6 ms·

Come to Iceland. Law is on your side here and the infrastructure is coming along.

chmars 13y ago
What's the legal situation in Iceland? Isn't it likely that Iceland has – as all functioning countries – a surveillance apparatus and is cooperating with the US? For the latter, the usual legal trick is not to spy on your own citizens but to ask a partner service for data about your own citizens … Strict privacy laws can be great, however, they are no protection from surveillance. Surveillance is usually excluded from privacy laws as far as countries are snoopy and not 'just' private entities.
- Beltiras 13y ago
  The dept. of the Interior has been talking about expanded investigatory powers for police but those are aimed at when they can open an investigation without prior cause. There is no spy agency in Iceland. We are a nation of roughly 350k people. Last interior minister actually sent the FBI packing when they came to investigate something.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  To get a handle on how bad domestic spying is in practical terms, consider that the US outspends the rest of the planet in military spending. Surveillance spending is likely to be roughly proportional. A small nation with low military spending per-capita could fall below the threshold of operating an effective surveillance state, just as they could fall below the threshold of operating a blue-water navy.
- jluster 13y ago
  It is highly unlikely that our current government is colluding with the US. Transparency is too high and anti-American sentiment as well. Don't forget, we're in total about half the size of an average American suburb, everyone knows everyone, there's very little you can gain from spying as opposed to asking. Spying electronically on Icelanders is a useless and expensive pursuit, if you want to know anything you go downtown and sit around while your average Joe or Jane talk about it.
  - typicalrunt 13y ago
    Talking to people? What a concept! Seriously though, it is amazing how much information can be gleaned from someone (rightly or wrongly) if you just sit down and talk with them for a bit. And even more information about someone's true feeling can be determined from their non-verbal communication, something that electronic surveillance (like email snooping) can do nothing about.
    - Beltiras 13y ago
      There's a recurring joke in advertisement in Iceland. If you have a fringe product with a well defined demographical following (say, upper-middle-class females, 40-50), you'd reach them better by throwing a small party with drinks on the house and inviting them than with media advertisement.
rdl 13y ago
Iceland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and a few other places do look really interesting (and Switzerland and Hong Kong have pretty good infrastructure). Investigating a few more as well. One consideration, though, is that we're all US citizens, and so even if we set up a Hong Kong company with Hong Kong servers, we'd be at risk to US court orders or any civil/criminal action. So for US citizens, the only real solution is technical controls, or legal/legislative reforms in the US.
- gonzo 13y ago
  Do US citizens have to install pen registers on their own service(s)?
  - rdl 13y ago
    If so ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction. Essentially from lavabit it appears if you don't have technical capabilities inside the service already in place to provide pen trap level realtime reporting, they can compel you to install a pen trap device, and provide all keying/etc. required to make it work.
    - gonzo 13y ago
      You're likely wrong. On June 10, the federal government served a court order on Lavabit issued under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment of the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act (SCA, codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 121 §§ 2701–2712) is a law that addresses voluntary and compelled disclosure of "stored wire and electronic communications and transactional records" held by third-party internet service providers (ISPs). It was enacted as Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA, Pub.L. 99–508, 100 Stat. 1848, enacted October 21, 1986). (emphasis mine) Users generally entrust the security of online information to a third party, an ISP. In many cases, Fourth Amendment doctrine has held that, in so doing, users relinquish any expectation of privacy. The Third-Party Doctrine holds "…that knowingly revealing information to a third party relinquishes Fourth Amendment protection in that information." It doesn't follow that a private individual can be compelled to install a pen register on his/her own infrastructure.
iand 13y ago
Iceland isn't an online utopia, as the current proposal for online censorship demonstrates: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-internet-pornography-ban http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-i... Although, for the most part, it has good intentions.
- Beltiras 13y ago
  That bill was DOA, posturing by a politician to appease his left flank. Nobody took it seriously and his party is no longer in power.
  - iand 13y ago
    But it's still illegal to publish pornograpy in Iceland isn't it? http://www.althingi.is/lagas/nuna/1940019.html#G210 http://www.althingi.is/lagas/nuna/1940019.html#G210
    - Beltiras 13y ago
      Yes, it does impinge on freedom of speech locally. No politician is going to move to abolish it (for now), but enforcement is next to non-existent.
- Torgo 13y ago
  It appears also (as best as I can tell without being able to understand Icelandic) that there is a law on the books that makes it prosecutable to 'publicly ridicule an individual or group on the grounds of their "nationality, skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation."' I wonder how broadly that could be interpreted. The UK doesn't give me hope.
jluster 13y ago
I don't know about your Iceland, but my Iceland is currently debating putting edge filters up to block "pornogaphy and other questionable content". I understand that the Internet here is just following our outdated laws which levy fines and threaten prison terms to anyone who purchases porn, but any country (even one as enlightened as ours) that contemplates edge router censorship is suspect to me.
- Beltiras 13y ago
  .. and is Ögmundur still in power to follow through?
  - jluster 13y ago
    But you know as well as I do that he didn't fall over his censorship dreams but Icesave. Another will come. That we even seriously, politically, considered this is scary in and by itself. Pirate Birgitta isn't enough to reassure me.
    - Beltiras 13y ago
      I would say that is a miscategorization of the election results. It's not so much that he was voted out as the electorate falling for the populism of Framsókn. Of course a party of 3 out of 63 is not going to make big waves legislatively, but the center-right coalition wouldn't touch this issue. Hell, the previous administration didn't want to touch the issue either. Noise, that's all.
      - jluster 13y ago
        Fair enough. Maybe I am just a little too sensitive to the broad brush and heavy handed approach we seem to touch everything these days with. Frankly, I love my country, but I sometimes wonder if the Facebook "Iceland is so cool" movement isn't making us, internally, a little to complacent.
        Beltiras 13y ago

What's the legal situation in Iceland? Isn't it likely that Iceland has – as all functioning countries – a surveillance apparatus and is cooperating with the US? For the latter, the usual legal trick is not to spy on your own citizens but to ask a partner service for data about your own citizens … Strict privacy laws can be great, however, they are no protection from surveillance. Surveillance is usually excluded from privacy laws as far as countries are snoopy and not 'just' private entities.

Beltiras 13y ago
The dept. of the Interior has been talking about expanded investigatory powers for police but those are aimed at when they can open an investigation without prior cause. There is no spy agency in Iceland. We are a nation of roughly 350k people. Last interior minister actually sent the FBI packing when they came to investigate something.
Zigurd 13y ago
To get a handle on how bad domestic spying is in practical terms, consider that the US outspends the rest of the planet in military spending. Surveillance spending is likely to be roughly proportional. A small nation with low military spending per-capita could fall below the threshold of operating an effective surveillance state, just as they could fall below the threshold of operating a blue-water navy.
jluster 13y ago
It is highly unlikely that our current government is colluding with the US. Transparency is too high and anti-American sentiment as well. Don't forget, we're in total about half the size of an average American suburb, everyone knows everyone, there's very little you can gain from spying as opposed to asking. Spying electronically on Icelanders is a useless and expensive pursuit, if you want to know anything you go downtown and sit around while your average Joe or Jane talk about it.
- typicalrunt 13y ago
  Talking to people? What a concept! Seriously though, it is amazing how much information can be gleaned from someone (rightly or wrongly) if you just sit down and talk with them for a bit. And even more information about someone's true feeling can be determined from their non-verbal communication, something that electronic surveillance (like email snooping) can do nothing about.
  - Beltiras 13y ago
    There's a recurring joke in advertisement in Iceland. If you have a fringe product with a well defined demographical following (say, upper-middle-class females, 40-50), you'd reach them better by throwing a small party with drinks on the house and inviting them than with media advertisement.

rdl 13y ago

Iceland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and a few other places do look really interesting (and Switzerland and Hong Kong have pretty good infrastructure). Investigating a few more as well. One consideration, though, is that we're all US citizens, and so even if we set up a Hong Kong company with Hong Kong servers, we'd be at risk to US court orders or any civil/criminal action. So for US citizens, the only real solution is technical controls, or legal/legislative reforms in the US.

gonzo 13y ago
Do US citizens have to install pen registers on their own service(s)?
- rdl 13y ago
  If so ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction. Essentially from lavabit it appears if you don't have technical capabilities inside the service already in place to provide pen trap level realtime reporting, they can compel you to install a pen trap device, and provide all keying/etc. required to make it work.
  - gonzo 13y ago
    You're likely wrong. On June 10, the federal government served a court order on Lavabit issued under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment of the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act (SCA, codified at 18 U.S.C. Chapter 121 §§ 2701–2712) is a law that addresses voluntary and compelled disclosure of "stored wire and electronic communications and transactional records" held by third-party internet service providers (ISPs). It was enacted as Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA, Pub.L. 99–508, 100 Stat. 1848, enacted October 21, 1986). (emphasis mine) Users generally entrust the security of online information to a third party, an ISP. In many cases, Fourth Amendment doctrine has held that, in so doing, users relinquish any expectation of privacy. The Third-Party Doctrine holds "…that knowingly revealing information to a third party relinquishes Fourth Amendment protection in that information." It doesn't follow that a private individual can be compelled to install a pen register on his/her own infrastructure.

iand 13y ago

Iceland isn't an online utopia, as the current proposal for online censorship demonstrates: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-internet-pornography-ban http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-i... Although, for the most part, it has good intentions.

Beltiras 13y ago
That bill was DOA, posturing by a politician to appease his left flank. Nobody took it seriously and his party is no longer in power.
- iand 13y ago
  But it's still illegal to publish pornograpy in Iceland isn't it? http://www.althingi.is/lagas/nuna/1940019.html#G210 http://www.althingi.is/lagas/nuna/1940019.html#G210
  - Beltiras 13y ago
    Yes, it does impinge on freedom of speech locally. No politician is going to move to abolish it (for now), but enforcement is next to non-existent.
Torgo 13y ago
It appears also (as best as I can tell without being able to understand Icelandic) that there is a law on the books that makes it prosecutable to 'publicly ridicule an individual or group on the grounds of their "nationality, skin color, race, religion, or sexual orientation."' I wonder how broadly that could be interpreted. The UK doesn't give me hope.

jluster 13y ago

I don't know about your Iceland, but my Iceland is currently debating putting edge filters up to block "pornogaphy and other questionable content". I understand that the Internet here is just following our outdated laws which levy fines and threaten prison terms to anyone who purchases porn, but any country (even one as enlightened as ours) that contemplates edge router censorship is suspect to me.

Beltiras 13y ago
.. and is Ögmundur still in power to follow through?
- jluster 13y ago
  But you know as well as I do that he didn't fall over his censorship dreams but Icesave. Another will come. That we even seriously, politically, considered this is scary in and by itself. Pirate Birgitta isn't enough to reassure me.
  - Beltiras 13y ago
    I would say that is a miscategorization of the election results. It's not so much that he was voted out as the electorate falling for the populism of Framsókn. Of course a party of 3 out of 63 is not going to make big waves legislatively, but the center-right coalition wouldn't touch this issue. Hell, the previous administration didn't want to touch the issue either. Noise, that's all.
    - jluster 13y ago
      Fair enough. Maybe I am just a little too sensitive to the broad brush and heavy handed approach we seem to touch everything these days with. Frankly, I love my country, but I sometimes wonder if the Facebook "Iceland is so cool" movement isn't making us, internally, a little to complacent.
      - Beltiras 13y ago