Should Saidit be hosted in Norway or Switzerland?

submitted by magnora7 from self.AskSaidIt

We're thinking of moving the servers abroad to a country with even more secure server laws than the US has.

It appears the most secure options according to most every list I can find, are: Norway, Switzerland, and Iceland. However Iceland is extremely expensive to host servers in, it costs about 5x as much as the other two.

So we're between Norway and Switzerland. The prices for both are quite reasonable from what we find, perhaps even a bit cheaper than what we have now in Texas!

So I'm looking for ideas from the community about which of the two they think would be best for saidit in the long run, and why. Does anyone know of any news stories about servers getting compromised in Switzerland or Norway, or is it something that simply doesn't happen? I'm bringing this to the community for further research and evaluation before we make a decision because I know you all are good at researching things.

all 48 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]Stoner 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Does anyone know of any news stories about servers getting compromised in Switzerland or Norway, or is it something that simply doesn't happen?

In Norway we have no secret surveillance laws that allow the government to monitor the users of websites beyond the infra structure retention laws (6 months, IP and time). I've never heard of an non CP site being taken down, though I assume anything can be taken down if it breaks Norwegian law. The police sent stern request to sites that hosted the video of the Norwegian citizen being decapitated in Morocco would take them down, but that was it.

Check out why Jottacloud, a Web storage provider, profile themselves on being hosted in Norway.

Besides, having it in Switzerland, we might as well go for Belgium right?

[–]magnora7[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Interesting, thanks for the info! As someone from Norway, have you by chance heard anything about Switzerland's server security as compared to Norway's?

Belgium is a no-go because then we're subject to EU laws.

[–]Stoner 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

My opinion is that there's many levels of server security to consider, from physical security of the hardware itself all the way up to secret state surveillance and many technicalities when it comes to legislation.

From a glance it looks rather comparable, standard hosting stuff, reasonable privacy laws and no publicly known secret courts to issue search/monitor warrants.

One of the Swiss providers talks about "Swiss Federal Data Protection Act and Ordinance to the Swiss FDPA, which gives judges the discretion to restrict data access without substantial evidence of a crime." (https://secureswissdata.com/swiss-secure-hosting-laws/)

which leads me to guess there's some sort of default data access?

I can't really say what's legally or technically bad about Swiss hosting, only what's nice about Norwegian hosting.

Edit : Swiss/Belgium is not about EU laws, I consider both countries highly suspicious from a conspiratorial angle. Personally I'd rather have it in Guatemala or something rather than Switzerland.

[–]OmegaUser296 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not from Norway but I have seen their laws and there isn't many if any that would take security away from you guys.

[–]Mnemonic 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I don't like Switzerland so here goes:

https://nordvpn.com/blog/surveillance-practices-in-switzerland-an-overview/ (2017)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/switzerland-votes-in-favour-of-greater-surveillance (2016, about that surveillance increase and the people of swiss wanting it)

Protonmail is based in Swiss because of the Privacy laws, which is something different. Basically something todo with your PMs and account login only. These privacy laws are not protecting your freespeech as it's used when you post/comment on saidit, it's public, like you can't claim privacy when you yell BOMB on a airplane and expect to get away with 'I said the following message is for my friend, you all could have ignored it'. For the use of saidit I would say it's a meh+, like nice to have but basically useless unless you use saidit as a PM service to conduct illegal activities and then it's not as setup as Protonmail so you're 'dun goofed' anyway.

Side note:

How do these 2 countries handle that the owners are not in their country and (probably) were not there for the contracts? I have no clue about this but I know for the infamous Swiss-banking thingie you need to be in Switzerland IIRC.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for some anti-switzerland links, to even things out a bit.

I don't expect anywhere in the world we'll be 100% protected, it's just about doing the smartest thing we can do for the long-term survival of this site.

And I know you can do the swiss-banking thing without living there, my grandfather did it and we had to retrieve everything stored in his account there after he died, and it was incredibly complex to retrieve and did involve a trip to switzerland.

[–]Stoner 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

How do these 2 countries handle that the owners are not in their country

Afaik there's only special rules if you want a .no domain.

[–]HeyImSancho 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (5 children)

As far as a secure country, I think the Swiss are a little more stable; don't know beyond that thought.

[–]Stoner 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What makes you think that?

They're doing stuff like this : https://torrentfreak.com/rapidshares-founder-wife-and-lawyer-stand-trial-in-piracy-case-180914/

[–]HeyImSancho 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think they got shut down, because they were profiting off of others property; isn't that illegal? For example, if I owned an escort service, or perhaps offered high stakes gambling in a jurisdiction where any of that was illegal, then I'd figure into my business plan things like the cops, courts, and jail in light of the awesome profits.

I'm very impressed with how much they made, and how little they had to pay out; seems somewhat like a win considering what appears to be intellectual property theft.

QUOTE: "Whether RapidShare’s executives are eventually held liable or not, the company was certainly profitable. Documents reveal that in 2009 alone, RapidShare’s gross dividend was 47 million Swiss francs, the equivalent of nearly $49 million. With this in mind, the damages amount of 190,000 francs ($197,000) requested by the copyright holders is relatively mild. In addition to the damages, the prosecution also demands several hundreds of thousands of francs in fines"

[–]Stoner 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Compared to counties that allow these types of sites to operate, both Norway and Switzerland would be considered unstable?

[–]HeyImSancho 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No idea. My concern is that the 'bastion' of server freedom(it'll be comprised of people who want freedom of speech, but also loaded with illicit websites, which would be the only cause necessary to silence the rest; or at least I think it could be), will end up blocked in many countries should, or if 'that' place comes to be.

[–]Zhohan 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

I think Switzerland is a safer bet, personally. The servers wouldn't be hosted in the European Union, which means the website wouldn't be under the iron boot of Article 13.

[–]BicycleDay2019 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Norway is not part of the EU, which I think is funny because the reason they are not in the EU is that their economy is very strong compared to many of the countries and they don't wish to be bled dry supporting leeches, yet their income tax starts at 30% and goes up from there so they can force its citizens to support the leeches.

[–]Zhohan 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Huh, TIL. Seems like both countries are a good fit then.

[–]Stoner 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, Norway primarily wants their citizens taxes to aid their own citizens. But of course we have our dose of western capitalism so businesses can do 0% if they want.

[–]magnora7[S] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Actually Norway is also not in the European Union (which is part of the reason why it's got such good privacy laws). But that's a very good point about article 13. EU countries are out of the running.

[–]Mnemonic 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wouldn't worry too much about article 13 as the countries themselves have to make the laws. Like in France the government actively pursuits pirates and in the Netherlands they don't.

So Kinda a side question, why not the Netherlands, aka the Internet hub of ~Western Europe~Edit: sorry, the WORLD? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Internet_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points_by_size

Okay Germany wins by a little...

[–]Stoner 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Both Switzerland and Norway have trade agreements with the EU that implements various aspects of EU "law". There is no guarantee that either country will be free of art 13.

[–]Niggas 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Once Norwegian media finally picked up on article 13 being passed (like a week after), the article I read about it said it would also affect Norway (not as in how it will affect the whole internet, but that it would just straight up be implemented here as well).

[–]Stoner 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Norway have a system that automatically implements EU legislation but we can opt out. Switzerland has a similar system afaik.

[–]Niggas 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I wouldn't dare to even hope that our government would opt out of this though

[–]Stoner 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Darknet it is then.

[–]Stoner 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Unlike Norway, which isn't part of the EU either?

[–]738 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

https://sputniknews.com/military/201803051062228356-norway-surveillance-us/

https://restoreprivacy.com/5-eyes-9-eyes-14-eyes/

https://edri.org/norway-introduces-forced-biometric-authentication/

https://web.archive.org/web/20190418141740/https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/

In norwegian. Related to the link above https://e24.no/naeringsliv/teknologi/peter-thiels-hemmelighetsfulle-selskap-tjente-12-millioner-i-norge/24410971

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you! I will do some more reading on this. Switzerland is looking better and better

[–]infinity 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Definitely Switzerland. ProtonMail and the likes have their servers hosted there and it has worked out fine for them.

[–]BicycleDay2019 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I would not host in Norway. I don't know about Switzerland but I used to live in Norway for a long time and the govt engages in forced DNS censorship and forces ISPs to give up logs. I would avoid supporting that kind of behavior if possible.

[–]Stoner 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

govt engages in forced DNS censorship

Yes, there is a CP filter offered by Kripos (criminal police), which ISPs can opt in if they want. It is not mandatory by law. It is actively updated with current and past sites that have been deemed illegal according to laws and manually added to the filter.

The user get a warning, an explanation why CP is bad and an assurance that the incident IS NOT LOGGED.

forces ISPs to give up logs

By court order, like every other county I've bothered to check up on in the past. I challenge you to prove that the Swiss courts can't do the same.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks for the info, much appreciated! Switzerland just keeps looking better and better

[–]Stoner 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The post is bullshit, please don't base your choice on stuff like this, read my reply to him.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Do you have any news articles about this? I would like to read more if you know of any

[–]sawboss 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm pretty sure Voat used to be hosted in Switzerland. Not sure if that's still true though.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

At one point they hosted in Germany and got banned. Pretty hilarious that they had it there.

[–]Teak 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Buy a barge and host from international waters with a ghetto rig to the underwater backbone.

[–]furry 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (6 children)

Sweden pls

[–]magnora7[S] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Nah Sweden participates in NATO and interacts deeply with US intelligence agencies. It's not as free for us as Norway, who takes their security more seriously. We'd probably be better off in Texas than Sweden, tbh. Plus the ping isn't as good as Norway :P

[–]bablarb 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

well, Norway is a core NATO member (unlike Sweden) and interacts even more deeply with the NSA:

https://theintercept.com/document/2018/03/01/nsa-intelligence-relationship-with-norway-april-2013/

I'd be surprised if their network traffic isn't 100% exposed to US surveillance.

[–]Stoner 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

That's true and indefensible for Internet traffic. I'm absolutely sure none of Switzerland international connections goes thru a US friendly country...

Or are you thinking that the relationship compromises hosting any further than the clowns already hacking the planet?

[–]bablarb 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm absolutely sure none of Switzerland international connections goes thru a US friendly country...

why the sarcasm?

Having a compliant government grant access to both end-points makes life easier than doing mid-point intercepts, I thought.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

[–]Stoner 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you mean the current standard where intelligence agencies shares meta data with each others as a compliant government, that IS mid point intercepts and happens in a lot of western countries and affiliates. It includes transport traffic so even if a country isn't in on it, the traffic most likely goes through a country that is.

As far as I know neither Norway nor Switzerland has legislation that allows them to specifically ghost crew a site and spy on the users (i.e. the US), nor do the IA's have open access to meta data.

[–]Stoner 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We'd probably be better off in Texas than Sweden

I will never ever trust a site that's hosted in, or owned by citizens of a country that can secretly and legally take over the operation of the site to spy on the users.

But then again I don't need to trust this site...

[–]Linux 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hello All, i'm new here:

Please take the time to visit : https://www.privacytools.io/providers/hosting/

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the link!

[–]toxic_masculinity 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

with all due respect, we dont need another CENTRALIZED social media site where we all wonder when the admins are going to flip because they are responsible for the servers and get a phone call. Been there, done that. DECENTRALIZE.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah it's on the to-do list and has been for a long time. The technological hurdles are real, though

[–]brickfrog 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Curious if you've had any progress on this?

One thing I'm wondering about Saidit's hosting is whether it can be outside DMCA jurisdiction. (bonus if it is also outside EU countries jurisdiction that actively enforce NTD).

With that in mind you could actually use the Special 301 Report as a short list for countries that do not actively cooperate with DMCA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_301_Report

https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Reports/2018%20Special%20301.pdf

Based on the above Switzerland would get my vote.

Once side effect of having a host outside DMCA jurisdiction is that you can pretty much ignore overzealous DMCA takedown notices - This would result in less work for Saidit admins as well as allow certain subs like /s/Piracy to exist without the need for admins to moderate the random takedowns that Saidit will receive otherwise.

PS - As a counter point I noticed that Raddle is hosted in the Netherlands so they too are outside DMCA jurisdiction. They technically could be subject to the EU copyright directive, however the admin's position is that since they are non-profit (don't even have ads) then the directive does not apply to Raddle.

PS II - I'm not a lawyer, don't assume any of this is 100% correct, etc. etc. :)

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback and ideas. I think we are in agreement, Switzerland is the best. We are basically now in the phase of researching our options in Switzerland and finding the cheapest hosting company that can meet our needs.

Interesting about Raddle being in the Netherlands, I didn't know that. Being in the EU seems like a risk to me these days because of the new EU laws being passed. Saidit is also a non-profit in the same way, with no ads, which does indeed afford a layer of protection. But I think Switzerland would be a nice second layer of protection for the longevity of the site.

Hopefully we'll start making the move here with in a month or so.