Infomaniak comes out in support of controversial Swiss encryption law
102 comments
·June 6, 2025nickslaughter02
ThatMedicIsASpy
Mullvad (VPN) currently is in Sweden.
nickslaughter02
For now. ProtectEU would require service providers to log metadata and beyond or face criminal charges.
> For the first time, an EU expert group has explicitly mentioned VPN services as "key challenges" to the investigative work of law enforcement agencies, alongside encrypted devices, apps, and new communications operators.
"VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge"" https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
FirmwareBurner
There's nowhere to go, since it's a constant game of whack-a-mole. Small island countries in the Caribbean can brag about super lax laws that aid privacy and evasion but none of them will ruin relationships with US or the EU just to protect a small 10 person privacy focused tech company when a warrants comes from abroad.
For reference, Switzerland had to change their banking secrecy laws decades ago due to pressure from the US, Germany and France, so you can guess how well other weaker countries will fare against such pressure. And let's not forget the famous Crypto AG scandal in Switzerland, so I'm not buying the famous "Swiss privacy" marketing fluff at all anymore as much as I like the country. Just like Crypto AG, every tech company is, or will be, infiltrated by alphabet agencies by cooperation or by force. If you want real privacy you have to self host, that's the only way.
Plus, I feel like we're focusing at the wrong issue here. Do we really want lawless places on this planet to exist where companies and individuals can escape the courts and law enforcement of their own nations? Something that will be exploited mostly for nefarious purposes than protecting privacy of law abiding people.
The real solution is holding powerful governments accountable against invasions of privacy by their voters, not creating lawless zones where companies and powerful individuals can go and hide to avoid laws they dislike. If laws are bad, just change the laws, don't normalize law avoidance. If you normalize law avoidance about one thing, why not about other things as well like theft, taxation, human trafficking etc? The whole point of developed western nations is democratic representation, the strong rule of law and fairness of the court system. Write to your representative.
zarzavat
> Do we really want lawless places on this planet to exist where companies and individuals can escape the courts and law enforcement of their own nations?
Yes. If the alternative is a worldwide police state.
FirmwareBurner
>Yes. If the alternative is a worldwide police state.
Being held accountable for crimes is your definition of a "police state"? Interesting.
What you're trying to hint at is political persecution, and there is the possibility of asylum for that. But let's differentiate between persecution and running away from crimes, and not muddy the waters. Not all crimes are the result of persecution.
Otherwise what's stopping anyone form breaking into your house, murdering your family to rob you and then fleeing abroad on asylum to avoid legal repercussions? If that was the status quo, you probably wouldn't exist anymore right now.
The "police state" is the one ensuring your family's safety. In our modern societies, we have outsourced the monopoly on violence to the police state, so that we can focus on work and hobbies, and that comes at the expense of trusting the state and holding it accountable through democracy.
modzu
if democracy ever threatened to change anything, it would be banned
rubit_xxx20
How about Sealand?
viridian
Sealand is a fake country, a state without a nation. Even a nation without a military like Costa Rica can muster a defense via its people. Sealand on the other hand exists solely because no one cares to even acknowledge its existence. If Russia cut a deal to garrison troops there, that wikipedia page would see every "is" replaced with "was" before the day's end.
volemo
What about Sealand? They can be all for privacy and freedom, but it’d all amount to nothing if they don’t have Internet connection, and connection is a two way consent, so Sealand is even worse for this purpose than island micro nations.
pclmulqdq
Unfortunately, it appears the state that is the most cryptography-friendly and remains outside of the reach of US courts may be the UAE.
nickslaughter02
> In March 2015, the Dubai Police declared the usage of VPN (virtual private network) illegal, saying that "tampering with the internet is a crime". Although action may not be taken against an individual for simply using a VPN, the usage of VPN combined with other illegal acts would lead to additional charges.
> Popular instant messaging applications that remained blocked despite the removal of the ban on VoIP services included WhatsApp, FaceTime, and Skype. The selective relaxation of the ban narrowed down the user’s choice to premium (paid) services, owned by state-run telecommunication firms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Unit...
Beijinger
Russia would be pretty good right now (for non-Russians).
If it is just a VPN, a "cybercompany" does not need to be incorporated somewhere. If is is just virtual, it does not have to follow any laws in a jurisdictions. Servers can come and go...
bugtodiffer
Not if you want to be paid in normal countries
null
api
Iceland? It’s tough. The world is, overall, going through a shift toward authoritarianism of various flavors, and people are voting for it because of incredibly successful propaganda and fear of change.
nickslaughter02
going through a shift toward authoritarianism of various flavors
conradfr
And a lot of decision in the EU are made by unelected people, great democracy.
dingnuts
Attacking individual privacy and security is still authoritarianism when done by a democratically elected government. That's why it's important to be a Republic founded on a rule of law that limits what the majority may do; eg in the US a majority cannot take away rights of expression from individuals.
The EU is authoritarian in many ways. How the laws get made is secondary to whether or not they are authoritarian.
api
I see two big brands of authoritarianism on the rise right now.
One is populist strongman rule, usually but not always of a right wing bent. We have this rising in the US.
The other is technocratic corporatism, the model of China and it seems a faction of the EU.
Both endlessly malign democracy and liberalism as decadent, chaotic, and responsible for an endless parade of bogie men they will protect you against.
null
sschueller
WTF, get right out. They are the ones advertising everywhere how their cloud is 100% Swiss and can be trusted.
zuppy
That has been obvious to me after they requested me to upload my passport/id in order to unblock the newly paid and created account. But that happened only after the payment page, of course.
I'm a little bitter, but for what I need it, I'll let it pass this time.
edit: it is a business account, but I have never been asked for this anywhere else. you have all the company required data, all my required data, why do you need my id? maybe personal accounts are treated differently.
conradfr
I don't remember that for Infomaniak but certainly for Hetzner.
nick__m
After reading the article, that company name takes a whole new meaning. I use to think it meant "we are maniacal about computing" (informatique in French), now I suppose it means: "we are maniac hoarder of metadata"
Yeri
Sigh, I just moved a bunch of domains over, after The Jolly Teapot started using and recommended them.
- https://thejollyteapot.com/uses - https://thejollyteapot.com/2024/11/05/website-updates/
RealStickman_
Well fuck, guess I'm moving all my domains again. And I just moved away from Gandi.
Does anyone have recommendations for domain registrars that support .ch and .li domains and ideally also supported by lego (my current acme client of choice)?
rspoerri
I keep my swiss domains on cyon. But i dont know about lego support.
rayhaanj
I'm currently using joker.com after also migrating off of gandi.
Beijinger
For .com/.net etc I can recommend internet.bs
German inwx.com is not bad for country TLDs
Besides the blaming of informaniak, their email hosing for 18 Euros a year is actually a pretty good deal. If you can live with US hosting for email, purelymail.com is worth a look.
RealStickman_
Looks like INWX has a website and physical address specifically for Switzerland. I think I'll give them a try.
ldng
Same .....
priced_in
Talking about dogging a bullet...
I wanted to take back control over my emails so recently I started to look long and hard at ProtonMail, Infomaniak (kMail), Mailbox.org, and others. In the end, I chose mailbox.org. I could have been really annoyed right now given how painful updating accounts/credentials and account migration are!
nonelog
Where should I move my domain portfolio? What are the best competitors?
mgw
A combination of good pricing, sane behavior and an offering with many TLDs right now is https://www.netim.com, based in France. Their UI is quite outdated, but it works ok. I've switched here after leaving Gandi.
If you're fine with a US-based provider, https://porkbun.com/ also has good pricing and a tech oriented mindset. They don't support many ccTLDs though.
In general, https://tld-list.com/ is the best place to research domain registrars in my opinion.
nonelog
Awesome, thanks! Will be moving this weekend. Infomaniak is dead to me.
pzmarzly
I am fairly happy with Bulgarian company ClouDNS, they have a wide selection of ccTLDs for reasonable prices. https://www.cloudns.net/
kovac
Despite it's limitations on the UX side, PGP is still the better option for email privacy I think. That and using your own domain. There's tor for the web when one needs it. None of these are ideal, but they depend a lot less on trusting third parties.
noman-land
PGP suffers from lack of forward secrecy, no? It also suffers from the fact that no one uses it :D.
nticompass
I just moved my stuff from Google Drive over to Infomaniak kDrive, and I paid for a year of service... I don't really want to try to migrate 100s of gigs of data again :/
nickslaughter02
Please do and mention their position on this issue if asked why you are leaving.
LudwigNagasena
It will happen sooner or later just like it happened to their banking laws. There is no reason for the global trend of deprivatization (in all senses) to reverse.
rubit_xxx19
You could work within their parameters but continually communicate an enormous amount of garbage that is not illegal but would be flagged, it would be an interesting experiment, and then they could decide whether or not they’d wish to continue.
Personally, I think that privacy is a losing game, like gambling. The best case is that we all work within the parameters. But in any case, the amount of time and effort that is dedicated to privacy is keeping humanity from more important things.
The main annoyance I have with companies and organizations that engage in working with our private data is that eventually they will lose control of the data, and if bad things come because of that, we are the victims. This may be our physical and mental health data, and we could lose our jobs or have to pay higher insurance. This may be our financial data, and we lose our savings for retirement. This may be our personal historical thoughts that we don’t wish to broadcast, and we lose relationships and our jobs.
Privacy at one level is a luxury but at other levels are not, unless society as a whole embraces that we’re all unhealthy and we’re all flawed, but at that point perhaps things become too flexible and very bad things happen.
nick__m
unless society as a whole embraces that we’re all unhealthy and we’re all flawed, but at that point perhaps things become too flexible and very bad things happen.
rubit_xxx22
Germany in the early 1940s deprivatized Jewish and homosexual people by making them wear badges, then it enslaved and killed most of them.
East Germany, the KGB, modern China, and many others have tried the route of getting rid of citizen privacy “for the common good” in similar ways, and it results in bad things.
AIs with superhuman intelligence may have all the data, may lean utilitarian, and similarly could it not just restrict people, commit genocide, genetically modify, drug, neuter, manipulate, and euthanize like the worst of the them? I don’t know how we combat this- go offline?
I would like humans to not waste much effort on privacy though, beyond what makes sense.
Nym, Threema and Proton said they would leave Switzerland over this. The question is where to go. Certainly not to any EU country (ProtectEU, Chat Control).
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/we-would-...