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Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

politico.eu

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Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#71

Post by mechazawa »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #56
kleiba2 wrote: post #31

If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?

Because too few IT capable people are willing to work under the government's pay scales; in most cases going private / corporate earns more. So most Dutch IT projects end up with private companies, which also means that, in the case of DigID and the secure / official messaging platform, the hosting party can charge exorbitant rates. Did you know it costs 25 cents to send a message via the Berichtenbox? So when the go…

There are plenty of people who are willing to work for the government and the pay is pretty decent. But their stack is often Microsoft based and their IT is located in Apeldoorn.

Who in their right mind would want to travel all the way to Apeldoorn.

A good example of internal development in the government is the police. They have internal development teams.

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#72

Post by WJW »

mschuster91 wrote: post #39
j_maffe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mark Rutte Daddy calls Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?

> unfounded conspiracy theories Their sentiment is that Trump intervenes by whining to Mark Rutte, who seems to be the only European Trump is actually willing to listen to, at the expense of course of giving up all his dignity in calling Trump, literally, Daddy [1]. And I would not put it past Trump to do that... I mean, that's what he already did regarding Tiktok. With Trump nothing is impossible any more, especiall…

So what do you expect the outcome to be if Trump complains to Rutte, who will then do... what exactly? Ask the current PM to do him a favor because of "reasons"? An overwhelming majority of people in the Netherlands oppose selling this company to the US, an overwhelming majority of political parties voted to block the sale and now the secretary of state in charge of this particular department indeed blocked it.

It seems to me that there is no way that Trump could overturn this decision via Rutte that Trump couldn't accomplish on his own by just threatening the Netherlands directly.

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#73

Post by gyanchawdhary »

The subtitle “Across Europe, there have been increased concerns about the bloc’s reliance on American tech.” is false and really an economic chamber.

The author has no basis for this claim, factually or otherwise .. maybe a small tiny group would love to see this happen, but EU is happy like rest of the world minus China to enjoy the products made by great American software companies.

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#74

Post by raziel2p »

carlosjobim wrote: post #51

How come the Dutch people aren't offering more than the US investors to purchase this company, since this seems to be so close at heart?

maybe how much money you are willing to spend isn't a perfect measure of how important something is?

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#75

Post by crote »

frevib wrote: post #63
jorvi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a bit more complex tham that. Logius is the company that actually owns and manages the DigiD stack, it's just that they hired Solvinity for their expertise. AFAIK Solvinity can't access the data. I can't find it right now, but on Tweakers there was a long comment by someone on the inside that explained Logius basically had almost no know-how of how the current stack works, and there's lots of bespoke stuff. Bas…

> AFAIK Solvinity can't access the data. Solvinity is the hoster. It can fully access the stack.

It's even more complicated: the datacenter and the servers are owned and operated by the government, and the DigiD app itself is owned and operated by government-owned Logius.

From what I have been able to deduce, Solvinity is contracted for some kind of sysadmin services - so basically Kubernetes babysitting?

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#78

Post by WJW »

thisislife2 wrote: post #28

The Dutch should be aware that if Netherland has some information-sharing agreements with Five Eyes or Fourteen Eyes, all this data will still be available to the US (and other allies) (hopefully, presumably, with your government acting as the gatekeeper).

It's not only about the data, it's about the risk that the US would basically turn off things like tax collection and doctors' visits in the Netherlands as part of (say) a first strike on Greenland.

Sure, the chance is low. But in the current climate people are nervous and it's best not to risk it. The current government has already embarked on a long-term strategy to bring more of critical software infrastructure back in-country, selling the core identity provider software abroad would go directly against current policy.

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#79

Post by Tepix »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #73

The subtitle “Across Europe, there have been increased concerns about the bloc’s reliance on American tech.” is false and really an economic chamber. The author has no basis for this claim, factually or otherwise .. maybe a small tiny group would love to see this happen, but EU is happy like rest of the world minus China to enjoy the products made by great American software companies.

Are you serious? You did notice that there was even a EU digital sovereignty summit recently?

Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

#80

Post by AndyMcConachie »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #56
kleiba2 wrote: post #31

If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?

Because too few IT capable people are willing to work under the government's pay scales; in most cases going private / corporate earns more. So most Dutch IT projects end up with private companies, which also means that, in the case of DigID and the secure / official messaging platform, the hosting party can charge exorbitant rates. Did you know it costs 25 cents to send a message via the Berichtenbox? So when the go…

I know people that work as contractors for the Dutch government. The government doesn't save money by hiring them through contractors. They cost more through contractors. But contracting allows private companies to act as gatekeepers and pocket some cash for essentially supplying full time employees. It's a form of corruption by well connected private contracting companies.
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