As a us citizen I saying that is a very smart call.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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Oof, clutch win against the US Company, as a US Citizen...You don't want our irresponsible and stupid corporations buying your stuff and running it. It would be a privacy nightmare! It would be expected that The Netherlands would protect their citizens from the forces of nasty US companies.
G O O D
Finally some good news
Helaas kunt u niet inloggen
I don't know Dutch but I choose to believe this says "hey cunt youre not logged in"
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.
'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')
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
I speak Dutch and this is entirely correct.
Something like "We couldn't log you in" I think
That's correct
It's incredible how easy Dutch is to understand for a German lol
Crazy, like they're related or something.
basically
Meanwile, in Finland, we outsourced our fucking vote counting system, to god-damn AWS.
Sounds like you guys are going to love having Putin be your best friend.
Poor Finland, stuck between a rock and a hard place this time.
...isn't UpCloud Finnish?
E: looks like they didnt go through with it: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-24/finland-shelves-plan-to-move-election-platform-to-amazon-servers
Oh good.
That the plan got frozen wasn't nearly as publicized as it initially passing.
I wonder why that might be.
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.
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.
I find it so stupid that countries would outsource important stuff to any other country. You never know what the future holds.
As an American, I approve of this statement.
I'm American and the US is my enemy too
Has anyone coined a term like "digital imperialism"? I think it's quite fitting.
Iannis Varoufakis (there's probably 2+ typos there) has coined something like digital feudalism.
I think it makes more sense when imperialism is between countries like in this case, but if you get rid of imperialism you still have feudalism between the tech companies and the users of their monopolistic products, on their terms.
Technofascism
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.
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.
We are probably already there but they just won't say... all quiet on the western front...
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Since the article is in Dutch, let me try to provide a little extra context:
- It's not actually the company that runs DigiD, that's Logius, who is part of the ministry of the interior.
- 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)
- 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.
Correct. It's the cloud provider, not the app that was going to be sold.
The Dutch government claims it does not have the expertise to host it themself.
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.
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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If its that core to the country maybe the govt should buy it
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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As an American: Good!
Good.
Good.
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