The very short version: it is madness to continue transferring the running of European societies and governments to American clouds. Not only is it a terrible idea given the kind of things the “King of America” keeps saying, the legal sophistry used to justify such transfers, like the nonsense letter the Dutch cabinet sent last week, has now been invalidated by Trump himself. And why are we doing this? Convenience.
And as for data safety and privacy, another 1930s Dutch story. Dutch people are great at data and statistics, and very meticulous.
As a result, we have tons of data on people, including data on where someone’s ancestors are from and what religion they have. The results of that, combined with a fascist regime were not pretty.
People just don’t realize how much power of abuse all this data provides in evil hands. Take smart phone location data. Some time ago, there was an uproar when the move-fast-break-laws company Uber published an analysis of how many of their clients in New York City had probably a one-night stand - based on their location data. A breach of privacy, sure.
But think about this: Google is collecting all this location data all the time, and storing it permanently. Finding out who is probably having an affair while their spouse is away on a business trip is essentially a database query for them.
Or another thing: It is well known that the animal most dangerous to single humans is other humans hunting them. The unspeakable hunt on Europes Jews is an example from hell but depressingly, there are many more cases in human history, like the witch hunts or the catholic inquisition.
Now, if things got too hot, people had the last resort to flee and simply disappear, going to a safe place where nobody knows them. That was the thing that saved Salman Rushdi when he had to flee Iran.
But in an ultra-connected world without privacy, this is not possible any more. That’s because companies like Facebook, Twitter/X and Google have your social graph including your family. And even if you would never would give these companies your address in Rushdie’s situation, a family member who has your address on the phone would happily upload his or her whole address book to Facebook or Google.
That’s not a theoretical consideration - being ratted out by social media was the way many people in Syrias civil war (fuelled by Russia) died.
There’s backups of backups of everything now. I guess if the people in charge want to do it, they could security delete everything, but a random guy won’t be able to, which is what happened in 1940.
I really hope that’s as true as you say since Trump has deleted millions of documents from government databases, tons of which contained invaluable information.
And as for data safety and privacy, another 1930s Dutch story. Dutch people are great at data and statistics, and very meticulous.
As a result, we have tons of data on people, including data on where someone’s ancestors are from and what religion they have. The results of that, combined with a fascist regime were not pretty.
People just don’t realize how much power of abuse all this data provides in evil hands. Take smart phone location data. Some time ago, there was an uproar when the move-fast-break-laws company Uber published an analysis of how many of their clients in New York City had probably a one-night stand - based on their location data. A breach of privacy, sure.
But think about this: Google is collecting all this location data all the time, and storing it permanently. Finding out who is probably having an affair while their spouse is away on a business trip is essentially a database query for them.
Or another thing: It is well known that the animal most dangerous to single humans is other humans hunting them. The unspeakable hunt on Europes Jews is an example from hell but depressingly, there are many more cases in human history, like the witch hunts or the catholic inquisition.
Now, if things got too hot, people had the last resort to flee and simply disappear, going to a safe place where nobody knows them. That was the thing that saved Salman Rushdi when he had to flee Iran.
But in an ultra-connected world without privacy, this is not possible any more. That’s because companies like Facebook, Twitter/X and Google have your social graph including your family. And even if you would never would give these companies your address in Rushdie’s situation, a family member who has your address on the phone would happily upload his or her whole address book to Facebook or Google.
That’s not a theoretical consideration - being ratted out by social media was the way many people in Syrias civil war (fuelled by Russia) died.
one of many reasons I ditched smartphones years ago. Yes, life is complicated without but still better :P
And this time you can’t just go to the archives and burn it down like they did in 1940.
Well, you can, and in someway it is easier…
I mean, machines need maintenance, what if someone made a misstake and uploaded a script that would make subtle changes to the database over time?
Changing a 2 to a 3 or an A to a K and so on slowly over time, you don’t have to burn everything, but make it too unreliable to use…
There’s backups of backups of everything now. I guess if the people in charge want to do it, they could security delete everything, but a random guy won’t be able to, which is what happened in 1940.
I really hope that’s as true as you say since Trump has deleted millions of documents from government databases, tons of which contained invaluable information.
no. A lot of agencies and firms have not learned that lesson yet. several lost decades of data in that Tietoevry problem: https://www.dn.se/sverige/20-ar-av-data-borta-hackarna-kom-at-sakerhetskopior/
https://www.msb.se/sv/aktuellt/nyheter/2025/mars/msb-rapport-visar-manga-it-incidenter-orsakas-fortfarande-av-systemfel-eller-misstag/
Sweden I think has the earliest records from the 1600s …