Recently, it was revealed by IT Security Guru that the British intelligence agency GCHQ had demand a backdoor into the secure email service PrivateSky by CertiVox. At the end of 2012, GCHQ made the request, but CertiVox chose to close the service instead of betraying their customers. This is preceding the similar heavy-handed threats by NSA which caused US based Lavabit and Canadian based Silent Circle to shut down their secure email services.

It is clear then, that it is not possible to operate secure email or communication services within these countries. In that light, it's interesting to see Swiss hosting companies picking up business. "Business for Switzerland's 55 data centres is booming", claims the article. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Will they be pressured by US as was the case with the banks? Or will they also sell out, as was the case with the Swiss based Crypto AG and their machines?

As many have pointed out, the physical security of a data centre is often less of an issue than its network and system security. Furthermore, it's a question of how it is used and what is offered. PrivateSky is for example still operational, but only for its owners. If somebody offered a secure communication service from within the Tor network, it would be both hard to detect, so it might fly under the radar for a while, and hard to take down if hosted in Switzerland. That's a business idea right, up for grabs for anybody with a bit of spare time and money.