YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Amsterdam police confiscates server left-wing ISP A/I at American request

120 points jeroenhd 1 hour ago 47 comments

chabes 1 hour ago | parent

Confisquates?

rdtsc 1 hour ago | parent

> Confisquates?

Confiscates / seized. Pretty sure a french speaking poster mistranslated. It's "confisquer" in french.

jeroenhd 27 minutes ago | parent

Nope, am Dutch, just can't spell, oops

citywide-fondue 1 hour ago | parent

I am a bit surprised to hear that the U.S. government can still order around Dutch police like a butler. Maybe the Dutch regime is struggling to actually effectively decouple themselves from the U.S.? Would love to hear an expert weigh in.

verdverm 50 minutes ago | parent

ASML weighs in on this, they get a key component from the US (a lens iirc). There is no real possibility of complete decoupling in the modern world. You would have to go back to a much less modern world for true decoupling.

KK7NIL 40 minutes ago | parent

Wow, what a bad take.

The EUV lenses are made by Zeiss in Germany AFAIK. But to even suggest that ASML is dictating US-Dutch diplomacy, two NATO members with similar values and goals, is hilariously off.

verdverm 36 minutes ago | parent

I heard the lens thing from another HN comment, it looks like that person misremembered lens vs light source.

> The light source as a whole is engineered by Cymer, a San Diego company ASML bought in 2013 specifically to control this piece.

https://www.makesureiknowit.com/blog/who-supplies-asml

I'm not suggesting dictation, just that there are deep ties in the global supply chain that make decoupling impossible.

but wow, way to read way too much into this and extrapolate into hyperbole?

citywide-fondue 25 minutes ago | parent

I understand that there are complex global supply chains, but my expectation is A) that these are somewhat mutually beneficial relations and B) that their day-to-day operation is somewhat confined to non-governmental spheres.

From my reading of the article, it seems like the U.S. was able to order around the police in Amsterdam without going through a system to check if the Dutch government approves of the action. That’s mostly my confusion.

impossiblefork 29 minutes ago | parent

Light source, not lens.

verdverm 6 minutes ago | parent

as stated in my peer comment made prior to yours

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50091084

coliveira 8 minutes ago | parent

Your comparison doesn't hold. ASML depends on components owned by the US, but US companies also depend on components created only by ASML. It is a mutual dependency. It doesn't imply that Dutch police should go around doing the bidding of a foreign government. This is much worse and should be protested.

verdverm 5 minutes ago | parent

please see my comment one level deeper in the tree

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50091084

I agree and find my country's behavior unacceptable as well. Some of us are doing what we can under the current regime, but it is not easy and comes with real risk. America is not in a good place right now.

teekert 15 minutes ago | parent

The Dutch are with 17 million people and all our stuff runs on MS. Even a judge from the international criminal court had an Amazon Echo in her living room. We, on average, don't know and don't care.

All this sovereignty stuff is still quite contained in our nerd bubble I feel.

citywide-fondue 13 minutes ago | parent

Replying to myself: my current theory is that the Dutch regime weighed the risk of political potential blowback from the U.S. (specifically executive office), and did not consider it worthwhile protecting the final servers of a group that is winding down anyways.

Again, would love to hear a domain expert weigh in! Also because I walk past this data center every day :)

TheGamerUncle 53 minutes ago | parent

Funny how American authorities did not do much about "antifa" and A/I and only acted once it was clear they were going against Zionist interests...

This is shameful and the Dutch should be also ashamed to act as lap dogs.

MSFT_Edging 50 minutes ago | parent

We still have White Nationalists in khakis and masks rolling up in rented trucks to harass people based on race and creed.

One group threatens property damage, the other people damage.

One of them is considered a terrorist org.

HEmanZ 4 minutes ago | parent

Idk about what the actual objective comparison is, but around me (Capitol Hill, Seattle) many left anarchist types definitely threaten violence. I’m not sure they’d actually follow through and a lot of it is communist revolution larping, but there is probably something to it. Or at the very least they’d do things like hide violent fugitives.

Someone left-aligned (and acting alone, not an official terrorist group) assassinated Charlie Kirk in the US.

A group of left aligned people got in over their heads on a protest action and one shot a police officer.

My too-online left friends worship Luigi IRL, one even recently got a tattoo meant to reference him.

Right wing attacks used to be more common than left aligned ones in the US, but that trend has recently flipped: https://www.csis.org/analysis/left-wing-terrorism-and-politi...

I’m not convinced there are any real terrorist groups operating the way e.g the Weathermen were back in the 70s. But there is some kind of violent left tendency rising, and we could easily be headed that way.

gvfsa 46 minutes ago | parent

What makes you think the Dutch government isn’t also occupied by Zionists?

_ache_ 34 minutes ago | parent

If you claim that, you have to back it up.

Otherwise, assuming there are Zionists everywhere is borderline antisemitic.

gvfsa 27 minutes ago | parent

It’s 2026; trying to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism is not going to work anymore.

SpicyLemonZest 19 minutes ago | parent

If you mean well, you should know that the specific term “Zionist occupied government” originated as part of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. To avoid confusion you should use different phrasing; something like “the government supports Israel” would express your meaning just as well.

plus 17 minutes ago | parent

Claiming “Zionist infiltration” of the government is not the same thing as criticizing Israel.

yonisto 14 minutes ago | parent

But it is.

tarkin2 10 minutes ago | parent

Avoiding the question and refusing the back up your claim may also not work.

pydry 10 minutes ago | parent

In 2026 it's barely concealed racism - an islamophobic trope that doesnt get called out enough.

yawpitch 23 minutes ago | parent

One of these days we as a species really need to learn that Zionism and Semitism are not the same Venn circle.

Not all Zionists are Semitic (or even Jewish) and not all Semites (or even Jews) are Zionists.

Now, it’s obviously extremely easy to conflate Zionism with Semitism, and vice versa, which is a trap both the actual antisemites and those most likely to point and yell “antisemite” seem wont to fall into.

Personally I’d call that borderline antisemitic, since in either case it’s conflating an ethno-nationalist political agenda with both an ethnicity and a nationality that may not subscribe to or support that political agenda at all.

andai 8 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, a lot of Jews oppose Zionism for religious reasons. It's not fair to lump them together like that.

The word antisemitism itself is pretty funny though, as a thought-terminating cliche.

Can you imagine if any time the news media shit on white people, I could get them cancelled, (or in some countries jailed), for their antiaryanism? That would be pretty silly, right?

Then again, maybe that comparison doesn't work. After all, to see Jews as your equals is antisemitic: https://archive.ph/InK8h

itaifrenkel 7 minutes ago | parent

The claim that Jews control or manipulate governments has been an antisemitic claim going back hundreds of years in multiple different variations. So, even if semetic does not equal Jew does not equal Zionist, any claim that one or the other controls a government requires some substance. Otherwise, it fits one of the most recognized template of antisemitic false claims.

JumpCrisscross 23 minutes ago | parent

> assuming there are Zionists everywhere is borderline antisemitic

It’s more just basic conspiracy theorizing. Assuming there is a secret group in charge of world affairs is a lot more comforting than facing the reality that we’re careening towards political anarchy on multiple continents. I don’t think one need be anti-Semitic to subscribe to that system.

weatherlite 16 minutes ago | parent

> Assuming there is a secret group in charge of world affairs

Ah and it just so happens to be the Jews again, gee what a shocker never heard that before. And no , not antisemitic at all!

moritzwarhier 5 minutes ago | parent

[delayed]

JumpCrisscross 24 minutes ago | parent

> how American authorities did not do much about "antifa"

What are you talking about, antifa has been a Trump bugbear since his first term.

tamimio 23 minutes ago | parent

>To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize

snapcaster 17 minutes ago | parent

I guess we're ruled by disabled people and our colleagues babies?

weatherlite 15 minutes ago | parent

I'm ruled by my wife's weight

bakugo 15 minutes ago | parent

Pretty sure the police won't come after you for criticizing disabled people or your colleagues' babies.

tamimio 14 minutes ago | parent

You can’t criticize whoever rule over you =/= everyone you can’t criticize is ruling over you.

samyum 12 minutes ago | parent

The whole world does not revolve around Zionism

RIMR 4 minutes ago | parent

It shouldn't revolve around Zionism, but more and more it's clear that if you oppose Israeli military offensives as a Westerner, the powers that be will brand you a terrorist and respond as if you were a threat.

A/I is not a terrorist organization, and they only got branded as such when operatives started taking direct action in response to the Genocide that Israel is committing presently. The cited "terrorist" actions so far have been spray-painting military property with anti-genocide messages: Criminal vandalism, sure. But absolutely not terrorism!

throwaway352362 6 minutes ago | parent

Honest to God: I'm this close to believing some conspiracy theories...

hackermailman 50 minutes ago | parent

If you remove the paywall and translate it's the A/I group being shut down https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

The Dutch police imaged the drive, gave it to the Americans and gave the server back to XS4ALL which itself appears to have shutdown too I think

illright 48 minutes ago | parent

https://archive.ph/2EsyR

meindnoch 33 minutes ago | parent

A/I? You mean S/I, right?

yawpitch 22 minutes ago | parent

No… definitely not. No one who is demonstrably sane means that.

caaqil 29 minutes ago | parent

Is there really a sovereign country in Europe that runs its own shit and is not subservient to Uncle Sam?

riedel 24 minutes ago | parent

Headline seems to be a bit strange as the A/I collective has dissolved officially as of September 18. The history of events can be followed here [0]

[0] https://keepitfree.ai/