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The Netherlands just blocked a US company from buying the app Dutch citizens use for everything (nos.nl)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 183 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Good

Fuck the US and their bullshit capitalism. Do not trust them. They are the enemy, which feels wild to say but we've long memories, and education, and we've seen this before.

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  • [–] 31 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Has anyone coined a term like "digital imperialism"? I think it's quite fitting.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago* (3 children)

    This is so great to hear. It would be great if I could stop seeing the EU capitulate to Orange on the news. From the perspective of American citizens it is very annoying, and you will ingratiate yourselves to us by pushing back against him.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    It's probably a tricky balancing act for EU leaders. On the one hand they want to quietly step away from the US, on the other they are well aware that one of his tantrums could start WWIII.

    They're in that situation when you wind up talking to the violent lunatic at a party and you are quietly trying to remove yourself without flipping their switch.

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    • [–] 59 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    If its that core to the country maybe the govt should buy it

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  • [–] 65 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    The company actually inquired, our government said no. That's what you get when capitalists are at the wheel and expect "the market" will magically solve everything.

    The title is a bit misleading by the way, it's about the company that hosts the infrastructure, Solvinity. The application itself is built and maintained by a government agency called Logius.

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    • [–] 56 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Meanwile, in Finland, we outsourced our fucking vote counting system, to god-damn AWS.

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  • [+] 13 points 5 months ago* (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Oh good.

    That the plan got frozen wasn't nearly as publicized as it initially passing.

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  • [+] 4 points 5 months ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    News agencies brought everyone and their dogs to give their opinions on why using foregin (and USA specifically) provider for voting systems was a bad idea. Then there was plenty of articles what the decision is being reconsidered and eventually a handful of items noting that we are actually staying in domestic datacenters. Rational decisions apparently don't get as many clicks.

    But there's still plenty of our data (banks, insurance companies, etc) using AWS/Azure which should be considered as a national security issue, but those are private companies, so government can't (or won't) interfere as strongly.

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    • [–] 54 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Since the article is in Dutch, let me try to provide a little extra context:

    1. It's not actually the company that runs DigiD, that's Logius, who is part of the ministry of the interior.
    2. It's about the cloud-hosting company that DigiD runs on. The DigiD code was open sourced, though it looks like the GitHub repository is now archived (https://github.com/MinBZK/woo-besluit-broncode-digid-app)
    3. It really is used for everything related to authentication with government services. Doing your taxes, scheduling an appointment with the city government for , scheduling a doctors appointment, getting a prescription refilled, on and on.
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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    One wonders why the application "used for everything related to authentication with government services" runs on a Private Sector cloud.

    I mean, it's not as if a Digital Cloud is any more than a bunch of servers running somewhere with a direct connection to the Internet.

    Then again, this is The Netherlands, which is has been ruled by a very Neoliberal right-wing party (in various coalitions) for over a decade so it makes sense that the government there would have even essential software for interacting with Public Services be operated by the Private Sector.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    One wonders why the application “used for everything related to authentication with government services” runs on a Private Sector cloud.

    I read (no citation here, I forget where I saw this now) a while back somebody involved saying that their procurement policies require they accept the lowest bid tended, as long as its legally submitted and not obviously a scam.

    So yes, typical neo-liberal right-wing mentality is very much at fault I suspect.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Scheduling a doctor's appointment and getting a prescription refilled? I've never used my DigiD for that, nor do I think it's even an option here; it's pretty much all telephone. And as for the source code, only part of the source code was published (as a result of 'Wet Open Overheid verzoek': a request for transparency); and I believe they're migrating from Github to code.overheid.nl.

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    • [–] 25 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Good.

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    • [–] 25 points 5 months ago

    As an American: Good!

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    [+] 45 points 5 months ago (9 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    'U kunt' is a valid Dutch sentence

    So is 'Dank u' , which is mildly amusing in English, but quite sordid in french (it's pronounced similar to 'dans cul' which means 'in the ass')

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    The first would be considered incomplete, and lead most to ask: "U kunt ... wat?" ("You can do ... what?"). "U kunt het" as "You (formal) can do it" would sound like "You removed head" but with a thick Dutch accent haha

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Something like "We couldn't log you in" I think

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    If it was a conversation, you'd probably finish the sentence with "hoor"

    "You're not logged in, hoor"

    I'm trying to learn it but some times my teacher saying things like this make it hard.

    Also people just pointing somewhere and saying "kijk" (look) makes me really think we're out minority-spotting.

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    • [–] 21 points 5 months ago

    As a us citizen I saying that is a very smart call.

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    [–] 17 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    It's always funny (and sad) when someone from the USA points out that almost all internet services are US owned, not European, it sounds like they did all the work developing the modern internet, and while Americans really did a lot, they also bought a lot of services created in other countries.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    The Web was born in that well known American institution, CERN, invented by that well known American citizen, Tim Berners-Lee.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Internet itself (the network) is based on arpanet which was developed by ARRPA now known as DARPA which part of the US Department of Defense.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Doing some of the work developing the modern Internet isn't the same as doing all the work developing the modern internet.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    CERN is Swiss though and Tim Berners-Lee is English.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

    Yeah, that was kinda the point I was making.

    PS: And CERN is actually an international project, rather than just Swiss, though located in Switzerland.

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    • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    Turns out the company in questioned already was bought by a UK company, so already isn't even Dutch (or even EU anymore). But at least it's not American (the concern is that American laws potentially give the American government a lot of access to the Dutch citizen data). Companies owned by companies. It gets complicated.

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    [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Finally some good news

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    [–] -1 points 5 months ago

    And they call themselves Capitalist.

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    [–] -1 points 5 months ago

    Duplicate deleted

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