After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/after-prism-reports-swiss-data-bank-sees-boost/2013/07/08/cc8dfe14-e569-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html

by iProject • 13 years ago

133 39 13 years ago

washingtonpost.com

Create• 13 years ago

SWIFT

lawl2• 13 years ago

Swiss here. It's not really any better here. Right now they're trying to push a law that would legalize it for them to save metadata for all connections up to 12 months. And they could legaly install RAT's on phones and PC's. It's called "BÜPF" but i can't find an english page right now. You might want to use google translate on the petition site (by the local pirate party, CCC switzerland etc.): http://buepf.ch (and sign it if you can be bothered)

//edit: direct gtranslate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

kimlelly9• 13 years ago

The good news is, Switzerland is a democracy that works really well. So just vote against that new crap law.

FrojoS• 13 years ago

The bad new is, that many of the laws we deem evil are very popular with the general public.

zalew3• 13 years ago

The ordinary news is, it's a democracy that works similarily to just any other - there is a lot of indifference, propaganda, and the turnouts aren't that high.

lawl2• 13 years ago

I will, however, as I see it, the problem is no one seems to really care here.

Ask some random stranger here and pretty sure they have never even heard of BÜPF. So I try to educate as many people as possible but all I hear is that I should go wear my alu-hat and that we have good privacy protection laws and they don't have anything to hide anyways.

And by the way, to be even able to vote against this crap, you need something like 50'000 signatures (on paper!) within 100 days. Which might not be too easy considering that the petition website only has 8k-ish as of now and it's been on for quite a while. As I said, no one seems to care.

rasur• 13 years ago

Thanks for the link and heads-up, it's shortly to gain 2 more Swiss-resident signatures. Going to post it about to a few other Swiss here too, to try and get some more signing up.

mtgx• 13 years ago

Those poor souls must not have heard of this news:

"U.S. and Switzerland Reach Deal on Sharing of Financial Account Data"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/business/global/22iht-tax2...

This is also interesting:

"Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11 Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

How many US banks has the Justice Department prosecuted yet?

zalew3• 13 years ago

This is also interesting:
> "Switzerland’s cooperation comes after the Justice Department prosecuted 11 Swiss banks on suspicion of aiding Americans in evading taxes, creating deep uncertainty for the country’s financial sector."

details in case somebody missed that:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20907359

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-01-20/news...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/swiss-bank-wegel...

tmuir• 13 years ago

Isn't this equivalent to Edward Snowden's asylum dilemma? The offer of asylum is pretty worthless if he can't get to that country. Heck, last week it was proven that he would need favorable countries to form solid continuous path of sovereign land between Moscow and the asylum granting country.

The offer of a secure location to store data in Switzerland is pretty worthless if the data has to be transferred over compromised data lines that have to run through at least one of the three surrounding countries, all complicit in tapping the lines.

Spearchucker• 13 years ago

Not if you encrypt. A lot of information is useful only for a short period of time. For instance, if a company is planning a new product/strategy/IPO then it doesn't matter if the data is maliciously decrypted within a month, 2 years or 5 years.

dfc• 13 years ago

It would be interesting to compare the self reported boost in business after PRISM revelations to the boost in business after being mentioned in a WaPo article.

brown9-2• 13 years ago

This article reminds me of http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html - no concrete numbers are mentioned of the company's increased usage/customers, and the only quotes presented are from this company's CEO, who obviously have a lot to benefit from an article touting the benefits of a Swiss data center.

UVB-76• 13 years ago

I wouldn't consider this particular instance malicious; it's just lazy journalism.

Journalist under pressure to churn out a quick, sanitized, topical piece meets pro-active CEO of a hosting company with a knack for PR and a pre-packaged story, quotes and all.

This article is from the same journalist who typo'd the headline of her previous piece [1]

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/keyboard-app-givers-u...

Techpope3• 13 years ago

The saddest part about this whole PRISM scandal to me is that the tech companies involved did not seem at all opposed to the idea - and even if they were, why not give your customers a heads up? It's so sad. Nerds need to get on the moral high ground pronto. Your technology is making the world so much better so don't ruin it. Don't be evil and don't be a dick.

kimlelly9• 13 years ago

People need to remember/learn this:

If democracy is not strong enough (and I know a few countries...), you (also) need to vote with your wallet. If they don't feel no pain, they won't react.

Techpope3• 13 years ago

Correct.

Regarding companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo; the answer is not using their services at all since you don't pay them yourself but you do by viewing ads.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

"You’ve probably heard of the unique benefits of Swiss banks"

Yeah, I heard that's no longer true. There's few countries that have proper banking secrecy anymore. Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Guatemala does have secrecy. It's built into the last constitution of the country (in the 80s). Not even the Guatemalan revenue service is allowed to review bank accounts. OTOH, it's probably not the most stable country to want to park your money in.

jlmendezbonini• 13 years ago

Panama gave up their last bit of secrecy after the US helped the last president get elected by spying on his competitors.

Any reference to back that up? I read some of the leaks from Bradley Manning related to Panama and the U.S. clearly stated that it didn't favor Martinelli (current president).

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

Apparently I'm wrong. Wikileaks had some cables talking about how Martinelli asked the US to spy for him, but they denied him[1]. He did however, end banking secrecy for Panama/US in 2011(?), with a tax treaty. I probably misunderstood after reading some expat sites and connecting lines that perhaps are not connected.

http://www.cato.org/blog/wikileaks-cable-martinelli-threat-r...

scrumper• 13 years ago

Off topic, but what is the name for the grammatical concept of the difference between NY Times/Washington Post-style headlines like this one ("After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost") and British-style newspaper headlines which use a more active* voice, e.g. "Swiss data bank sees boost after PRISM reports."

*I've probably got that term wrong.

abalashov• 13 years ago

This is not a passive vs. active voice thing. The subject and object are the same in both sentences. It's just slightly different word order.

After PRISM reports, Swiss data bank sees boost

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