
  Jolla?
- sscaryterry 4mo ago
  This is simply untrue. The tech is there, the will (money) isn't.
  - Sol- 4mo ago
    The money can't all come from the state. If the EU wants to compete, it should create a common market worth its name where EU companies can raise billions like American ones. If that doesn't happen but we instead pat ourselves on the back for setting aside a pithy 5 million Euros in some EU budget to support open source, it's never going to happen.
    - HatchedLake721 4mo ago
      Already in flight with EU-INC https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DgUXH14By0w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DgUXH14By0w
    - wqaatwt 4mo ago
      > it should create a common market worth its name where EU There is no reason to believe that the EU (rather than the market participants in the EU) is in any way capable of that regardless of the amount of political will. Spending massive amounts of money without knowing what you are trying to do or how will just result in a massive amount of grift and corruption
modin 4mo ago
> Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? At FOSDEM, we discuss this at great length. There has been some movement, and I am optimistic that it is improving year on year.
- Grikbdl 4mo ago
  I'm sorry but clearly the introduction of these apps with these requirements in the near past and near future represent regression over time rather than improvement. I think it was last year that there was a good presentation from them about how they were going to use ZKP and it was indeed very trust inspiring. But do you think the latest digital wallet solution from eg Danish government uses ZKP? Of course not! I have to say that the tune they play at FOSDEM and what we see put into production are just two different things.
  - modin 4mo ago
    I see your point about the disconnect between the rhetoric and what we actually see in production. Perhaps "regression" is a strong word, though, IMHO I tend to see it as a very slow and uneven evolution. Even if the pace is frustrating, there are still pockets of genuine open-source adoption in the European public sector. For example, we're seeing projects like Germany's OpenDesk or various municipalities moving toward Nextcloud and other sovereign cloud solutions. The EU Open Source Strategy[0] was announced just under a month ago and it specifically mentions the EU Digital Identity ecosystem, including the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) mentioned in the article. I agree with OOP that the requirement of an Apple or Google phone goes against these ambitions, and I will contact my elected representatives. [0]: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-source-strategy https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-sourc...
    - deaux 4mo ago
      What he's correctly saying is that if even one major country adopts an EUID Wallet implementation that only allows for Google and Apple, this on its own has a magnitudes bigger impact than the pockets you're talking about. That's a regression.
wolvesechoes 4mo ago
> Or was that just performative nonsense? Yes? Wake up, it is 2026.
chatmasta 4mo ago
Yes, and there is an open source spec [0] that doesn’t require Google/iOS Attestation but “preferably” providers will make their wallet app available on App Stores [1]: > To ensure that the User can trust the Wallet Solution, Wallet Providers preferably make their certified Wallet Solutions available for installation via the official app store of the relevant operating system (e.g., Android, iOS). This allows the operating system of the device to perform relevant checks regarding the authenticity of the app. Of course the chances of any important business implementing a side channel option is effectively zero. Maybe some government agencies will offer the option though. [0] https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet [1] https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework-main/#65-trust-throughout-a-wallet-unit-lifecycle https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework...

by petcat 4mo ago

sneak 4mo ago

The US can call Austria in 5 minutes and with no burden of proof get the airspace permit for a head of sovereign state revoked and the plane swatted instantly upon landing, because someone might have been on board (he wasn’t) whose only real crime was embarrassing the USA by exposing their fundamentally unconstitutional lawbreaking. Same goes with the prosecutors in Sweden; a phone call and the US got, not charges (as that would actually be official misconduct in Sweden), but enough of an official statement from a prosecutor to get the words “Assange” and “rape” in headlines together around the world by that evening. European countries are, by and large, lapdogs of the USA. It’s sad. And then the US president turns around and stabs them in the back by threatening invasion and annexation, or complete disregard for the fundamental obligations of NATO members. I really don’t know what the fuck the Europeans are thinking by playing the US’s stupid games. As we see time and time again, it won’t be repaid in kind.

veidelis 4mo ago
Unfortunately the big game is opaque it's close to impossible to understand for the common folk. So many questions, so tough to grasp answers. Sickening. The enemy is hiding. One could say that paying the taxes in some form is a path toward a destruction. Phrases like "war economy" are lunatic. It all starts in your mind, and that's why it's the most important to protect your children from the propaganda. Take care!
trollbridge 4mo ago
What they're thinking is that they really don't want to be playing Russia's stupid games.
psychoslave 4mo ago
Neither US or EU are monoblocks though. Obviously, on both side (and beyond) they are nice people trying to plan good things without being too naive. But bragging all day through and destroy all that is in your power is both easier and more attention grabbing than discrete hard work at building better future for everybody.
lyu07282 4mo ago
> I really don’t know what the fuck the Europeans are thinking by playing the US’s stupid games. As we see time and time again, it won’t be repaid in kind. I feel like the European relationship with the US can really be summed up by the 30 permanent military bases and 84,000 military personnel stationed in their borders and the underlying faith that it's for their own protection, except we better never ask them to leave just in case. Everything else sort of follows from that point.
- inglor_cz 4mo ago
  84 thousand personnel (of which maybe 20 per cent are actual combat troops, given the standard tooth-to-tail ratios of modern mechanized armies) could perhaps occupy Denmark on a good day. For a continent the size and population of Europe, this is not a dominant force by any means. Putin has about 700 000 personnel in Ukraine right now and isn't making any progress. Barbarossa took about 3 million personnel to start.
  - lyu07282 4mo ago
    Speaking of, my favourite Denmark story was probably Greenland when the US abandoned their cold-war era bases they just buried all their highly toxic trash in the ice. That ice is now melting and Denmark has to clean it all up. In the agreement with the US they excluded the US from any responsibility so they have to pay for it themselves. They also got really mad when the Greenlanders went behind the back of Denmark to complain at the UN about it. Then Trump threatened to invade Greenland. And now the US is in negotiation with NATO (yeah lol) to build 3 new bases there that would be designated as US territory (bwahaha). One thing I like about Trump he drags all the Europeans through the mud so publicly it makes the contradictions impossible to miss, that's why they all hate him but still have to kiss his feet it's awesome. Like Obama made their groveling seem less suspect. But yeah people are fucking clueless about everything. At least our media is free and not state controlled propaganda right?
CRConrad 4mo ago
I might have bought the stuff about Austria, if it weren't for the tinfoil-hattery about Sweden. The authorities there were investigating Assange not because of any American phone calls, but because some of his Swedish sex partners reported him to the police. But since that's your level of accuracy on Sweden, it's hard to see any reason to trust you on Austria either.

VWWHFSfQ 4mo ago

Europe will never have digital sovereignty from the US. It will take 100 years and an extremely expensive, government-mandated reimplementation of every critical US tech service and company. No EU country is putting up budget for this, and no private enterprise is going to do it because building a worse version of AWS just so that it is "European" makes no financial sense and would most likely just fail anyway.

Escapado 4mo ago
I agree with the premise but have the feeling that it’s less about the money. People here in Germany use WhatsApp and Instagram and Gmail and MS Office and Windows not because there are no alternatives but because they either don’t know or don’t care to switch. People are notoriously difficult to convince to switch platforms even if they‘d get more benefits on the other side. My mom does not want to touch any email client besides outlook and she does nothing but read and very occasionally reply to singular emails and she requires only the barest functionality of an email client. Half of my family gets a panic attack when the windows interface changes again. The idea of switching messengers recently in my rather tech sawy circle of friends has resulted in a multi day discussion with no real outcome mainly because some just don’t want to deal with two messengers while their friends and family remain unconvinced. We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. People just don’t want to switch.
- mft_ 4mo ago
  Eh, it's less fixed than you describe. If there is a higher level mandate or incentive to switch, people absolutely will - for example, if a government decides en masse to switch away from one OS or platform. [0]. This will likely be hugely influential, as then everyone who wants to communicate effectively with that government needs to make sure that they are compatible - which will likely drive adoption of the alternate technologies over time. However, IMO the big challenge is MS Office - as much as people like to mention the FOSS Office alternatives, there's still a huge gap to cross before mainstream companies will adopt them. (To paraphrase, no-one gets fired for choosing Microsoft Office.) Beyond this, on the more 'personal' level you discuss, the picture is more varied than you describe. Some people's elderly parents absolutely can and do switch to different email clients or browsers. Some groups of friends can and do switch messenger platforms - my personal comms are now split roughly 80:20 between Whatsapp (the default) and Signal. (It just took a determined minority deciding to switch, and the others followed.) > We already have social media, hosting, email, operating systems, messengers and the likes from European providers. Yes, but they aren't really competitive, as they currently aren't the easy/free/well-marketed/popular options that everyone defaults to when they first get a computer, or that their friends are already using. It's just network effect and inertia. This can and will change if the need for a reduced dependence on the US continues to be front and center of people's minds. (Note this is mostly driven by the Trump administration's behaviour; the next president could probably heal many of these wounds and our European politicians will move one to caring about something else.) [0] https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo...

clarionbell 4mo ago

Not really. EU is actually trying to decouple. But in many cases there are not any homegrown alternatives to support. There is not a single company in EU that could replace, even a considerable part, of software stack provided by Google and Apple. And, unless the regulatory environment changes., there probably never will be.

lpcvoid 4mo ago
[dead]
Chu4eeno 4mo ago
Jolla?
sscaryterry 4mo ago
This is simply untrue. The tech is there, the will (money) isn't.
- Sol- 4mo ago
  The money can't all come from the state. If the EU wants to compete, it should create a common market worth its name where EU companies can raise billions like American ones. If that doesn't happen but we instead pat ourselves on the back for setting aside a pithy 5 million Euros in some EU budget to support open source, it's never going to happen.
  - HatchedLake721 4mo ago
    Already in flight with EU-INC https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DgUXH14By0w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DgUXH14By0w
  - wqaatwt 4mo ago
    > it should create a common market worth its name where EU There is no reason to believe that the EU (rather than the market participants in the EU) is in any way capable of that regardless of the amount of political will. Spending massive amounts of money without knowing what you are trying to do or how will just result in a massive amount of grift and corruption

modin 4mo ago

> Wasn't there some talk about the pressing need for European digital sovereignty recently? At FOSDEM, we discuss this at great length. There has been some movement, and I am optimistic that it is improving year on year.

Grikbdl 4mo ago
I'm sorry but clearly the introduction of these apps with these requirements in the near past and near future represent regression over time rather than improvement. I think it was last year that there was a good presentation from them about how they were going to use ZKP and it was indeed very trust inspiring. But do you think the latest digital wallet solution from eg Danish government uses ZKP? Of course not! I have to say that the tune they play at FOSDEM and what we see put into production are just two different things.
- modin 4mo ago
  I see your point about the disconnect between the rhetoric and what we actually see in production. Perhaps "regression" is a strong word, though, IMHO I tend to see it as a very slow and uneven evolution. Even if the pace is frustrating, there are still pockets of genuine open-source adoption in the European public sector. For example, we're seeing projects like Germany's OpenDesk or various municipalities moving toward Nextcloud and other sovereign cloud solutions. The EU Open Source Strategy[0] was announced just under a month ago and it specifically mentions the EU Digital Identity ecosystem, including the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) mentioned in the article. I agree with OOP that the requirement of an Apple or Google phone goes against these ambitions, and I will contact my elected representatives. [0]: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-source-strategy https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-sourc...
  - deaux 4mo ago
    What he's correctly saying is that if even one major country adopts an EUID Wallet implementation that only allows for Google and Apple, this on its own has a magnitudes bigger impact than the pockets you're talking about. That's a regression.

wolvesechoes 4mo ago

> Or was that just performative nonsense? Yes? Wake up, it is 2026.

chatmasta 4mo ago

Yes, and there is an open source spec [0] that doesn’t require Google/iOS Attestation but “preferably” providers will make their wallet app available on App Stores [1]: > To ensure that the User can trust the Wallet Solution, Wallet Providers preferably make their certified Wallet Solutions available for installation via the official app store of the relevant operating system (e.g., Android, iOS). This allows the operating system of the device to perform relevant checks regarding the authenticity of the app. Of course the chances of any important business implementing a side channel option is effectively zero. Maybe some government agencies will offer the option though. [0] https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet [1] https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework-main/#65-trust-throughout-a-wallet-unit-lifecycle https://eudi.dev/latest/architecture-and-reference-framework...