From: CountingPips
The Swiss are famous.
For watches.
For chocolate.
For cheese.
And for their secretive banking system. Or they used to be anyway. That was until the US bullied it into spilling the beans on thousands of private bank accounts.
Now the Swiss have their eyes on a new industry – data security. And like all things Swiss, they don’t plan to do things by halves…
For years people have been worried about cyber security.
You’ve probably got Norton Antivirus or something similar on your PC at home.
Most of the fear was due to the potential for harm from malicious software (malware). Then there was the fear about crooks stealing your credit card or bank account details.
But in recent years the fear has moved on to a new level: the fear of the government spying on everything you do. The fear heightened after Edward Snowden dished the dirt on the US National Security Agency (NSA).
Now consumers and businesses are fighting back…from 913 metres below ground.
Underground Data Protection
Take this from the MIT Technology Review:
‘There is data security, and then there is Swiss data security.
‘The difference was explained to me by Stephan Grouitch in a conference room deep within a mountain in the Swiss Alps, lit by a subterranean buzz of fluorescent lights. To get to here, under more than 3,000 feet of stone and earth, I showed my passport (something I didn’t have to do to enter the country from Germany), had my finger scanned repeatedly, and passed under security cameras and motion detectors. A blast door, thicker than my forearm is long, is said to protect this old Cold War bunker against a 20-megaton bomb.‘
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