191–200 of 423 posts
"... almost no government has the IT capacity and resources to single-handedly develop an eID quickly and to the appropriate standards." Bullshit. We're talking identity management here. Any government that can't handle that internally doesn't deserve to exist. What that's really about is feathering the nests of tech industry donors (and/or the non-tech middlemen or middlewomen who seem to grow like weeds around the…
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Indeed. The current American system based on bits of paper you have to remember about, or insecure ID numbers used as identification (SSN) just causes a lot of pain, imo. Having a central ID for each citizen at birth, and then a way to prove that you match that ID would make so many services much more secure and convenient. (Obtaining DL, getting loans, bank accounts, name changes, tax, etc) I agree there should be s…
This only gives more power to government to harass people whom they don't like and who are poor minorities. > having a central ID for each citizen at birth, and then a way to prove that you match that ID This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth. Racist law makers would put severe restrictions on people they dont like. I…
They are also incredibly xenophobic (i.e. Japanese levels).
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=troll%20effects%20by:dang&date...
In particular, please don't stoke nationalistic flamewars on HN, regardless of which countries are under discussion.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26378562.)
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In Sweden we have a company running the ID system and that works fine. The company is coowned by all the large banks afaik. I was really surprised at how far behind Switzerland is compared to Scandinavia when it comes to digitalisation. Being able to handle my life hassle free online instead of going to physical places (like post office, banks, gov office) is liberating. I also get all my bills digitally and all my r…
What about the danish NemId, how is it governed and owned, does anyone know?
I love my country but the continuing parceling out of everything to private companies has been greatly negative to many public services. See, as an example, the DOT syndicate, which has made it prohibitively expensive to commute via public transit (why in God's name is it cheaper to travel to Germany than take a train from Copenhagen to Odense?) or the bridge to Sweden we're still paying truly insane toll fees for despite having paid for its construction years ago.
They are also incredibly xenophobic (i.e. Japanese levels).
Care to expand this? I went to Switzerland once (I was young, 20ish) and I spent only one day at Geneva. It didn't look xenophobic, but very strict. I am interested in knowing more about this, thanks!
Of course, they are also very polite about it. I’m not talking about US-redneck-tier xenophobia.
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Their ability to win business is based on their expertise at writing responses to RFPs in a successful way, not in their ability to deliver. Also, they do have a few successful projects, to some standard of success, which they point to in the RFP responses as a "successful" track record. Often the ability to point to an almost perfectly analogous project and writing the responses in the "correct" way is all it takes.
"writing responses to RFPs in a successful way" really means "successfully identifying decision-makers at top levels and brib-- 'charm' them into compliance", often even "dictating how RFPs should be written so that they will be the only ones who know exactly how to reply to them in the only acceptable way".
They are also incredibly xenophobic (i.e. Japanese levels).
Switzerland has one of the largest immigrant populations in the world per capita: 29.9% according to the link below. Very few countries are ahead of this. Even Australia is only 30%, and Canada (which has often led the world in immigration statistics) is 21.3%. Perhaps you can provide some evidence for your statement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Switzerland
For Canada, the top ten breakdown of immigrants are: 8.9% from India, 8.6% from China, 7.8% from Philippines, 6.6% from UK, 3.3% from US, 3% from Italy, 2.8% from Hong Kong, 2.7% from Pakistan, 2.2% from Vietnam, 2.1% from Iran. Add those up, and you're only up to about 50%; there's a long tail out from there.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada#Sources_...
A lot more of a mosaic/melting pot in Canada than Switzerland.
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I'm thinking of buying a condemned, uninhabitable house in a tax foreclosure auction simply so I can list it as my residential address. Most places that demand a utility bill will accept a property tax bill, so it doesn't even have to have working water/power (the cheapest doomshacks have both shut off). You'd be surprised how cheap some of these places are. But it does have to show up as "residential" in the USPS da…
My best solution right now is a UPS box, which gives you a proper street address. Most places that ask for utility bills will accept a phone bill or insurance bill or some such which you can have arranged to be sent to that address. I'd be interested to know if there are similar services that are cheaper and ideally less well-known than UPS but equally reliable. Delivery to my real address with the ability to trust t…
A lot depends on what you think you're guarding against and how many compromises you're willing to make. For example, you can't actually buy a house and remain anonymous unless you set up some shell company which I assume is expensive and probably has tax consequences.
I agree that buying a foreclosed property sounds like a massive headache and doesn't even really solve the problem of having to give your address to someone if you want anything delivered.
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> This seems a trivial and no-brainer and yet you will be surprised how many Americans will be simply denied this sort of service after birth The whole "centralized ID means your government will oppress minorities" narrative seems like a mostly american concept. I imagine part of it is due with the US's particularly bad history with minorities, and part of it is a general defiance against any kind of centralization t…
It's odd how we talk about something like centralized identification without the other areas of privacy limiting changes we are experiencing. Online we are tracked, logged and categorized like no other time in history. Even the basic means of conducting a business transaction leaves a digital trail whether it's a wire transfer, credit card transaction or bitcoin payment. Authoritarian countries have combined a cashle…
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> those aren't opinion polls What do you think a referendum is, if not a poll of the population's opinion on something? My answer to your question is to look at their actual positive impact all around the world, including for Islamic countries, not their opinions on architecture or dress. I literally don't think there's a more peaceful, welcoming, open-to-others' cultures anywhere in the world than the Swiss. If you…
As a Swiss citizen (my age range is 40-50), I can only provide my own witness account about what you just wrote: I think you're completely wrong. The fact that some Swiss were able to contribute immensely to a "positive impact all around the world" doesn't magically turn us into a nice and warm population, open to other people's cultures. A large part of the population hates foreigners, considers them as opportunists…
If you think everyone's a xenophobe and it's just that the Swiss are the best at not acting on it... then yeah they're the best aren't they? Beats acting on it with violence like every other country surely?
Everyone always thinks the worst of their own country and holds their own to higher standards.