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Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

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Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#11
post #9

As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former s…

> try to honor our shared values and act accordingly What "shared values"? Most of the values people hold as "important" has people on the other side with the opposite values, and both of those are "correct". There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon.

Sharing is not agreeing. I can share values with someone I don't agree with. Switzerland has shared values for instance, it is a country build upon that principle. I bet every society has some. Humans too.

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#12
You could work within their parameters but continually communicate an enormous amount of garbage that is not illegal but would be flagged, it would be an interesting experiment, and then they could decide whether or not they’d wish to continue.

Personally, I think that privacy is a losing game, like gambling. The best case is that we all work within the parameters. But in any case, the amount of time and effort that is dedicated to privacy is keeping humanity from more important things.

The main annoyance I have with companies and organizations that engage in working with our private data is that eventually they will lose control of the data, and if bad things come because of that, we are the victims. This may be our physical and mental health data, and we could lose our jobs or have to pay higher insurance. This may be our financial data, and we lose our savings for retirement. This may be our personal historical thoughts that we don’t wish to broadcast, and we lose relationships and our jobs.

Privacy at one level is a luxury but at other levels are not, unless society as a whole embraces that we’re all unhealthy and we’re all flawed, but at that point perhaps things become too flexible and very bad things happen.

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#13
post #9

As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former s…

> try to honor our shared values and act accordingly What "shared values"? Most of the values people hold as "important" has people on the other side with the opposite values, and both of those are "correct". There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon.

Seems like a not difficult and quite worthwhile exercise to come up with at least one or two values that are so basic and fundamental that everyone could share them. Maybe that's what OP is talking about. Why be obtuse about shared values?

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#15
post #8

It is a fairly common attitude amongst hosting companies. And understable from a business perspective. If you are one of the few hosting companies that host truly anonymous VPN and email providers, you are going get some troublesome customers that likely are going to end up being expensive.

> understable from a business perspective.

Everything can be justified as a business interest. Even criminal behavior could. So that argument is NOT acceptable. This is about a Swiss company, not Russia. If Switzerland wants to go there, let's at least be honest about it.

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#16

As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former s…

> Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former self. But shouldn’t we, as humans, try to honor our shared values and act accordingly?

I don't understand this train of thought, what exactly are you saying?

I can interpret it as "it's wise to end online anonymity and feed all personal information (including biometrics) to AIs to enforce social rules" which is, frankly, an absurd proposal even if you are extremely naïve, not even considering one single negative aspect of the loss of all privacy, being managed by a machine in a societal level.

Or I can try to interpret it as feeding all of this into AIs create insurmountable threats, to democracy, to the individual, etc. which is somewhat what I'd expect to logically follow from feeding all this personal data into AI models.

But none of these interpretations are actually possible for me to land at based on what and how you wrote, I can't make sense of it.

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#17

As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former s…

I don’t understand a word you’re saying. How does any of this relate to the topic?

You may be right and I beg a pardon for my words then.

I still have to dig the current law proposal (my shame).

The conclusion I came to a few years ago is that anonymity in Switzerland is not something useful. Switzerland is not a police state, it mainly copes up with trying to get its citizens to being responsible. Whenever you make something wrong IRL, you have to assume the consequences. Same with online. I concur that my words are messed up.

Re: Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law

#18
In other news, Proton VPN and probably email are also subject to surveillance by the Swiss Federal Intelligence Agency NDB, including decryption of VPN traffic and data retention for up to 6 months. Switzerland is no save haven for your communication needs.

https://steigerlegal.ch/2025/03/29/proton-ueberwachung-keine... (German)

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