Another juicy database
I hope this isn't an indicator of where the Cloud for Europe is going.
Estonia to offer 'e-resident' status to world+dog
The Republic of Estonia will offer “e-residency”, a digital identity issued by the Baltic nation that offers access to government electronic services. The site promoting the idea says “An e-resident will be a physical person who has received the e-resident’s digital identity (smart ID-card) from the Republic of Estonia.” …
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:00 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: Another juicy database
You mean "where it is already in the baltic states".
They have had identity cards with x509 crypto for many years. In fact, they can even vote over the Internet using these. Any government services, the social security system, etc are 100% authenticated (mostly in-browser x509).
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Another juicy database
if only the Certificate Authorities' TRUST system wasn't as weak as its furthest tiniest point "N", and if only many CA's weren't additionally subverted by their local neighbourhood TLA agency - then we could start to talk about 100% trust/100% authenticated. (You can find "N" on pages 38 to 41 of these slides from Defcon, (yeah x509 crypto is so 1980's; lets use it forever!))
At present, having met the former Vice-President of Verisign, really nice guy, but in view of his current jobs you'd be a fool to allocate anything more than 99% trust hence ~99% authentication to the whole caboodle!
So it is slightly bad, in a digital (binary) system slightly bad is nearly a complete FAIL. In the real-world abuse is obviously initially going to be in the low percentages with smart-card/e-driving-license "Identity & signing" apps rolling-out - which might happen to be the same levels of abuse/fraud under the current paper based system?
I just know that it is bullshit to talk about 100% in digital signing, digital identity, trust, authentication systems. The new Eesti system might possibly be "just as good as the current 'paper' systems," who is researching this comparatively?
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
I would not mind if I could tax my income by their tax laws - If memory serves me right, they are at flat 25% tax, no tax income brackets. Dunno what the corporate tax is though.
As far as e-resident vs "fully fledged cittizen", they have had that distintction worked out for resident vs cittizen long ago. That is part of ensuring that the russian speaking plebs cannot excercise any of the rights to which they are entitled by the European Human Rights convention. How a country with that legislation can be part of the Eu is beyond me, but that is a completely different story (no wonder they are scared shitless of having a "Crimea Scenario").
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
Most of the Russians in the Baltic states (not all of them) are children and grandchildren of the people transferred there after WW2. According to Wikipedia:
Scholars in international law have noted that "in accordance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the settlement of Russians in the Baltic States during the period was illegal under international law" ("The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies")
Nobody has been prosecuted for this or lots of the war crimes committed by the Soviet Union, neither has been any reparation paid by the Russian state, the legal successor state of the USSR. Compare this to the payment made and still being made by Germany.
I know the current generation has nothing to do with this, but most countries demand knowledge of the language from it's citizens. All Baltic states, including Estonia grants citizenship to these Russians if they show a supposedly minimal knowledge of the language and take an oath of loyalty.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 07:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
Married to an Estonian (Russian speaking) you'll find that there is rather a lot more ongoing discrimination in Estonia than your fair-minded post suggests... I can write a page or two of hard facts, real examples should you care to argue. I don't wish to argue, just to state that I have a ground-truth verified opinion that Estonia is institutionally and rabidly xenophobic, to a large minority of its actual citizens. It might get better, I think it will over time.
It's a really nice country. Really nice people. They currently have a US president.
The EU Commission, allegedly, did have a quiet word a while ago about the discrimination/grey passport problems.
What you're overlooking is that the current republic of Estonia is a very new country, behaving a bit like a teenager - and yes, the Estonian people have been repressed for a long time, and now they feel VERY nationalistic.
Remind me who they supported in the Second World War?, and consider the bad connotations of too much nationalism? The young Estonian guy who recently sold me a hard-disk in the shopping mall in Tallinn was wearing such a surprising ring, that I felt I could be in a different century and under a different reich.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 07:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
Being a Hungarian I sympathise with the Estonians. You ask in your post (I assume sarcastically) who they supported in WW2 . Read a bit of history. BEFORE the German attack on the USSR the USSR occupied Estonia, so when the Germans arrived they were regarded as liberators. You know the old story, my enemy's enemy is my friend. If you go back further, large part of the Baltic was ruled by ethnic Germans for a thousand years. I know this is not the right forum to debate this, but the crimes committed by the communist are way bigger than the crimes by the nazis. The main difference is that the Germans accepted responsibility while the Russians not.
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 08:26 GMT MondoMan
Re: Beneficial tax laws
Re: President Ilves
I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by President Ilves -- if you hear him in a more natural smaller group setting (not a press conference!), it quickly becomes clear that he's got an impish personality. That's certainly refreshing when compared with the typical politician (especially those from larger countries). BTW, he was born in Sweden after the war as the child of refugees from Stalin's takeover of Estonia, and later grew up in the US.
Those who hear only the history told by the Soviet colonists and their descendents are sadly likely to have only as good an understanding of Estonia as would visitors to India in the late 1960s listening only to the history told by British colonists and their descendents.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 09:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves
who grew up in the US, attended college there and then started working at the Central Intelligence Agency funded "Free Europe Committee" Munich based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from the early 80's to the early 90's.
Agent of influence anyone? He wasn't even voted into Presidency by universal suffrage of the people, just waived thru by a parliamentary committee. His appointment was contemporaneous with the 'brilliant' Clinton plan to encircle the former Soviet Union with CIA stooges! They also planted agents of influence into Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia & Ukraine, as presidents. Ask Mrs Clinton?
http://www.president.ee/en/media/press-releases/10303-news-in-pictures-president-ilves-pays-visit-to-main-building-of-radio-free-europe-in-prague/layout-visit.html
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 10:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
Remind me who they supported in the Second World War?, and consider the bad connotations of too much nationalism? The young Estonian guy who recently sold me a hard-disk in the shopping mall in Tallinn was wearing such a surprising ring, that I felt I could be in a different century and under a different reich.
They were initially viewed with sympathy by the Western Allies (France and Britain at the time) as they were annexed by the Soviet Union as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that also resulted in the invasion and partition of Poland by Germany and the USSR. In the intervening eighteen months or so, large numbers of Estonians were executed or deported by the Soviet occupiers. Strange how the Soviets never had to atone for that, or things like the Katyn massacre.
When the Germans and their allies invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and Stalin suddenly became the Allies bosom buddy, many Estonians threw in their lot with the Axis powers. Several Estonian SS divisions were raised, which were front line fighting units and have never been accused of war crimes. As such, many Estonians see the SS volunteers as heroes defending Estonians against the Soviet terror. The same goes for Latvia.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 12:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yes, all true
As such, many Estonians see the SS volunteers as heroes defending Estonians against the Soviet terror. The same goes for Latvia.
Yes, but openly seeing an SS "Schutzstaffel" ring on the hand of someone aged 20 or thereabouts in an electronics shop is still a shock! I didn't wish to engage him in discussion, I asked widely amongst my friends, and I agree that the ultra-nationalism trend is evident in modern Estonia.
Add that to the current allegations of subversion of our western press, including surely Estonian press:
"Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (which is one of Germany’s largest newspapers)"...I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I’ve been educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. … The German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia. This is a point of no return, and I am going to stand up and say … it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do, and have done in the past, because they are bribed to betray the people not only in Germany, all over Europe. … I am very fearful of a new war in Europe, and I don’t like to have this situation again, because war is never coming from itself, there is always people who push for war, and this is not only politicians, it is journalists too. … We have betrayed our readers, just to push for war. … I don’t want this anymore, I’m fed up with this propaganda. We live in a banana republic, and not in a democratic country where we have press freedom. …
The German media, especially, my colleagues …, day by day, write against the Russians, [these journalists] who are in transatlantic organizations, and who are supported by the United States to do so. …
I became ‘honorary citizen of the state of Oklahoma,’ … Why? Because I write pro-American. I was supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. Why? Because I am pro-American. I am fed up with it; I don’t want to do it anymore; and so I have just written a book, not to earn money, no, it will cause a lot of trouble for me. [I wrote it instead] to give the people in this country, Germany, in Europe, and all over the world, just a glimpse of … what goes on behind the closed doors. …
I have been running a research project - using sentiment analysis machine learning tools on the parallel news websites rus.postimees.ee/ru and postimees.ee
Postimees (The Postman) is the premier Estonian daily newspaper and online news portal. The initial results show that the Russian language and the native Estonian language service are very similar, but subtly different, within the distortions of paid-propaganda or accidental historic SS hero-worship anti-USSR?.
I have no pro-russia brief, just freely, neutrally but accurately scanning the news, whilst it is still possible & not yet defined as "extremism"
I will not be using my iEstonian enabled e-identity card in the foreseeable future as they do not promote the active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity of all young people
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 17:55 GMT MondoMan
Re: Estonian "ultra" nationalism
As you appear to be poorly informed about ethnic Estonians and the 20th-century history of the Baltics, you may wish to consider some additional sources of information.
"The Singing Revolution" (a movie) is an evocative history from the Estonian perspective of the events leading to the fall of the Soviet empire.
"Controversial History" is a Latvian film telling of WWII-era events in Latvia in the words of three inhabitants of Latvia at the time -- an ethnic Latvian, a Jew, and an ethnic Russian.
"The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence" by Anatol Lieven, the descendent of exiled Baltic Germans who reported from Russia and the Baltics during the last years of the Soviet Union.
I'd also caution against interpreting symbols of the past without asking about them or doing your own research (for example, Baltic "Waffen" SS military units were frontline units fighting the communists, unlike what we in the West think of as the common image of "SS" soldiers).
Finally, I'll note that some of the largest, most secure culture in Europe seem to have many "post-nationalistic" members, especially among the young. Perhaps what you consider "ultra" nationalism is only "ultra" in comparison to the lack of significant nationalism among many today?
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 10:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Beneficial tax laws
That is part of ensuring that the russian speaking plebs cannot excercise any of the rights to which they are entitled by the European Human Rights convention.
Those plebs were put there by Stalin after World War Two to prevent Estonia seceding from the Soviet Union (which they were theoretically able to do according to the Soviet constitution). The Estonians were subsequently treated as second class citizens, with Russian as the official language (which has nothing in common with Estonian, which is a Finno-Ugric language not a Slavic one). Many Estonians were deported to Siberia, where large numbers of them died. When Estonia finally got back its independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, many of the ethnic Russians refused to take Estonian citizenship, live in a legal limbo and cause considerable problems (riots over the movement of a triumphalist Soviet statue for example). As such, is it any surprise that these stateless immigrants are not covered by the EU legislation, and seen as a possible Kremlin justification for annexation Crimea / Eastern Ukraine style.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:07 GMT MondoMan
Re: Some confusion?
As the article notes, the Estonians are hoping to make the application process available at their diplomatic outposts by the end of 2015.
For those who haven't been paying much attention to Estonia, it's one of the most e-friendly countries in the (pretty much) developed world. From the time of the restoration of its independence in 1991, its development has been surprisingly non-corrupt, competent, forward-thinking and welcoming the outside world. Of course, you must like a flat landscape covered with forests and bogs to live there!
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 06:36 GMT Ole Juul
Re: Some confusion?
For those who haven't been paying much attention to Estonia, it's one of the most e-friendly countries in the (pretty much) developed world.
So it would seem, but why does a .ee domain name cost 10 times as much as most others? I get .nl for about €6 and a quick check pegs .ee at €60. That certainly wouldn't encourage Estonians to participate.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Some confusion?
@MondoMan
"Forward thinking?
Yes, they put their citizens private data on the network. Then the Russians hacked it:
http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia?currentPage=all
And again:
http://www.arbornetworks.com/asert/2013/05/estonia-six-years-later/
And again.
Estonia is e-everything but not very smart.
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Tuesday 7th October 2014 11:09 GMT Robert Helpmann??
Why no photo?
I am curious as to why this card will not have a photo on it. If it is going to be used for verification of electronic identity, why not add a photo to it? It will, after all, have all sorts of biometric data stored on it. Also, I saw that it will require a card reader. Presumably, this will be very similar to the smart cards common among US government implementations (CACs). I wonder will the Estonian version take advantage of NFC.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
