Live data from Hacker News

Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

e-estonia.com

31–40 of 59 posts

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#31
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: get Estonian e-citizenship by giving them your fingerprint to keep in their centralized database Step 2: NSA, GCHQ, Russia and China steal the whole fingerprint database, which includes your fingerprint Step 3: Now your iPhone/Android phone that uses fingerprint reader is vulnerable to hacking

From personal experience, the US has been fingerprinting non-US nationals at the airports for a decade now. So NSA has had such a database for a significant time. However, I still doubt they have figured out to hack the iPhone using said database. But this is just my personal opinion...

Minor nitpick, but as Canada is not part of the US visa waiver program, Canadian citizens are also exempt from fingerprinting when entering the US.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#32
post #15

I thought of a simple solution to the verifiability problem, what do you think ? - When voting, each voter receive a receipt with a random number assigned to his vote - All the votes are published with the random numbers alongside them - Each voter can verify that his vote was correctly saved by looking at his assigned number in the list It's not perfect but relying on a central server is far worse I think (like the…

The Estonian voting system already allows you to verify your vote from a second device for a short time period.

This certainly doesn't protect against all attacks (and it's only one part of the security system) — but it _does_ help against the threat of a virus that invisibly intercepts your vote to turn it into something different. If people started reporting that their phone showed a different vote to what they thought they'd cast via their laptop, then the election would be in trouble.

The fact that it only shows you this for a short time period also gets around the problem of you being able to show to a third party how you voted (in cases of vote-buying or coercion), because under the Estonian system you can also vote as many times as you like (with only the final vote being counted). So you could use this verification to 'prove' to someone that you voted the way they wanted you to — and then log in again an hour later and vote for someone different.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Russia trying to subvert and destabilize the baltic states is publically known as well." What a crock of bullshit.

People in Baltics disagree with that. "Russian President Vladimir Putin was a "real and present danger" to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and NATO was getting ready to repel any aggression, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said." [0] "Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary, warned that there is a real and present danger that Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch a campaign of undercover attacks t…

As an up-to-date addendum, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves just says in The Times that "Nato ‘must respond to Russian cyber assault’"

Estonians definitely worry about this.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article44006...

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#34
post #6

Could someone expalin why this is needed? so much hustles for such thing.

Estonia has little natural resources, a small population, an unstable neighbour and it is a bit at the periphery of Europe. They have invested a lot of effort into becoming strong in Internet. This is one example of those efforts.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-us...

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#35

I recently applied for an Estonian e-residency. Heres what I did: The first thing to know is that you have to physically be there to apply. I went to Estonia and applied at the local police station. I know that sounds weird but thats how you do it. In Estonia, this is where you go to renew driver's licenses and a lot of governmental things. It was relatively painless. I didn't need to make an appointment. It's just l…

> Be prepared to spend two weeks in Tallinn, therefore,

I'd recommend everyone visit Tallinn.

On a quick walk you can see a medieval castle, renaissance architecture, soviet architecture, and postmodern examples from the sprint west after Baltic independence. It's like a walking through a timeline of European history.

I'd strongly advise against January though. :)

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in Baltics disagree with that. "Russian President Vladimir Putin was a "real and present danger" to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and NATO was getting ready to repel any aggression, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said." [0] "Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary, warned that there is a real and present danger that Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch a campaign of undercover attacks t…

As an up-to-date addendum, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves just says in The Times that "Nato ‘must respond to Russian cyber assault’" Estonians definitely worry about this. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article44006...

[deleted]

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#37
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dijit, i'm not being racist here. I'm being political here. Russia having a "claim" on the baltic states is a public secret. Russia trying to subvert and destabilize the baltic states is publically known as well. Regarding your EU statements, have you read the offical opinion of the EU on Russia ? It's a THREAT to the European Union, especially regarding the baltic member states. However, the documents also note that…

"Russia trying to subvert and destabilize the baltic states is publically known as well." What a crock of bullshit.

And you would know.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#38
post #10

The Estonian system is incredibly insecure. Not only because of legal and procedural errors, but also because of technical issues. Some references: https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/ivoting-ccs14.pdf ( Lookup the ID-card part. ) http://www.wassenaar.org/ ( Crypto is defined as a "dual use" weapon. ) The worst aspect of the estonian ID-card is simply the fact that your private key is not private, and stored in the card…

Rather read http://estonianworld.com/security/attacks-estonias-e-voting-... and https://www.ria.ee/e-voting-is-too-secure/

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the linked website, it seems that they expanded applications to overseas embassies a few days ago, so visiting in person might no longer be necessary. Out of curiosity, what was your motivation for applying? It seems to me that the only obvious use-case for e-residency is to run a company registered in Estonia while living elsewhere.

Yes it seems like it'll be easier now. Exciting really. I bet a lot of people will now take advantage of it. My motivation is eventual real residency. This just makes it easier.

I'm not sure there is any path, now or planned for the future, for moving from e-residency to 'real residency'. Probably you've seen this information, but if not: http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/coming-to...

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#40

Does anyone know what obligations the e-residency program you have to submit to?

I couldn't find any obligations. Its probably a good idea to keep your PIN secure to reduce the probability of ID fraud. As far as I can tell its a state backed digital signature and authentication system so wouldn't confer any obligations.

However, there is some discussion about whether its a completely new legal status which would do things like make you liable for double taxation. Personally I find that highly unlikely, but IANAL, YMMV etc.

Post reply on HN